Evaluation of a personal professional mentor scheme for newly qualified nurses.

Newly qualified nurses are known to experience a range of feelings and fears in the first transitional 12 months post-qualifying, with absence and turnover among potential outcomes. To evaluate the personal professional mentor role and scheme, a new pastoral support initiative, from the perspective of participating newly qualified nurses. Newly qualified paediatric nurses ( =10), who had been assigned a personal professional mentor (an experienced nurse who worked elsewhere in their employing NHS Trust), completed a semi-structured interview. The data were analysed using thematic analysis. The personal professional mentor counteracted some aspects of transition isolation for the newly qualified nurses. They were an independent, accessible, experienced confidant and a welcome new supportive role. Pairing experienced nurses with newly qualified nurses provided a new type of workplace support during transition. Inexpensive to set up and run, it is an easy addition to any portfolio of support strategies

The regional impact of equine youth activities held at the Southern Illinois University Carbondale College of Agricultural Science

The SIUC College of Agricultural Science has hosted the Southern Regional 4-H Hippology and Horse Bowl contest for the past two years. During the competition, a short survey will be offered to contestants and leaders to obtain accurate and anonymous feedback regarding the contest and the impact of this event on the regional 4-H members who participate. Specifically, the survey will focus on how the SIUC hosted Hippology and Horse Bowl contest prepares 4-H members for further competitions and if the contest encourages students to pursue an agricultural field, particularly at SIUC. During the organization of the event, number of contestants and 4-H clubs present will be recorded. On March 25th, one survey will be given to contestants to determine effectiveness of the contest in preparation for future competitions in addition to the impact SIUC College of Agricultural Science has on determining future educational paths. The second survey will be directed towards 4-H leaders to gather opinions on content and organization. Both surveys will offer information which the SIUC College of Agricultural Science will utilize for future contests. The results will also illustrate the importance of the College’s activity in the community and the impact of such activities in 4-H youth looking into their educational future. The results will reveal if hosting youth activities is an effective means to bring new students to Southern Illinois University Carbondale and ways to improve the event. Data will be collect on March 25th. The findings will be presented at the Undergraduate Research Foru

The influence of the preparation method of NiOx photocathodes on the efficiency of p-type dye-sensitised solar cells

Improving the efficiency of p-type dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) is an important part of the development of high performance tandem DSCs. The optimization of the conversion efficiency of p-DSCs could make a considerable contribution in the improvement of solar cells at a molecular level. Nickel oxide is the most widely used material in p-DSCs, due to its ease of preparation, chemical and structural stability, and electrical properties. However, improvement of the quality and conductivity of NiO based photocathodes needs to be achieved to bring further improvements to the solar cell efficiency. The subject of this review is to consider the effect of the preparation of NiO surfaces on their efficiency as photocathodes. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Newly qualified nurse transition: stress experiences and stress-mediating factors – a longitudinal study

The first twelve months for newly qualified nurses (NQNs) is a time of transition producing a myriad of experiences, emotions and personal development. There has been very little research into the phenomenon that has emanated from the UK and what is available may no longer reflect contemporary NQNs’ experiences. Using a pragmatic epistemology, this unique four-phased, mixed methods, cohort study investigated NQNs’ transition through monitoring stress experiences together with potentially mediating factors of coping, social support, hardiness and resilience. Adult branch NQNs (n= 288) completed questionnaires on nursing stress and mediating factors at the point of qualification (baseline). The original sample were followed-up at six months (n= 107) and then at twelve months post-qualifying (n= 86), along with individual interviews (n= 14). The results indicate transition as a complex process lasting 6-12 months depending on the NQN’s workplace experience. Multiple stressors included ‘workload’, which was consistently the most frequently reported, due to factors such as inadequate staffing levels. The NQNs revealed impressive personal qualities; for example, a forthright commitment to the high ideals of professionalism and quality standards of patient care, together with their attention to continued learning and development as a nurse. Hardiness, resilience, increased age and, most notably, prior healthcare experience, each mediated the frequency of reported stressors over the first twelve months. Active support from a ‘good’ team and an inspirational manager were also important stress-mediators. Personal barriers included extreme fluctuations in confidence, which was affected negatively by colleagues’ incivility, or mediated through workplace colleague support. An integrated model for NQN transition is presented to depict the core elements of the evolving professionalisation and socialisation process. The model is entwined with the NQNs’ ability to undertake a cognitive appraisal of the stressors within their work environment, as the NQN progressed towards adapting to their new status, roles and work environment. Key recommendations include: the development of a transition preparation process for pre-registration nurse education; a proposed new model of preceptorship; improvement of the management of workplace incivility for healthcare organisations that employ NQNs; and research to further explore the benefits of prior healthcare experience. These are some of the pragmatic, practical outcomes of this research

Comment on: Role of Intermittency in Urban Development: A Model of Large-Scale City Formation

Comment to D.H. Zanette and S.C. Manrubia, Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 523 (1997).Comment: 1 page no figure

A longitudinal, mixed methods investigation of newly qualified nurses’ workplace stressors and stress experiences during transition

Aim To investigate transition in newly qualified nurses through an exploration of their stressors and stress experiences during their first 12 months post-qualifying. Background Globally, thousands of new nurses qualify annually. They are crucial for the profession and healthcare service delivery. Work-related stress has multiple serious consequences, yet there is a lack of robust, empirical evidence that directly analyses newly qualified nurses and the stress they feel and experience in the workplace. Understanding what causes newly qualified nurses’ stress is vital to retaining and nurturing this vital component of the workforce. Design Longitudinal, explanatory sequential mixed methods, cohort study. Methods At the point of qualification (n= 288), 6 months post-qualifying (n= 107) and 12 months post-qualifying (n= 86), newly qualified nurses completed the Nursing Stress Scale, with n= 14 completing a one-to-one interview at 12 months post-qualifying. Data were collected from 2010-2012. Inferential statistics, ‘thematic analysis’ and ‘side-by-side comparisons in a discussion’ were used for analysis. Results/Findings Workload was consistently the highest reported stressor with inadequate staffing and managing multiple role demands given as explanations. Incivility within the workplace was a noted stressor. Conversely, being part of ‘a good team’ provided a civil, supportive, facilitative work environment. Entering nurse education with previous healthcare experience had a mediating effect on the reported frequency of stressors. Conclusions Newly qualified nurses encounter multiple work-related stressors over their first 12 months post-qualifying, which are intrinsically entwined with their transition. Employing organisations need to be more proactive in managing their workload and addressing workplace incivility

Dynamic Provenance for SPARQL Update

While the Semantic Web currently can exhibit provenance information by using the W3C PROV standards, there is a "missing link" in connecting PROV to storing and querying for dynamic changes to RDF graphs using SPARQL. Solving this problem would be required for such clear use-cases as the creation of version control systems for RDF. While some provenance models and annotation techniques for storing and querying provenance data originally developed with databases or workflows in mind transfer readily to RDF and SPARQL, these techniques do not readily adapt to describing changes in dynamic RDF datasets over time. In this paper we explore how to adapt the dynamic copy-paste provenance model of Buneman et al. [2] to RDF datasets that change over time in response to SPARQL updates, how to represent the resulting provenance records themselves as RDF in a manner compatible with W3C PROV, and how the provenance information can be defined by reinterpreting SPARQL updates. The primary contribution of this paper is a semantic framework that enables the semantics of SPARQL Update to be used as the basis for a 'cut-and-paste' provenance model in a principled manner.Comment: Pre-publication version of ISWC 2014 pape

Wandering of a contact line at thermal equilibrium

We reconsider the problem of the solid-liquid-vapour contact-line on a disordered substrate, in the collective pinning regime. We go beyond scaling arguments and perform an analytic computation, through the replica variational method, of the fluctuations of the line. We show how gravity effects must be included for a proper quantitative comparison with available experimental data of the wetting of liquid helium on a caesium substrate. The theoretical result is in good agreement with experimental findings for this case.Comment: 24 laTex pages with 5 EPS figures included. submitted to Phys. Rev

Phase Transitions of the Flux Line Lattice in High-Temperature Superconductors with Weak Columnar and Point Disorder

We study the effects of weak columnar and point disorder on the vortex-lattice phase transitions in high temperature superconductors. The combined effect of thermal fluctuations and of quenched disorder is investigated using a simplified cage model. For columnar disorder the problem maps into a quantum particle in a harmonic + random potential. We use the variational approximation to show that columnar and point disorder have opposite effect on the position of the melting line as observed experimentally. Replica symmetry breaking plays a role at the transition into a vortex glass at low temperatures.Comment: 4 pages in 2 columns format + 2 eps figs included, uses RevTeX and multicol.st

Numerical Results for the Ground-State Interface in a Random Medium

The problem of determining the ground state of a $d$-dimensional interface embedded in a $(d+1)$-dimensional random medium is treated numerically. Using a minimum-cut algorithm, the exact ground states can be found for a number of problems for which other numerical methods are inexact and slow. In particular, results are presented for the roughness exponents and ground-state energy fluctuations in a random bond Ising model. It is found that the roughness exponent $\zeta = 0.41 \pm 0.01, 0.22 \pm 0.01$, with the related energy exponent being $\theta = 0.84 \pm 0.03, 1.45 \pm 0.04$, in $d = 2, 3$, respectively. These results are compared with previous analytical and numerical estimates.Comment: 10 pages, REVTEX3.0; 3 ps files (separate:tar/gzip/uuencoded) for figure