Physicians' working conditions and job satisfaction : does hospital ownership in Germany make a difference?

Background: A growing number of German hospitals have been privatized with the intention of increasing cost effectiveness and improving the quality of health care. Numerous studies investigated what possible qualitative and economic consequences these changes issues might have on patient care. However, little is known about how this privatization trend relates to physicians' working conditions and job satisfaction. It was anticipated that different working conditions would be associated with different types of hospital ownership. To that end, this study's purpose is to compare how physicians, working for both public and privatized hospitals, rate their respective psychosocial working conditions and job satisfaction. Methods: The study was designed as a cross-sectional comparison using questionnaire data from 203 physicians working at German hospitals of different ownership types (private for-profit, public and private nonprofit). Results: The present study shows that several aspects of physicians' perceived working conditions differ significantly depending on hospital ownership. However, results also indicated that physicians' job satisfaction does not vary between different types of hospital ownership. Finally, it was demonstrated that job demands and resources are associated with job satisfaction, while type of ownership is not. Conclusion: This study represents one of a few studies that investigate the effect of hospital ownership on physicians work situation and demonstrated that the type of ownership is a potential factor accounting for differences in working conditions. The findings provide an informative basis to find solutions improving physicians' work at German hospitals

Capillary Condensation, Freezing, and Melting in Silica Nanopores: A Sorption Isotherm and Scanning Calorimetry Study on Nitrogen in Mesoporous SBA-15

Condensation, melting and freezing of nitrogen in a powder of mesoporous silica grains (SBA-15) has been studied by combined volumetric sorption isotherm and scanning calorimetry measurements. Within the mean field model of Saam and Cole for vapor condensation in cylindrical pores a liquid nitrogen sorption isotherm is well described by a bimodal pore radius distribution. It encompasses a narrow peak centered at 3.3 nm, typical of tubular mesopores, and a significantly broader peak characteristic of micropores, located at 1 nm. The material condensed in the micropores as well as the first two adsorbed monolayers in the mesopores do not exhibit any caloric anomaly. The solidification and melting transformation affects only the pore condensate beyond approx. the second monolayer of the mesopores. Here, interfacial melting leads to a single peak in the specific heat measurements. Homogeneous and heterogeneous freezing along with a delayering transition for partial fillings of the mesopores result in a caloric freezing anomaly similarly complex and dependent on the thermal history as has been observed for argon in SBA-15. The axial propagation of the crystallization in pore space is more effective in the case of nitrogen than previously observed for argon, which we attribute to differences in the crystalline textures of the pore solids.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

Radiative non-isothermal Bondi accretion onto a massive black hole

In this paper, we present the classical Bondi accretion theory for the case of non-isothermal accretion processes onto a supermassive black hole (SMBH), including the effects of X-ray heating and the radiation force due to electron scattering and spectral lines. The radiation field is calculated by considering an optically thick, geometrically thin, standard accretion disk as the emitter of UV photons and a spherical central object as a source of X-ray emission. In the present analysis, the UV emission from the accretion disk is assumed to have an angular dependence, while the X-ray/central object radiation is assumed to be isotropic. This allows us to build streamlines in any angular direction we need to. The influence of both types of radiation is evaluated for different flux fractions of the X-ray and UV emissions with and without the effects of spectral line driving. We find that the radiation emitted near the SMBH interacts with the infalling matter and modifies the accretion dynamics. In the presence of line driving, a transition resembles from pure type 1 & 2 to type 5 solutions (see Fig2.1 of Frank etal. 2002), which takes place regardless of whether or not the UV emission dominates over the X-ray emission. We compute the radiative factors at which this transition occurs, and discard type 5 solution from all our models. Estimated values of the accretion radius and accretion rate in terms of the classical Bondi values are also given. The results are useful for the construction of proper initial conditions for time-dependent hydrodynamical simulations of accretion flows onto SMBH at the centre of galaxies.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, Accepted to be published in A&

Non-equilibrium condensation and coarsening of field-driven dipolar colloids

In colloidal suspensions, self-organization processes can be easily fueled by external fields. One particularly interesting class of phenomena occurs in monolayers of dipolar particles that are driven by rotating external fields. Here we report results from a computer simulation study of such systems focusing on the clustering behavior also observed in recent experiments. The key result of this paper is a novel interpretation of this pattern formation phenomenon: We show the clustering to be a by-product of a vapor-liquid first order phase transition. In fact, the observed dynamic coarsening process corresponds to the spindodal demixing that occurs during such a transitionComment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Gender differences in a resources-demands model in the general population

Background The population-based study examined postulated effects, derived from a resources-demands-model about gender-related aspects of self-efficacy, optimism, chronic stress, and exhaustion. Methods Data acquisition was carried out by a market research institute with a multi-topic questionnaire in the general population (N = 2,552). Instruments administered were the Questionnaire for Self-Efficacy and Optimism, the Trier Inventory for Chronic Stress, and the Chalder-Fatigue-Scale. Households and target persons were selected randomly. The analyses focused on structural equation modeling. Results There were significant differences in structural relations among the resource paths. In particular, significant gender differences were found with respect to self-efficacy, and among the exhaustion paths, namely in the mental dimension of exhaustion. The observed measures of chronic stress were found to be operating equivalently for both genders. Results suggest that resources play an important role in the understanding of how chronic stress is preceded and may lead to exhaustion in both genders. Conclusion Personal resources seem to be more expressed by men than by woman, for whom the relation of resources to health is of greater importance than for men