Job Satisfaction, Leadership Styles, and Teaching Practices among CNMI Public Elementary School Teachers

This study investigated whether teacher leadership styles and teaching practices influenced teacher job satisfaction among public elementary school teachers in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The study answered the following questions: (1) what is the level of job satisfaction among public elementary school teachers in the CNMI; (2) to what extent do CNMI teachers fall into the personal leadership style categories of transactional or transformational; (3) to what extent do CNMI public school teachers prefer either didactic or constructivist teaching practices; (4) to what extent do demographic factors, preferred leadership styles, and preferred teaching practices affect the degree of job satisfaction expressed by the CNMI public elementary school teachers; and (5)to what extent does the interaction between leadership style and teaching practice affect the degree of job satisfaction expressed by the CNMI public elementary school teachers. This study used survey research and multiple regression to answer the questions. Teachers were moderately satisfied with their jobs. They preferred transformational leadership styles to transactional ones and didactic teaching practices to constructivist ones. The dependent variable job satisfaction, when regressed against the eight independent variables age, gender, years teaching, highest degree held, English as a mother tongue, leadership styles, teaching practices, and an interaction variable between leadership styles and teaching practices called agreement, was found to be significantly influenced by only gender and agreement. For gender, females were more satisfied than men, and for agreement, teachers whose leadership styles and teaching practices were in dissonance were more satisfied than those whose styles and practices were in harmony

Inverse agonism at the P2Y12 receptor and ENT1 transporter blockade contribute to platelet inhibition by ticagrelor

Ticagrelor is a potent antagonist of the P2Y12 receptor (P2Y12R) and consequently an inhibitor of platelet activity effective in the treatment of atherothrombosis. Here, we sought to further characterise its molecular mechanism of action. Initial studies showed that ticagrelor promoted a greater inhibition of ADP-induced Ca2+ release in washed platelets versus other P2Y12R antagonists. This additional effect of ticagrelor beyond P2Y12R antagonism was in part as a consequence of ticagrelor inhibiting the equilibrative nucleoside transporter 1 (ENT1) on platelets, leading to accumulation of extracellular adenosine and activation of Gs-coupled adenosine A2A receptors. This contributed to an increase in basal cAMP and VASP phosphorylation. In addition, ticagrelor increased platelet cAMP and VASP phosphorylation in the absence of ADP in an adenosine receptor-independent manner. We hypothesised that this increase originated from a direct effect on basal agonist-independent P2Y12R signalling, and this was validated in 1321N1 cells stably transfected with human P2Y12R. In these cells, ticagrelor blocked the constitutive agonist-independent activity of the P2Y12R, limiting basal Gi-coupled signalling and thereby increasing cAMP levels. These data suggest that ticagrelor has the pharmacological profile of an inverse agonist. Based on our results showing insurmountable inhibition of ADP-induced Ca2+ release and forskolin-induced cAMP, the mode of antagonism of ticagrelor also appears non-competitive, at least functionally. In summary, our studies describe two novel modes of action of ticagrelor, inhibition of platelet ENT1 and inverse agonism at the P2Y12R that contribute to its effective inhibition of platelet activation