The development of a self-directed learning module for rural emergency nurses on pediatric diabetic ketoacidosis

Background: Newfoundland and Labrador has a high incidence of type 1 diabetes and diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) is a complication of type 1 diabetes. A clinical practice guideline was developed for the treatment of pediatric diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) to standardize care in all Emergency Departments and improve patient outcomes. Rural emergency nurses are requires to maintain their competency and acquire new knowledge as stated by the Association of Registered Nurses of Newfoundland and Labrador (ARNNL). Purpose: The purpose of this practicum was to develop a self-learning module for rural emergency nurses to increase their knowledge and understanding of the clinical practise guideline to assess, treat, and prevent pediatric ketoacidosis. Methods: Two methodologies were used in this practicum. A review of the literature and consultations with key stakeholders were completed. Results: The self-learning module created was composed of three units and focused on the learning needs of rural emergency nurses in the areas of assessment, treatment, and prevention of pediatric DKA. Conclusion: The goal of the practicum was to increase rural emergency nurses’ knowledge and implementation of the clinical practice guideline when assessing and treating children and families experiencing DKA to improve patient outcomes. A planned evaluation of the self-learning module will be conducted following dissemination of the module throughout the rural Emergency Departments.

Caractérisation de la fonction de CNK dans la régulation du mécanisme de signalisation du module MAPK/ERK chez la drosophile

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Caractérisation de la fonction de CNK dans la régulation du mécanisme de signalisation du module MAPK/ERK chez la drosophile

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

DESIGN OF A MINIATURIZED SOP INTEGRATED GNSS RF FRONT-END MODULE

Navigation devices used to be bulky and expensive and were not widely commercialized for personal use. Nowadays, all useful electronic devices are turning into being handheld so that they can be conveniently used anytime and anywhere. One can claim that almost any mobile phone, used today, has quite strong navigational capabilities that can efficiently work anywhere in the globe. No matter where you are, you can easily know your exact location and make your way smoothly to wherever you would like to go. This couldn’t have been made possible without the existence of efficient and small microwave circuits responsible for the transmission and reception of high quality navigation signals. This thesis is mainly concerned with the design of novel highly miniaturized and efficient filtering components working in the Global Navigational Satellite Systems (GNSS) frequency band to be integrated within an efficient Radio Frequency (RF) front-end module (FEM). A System-on-Package (SoP) integration technique is adopted for the design of all the components in this thesis. Two novel miniaturized filters are designed, where one of them is a wideband filter targeting the complete GNSS band with a fractional bandwidth of almost 50% at a center frequency of 1.385 GHz. This filter utilizes a direct inductive coupling topology to achieve the required wide band performance. It also has very good out-of-band rejection and low IL. Whereas the other dual band filter will only cover the lower and upper GNSS bands with a rejection notch in between the two bands. It has very good inter band rejection. The well-known “divide and conquer” design methodology was applied for the design of this filter to help save valuable design and optimization time. Moreover, the performance of two commercially available ultra-Low Noise Amplifiers (LNAs) is studied. The complete RF FEM showed promising preliminary performance in terms of noise figure, gain and bandwidth, where it out performed other commercial front-ends in these three aspects. All the designed circuits are fabricated and tested. The measured results are found to be in good agreements with the simulations.

An Electric Vehicle Dispatch Module for Demand-Side Energy Participation

The penetration of the electric vehicle (EV) has increased rapidly in recent years mainly as a consequence of advances in transport technology and power electronics and in response to global pressure to reduce carbon emissions and limit fossil fuel consumption. It is widely acknowledged that inappropriate provision and dispatch of EV charging can lead to negative impacts on power system infrastructure. This paper considers EV requirements and proposes a module which uses owner participation, through mobile phone apps and on-board diagnostics II (OBD-II), for scheduled vehicle charging. A multi-EV reference and single-EV real-time response (MRS2R) online algorithm is proposed to calculate the maximum and minimum adjustable limits of necessary capacity, which forms part of decision-making support in power system dispatch. The proposed EV dispatch module is evaluated in a case study and the influence of the mobile app, EV dispatch trending and commercial impact is explored.

A literature review to Examine the Validity and Reliability of group poster presentations as an assessment method of a module in an undergraduate nursing degree programme

The introduction of a poster presentation as a formative assessment method over a multiple choice examination after the first phase of a three phase “health and well-being” module in an undergraduate nursing degree programme was greeted with a storm of criticism from fellow lecturers stating that poster presentations are not valid or reliable and totally irrelevant to the assessment of learning in the module. This paper seeks to investigate these criticisms by investigating the literature regarding producing nurses fit for practice, nurse curriculum development and wider nurse education, the purpose of assessment, validity and reliability to critically evaluate the poster presentation as a legitimate assessment method for these aims.

Comparison of module detection algorithms in protein networks and investigation of the biological meaning of predicted modules

Background
It is generally acknowledged that a functional understanding of a biological system can only be obtained by an understanding of the collective of molecular interactions in form of biological networks. Protein networks are one particular network type of special importance, because proteins form the functional base units of every biological cell. On a mesoscopic level of protein networks, modules are of significant importance because these building blocks may be the next elementary functional level above individual proteins allowing to gain insight into fundamental organizational principles of biological cells.
Results
In this paper, we provide a comparative analysis of five popular and four novel module detection algorithms. We study these module prediction methods for simulated benchmark networks as well as 10 biological protein interaction networks (PINs). A particular focus of our analysis is placed on the biological meaning of the predicted modules by utilizing the Gene Ontology (GO) database as gold standard for the definition of biological processes. Furthermore, we investigate the robustness of the results by perturbing the PINs simulating in this way our incomplete knowledge of protein networks.
Conclusions
Overall, our study reveals that there is a large heterogeneity among the different module prediction algorithms if one zooms-in the biological level of biological processes in the form of GO terms and all methods are severely affected by a slight perturbation of the networks. However, we also find pathways that are enriched in multiple modules, which could provide important information about the hierarchical organization of the system

Integrating a Career Coaching Approach Within a Preparing for Placement Module in Order to Enhance Student Employability

The UFHRD Programme and Qualification Activities Committee awards an annual prize for the best contribution to the UFHRD Teaching & Learning Resource bank. Our teaching and learning resource is an overview of the placement module, including career coaching, that was created to enhance student employability.

Testing a linear propagation module on some acoustic scattering problems

Abstract not available

From crime to court - an experience report of a digital forensics group project module.

This paper discusses the large-scale group project undertaken by BSc Hons Digital Forensics students at Abertay University in their penultimate year. The philosophy of the project is to expose students to the full digital crime "life cycle", from commission through investigation, preparation of formal court report and finally, to prosecution in court. In addition, the project is novel in two aspects; the "crimes" are committed by students, and the moot court proceedings, where students appear as expert witnesses for the prosecution, are led by law students acting as counsels for the prosecution and defence. To support students, assessments are staged across both semesters with staff feedback provided at critical points. Feedback from students is very positive, highlighting particularly the experience of engaging with the law students and culminating in the realistic moot court, including a challenging cross-examination. Students also commented on the usefulness of the final debrief, where the whole process and the student experience is discussed in an informal plenary meeting between DF students and staff, providing an opportunity for the perpetrators and investigators to discuss details of the "crimes", and enabling all groups to learn from all crimes and investigations. We conclude with a reflection on the challenges encountered and a discussion of planned changes.

RestrictionDigest: A powerful Perl module for simulating genomic restriction digests

Background: Reduced-representation sequencing technology iswidely used in genotyping for its economical and efficient features. A popular way to construct the reduced-representation sequencing libraries is to digest the genomic DNA with restriction enzymes. A key factor of this method is to determine the restriction enzyme(s). But there are few computer programs which can evaluate the usability of restriction enzymes in reduced-representation sequencing. SimRAD is an R package which can simulate the digestion of DNA sequence by restriction enzymes and return enzyme loci number as well as fragment number. But for linkage mapping analysis, enzyme loci distribution is also an important factor to evaluate the enzyme. For phylogenetic studies, comparison of the enzyme performance across multiple genomes is important. It is strongly needed to develop a simulation tool to implement these functions. Results: Here, we introduce a Perl module named RestrictionDigest with more functions and improved performance. It can analyze multiple genomes at one run and generate concise comparison of enzyme performance across the genomes. It can simulate single-enzyme digestion, double-enzyme digestion and size selection process and generate comprehensive information of the simulation including enzyme loci number, fragment number, sequences of the fragments, positions of restriction sites on the genome, the coverage of digested fragments on different genome regions and detailed fragment length distribution. Conclusions: RestrictionDigest is an easy-to-use Perl module with flexible parameter settings.With the help of the information produced by the module, researchers can easily determine the most appropriate enzymes to construct the reduced-representation libraries to meet their experimental requirements.

Selected Reaction Monitoring (SRM) frente a Western Blot

We propose the SRM technology as a complementary method to the Western Blot for the detection and quantification of proteins in a sample. The technique Western Blot has its own limitations: i) only a protein-of-choice is detected, ignoring any non-relevant proteins, ii) the sensitivity of the technique depends on the specificity of the antibody and iii) Western Blot is expensive and time-consuming. The advantages of SRM with respect Western Blot are remarkable: i) you can detect up to hundreds of different proteins in a sample, ii) SRM is more sensitive, because just 50 copies of the target protein per cell are enough for the detection and iii) once it has been made an investment in the necessary machinery to develop this technique, the detection of proteins in a sample turns into a cheaper, faster, more specific and full-quantitative procedure, without the need of using antibodies. First of all, SRM requires the identification of little peptides, obtained by tryptic digestion, whose sequence must be unique for a single protein or isoform. There is software for that aim. Then, it’s necessary to create isotope-labeled peptides of that identified for acting as internal standards. That sample is introduced in a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer: it passes through a first quadrupole, which functions as a filter, where the fragments are selected, previously ionized, attending to the mass/charge (m/z) relation that correspond to that unique fragments of the protein of interest. In this first selection may be other peptides from other proteins, with the same m/z but with different sequence. To select those that are exclusive from the target protein, the fragments are moved to a second quadrupole, where they are fragmented again with a physical method, and so new smaller fragments are generated. All the new fragments are conduced to the third quadrupole, where just those which come from the protein of interest are selected, attending at their m/z again. The target peptide concentration is determined by measuring the observed signal response for the target peptide relative to that of the isotopic-labeled peptide, the concentration of which is calculated from a pre-determined calibration-response curve. Calibration curves have to be generated for each target peptide in the sample. Because SRM technology is increasing its use, there have been developed databases where the scientific community upload information about protocols and standards for each protein with the aim to facilitate the work to other researchers.