Spirit: A Biblical Study

Spiritual care is an activity that most nurses aspire to, yet most nurses feel inadequate to perform. There is a plethora of nursing literature that explores and describes spiritual care. Furthermore, there are nurse scholars and researchers who have published recommendations on how to provide spiritual care. However, there is no nursing literature that attempts to describe or understand what the spirit actually is. The purpose of this presentation is to present what I have learned from studying the word \u27spirit\u27 as it occurs in the Bible. I will present the three themes that emerged from this study, I will explore what the Bible teaches us about the spirit within the context of these three themes, and then I will suggest ways that this information can help nurses provide spiritual care

Intervention to Slow Progression of Peripheral Arterial Disease

Lower extremity peripheral arterial disease (PAD), which results from peripheral atherosclerosis, affects up to 10 million people in the United States alone. Claudication, defined as walking-induced pain in one or both legs relieved by rest, is the primary symptom of lower extremity PAD. Vascular nurses play a critical role in the collaborative care of PAD patients by offering counseling to change unhealthy behaviors, yet patients experience problems in actually overcoming sedentary lifestyle and nicotine addiction--the cornerstones of lifestyle management for PAD. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to identify factors that promote the adoption and maintenance of exercise and smoking cessation behaviors with PAD patients. A pretest-posttest control group design with a 12-week exercise and smoking cessation intervention was implemented, with outcome measures assessed at baseline, 3 and 6 months post enrollment. The model used for developing this intervention study was the Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change (TTM), combined with principles of nicotine addiction and exercise determinants. In addition, functional status was measured. The intervention group did have a significant increase (p \u3c .05) from baseline in claudication pain time (CPT) at 3 and 6 months, and in maximal walking time (MWT) at 3 months only. There was a significant difference between groups (p \u3c .05) for exercise stage of change at 3 months, but not at 6 months. In addition, baseline exercise self-efficacy significantly correlated with 3 month exercise stage of change for the usual care group but not for the intervention group. The implication being that a low baseline self-efficacy can be overcome with an intensive nursing intervention. There were no significant changes in either smoking decisional balance or smoking stage of change over time by group. As a result, all smokers data (n = 15) were collapsed and analyzed, with differences and trends discussed, and themes identified. Results from this study support the premise that a nurse-managed, theory based exercise adoption intervention is effective in helping claudicants adopt a routine exercise program. In addition, when combined with a critical health event, this intervention may contribute to claudicants\u27 successful smoking cessation

Perilous Times Call for Emergency Preparedness

As disasters become more frequent it is important that people are ready to respond. University students along with community volunteers learn with and from each other during a disaster simulation. Learn how participant’s perceptions of spirituality and civic engagement has changed following a disaster simulation

Consolidation of Ti-SiC particle-reinforced metal-matrix composites

Discontinuously-reinforced metal-matrix composites (DMMC) have received an increasing amount of attention in recent years due to their improved strength, stiffness and wear characteristics. These benefits make DMMC quite appealing for many structural applications; however, limited ductility and toughness have prevented their widespread use. Limited ductility and toughness are not unique to this class of advanced materials and are shared by such systems as continuous fiber composites and monolithic ceramics. The introduction of weak microstructural features in these materials has long been known to enhance the overall fracture properties. These features have taken on many forms depending on the system involved; for example, microcracking grain boundaries in ceramics (1) and weakened interracial strengths in continuous fiber composites (2). This approach has proven to be quite effective for a wide variety of materials but remains relatively unexplored for DMMC. It has been assumed that the greatest interracial strength obtainable will produce an optimized mechanical response. This assumption has not been challenged to any significant degree mainly because of the experimental inability to effectively vary the interfacial characteristics using standard processing procedures. The ability to control the evolution of matrix-reinforcement interfaces in DMMC through various processing parameters is of critical importance for both scientific investigations and industrial applications. The extremely short time at the compaction temperature that can be achieved with shock consolidation make it a unique method for the minimization (and subsequent systematic variation) of interracial reactions. Because of the high reactivity of Ti with the readily available reinforcement particles, this system possesses significant potential for gain from improved interfacial control. The fundamental questions concerning the "optimum" interfacial strength for a given DMMC can be systematically investigated with these reactive composite materials. The objective of this study was to produce fully dense DMMC compacts comprised of a reactive particle-matrix combination with little or no interfacial reactions in the as-consolidated condition. This material can provide unique information regarding the role of interfaces in DMMC

Enhancing Instruction in Lean Manufacturing Through Development of Simulation Activities in Shipbuilding Operations

Lean Manufacturing is a powerful philosophy that advocates minimization of waste within an organization. The adoption of Lean Manufacturing philosophy by major manufacturers has created a demand for qualified personnel in this area. A training program in Lean Enterprise was developed by Old Dominion University for the Apprentice School at Northrop Grumman Newport News. Physical simulation activities are an integral part of this training program. Simulation activities related to shipbuilding operations have been incorporated in the Lean training course. These activities have been used in the Business Operations course for three semesters. Results show increased student participation and better understanding of lean concepts. The paper discusses the structure of the simulation activities and their effect on learning of Lean concepts. The paper also discusses measurement of performance metrics to evaluate the impact of lean concepts. An attitudinal survey has been developed to assess the impact of the training program on student\u27s thinking

Acellular Injectable Biomaterials for Treating Cardiovascular Disease

In the last decade, the field of tissue engineering has emerged as a potential therapeutic strategy for the regeneration and/or repair of various tissues afflicted by cardiovascular disease, such as myocardial infarction (MI) or peripheral artery disease (PAD). Among the different tissue engineering strategies, injectable hydrogels have been extensively studied and show encouraging results in both small and large animal models. An injectable hydrogel provides a favorable microenvironment for endogenous regeneration or repair, and depending on the material's design can be used either alone or as a carrier to deliver therapeutic molecules or stem cells. The type of injectable biomaterial is key for a successful hydrogel-based treatment, and in this chapter, we will focus on acellular injectable biomaterial approaches for both MI and PAD

Immunological analysis of plasminogen activators from normal and transformed hamster cells...

Rabbits were immunized against the plasminogen activator released by SV4- virus-transformed hamster embryo cells. The resulting antiplasminogen activator immunoglobulin (APA-IgG) inhibited the enzymatic activity of the plasminogen activator produced by SV40-transformed hamster cells, and the plasmin-catalyzed release of these cells from the tissue culture dish. APA-IgG was not cytotoxic for these cells even in the presence of complement and did not inhibit their release of plasminogen activator. APA-IgG formed a single precipitin line in immunodiffusion plates using highly purified plasminogen activator as antigen. APA-IgG inhibited the plasminogen activator produced by newborn hamster lung cells and by an established diploid line (DON) of hamster lung cells, but did not inhibit plasminogen activators produced by normal or transformed hamster kidney cells or by cells of other species (mouse and human). We derive three major conclusions from these data: (a) There are several immunologically distinguishable forms (isozymes) of plasminogen activators in normal hamster tissues. (b) The plasminogen activators produced by normal hamster lung cells and by SV40 virus-transformed hamster embryo cells share antigenic determinants and are presumably the same isozyme. (c) The plasminogen activators produced by different hamster tumor cells do not share antigenic determinants and are presumably different isozymes

Expression in Escherichia coli of a cloned DNA sequence encoding the pre-S2 region of hepatitis B virus

A DNA sequence encoding the entire pre-S2 region (amino acids 120-174; serotype ayw) of human hepatitis B virus envelope protein has been inserted into the lacZ gene of the plasmid pSKS105 yielding a recombinant, pWS3. Lac+ colonies of the Escherichia coli M182 (lacIOPZYA), isolated after transformation with pWS3, produced a pre-S2 peptide-ß-galactosidase fusion protein. This fusion protein, which comprised as much as 3% of the total bacterial protein, was purified to >90% homogeneity by affinity chromatography on p-aminophenyl-ß-D-thiogalactoside-Sepharose. It is immunoprecipitable with rabbit antibodies to a synthetic peptide corresponding to amino acids 120-145 of the pre-S2 region of serotype adw [pre-S(120-145)] or with antibodies to hepatitis B virus. pre-S(120-145) completely blocked the binding of either antibody to the pre-S2 peptide-ß-galactosidase fusion protein. These results indicate that there are antigenic determinants on the fusion protein that are closely related to, if not identical to, determinants on synthetic pre-S(120-145) and on pre-S2 sequences of native hepatitis B virus particles. Thus, bacteria transformed with pWS3 can provide an abundant source of pre-S2-ß-galactosidase fusion protein, which may prove useful either as a diagnostic reagent possessing marker enzyme activity suitable for ELISA tests or as an immunogen with potential to contribute to active prophylaxis of hepatitis B