The“Opinions on Comprehensively Deepening Curriculum Reform to Fulfill the Fundamental Task of Strengthening Moral Education”,issued by China’s Ministry of Education in 2015,explicitly identified Project-Based Lear...The“Opinions on Comprehensively Deepening Curriculum Reform to Fulfill the Fundamental Task of Strengthening Moral Education”,issued by China’s Ministry of Education in 2015,explicitly identified Project-Based Learning(PBL)as a key strategy for cultivating students’core competencies.Since then,PBL has been widely implemented as a pilot initiative in primary and secondary schools,gaining increasing influence.Analyzing the intellectual foundations of PBL research in China can offer valuable insights into its theoretical and practical dimensions.This study uses CiteSpace to examine 156 PBL-related articles from the CSSCI database,revealing that the knowledge base of PBL research is primarily built on two major domains.The first is the theoretical foundation,characterized by frequently cited literature focusing on the conceptual framework,educational value,interdisciplinary approaches,core competency cultivation,and instructional objectives of PBL.The second is empirical research,where highly cited studies include case analyses across K–12 settings,general high schools,and higher education institutions.Moving forward,future research on PBL should explore its meaning and value from a dual-subject and integrated perspective,expand case studies to include vocational education,and further promote the interdisciplinary development of core competencies through PBL.展开更多
Aiming at the problem of mobile data traffic surge in 5G networks,this paper proposes an effective solution combining massive multiple-input multiple-output techniques with Ultra-Dense Network(UDN)and focuses on solvi...Aiming at the problem of mobile data traffic surge in 5G networks,this paper proposes an effective solution combining massive multiple-input multiple-output techniques with Ultra-Dense Network(UDN)and focuses on solving the resulting challenge of increased energy consumption.A base station control algorithm based on Multi-Agent Proximity Policy Optimization(MAPPO)is designed.In the constructed 5G UDN model,each base station is considered as an agent,and the MAPPO algorithm enables inter-base station collaboration and interference management to optimize the network performance.To reduce the extra power consumption due to frequent sleep mode switching of base stations,a sleep mode switching decision algorithm is proposed.The algorithm reduces unnecessary power consumption by evaluating the network state similarity and intelligently adjusting the agent’s action strategy.Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm reduces the power consumption by 24.61% compared to the no-sleep strategy and further reduces the power consumption by 5.36% compared to the traditional MAPPO algorithm under the premise of guaranteeing the quality of service of users.展开更多
As legal cases grow in complexity and volume worldwide,integrating machine learning and artificial intelligence into judicial systems has become a pivotal research focus.This study introduces a comprehensive framework...As legal cases grow in complexity and volume worldwide,integrating machine learning and artificial intelligence into judicial systems has become a pivotal research focus.This study introduces a comprehensive framework for verdict recommendation that synergizes rule-based methods with deep learning techniques specifically tailored to the legal domain.The proposed framework comprises three core modules:legal feature extraction,semantic similarity assessment,and verdict recommendation.For legal feature extraction,a rule-based approach leverages Black’s Law Dictionary and WordNet Synsets to construct feature vectors from judicial texts.Semantic similarity between cases is evaluated using a hybrid method that combines rule-based logic with an LSTM model,analyzing the feature vectors of query cases against a legal knowledge base.Verdicts are then recommended through a rule-based retrieval system,enhanced by predefined legal statutes and regulations.By merging rule-based methodologies with deep learning,this framework addresses the interpretability challenges often associated with contemporary AImodels,thereby enhancing both transparency and generalizability across diverse legal contexts.The system was rigorously tested using a legal corpus of 43,000 case laws across six categories:Criminal,Revenue,Service,Corporate,Constitutional,and Civil law,ensuring its adaptability across a wide range of judicial scenarios.Performance evaluation showed that the feature extraction module achieved an average accuracy of 91.6%with an F-Score of 95%.The semantic similarity module,tested using Manhattan,Euclidean,and Cosine distance metrics,achieved 88%accuracy and a 93%F-Score for short queries(Manhattan),89%accuracy and a 93.7%F-Score for medium-length queries(Euclidean),and 87%accuracy with a 92.5%F-Score for longer queries(Cosine).The verdict recommendation module outperformed existing methods,achieving 90%accuracy and a 93.75%F-Score.This study highlights the potential of hybrid AI frameworks to improve judicial decision-making and streamline legal processes,offering a robust,interpretable,and adaptable solution for the evolving demands of modern legal systems.展开更多
Artificial rabbits optimization(ARO)is a recently proposed biology-based optimization algorithm inspired by the detour foraging and random hiding behavior of rabbits in nature.However,for solving optimization problems...Artificial rabbits optimization(ARO)is a recently proposed biology-based optimization algorithm inspired by the detour foraging and random hiding behavior of rabbits in nature.However,for solving optimization problems,the ARO algorithm shows slow convergence speed and can fall into local minima.To overcome these drawbacks,this paper proposes chaotic opposition-based learning ARO(COARO),an improved version of the ARO algorithm that incorporates opposition-based learning(OBL)and chaotic local search(CLS)techniques.By adding OBL to ARO,the convergence speed of the algorithm increases and it explores the search space better.Chaotic maps in CLS provide rapid convergence by scanning the search space efficiently,since their ergodicity and non-repetitive properties.The proposed COARO algorithm has been tested using thirty-three distinct benchmark functions.The outcomes have been compared with the most recent optimization algorithms.Additionally,the COARO algorithm’s problem-solving capabilities have been evaluated using six different engineering design problems and compared with various other algorithms.This study also introduces a binary variant of the continuous COARO algorithm,named BCOARO.The performance of BCOARO was evaluated on the breast cancer dataset.The effectiveness of BCOARO has been compared with different feature selection algorithms.The proposed BCOARO outperforms alternative algorithms,according to the findings obtained for real applications in terms of accuracy performance,and fitness value.Extensive experiments show that the COARO and BCOARO algorithms achieve promising results compared to other metaheuristic algorithms.展开更多
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV)stands as a burgeoning electric transportation carrier,holding substantial promise for the logistics sector.A reinforcement learning framework Centralized-S Proximal Policy Optimization(C-S...Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV)stands as a burgeoning electric transportation carrier,holding substantial promise for the logistics sector.A reinforcement learning framework Centralized-S Proximal Policy Optimization(C-SPPO)based on centralized decision process and considering policy entropy(S)is proposed.The proposed framework aims to plan the best scheduling scheme with the objective of minimizing both the timeout of order requests and the flight impact of UAVs that may lead to conflicts.In this framework,the intents of matching act are generated through the observations of UAV agents,and the ultimate conflict-free matching results are output under the guidance of a centralized decision maker.Concurrently,a pre-activation operation is introduced to further enhance the cooperation among UAV agents.Simulation experiments based on real-world data from New York City are conducted.The results indicate that the proposed CSPPO outperforms the baseline algorithms in the Average Delay Time(ADT),the Maximum Delay Time(MDT),the Order Delay Rate(ODR),the Average Flight Distance(AFD),and the Flight Impact Ratio(FIR).Furthermore,the framework demonstrates scalability to scenarios of different sizes without requiring additional training.展开更多
The knapsack problem is a classical combinatorial optimization problem widely encountered in areas such as logistics,resource allocation,and portfolio optimization.Traditional methods,including dynamic program-ming(DP...The knapsack problem is a classical combinatorial optimization problem widely encountered in areas such as logistics,resource allocation,and portfolio optimization.Traditional methods,including dynamic program-ming(DP)and greedy algorithms,have been effective in solving small problem instances but often struggle with scalability and efficiency as the problem size increases.DP,for instance,has exponential time complexity and can become computationally prohibitive for large problem instances.On the other hand,greedy algorithms offer faster solutions but may not always yield the optimal results,especially when the problem involves complex constraints or large numbers of items.This paper introduces a novel reinforcement learning(RL)approach to solve the knapsack problem by enhancing the state representation within the learning environment.We propose a representation where item weights and volumes are expressed as ratios relative to the knapsack’s capacity,and item values are normalized to represent their percentage of the total value across all items.This novel state modification leads to a 5%improvement in accuracy compared to the state-of-the-art RL-based algorithms,while significantly reducing execution time.Our RL-based method outperforms DP by over 9000 times in terms of speed,making it highly scalable for larger problem instances.Furthermore,we improve the performance of the RL model by incorporating Noisy layers into the neural network architecture.The addition of Noisy layers enhances the exploration capabilities of the agent,resulting in an additional accuracy boost of 0.2%–0.5%.The results demonstrate that our approach not only outperforms existing RL techniques,such as the Transformer model in terms of accuracy,but also provides a substantial improvement than DP in computational efficiency.This combination of enhanced accuracy and speed presents a promising solution for tackling large-scale optimization problems in real-world applications,where both precision and time are critical factors.展开更多
Recent studies employing deep learning to solve the traveling salesman problem(TSP)have mainly focused on learning construction heuristics.Such methods can improve TSP solutions,but still depend on additional programs...Recent studies employing deep learning to solve the traveling salesman problem(TSP)have mainly focused on learning construction heuristics.Such methods can improve TSP solutions,but still depend on additional programs.However,methods that focus on learning improvement heuristics to iteratively refine solutions remain insufficient.Traditional improvement heuristics are guided by a manually designed search strategy and may only achieve limited improvements.This paper proposes a novel framework for learning improvement heuristics,which automatically discovers better improvement policies for heuristics to iteratively solve the TSP.Our framework first designs a new architecture based on a transformer model to make the policy network parameterized,which introduces an action-dropout layer to prevent action selection from overfitting.It then proposes a deep reinforcement learning approach integrating a simulated annealing mechanism(named RL-SA)to learn the pairwise selected policy,aiming to improve the 2-opt algorithm's performance.The RL-SA leverages the whale optimization algorithm to generate initial solutions for better sampling efficiency and uses the Gaussian perturbation strategy to tackle the sparse reward problem of reinforcement learning.The experiment results show that the proposed approach is significantly superior to the state-of-the-art learning-based methods,and further reduces the gap between learning-based methods and highly optimized solvers in the benchmark datasets.Moreover,our pre-trained model M can be applied to guide the SA algorithm(named M-SA(ours)),which performs better than existing deep models in small-,medium-,and large-scale TSPLIB datasets.Additionally,the M-SA(ours)achieves excellent generalization performance in a real-world dataset on global liner shipping routes,with the optimization percentages in distance reduction ranging from3.52%to 17.99%.展开更多
Traditional large-scale multi-objective optimization algorithms(LSMOEAs)encounter difficulties when dealing with sparse large-scale multi-objective optimization problems(SLM-OPs)where most decision variables are zero....Traditional large-scale multi-objective optimization algorithms(LSMOEAs)encounter difficulties when dealing with sparse large-scale multi-objective optimization problems(SLM-OPs)where most decision variables are zero.As a result,many algorithms use a two-layer encoding approach to optimize binary variable Mask and real variable Dec separately.Nevertheless,existing optimizers often focus on locating non-zero variable posi-tions to optimize the binary variables Mask.However,approxi-mating the sparse distribution of real Pareto optimal solutions does not necessarily mean that the objective function is optimized.In data mining,it is common to mine frequent itemsets appear-ing together in a dataset to reveal the correlation between data.Inspired by this,we propose a novel two-layer encoding learning swarm optimizer based on frequent itemsets(TELSO)to address these SLMOPs.TELSO mined the frequent terms of multiple particles with better target values to find mask combinations that can obtain better objective values for fast convergence.Experi-mental results on five real-world problems and eight benchmark sets demonstrate that TELSO outperforms existing state-of-the-art sparse large-scale multi-objective evolutionary algorithms(SLMOEAs)in terms of performance and convergence speed.展开更多
The sampling of the training data is a bottleneck in the development of artificial intelligence(AI)models due to the processing of huge amounts of data or to the difficulty of access to the data in industrial practice...The sampling of the training data is a bottleneck in the development of artificial intelligence(AI)models due to the processing of huge amounts of data or to the difficulty of access to the data in industrial practices.Active learning(AL)approaches are useful in such a context since they maximize the performance of the trained model while minimizing the number of training samples.Such smart sampling methodologies iteratively sample the points that should be labeled and added to the training set based on their informativeness and pertinence.To judge the relevance of a data instance,query rules are defined.In this paper,we propose an AL methodology based on a physics-based query rule.Given some industrial objectives from the physical process where the AI model is implied in,the physics-based AL approach iteratively converges to the data instances fulfilling those objectives while sampling training points.Therefore,the trained surrogate model is accurate where the potentially interesting data instances from the industrial point of view are,while coarse everywhere else where the data instances are of no interest in the industrial context studied.展开更多
The vehicle routing problem(VRP)is a typical discrete combinatorial optimization problem,and many models and algorithms have been proposed to solve the VRP and its variants.Although existing approaches have contribute...The vehicle routing problem(VRP)is a typical discrete combinatorial optimization problem,and many models and algorithms have been proposed to solve the VRP and its variants.Although existing approaches have contributed significantly to the development of this field,these approaches either are limited in problem size or need manual intervention in choosing parameters.To solve these difficulties,many studies have considered learning-based optimization(LBO)algorithms to solve the VRP.This paper reviews recent advances in this field and divides relevant approaches into end-to-end approaches and step-by-step approaches.We performed a statistical analysis of the reviewed articles from various aspects and designed three experiments to evaluate the performance of four representative LBO algorithms.Finally,we conclude the applicable types of problems for different LBO algorithms and suggest directions in which researchers can improve LBO algorithms.展开更多
Background: Problem based learning (PBL) is an innovative way of delivering instruction in which problems are used as the basis of learning. Problem based learning was developed in the 1960s by Harold Barrows at McMas...Background: Problem based learning (PBL) is an innovative way of delivering instruction in which problems are used as the basis of learning. Problem based learning was developed in the 1960s by Harold Barrows at McMaster University Medical School in Canada. Since then, PBL had been im-plemented as a teaching method in other reputable education institutions internationally, includ-ing nursing education. Curriculum reform is proposed through PBL in conjunction with patient simulation in undergraduate nursing education. The first author, Tan Kan Ku, PhD Candidate, MHS (Transcultural Mental Health—by Research) worked as a Registered Nurse for more than two decades internationally in England, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia and Australia, where she worked as a Case Manager in Community Mental Health Rehabilitation Program. Since 2001, she focused on nurse education and research into the stigma of mental illness from a cross-cultural perspective. Currently, she teaches Mental Health, Cultural Diversity and Research in the Diploma of Nursing course at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia, while completing her PhD thesis for examination at Charisma University. The second author, Dr. Michael Ha, FSA, MAAA, CFA, CPA (Australia) FRM, PRM, LLM, is the Founding Director of the MSc Financial Mathematics programme at Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University. He was previously Vice President of Strategic Business In-itiatives Units at ING Life Insurance in its Taiwan operation. Ninety percent of his students are enrolled in the Financial Mathematics programme. They learn not only mathematics and statistics theories but also their applications in the Finance and Investment areas, especially Portfolio Con-struction and Financial Risk Management. Creating a real-world Finance work environment in university lecture-halls embracing theories and practice, Dr. Ha strongly believes the PBL method can be employed in the Financial Mathematics training agenda so students can be better-prepared for work. Students are no longer instructed-learners but active thinkers and problem-solvers. Conclusion: Educators in fields such as Medical, Nursing, Engineering, Financial Mathematics, Ac-counting, Computing, etc., need to be prepared to change their teaching philosophy from didactic to problem solving for PBL to be implemented. Constructive alignment is recommended for curri-culum reform.展开更多
Recently,Problem-Based Learning(PBL)has been regarded as a possible way towards effective educational changes in Chinese universities.However,problems have been exposed in the adoption of PBL,such as choosing effectiv...Recently,Problem-Based Learning(PBL)has been regarded as a possible way towards effective educational changes in Chinese universities.However,problems have been exposed in the adoption of PBL,such as choosing effective PBL problems.The purpose of this paper is to provide a possible solution to the formulation of PBL problems for computer science courses,which is to reimplement open-source projects(ROSP).A case is demonstrated by showing how ROSP was adopted in a practical intercourse-level PBL course module.This paper contributes to a new PBL problem formulation method for promoting PBL in a practical way for Chinese universities.展开更多
Background: Ophthalmology is an important medical science subject, but it is given with insufficient attention in undergraduate medical education. Flipped classroom(FC) and problem-based learning(PBL) are well-known e...Background: Ophthalmology is an important medical science subject, but it is given with insufficient attention in undergraduate medical education. Flipped classroom(FC) and problem-based learning(PBL) are well-known education methods that can be integrated into ophthalmology education to improve students' competence level and promote active learning. Methods: We used a mixed teaching methodology that integrated a FC and PBL into a 1-week ophthalmology clerkship for 72 fourth-year medical students. The course includes two major sessions: FC session and PBL session, relying on clinical and real-patient cases. Written examinations were set up to assess students' academic performance and questionnaires were designed to evaluate their perceptions. Results: The post-course examination results were higher than the pre-course results, and many students gained ophthalmic knowledge and learning skills to varying levels. Comparison of pre-and post-course questionnaires indicated that interests in ophthalmology increased and more students expressed desires to be eye doctors. Most students were satisfied with the new method, while some suggested the process should be slower and the communication with their teacher needed to strengthen.Conclusions: FC and PBL are complementary methodologies. Utilizing the mixed teaching meth of FC and PBL was successful in enhancing academic performance, student satisfactions and promoting active learning.展开更多
Objective: To explore the application effect of flipped classroom combined with problem-based learning teaching method in clinical skills teaching of standardized training for resident doctors of traditional Chinese M...Objective: To explore the application effect of flipped classroom combined with problem-based learning teaching method in clinical skills teaching of standardized training for resident doctors of traditional Chinese Medicine. Methods: The study used the experimental control method. The study lasted from September to November 2022. The subjects of this study were 49 students of standardized training for resident doctors of traditional Chinese Medicine from grades 2020, 2021 and 2022 of Dazhou integrated TCM & Western Medicine Hospital. They were randomly divided into experiment group (25) and control group (24). The experiment group adopted flipped classroom combined with problem-based learning teaching method, and the control group adopted traditional teaching method. The teaching content was 4 basic clinical skill projects, including four diagnoses of traditional Chinese Medicine, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, dressing change procedure, acupuncture and massage. The evaluation method was carried out by comparing the students’ performance and a self-designed questionnaire was used to investigate the students’ evaluation of the teaching method. Results: The test scores of total scores in the experimental group (90.12 ± 5.89) were all higher than those in the control group (81.47 ± 7.96) (t = 4.53, P P Conclusions: The teaching process of the flipped classroom combined with problem-based learning teaching method is conducive to improving the efficiency of classroom teaching, cultivating students’ self-learning ability, and enhancing students’ willingness to learn.展开更多
A new method of back propagation learning with respect to the problem of image restora- tion which is named as greyscale based learning in back propagation neural networks （BPNN） is in- vestigated. It is observed th...A new method of back propagation learning with respect to the problem of image restora- tion which is named as greyscale based learning in back propagation neural networks （BPNN） is in- vestigated. It is observed that by using this method the value of mean square error （MSE） decreases significantly. In addition, this method also gives good visual results when it is applied in image resto- ration problem. This method is also useful to tackle the inherited drawback of falling into local mini- ma by reducing its effect on overall system by bifurcating the learning locally different for different grey scale values. The performance of this algorithm has been studied in detail with different combi- nations of weights. In short, this algorithm provides much better results especially when compared with the simple back propagation algorithm with any further enhancements and without going for hy- brid solutions.展开更多
Objective:The objective of this study is to evaluate the learning experience effect of online problem‑based learning(PBL)and case‑based learning(CBL)in teaching disaster nursing.Methods:According to the characteristic...Objective:The objective of this study is to evaluate the learning experience effect of online problem‑based learning(PBL)and case‑based learning(CBL)in teaching disaster nursing.Methods:According to the characteristics of online PBL and CBL,the revised curriculum experience questionnaire(CEQ)was used to evaluate the teaching quality.Cronbach’s coefficient and the reliability of the split‑half reliability questionnaire were calculated.The exploratory factor analysis of 26 items was carried out by principal component analysis and maximum variance rotation method.Kaiser‑Meyer‑Olkin(KMO)and Bartlett’s tests were used to test the validity of the questionnaire.The comparison between groups was performed by one‑way analysis of variance.Results:A total of 191 questionnaires were issued and 183 copies were recovered,with a recovery rate of 95.8%.The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of CEQ is 0.929,and the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of each dimension is between 0.713 and 0.924.After factor analysis,the KMO value was 0.817.The 26 items finally returned to 6 principal components,and all factor load values were above 0.7,indicating good factor analysis effect.This study found that students who learned disaster nursing had an ideal online learning experience,and the average value of CEQ was 3.74±0.42.In particular,male students,senior students or medical students had a higher curriculum experience score.In addition,compared with the national recruitment,the international students have higher curriculum experience score on the dimension of Appropriate Assessment Scale,indicating that the international students are more inclined to use online PBL and CBL.Conclusions:Using the revised CEQ is an innovative approach to evaluate the effect of online PBL and CBL in teaching disaster nursing,which can improve students’experience and curriculum quality.展开更多
Introduction: Nursing students’ experiences during the pandemic provoked social isolation, the way to learn and every context increasing their stress and anxiety leading to drug use and abuse, among others. Problem-b...Introduction: Nursing students’ experiences during the pandemic provoked social isolation, the way to learn and every context increasing their stress and anxiety leading to drug use and abuse, among others. Problem-based learning (PBL) is a pedagogic strategy to strengthen significant learning;then the objective was to establish PBL influence in nursing students’ experiences on drug use and abuse during COVID-19 contingency. Methods: Qualitative, phenomenological and descriptive paradigm, 12 female and male nursing students aged 20 - 24 years old from the 5<sup>th</sup> and 6<sup>th</sup> semesters participated. Information collection was through semi-structured interview and a deep one in four cases. A guide of questions about: How the pandemic impacted your life? How did you face it? And what did you learn during this process? Those questions were used. Qualitative data analysis was based on De Souza Minayo, and signed informed consent was obtained from participants. Results: Students’ experiences allowed four categories to emerge, with six sub-categories. Category I. Students’ experiences on drug use and abuse facing the sanitary contingency;Category II. Students’ skills development to identify a problem and design of appropriate solutions;Category III. Developing skills to favor interpersonal relationships;Category IV. Influence of PBL in nursing students’ experiences on drug use and abuse during the COVID-19 contingency. Conclusion: PBL favored analysis and thoughts in nursing students’ experiences on drug use and abuse during the COVID-19 contingency, they worked collaboratively, developed resilience to daily life situations, and implemented stress coping strategies with their significant learning, which diminished their risk behavior.展开更多
This research focuses on the home health care optimization problem that involves staff routing and scheduling problems.The considered problem is an extension of multiple travelling salesman problem.It consists of find...This research focuses on the home health care optimization problem that involves staff routing and scheduling problems.The considered problem is an extension of multiple travelling salesman problem.It consists of finding the shortest path for a set of caregivers visiting a set of patients at their homes in order to perform various tasks during a given horizon.Thus,a mixed-integer linear programming model is proposed to minimize the overall service time performed by all caregivers while respecting the workload balancing constraint.Nevertheless,when the time horizon become large,practical-sized instances become very difficult to solve in a reasonable computational time.Therefore,a new Learning Genetic Algorithm for mTSP(LGA-mTSP)is proposed to solve the problem.LGA-mTSP is composed of a new genetic algorithm for mTSP,combined with a learning approach,called learning curves.Learning refers to that caregivers’productivity increases as they gain more experience.Learning curves approach is considered as a way to save time and costs.Simulation results show the efficiency of the proposed approach and the impact of learning curve strategy to reduce service times.展开更多
Introduction: The purposes of this study were to describe the simulation integrated with problem-based learning (SIM-PBL) module to educate the nursing process for clients with hypertension and to evaluate its effecti...Introduction: The purposes of this study were to describe the simulation integrated with problem-based learning (SIM-PBL) module to educate the nursing process for clients with hypertension and to evaluate its effectiveness on nursing students’ self-efficacy (SE). Methods: This study was a one group pre- and post-test design. Twenty five students received a 5-hour SIM-PBL program focused on nursing care of clients with hypertension. A newly developed self-report questionnaire was used to assess SE in four areas of the nursing process with a scale of 0 (not at all confident) to 10 (totally confident). The four areas were subjective data assessment, physical examination, prioritizing nursing care and health promotion advices. Results: At baseline, students’ SE ranged from 5.5 ± 1.4 (prioritizing nursing care) to 7.6 ± 1.4 (subjective data assessment). After SIM-PBL education, all areas of nursing process presented statistically significant improvements of SE. The improvements were most noticeable in prioritizing nursing care. Conclusion: The SIM-PBL module was effective in improving the students’ self-efficacy in the nursing process for patients with hypertension. Further studies are recommended in developing SIM-PBL modules for diverse nursing topics and evaluating their effectiveness in various aspects of students’ competency.展开更多
基金Provincial-Level Quality Engineering Project,Preschool Education Teacher Training Base of Fuyang Normal University(Project No.:2023cyts023)University-Level Research Team Project,Collaborative Innovation Center for Basic Education in Northern Anhui(Project No.:kytd202418)。
文摘The“Opinions on Comprehensively Deepening Curriculum Reform to Fulfill the Fundamental Task of Strengthening Moral Education”,issued by China’s Ministry of Education in 2015,explicitly identified Project-Based Learning(PBL)as a key strategy for cultivating students’core competencies.Since then,PBL has been widely implemented as a pilot initiative in primary and secondary schools,gaining increasing influence.Analyzing the intellectual foundations of PBL research in China can offer valuable insights into its theoretical and practical dimensions.This study uses CiteSpace to examine 156 PBL-related articles from the CSSCI database,revealing that the knowledge base of PBL research is primarily built on two major domains.The first is the theoretical foundation,characterized by frequently cited literature focusing on the conceptual framework,educational value,interdisciplinary approaches,core competency cultivation,and instructional objectives of PBL.The second is empirical research,where highly cited studies include case analyses across K–12 settings,general high schools,and higher education institutions.Moving forward,future research on PBL should explore its meaning and value from a dual-subject and integrated perspective,expand case studies to include vocational education,and further promote the interdisciplinary development of core competencies through PBL.
基金supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China(62271096,U20A20157)Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing,China(CSTB2023NSCQ-LZX0134)+3 种基金University Innovation Research Group of Chongqing(CXQT20017)Youth Innovation Group Support Program of ICE Discipline of CQUPT(SCIE-QN-2022-04)the Science and Technology Research Program of Chongqing Municipal Education Commission(KJQN202300632)the Chongqing Postdoctoral Special Funding Project(2022CQBSHTB2057).
文摘Aiming at the problem of mobile data traffic surge in 5G networks,this paper proposes an effective solution combining massive multiple-input multiple-output techniques with Ultra-Dense Network(UDN)and focuses on solving the resulting challenge of increased energy consumption.A base station control algorithm based on Multi-Agent Proximity Policy Optimization(MAPPO)is designed.In the constructed 5G UDN model,each base station is considered as an agent,and the MAPPO algorithm enables inter-base station collaboration and interference management to optimize the network performance.To reduce the extra power consumption due to frequent sleep mode switching of base stations,a sleep mode switching decision algorithm is proposed.The algorithm reduces unnecessary power consumption by evaluating the network state similarity and intelligently adjusting the agent’s action strategy.Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm reduces the power consumption by 24.61% compared to the no-sleep strategy and further reduces the power consumption by 5.36% compared to the traditional MAPPO algorithm under the premise of guaranteeing the quality of service of users.
基金funded by the Deanship of Scientific Research at Jouf University under Grant number DSR-2022-RG-0101。
文摘As legal cases grow in complexity and volume worldwide,integrating machine learning and artificial intelligence into judicial systems has become a pivotal research focus.This study introduces a comprehensive framework for verdict recommendation that synergizes rule-based methods with deep learning techniques specifically tailored to the legal domain.The proposed framework comprises three core modules:legal feature extraction,semantic similarity assessment,and verdict recommendation.For legal feature extraction,a rule-based approach leverages Black’s Law Dictionary and WordNet Synsets to construct feature vectors from judicial texts.Semantic similarity between cases is evaluated using a hybrid method that combines rule-based logic with an LSTM model,analyzing the feature vectors of query cases against a legal knowledge base.Verdicts are then recommended through a rule-based retrieval system,enhanced by predefined legal statutes and regulations.By merging rule-based methodologies with deep learning,this framework addresses the interpretability challenges often associated with contemporary AImodels,thereby enhancing both transparency and generalizability across diverse legal contexts.The system was rigorously tested using a legal corpus of 43,000 case laws across six categories:Criminal,Revenue,Service,Corporate,Constitutional,and Civil law,ensuring its adaptability across a wide range of judicial scenarios.Performance evaluation showed that the feature extraction module achieved an average accuracy of 91.6%with an F-Score of 95%.The semantic similarity module,tested using Manhattan,Euclidean,and Cosine distance metrics,achieved 88%accuracy and a 93%F-Score for short queries(Manhattan),89%accuracy and a 93.7%F-Score for medium-length queries(Euclidean),and 87%accuracy with a 92.5%F-Score for longer queries(Cosine).The verdict recommendation module outperformed existing methods,achieving 90%accuracy and a 93.75%F-Score.This study highlights the potential of hybrid AI frameworks to improve judicial decision-making and streamline legal processes,offering a robust,interpretable,and adaptable solution for the evolving demands of modern legal systems.
基金funded by Firat University Scientific Research Projects Management Unit for the scientific research project of Feyza AltunbeyÖzbay,numbered MF.23.49.
文摘Artificial rabbits optimization(ARO)is a recently proposed biology-based optimization algorithm inspired by the detour foraging and random hiding behavior of rabbits in nature.However,for solving optimization problems,the ARO algorithm shows slow convergence speed and can fall into local minima.To overcome these drawbacks,this paper proposes chaotic opposition-based learning ARO(COARO),an improved version of the ARO algorithm that incorporates opposition-based learning(OBL)and chaotic local search(CLS)techniques.By adding OBL to ARO,the convergence speed of the algorithm increases and it explores the search space better.Chaotic maps in CLS provide rapid convergence by scanning the search space efficiently,since their ergodicity and non-repetitive properties.The proposed COARO algorithm has been tested using thirty-three distinct benchmark functions.The outcomes have been compared with the most recent optimization algorithms.Additionally,the COARO algorithm’s problem-solving capabilities have been evaluated using six different engineering design problems and compared with various other algorithms.This study also introduces a binary variant of the continuous COARO algorithm,named BCOARO.The performance of BCOARO was evaluated on the breast cancer dataset.The effectiveness of BCOARO has been compared with different feature selection algorithms.The proposed BCOARO outperforms alternative algorithms,according to the findings obtained for real applications in terms of accuracy performance,and fitness value.Extensive experiments show that the COARO and BCOARO algorithms achieve promising results compared to other metaheuristic algorithms.
基金the support of the Chinese Special Research Project for Civil Aircraft(No.MJZ17N22)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Nos.U2133207,U2333214)+1 种基金the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation(No.2023M741687)the National Social Science Fund of China(No.22&ZD169)。
文摘Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV)stands as a burgeoning electric transportation carrier,holding substantial promise for the logistics sector.A reinforcement learning framework Centralized-S Proximal Policy Optimization(C-SPPO)based on centralized decision process and considering policy entropy(S)is proposed.The proposed framework aims to plan the best scheduling scheme with the objective of minimizing both the timeout of order requests and the flight impact of UAVs that may lead to conflicts.In this framework,the intents of matching act are generated through the observations of UAV agents,and the ultimate conflict-free matching results are output under the guidance of a centralized decision maker.Concurrently,a pre-activation operation is introduced to further enhance the cooperation among UAV agents.Simulation experiments based on real-world data from New York City are conducted.The results indicate that the proposed CSPPO outperforms the baseline algorithms in the Average Delay Time(ADT),the Maximum Delay Time(MDT),the Order Delay Rate(ODR),the Average Flight Distance(AFD),and the Flight Impact Ratio(FIR).Furthermore,the framework demonstrates scalability to scenarios of different sizes without requiring additional training.
基金supported in part by the Research Start-Up Funds of South-Central Minzu University under Grants YZZ23002,YZY23001,and YZZ18006in part by the Hubei Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 2024AFB842 and 2023AFB202+3 种基金in part by the Knowledge Innovation Program of Wuhan Basic Research underGrant 2023010201010151in part by the Spring Sunshine Program of Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China under Grant HZKY20220331in part by the Funds for Academic Innovation Teams and Research Platformof South-CentralMinzu University Grant Number:XT224003,PTZ24001in part by the Career Development Fund(CDF)of the Agency for Science,Technology and Research(A*STAR)(Grant Number:C233312007).
文摘The knapsack problem is a classical combinatorial optimization problem widely encountered in areas such as logistics,resource allocation,and portfolio optimization.Traditional methods,including dynamic program-ming(DP)and greedy algorithms,have been effective in solving small problem instances but often struggle with scalability and efficiency as the problem size increases.DP,for instance,has exponential time complexity and can become computationally prohibitive for large problem instances.On the other hand,greedy algorithms offer faster solutions but may not always yield the optimal results,especially when the problem involves complex constraints or large numbers of items.This paper introduces a novel reinforcement learning(RL)approach to solve the knapsack problem by enhancing the state representation within the learning environment.We propose a representation where item weights and volumes are expressed as ratios relative to the knapsack’s capacity,and item values are normalized to represent their percentage of the total value across all items.This novel state modification leads to a 5%improvement in accuracy compared to the state-of-the-art RL-based algorithms,while significantly reducing execution time.Our RL-based method outperforms DP by over 9000 times in terms of speed,making it highly scalable for larger problem instances.Furthermore,we improve the performance of the RL model by incorporating Noisy layers into the neural network architecture.The addition of Noisy layers enhances the exploration capabilities of the agent,resulting in an additional accuracy boost of 0.2%–0.5%.The results demonstrate that our approach not only outperforms existing RL techniques,such as the Transformer model in terms of accuracy,but also provides a substantial improvement than DP in computational efficiency.This combination of enhanced accuracy and speed presents a promising solution for tackling large-scale optimization problems in real-world applications,where both precision and time are critical factors.
基金Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant Nos.72101046 and 61672128)。
文摘Recent studies employing deep learning to solve the traveling salesman problem(TSP)have mainly focused on learning construction heuristics.Such methods can improve TSP solutions,but still depend on additional programs.However,methods that focus on learning improvement heuristics to iteratively refine solutions remain insufficient.Traditional improvement heuristics are guided by a manually designed search strategy and may only achieve limited improvements.This paper proposes a novel framework for learning improvement heuristics,which automatically discovers better improvement policies for heuristics to iteratively solve the TSP.Our framework first designs a new architecture based on a transformer model to make the policy network parameterized,which introduces an action-dropout layer to prevent action selection from overfitting.It then proposes a deep reinforcement learning approach integrating a simulated annealing mechanism(named RL-SA)to learn the pairwise selected policy,aiming to improve the 2-opt algorithm's performance.The RL-SA leverages the whale optimization algorithm to generate initial solutions for better sampling efficiency and uses the Gaussian perturbation strategy to tackle the sparse reward problem of reinforcement learning.The experiment results show that the proposed approach is significantly superior to the state-of-the-art learning-based methods,and further reduces the gap between learning-based methods and highly optimized solvers in the benchmark datasets.Moreover,our pre-trained model M can be applied to guide the SA algorithm(named M-SA(ours)),which performs better than existing deep models in small-,medium-,and large-scale TSPLIB datasets.Additionally,the M-SA(ours)achieves excellent generalization performance in a real-world dataset on global liner shipping routes,with the optimization percentages in distance reduction ranging from3.52%to 17.99%.
基金supported by the Scientific Research Project of Xiang Jiang Lab(22XJ02003)the University Fundamental Research Fund(23-ZZCX-JDZ-28)+5 种基金the National Science Fund for Outstanding Young Scholars(62122093)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(72071205)the Hunan Graduate Research Innovation Project(ZC23112101-10)the Hunan Natural Science Foundation Regional Joint Project(2023JJ50490)the Science and Technology Project for Young and Middle-aged Talents of Hunan(2023TJ-Z03)the Science and Technology Innovation Program of Humnan Province(2023RC1002)。
文摘Traditional large-scale multi-objective optimization algorithms(LSMOEAs)encounter difficulties when dealing with sparse large-scale multi-objective optimization problems(SLM-OPs)where most decision variables are zero.As a result,many algorithms use a two-layer encoding approach to optimize binary variable Mask and real variable Dec separately.Nevertheless,existing optimizers often focus on locating non-zero variable posi-tions to optimize the binary variables Mask.However,approxi-mating the sparse distribution of real Pareto optimal solutions does not necessarily mean that the objective function is optimized.In data mining,it is common to mine frequent itemsets appear-ing together in a dataset to reveal the correlation between data.Inspired by this,we propose a novel two-layer encoding learning swarm optimizer based on frequent itemsets(TELSO)to address these SLMOPs.TELSO mined the frequent terms of multiple particles with better target values to find mask combinations that can obtain better objective values for fast convergence.Experi-mental results on five real-world problems and eight benchmark sets demonstrate that TELSO outperforms existing state-of-the-art sparse large-scale multi-objective evolutionary algorithms(SLMOEAs)in terms of performance and convergence speed.
文摘The sampling of the training data is a bottleneck in the development of artificial intelligence(AI)models due to the processing of huge amounts of data or to the difficulty of access to the data in industrial practices.Active learning(AL)approaches are useful in such a context since they maximize the performance of the trained model while minimizing the number of training samples.Such smart sampling methodologies iteratively sample the points that should be labeled and added to the training set based on their informativeness and pertinence.To judge the relevance of a data instance,query rules are defined.In this paper,we propose an AL methodology based on a physics-based query rule.Given some industrial objectives from the physical process where the AI model is implied in,the physics-based AL approach iteratively converges to the data instances fulfilling those objectives while sampling training points.Therefore,the trained surrogate model is accurate where the potentially interesting data instances from the industrial point of view are,while coarse everywhere else where the data instances are of no interest in the industrial context studied.
文摘The vehicle routing problem(VRP)is a typical discrete combinatorial optimization problem,and many models and algorithms have been proposed to solve the VRP and its variants.Although existing approaches have contributed significantly to the development of this field,these approaches either are limited in problem size or need manual intervention in choosing parameters.To solve these difficulties,many studies have considered learning-based optimization(LBO)algorithms to solve the VRP.This paper reviews recent advances in this field and divides relevant approaches into end-to-end approaches and step-by-step approaches.We performed a statistical analysis of the reviewed articles from various aspects and designed three experiments to evaluate the performance of four representative LBO algorithms.Finally,we conclude the applicable types of problems for different LBO algorithms and suggest directions in which researchers can improve LBO algorithms.
文摘Background: Problem based learning (PBL) is an innovative way of delivering instruction in which problems are used as the basis of learning. Problem based learning was developed in the 1960s by Harold Barrows at McMaster University Medical School in Canada. Since then, PBL had been im-plemented as a teaching method in other reputable education institutions internationally, includ-ing nursing education. Curriculum reform is proposed through PBL in conjunction with patient simulation in undergraduate nursing education. The first author, Tan Kan Ku, PhD Candidate, MHS (Transcultural Mental Health—by Research) worked as a Registered Nurse for more than two decades internationally in England, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia and Australia, where she worked as a Case Manager in Community Mental Health Rehabilitation Program. Since 2001, she focused on nurse education and research into the stigma of mental illness from a cross-cultural perspective. Currently, she teaches Mental Health, Cultural Diversity and Research in the Diploma of Nursing course at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia, while completing her PhD thesis for examination at Charisma University. The second author, Dr. Michael Ha, FSA, MAAA, CFA, CPA (Australia) FRM, PRM, LLM, is the Founding Director of the MSc Financial Mathematics programme at Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University. He was previously Vice President of Strategic Business In-itiatives Units at ING Life Insurance in its Taiwan operation. Ninety percent of his students are enrolled in the Financial Mathematics programme. They learn not only mathematics and statistics theories but also their applications in the Finance and Investment areas, especially Portfolio Con-struction and Financial Risk Management. Creating a real-world Finance work environment in university lecture-halls embracing theories and practice, Dr. Ha strongly believes the PBL method can be employed in the Financial Mathematics training agenda so students can be better-prepared for work. Students are no longer instructed-learners but active thinkers and problem-solvers. Conclusion: Educators in fields such as Medical, Nursing, Engineering, Financial Mathematics, Ac-counting, Computing, etc., need to be prepared to change their teaching philosophy from didactic to problem solving for PBL to be implemented. Constructive alignment is recommended for curri-culum reform.
基金This research was financially supported by the PBL Research and Application Project of Northeastern University(Grant No.PBL-JX2021yb029,PBL-JX2021yb027).
文摘Recently,Problem-Based Learning(PBL)has been regarded as a possible way towards effective educational changes in Chinese universities.However,problems have been exposed in the adoption of PBL,such as choosing effective PBL problems.The purpose of this paper is to provide a possible solution to the formulation of PBL problems for computer science courses,which is to reimplement open-source projects(ROSP).A case is demonstrated by showing how ROSP was adopted in a practical intercourse-level PBL course module.This paper contributes to a new PBL problem formulation method for promoting PBL in a practical way for Chinese universities.
基金supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China for Young Scientist (81200686, 81400426)Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (20120171120108)+1 种基金Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China(S2011040005378)Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (11ykpy65, 15ykpy31)
文摘Background: Ophthalmology is an important medical science subject, but it is given with insufficient attention in undergraduate medical education. Flipped classroom(FC) and problem-based learning(PBL) are well-known education methods that can be integrated into ophthalmology education to improve students' competence level and promote active learning. Methods: We used a mixed teaching methodology that integrated a FC and PBL into a 1-week ophthalmology clerkship for 72 fourth-year medical students. The course includes two major sessions: FC session and PBL session, relying on clinical and real-patient cases. Written examinations were set up to assess students' academic performance and questionnaires were designed to evaluate their perceptions. Results: The post-course examination results were higher than the pre-course results, and many students gained ophthalmic knowledge and learning skills to varying levels. Comparison of pre-and post-course questionnaires indicated that interests in ophthalmology increased and more students expressed desires to be eye doctors. Most students were satisfied with the new method, while some suggested the process should be slower and the communication with their teacher needed to strengthen.Conclusions: FC and PBL are complementary methodologies. Utilizing the mixed teaching meth of FC and PBL was successful in enhancing academic performance, student satisfactions and promoting active learning.
文摘Objective: To explore the application effect of flipped classroom combined with problem-based learning teaching method in clinical skills teaching of standardized training for resident doctors of traditional Chinese Medicine. Methods: The study used the experimental control method. The study lasted from September to November 2022. The subjects of this study were 49 students of standardized training for resident doctors of traditional Chinese Medicine from grades 2020, 2021 and 2022 of Dazhou integrated TCM & Western Medicine Hospital. They were randomly divided into experiment group (25) and control group (24). The experiment group adopted flipped classroom combined with problem-based learning teaching method, and the control group adopted traditional teaching method. The teaching content was 4 basic clinical skill projects, including four diagnoses of traditional Chinese Medicine, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, dressing change procedure, acupuncture and massage. The evaluation method was carried out by comparing the students’ performance and a self-designed questionnaire was used to investigate the students’ evaluation of the teaching method. Results: The test scores of total scores in the experimental group (90.12 ± 5.89) were all higher than those in the control group (81.47 ± 7.96) (t = 4.53, P P Conclusions: The teaching process of the flipped classroom combined with problem-based learning teaching method is conducive to improving the efficiency of classroom teaching, cultivating students’ self-learning ability, and enhancing students’ willingness to learn.
基金Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(60772066)Higher Education Commission,Pakistan
文摘A new method of back propagation learning with respect to the problem of image restora- tion which is named as greyscale based learning in back propagation neural networks （BPNN） is in- vestigated. It is observed that by using this method the value of mean square error （MSE） decreases significantly. In addition, this method also gives good visual results when it is applied in image resto- ration problem. This method is also useful to tackle the inherited drawback of falling into local mini- ma by reducing its effect on overall system by bifurcating the learning locally different for different grey scale values. The performance of this algorithm has been studied in detail with different combi- nations of weights. In short, this algorithm provides much better results especially when compared with the simple back propagation algorithm with any further enhancements and without going for hy- brid solutions.
基金This work was supported in part by the 22nd Batch of Teaching Reform Research Projects of Jinan University(JG2020080)Teaching Quality and Teaching Reform Project of Undergraduate University of Guangdong in China(2017,2020)+2 种基金Undergraduate Training Programs for Innovation and Entrepreneurship of Jinan University in China(no.CX20157,CX20145)Traditional Chinese Medicine Bureau of Guangdong in China(no.20161065 and 20201075)National Health and Family Planning Commission of Guangdong in China(no.A2016583,A2017228,A2017140 and A2020137).
文摘Objective:The objective of this study is to evaluate the learning experience effect of online problem‑based learning(PBL)and case‑based learning(CBL)in teaching disaster nursing.Methods:According to the characteristics of online PBL and CBL,the revised curriculum experience questionnaire(CEQ)was used to evaluate the teaching quality.Cronbach’s coefficient and the reliability of the split‑half reliability questionnaire were calculated.The exploratory factor analysis of 26 items was carried out by principal component analysis and maximum variance rotation method.Kaiser‑Meyer‑Olkin(KMO)and Bartlett’s tests were used to test the validity of the questionnaire.The comparison between groups was performed by one‑way analysis of variance.Results:A total of 191 questionnaires were issued and 183 copies were recovered,with a recovery rate of 95.8%.The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of CEQ is 0.929,and the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of each dimension is between 0.713 and 0.924.After factor analysis,the KMO value was 0.817.The 26 items finally returned to 6 principal components,and all factor load values were above 0.7,indicating good factor analysis effect.This study found that students who learned disaster nursing had an ideal online learning experience,and the average value of CEQ was 3.74±0.42.In particular,male students,senior students or medical students had a higher curriculum experience score.In addition,compared with the national recruitment,the international students have higher curriculum experience score on the dimension of Appropriate Assessment Scale,indicating that the international students are more inclined to use online PBL and CBL.Conclusions:Using the revised CEQ is an innovative approach to evaluate the effect of online PBL and CBL in teaching disaster nursing,which can improve students’experience and curriculum quality.
文摘Introduction: Nursing students’ experiences during the pandemic provoked social isolation, the way to learn and every context increasing their stress and anxiety leading to drug use and abuse, among others. Problem-based learning (PBL) is a pedagogic strategy to strengthen significant learning;then the objective was to establish PBL influence in nursing students’ experiences on drug use and abuse during COVID-19 contingency. Methods: Qualitative, phenomenological and descriptive paradigm, 12 female and male nursing students aged 20 - 24 years old from the 5<sup>th</sup> and 6<sup>th</sup> semesters participated. Information collection was through semi-structured interview and a deep one in four cases. A guide of questions about: How the pandemic impacted your life? How did you face it? And what did you learn during this process? Those questions were used. Qualitative data analysis was based on De Souza Minayo, and signed informed consent was obtained from participants. Results: Students’ experiences allowed four categories to emerge, with six sub-categories. Category I. Students’ experiences on drug use and abuse facing the sanitary contingency;Category II. Students’ skills development to identify a problem and design of appropriate solutions;Category III. Developing skills to favor interpersonal relationships;Category IV. Influence of PBL in nursing students’ experiences on drug use and abuse during the COVID-19 contingency. Conclusion: PBL favored analysis and thoughts in nursing students’ experiences on drug use and abuse during the COVID-19 contingency, they worked collaboratively, developed resilience to daily life situations, and implemented stress coping strategies with their significant learning, which diminished their risk behavior.
文摘This research focuses on the home health care optimization problem that involves staff routing and scheduling problems.The considered problem is an extension of multiple travelling salesman problem.It consists of finding the shortest path for a set of caregivers visiting a set of patients at their homes in order to perform various tasks during a given horizon.Thus,a mixed-integer linear programming model is proposed to minimize the overall service time performed by all caregivers while respecting the workload balancing constraint.Nevertheless,when the time horizon become large,practical-sized instances become very difficult to solve in a reasonable computational time.Therefore,a new Learning Genetic Algorithm for mTSP(LGA-mTSP)is proposed to solve the problem.LGA-mTSP is composed of a new genetic algorithm for mTSP,combined with a learning approach,called learning curves.Learning refers to that caregivers’productivity increases as they gain more experience.Learning curves approach is considered as a way to save time and costs.Simulation results show the efficiency of the proposed approach and the impact of learning curve strategy to reduce service times.
文摘Introduction: The purposes of this study were to describe the simulation integrated with problem-based learning (SIM-PBL) module to educate the nursing process for clients with hypertension and to evaluate its effectiveness on nursing students’ self-efficacy (SE). Methods: This study was a one group pre- and post-test design. Twenty five students received a 5-hour SIM-PBL program focused on nursing care of clients with hypertension. A newly developed self-report questionnaire was used to assess SE in four areas of the nursing process with a scale of 0 (not at all confident) to 10 (totally confident). The four areas were subjective data assessment, physical examination, prioritizing nursing care and health promotion advices. Results: At baseline, students’ SE ranged from 5.5 ± 1.4 (prioritizing nursing care) to 7.6 ± 1.4 (subjective data assessment). After SIM-PBL education, all areas of nursing process presented statistically significant improvements of SE. The improvements were most noticeable in prioritizing nursing care. Conclusion: The SIM-PBL module was effective in improving the students’ self-efficacy in the nursing process for patients with hypertension. Further studies are recommended in developing SIM-PBL modules for diverse nursing topics and evaluating their effectiveness in various aspects of students’ competency.
