Information literacy has been embedded by the university into the first year nursing curriculum. Embedding this literacy will not necessarily ensure the nursing graduates will apply this skill to the provision of high quality evidence-based health care. For this to happen information literacy skills gained in the classroom must contribute to sound decision making based on best practice evidence. This paper discusses the findings of a three phases research project designed to (i) determine the information literacy skills, confidence and problem solving abilities of students entering the university’s Bachelor of Nursing Program; (ii) determine if information literacy skills, confidence and problem solving abilities improve as a result of embedding information literacy instruction into a nursing course; and iii) ascertain whether there are any differences in information literacy skills, confidence and problem solving abilities based on the students demographic information.
Data were collected in two sequential semesters using a questionnaire administered to the students. The response rates in semester one and two were 45 and 56 per cent respectively. Student confidence and awareness regarding information literacy is positively affected by learning experiences from semester one to semester two. Students indicated that they need both specific and regular instruction to adequately retain learning. Overall the study suggests that embedding information literacy instruction into the first year, first semester nursing program is beneficial. By the second semester the information literacy confidence and awareness of students increased as a result of intra-curricular instruction, however, problem solving skills need to be improved.

This article discusses the findings of a study that elucidated users’ acceptance of two management systems for key performance indicators (KPIs) in terms of their usefulness and ease of use scores at a higher education institution in Malaysia. The two management systems were Key Performance Indicators Monitoring System (KPI-MS) and Excel Spreadsheet System (ESS). ESS is a system developed using Microsoft Excel and has been in used since the year 2008 in the institution to calculate KPIs marks. The ESS system, however, has several shortcomings, and the KPI-MS system was developed with the intention to replace ESS. KPI-MS is an online KPI performance monitoring system which allows users to access the system wherever and whenever they want using a web browser. In addition, KPI-MS is designed as an intelligent system that is able to process raw data automatically to produce results that can be easily visualized in a graphical manner. A survey questionnaire was used to collect data on the acceptance of both systems. A total of 78 participants who were involved in KPI data processing from all 42 schools and centres in the higher education institution in Malaysia participated in this study. The instrument of this study was adapted and modified from Davis’ Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). This instrument was content-validated by three experts in the related field and the reliability index computed with Cronbach alpha was 0.955. A descriptive analysis was conducted to compare the mean scores of both KPI-MS and ESS rated by the users. The results showed that the users rated KPI-MS as a very useful system in monitoring KPI performance of their schools or centres compared to ESS. Also, users rated the KPI-MS to be significantly easier (p≤0.01) and more enjoyable to use. In conclusion, it is recommended that KPI-MS should replace the ESS system in managing KPIs data.

Information Systems (IS) curricula should provide students with both technical and non-technical (soft) skills. The technical aspects are covered by various courses. However, soft skills like teamwork, interpersonal communication, presentation delivery, and others are hardly covered. Employers, who consider both technical and soft skills to be equally important, search for professional Information Systems employees possessing both sets of skills. These employers often complain that finding an IS graduate with both types of skills is quite difficult. The IS 2010 Model Curriculum refers to both types of skills, considering them an essential part of the graduate knowledge base. However, in many cases the soft skills are not sufficiently addressed, and even if they are, it is not necessarily in the context of software development projects. The Systems Analysis and Design (SAD) course provides an important foundation for the IS profession. This is especially true due to the emerging role of the programmer-analyst who is responsible not only for programming but also for some analysis work. In order to strengthen the soft skills in the context of system analysis and design, we suggest a workshop structure emphasizing these soft skills while students analyze and design a complete information system. Our SAD workshop includes some face to face lectures and team-based collaborations. The students undertake many online activities, including teamwork, interviews with simulated clients, team-based peer reviews, presentation delivery, and so forth. The workshop employs a grade difference calculation mechanism that revealed, along with the students' reflections, that the workshop structure enhanced the students' ability to cope with the workshop assignments while strengthening their soft skills and preparing them for their future analysis and design challenges.

Energy is considered a prime agent in the generation of wealth and a significant factor in economic development. Limited fossil resources and environmental problems associated with them have emphasized the need for new sustainable energy supply options that use renewable energies. Among available technologies for energy production from solar source, photovoltaic system could give a significant contribution to develop a more sustainable energy system. Solar Panel has its wide use starting from a simple 5W diode lamp to a few kW ac drives. A solar panel with a battery and a charge controller and other auxiliary devices like dc to ac converters constitute a Solar Home System (SHS).Solar home system (SHS) is becoming popular day by day and even poor households are now becoming interested to purchase solar home system due to its various advantages. Solar home systems (SHS) have a major problem that is low efficiency. It also decreases output day by day because of improper maintenances, effect of dust and shadow. Accumulation of dust on solar panel of solar photovoltaic (PV) system is a natural process. It was found from the study that the accumulated dust on the surface of photovoltaic solar panel can reduce the system’s efficiency by up to 35% in one month .In this paper we show that the effect of dust accumulation on the solar panel naturally and how it is possible to overcome this problem.

The present study was undertaken to study of creativity in relation to TV viewing habits of secondary school students. The sample consists of 400 secondary school students of Rampur city. Verbal test of creativity and TV viewing habits questionnaire were used for this investigation. The result of this study shows that on some behalf TV viewing is negatively related to creativity but overall TV viewing is positively related to creativity of secondary school students. Students viewed variety type program on TV however they were low achiever or high achiever gain knowledge and information through TV. In this study relationship between creativity and TV viewing was positive overall but non significant.

The research of Boolean index sets of graphs is one of the most important graph theories in the graph theory . Boolean index sets of graphs are to use the vertex sets and the edge sets of graphs to study the characteristics of various graphs and their inherent characteristics through corresponding the mapping function to Z_2. It’s theory can be applied to information engineering, communication networks, computer science, economic management, medicine, etc. The edge-balance index set is an important issue in Boolean index set. In this paper, we defined edge-friendly labeling of the graph, edge-balance index set of the graph and the graph {[C_(3^m)×P_(m_3)](m≥3)}. we completely determine the edge-balance index sets of the graph [C_(3^m)×P_(m_3)] for the integer [m≡3,0 (mod 4)] and solve formula proof and graphic tectonic methods.

At present school and colleges are expanding very much quantitatively but less attention is being paid at the quality of education. In order to improve the quality of any course, the present study will be conducted, and this study is related to the improvement of the selection criterion of candidates by introducing the significance of testing emotional intelligence also. Till now the gold standard of selection the candidates for any course, has been cognitive intelligence tests. Previous researches had proved that emotional intelligence is much more important than cognitive intelligence. Then it should also be measured or tested. In other words if a student is cognitively intelligent, will he/she also be emotionally intelligent relatively or not. Is it different according to sex, locality etc. so in order to find out the difference between cognitive and emotional intelligence of students we have performed this study.

Cloud computing is a harbinger to a newer era in the field of computing where distributed and centralized services are used in a unique way. In cloud computing, the computational resources of different vendors and IT services providers are managed for providing an enormous and a scalable computing services platform that offers efficient data processing coupled with better QoS at a lower cost. The on-demand dynamic and scalable resource allocation is the main motif behind the development and deployment of cloud computing. The potential growth in this area and the presence of some dominant organizations with abundant resources (like Google, Amazon, Salesforce, Rackspace, Azure, GoGrid), make the field of cloud computing more fascinating. All the cloud computing processes need to be in unanimity to dole out better QoS i.e., to provide better software functionality, meet the tenant’s requirements for their desired processing power and to exploit elevated bandwidth.. However, several technical and functional e.g., pervasive access to resources, dynamic discovery, on the fly access and composition of resources pose serious challenges for cloud computing. In this study, the performance issues in cloud computing are discussed. A number of schemes pertaining to QoS issues are critically analyzed to point out their strengths and weaknesses. Some of the performance parameters at the three basic layers of the cloud — Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service and Software as a Service — are also discussed in this paper.