Background: The efficacy of educational strategies is crucial for nursing students to competently perform pediatric procedures like nasogastric tube insertion. Specific Background: This study evaluates the effectiveness of simulation, blended, and self-directed learning strategies in enhancing these skills among nursing students. Knowledge Gap: Previous research lacks a comprehensive comparison of these strategies' impacts on skill development in pediatric nursing contexts. Aims: The study aims to assess the effectiveness of different educational strategies on nursing students' ability to perform pediatric nasogastric tube insertions. Methods: A pre-experimental design was employed at the College of Nursing, University of Baghdad, involving 60 students divided into three groups. Data were collected via an observational checklist from October to December 2023 and analyzed using SPSS. Results: Significant improvements in students' skills were observed across all groups. Simulation strategy showed highly significant differences with p-values of .001 and large effect sizes (Partial Eta Squared: .887, .902, .582). Blended strategy also demonstrated significant results with p-values of .001 and large effect sizes (Partial Eta Squared: .813, .936, .883). The self-directed strategy was similarly effective, with p-values of .001 and large effect sizes (Partial Eta Squared: .871, .739, .667). Descriptive statistics revealed a notable increase in mean scores in post-tests, indicating the effectiveness of these strategies. Novelty: This study uniquely compares the effectiveness of simulation, blended, and self-directed learning strategies, providing comprehensive insights into their impacts on pediatric nursing education. Implications: The findings underscore the importance of incorporating diverse learning strategies in nursing curricula to enhance practical skills, suggesting that a combination of these methods could be most beneficial for student learning and competence in clinical settings. Highlights: Effective Strategies: Simulation, blended, and self-directed learning enhance pediatric nursing skills. Significant Improvement: All methods showed highly significant skill development with large effect sizes. Unique Comparison: The study provides valuable insights for nursing education curricula. Keywords: Nursing education, pediatric skills, nasogastric tube insertion, simulation learning, blended learning
Idioms are a very important part of the English language: you are told that if you want to go far (succeed) you should pull your socks up (make a serious effort to improve your behaviour, the quality of your work, etc.) and use your grey matter (brain).1 Learning and translating idioms have always been very difficult for foreign language learners. The present paper explores some of the reasons why English idiomatic expressions are difficult to learn and translate. It is not the aim of this paper to attempt a comprehensive survey of the vast amount of material that has appeared on idioms in Adams and Kuder (1984), Alexander (1984), Dixon (1983), Kirkpatrick (2001), Langlotz (2006), McCarthy and O'Dell (2002), and Wray (2002), among others
... Show MoreThe COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated new methods for controlling the spread of the virus, and machine learning (ML) holds promise in this regard. Our study aims to explore the latest ML algorithms utilized for COVID-19 prediction, with a focus on their potential to optimize decision-making and resource allocation during peak periods of the pandemic. Our review stands out from others as it concentrates primarily on ML methods for disease prediction.To conduct this scoping review, we performed a Google Scholar literature search using "COVID-19," "prediction," and "machine learning" as keywords, with a custom range from 2020 to 2022. Of the 99 articles that were screened for eligibility, we selected 20 for the final review.Our system
... Show MoreHierarchical temporal memory (HTM) is a biomimetic sequence memory algorithm that holds promise for invariant representations of spatial and spatio-temporal inputs. This article presents a comprehensive neuromemristive crossbar architecture for the spatial pooler (SP) and the sparse distributed representation classifier, which are fundamental to the algorithm. There are several unique features in the proposed architecture that tightly link with the HTM algorithm. A memristor that is suitable for emulating the HTM synapses is identified and a new Z-window function is proposed. The architecture exploits the concept of synthetic synapses to enable potential synapses in the HTM. The crossbar for the SP avoids dark spots caused by unutil
... Show MoreHM Al-Dabbas, RA Azeez, AE Ali, IRAQI JOURNAL OF COMPUTERS, COMMUNICATIONS, CONTROL AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING, 2023
Given the importance of possessing the digital competence (DC) required by the technological age, whether for teachers or students and even communities and governments, educational institutions in most countries have sought to benefit from modern technologies brought about by the technological revolution in developing learning and teaching and using modern technologies in providing educational services to learners. Since university students will have the doors to work opened in all fields, the research aims to know their level of DC in artificial intelligence (AI) applications and systems utilizing machine learning (ML) techniques. The descriptive approach was used, as the research community consisted of students from the University
... Show MoreGeneral Background: Deep image matting is a fundamental task in computer vision, enabling precise foreground extraction from complex backgrounds, with applications in augmented reality, computer graphics, and video processing. Specific Background: Despite advancements in deep learning-based methods, preserving fine details such as hair and transparency remains a challenge. Knowledge Gap: Existing approaches struggle with accuracy and efficiency, necessitating novel techniques to enhance matting precision. Aims: This study integrates deep learning with fusion techniques to improve alpha matte estimation, proposing a lightweight U-Net model incorporating color-space fusion and preprocessing. Results: Experiments using the AdobeComposition-1k
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