Iranian Nursing Students' Perceptions of Nursing and The Ideal Career: A Descriptive Comparative Study

Background: Identification of the attributes of nursing and the ideal career, and their similarities and differences, as perceived by nursing students will help to plan strategies to train and retain future nursing workforce. Objectives: This study aimed to compare the attributes of nursing with the ideal career, as perceived by nursing students. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted from April to June 2012 at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. The participants were 181 undergraduate nursing students (127 females and 54 males) selected using a census method. Data were collected using a questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, Spearman correlation, and Wilcoxon rank sign test. Results: Perceptions of nursing and the ideal career were different in nineteen attributes (P < 0.001). Nursing students expected a career which provides them more respect, appreciation, safety, income, power, and facility. Both nursing and an ideal career share an altruistic nature, academic advancement, a desire to please God, and somehow low level of excitement. Conclusions: Perceptions of nursing were significantly different from those of the ideal career in most of the attributes. Therefore, it is recommended that nurses’ income, workplace safety, and sense of being appreciated and respected by all authorities should be improved

The local and circulating SOX9 as a potential biomarker for the diagnosis of primary bone cancer

Purpose: The status of the local and circulating SOX9, a master regulator of the tumor fate, and its relevance to tumor types, severity, invasion feature, response to therapy, and chemotherapy treatment were surveyed in bone cancer in the current study. Methods: The SOX9 expression level was evaluated in tissue and peripheral blood mononuclear cells from patients with different types of malignant and benign bone tumors also tumor margin tissues using Real-Time PCR. The protein level of SOX9 was assessed using immunohistochemistry and western blot analysis. Also, the correlations of the SOX9 expression level with the patient's clinical and pathological features were considered. Results: The remarkable overexpression of SOX9 was detected in bone tumors compared to tumor margin tissues (P < 0.0001). Malignant bone tumors revealed a higher expression of SOX9 compared to benign tumors (P < 0.0001) while osteosarcoma tumors showed higher expression levels compared to Ewing sarcoma, and chondrosarcoma. Overexpression of SOX9 was observed in high grade, metastatic, recurrent tumors also tumors with poor response to therapy. Besides, the patients under the chemotherapy treatment demonstrated higher levels of SOX9 compared to the rest of malignant tumors (P = 0.02). The simultaneous up-regulation of circulating SOX9 in the patients with bone cancer was observed compared to healthy individuals (P < 0.0001) accompanying with overexpression of SOX9 in malignant tumors compared to benign tumors (P < 0.0001). The circulating SOX9 expression was up-regulated in the patients with malignant bone tumors who receive chemotherapy treatment also patients with high grade, metastatic, recurrent tumors. The protein level of SOX9 was in line with our data on the SOX9 gene expression. Conclusion: The simultaneous overexpression of local and circulating SOX9 in bone cancer besides its positive correlation with tumor severity, malignancy, size, and chemotherapy may deserve receiving more attention in bone cancer diagnosis and therapy. © 2020 The Author

Cops, Teachers, and the Art of the Impossible: Explaining the lack of diffusion of impossible job innovations

In their now classic Impossible Jobs in Public Management, Hargrove and Glidewell (1990) argue that public agencies with limited legitimacy, high conflict, low professional authority, and weak agency myths have essentially impossible jobs. Leaders of such agencies can do little more than cope, which is also a theme of James Q. Wilson (1989), among others. Yet in the years since publication of Impossible Jobs, one such position, that of police commissioner has proven possible. Over a sustained 17-year period, the New York City Police Department has achieved dramatic reductions in crime with relatively few political repercussions, as described by Kelling and Sousa (2001). A second impossible job discussed by Wilson and also by Frederick Hess (1999), city school superintendent, has also proven possible, with Houston and Edmonton having considerable academic success educating disadvantaged children. In addition, Atlanta and Pittsburgh enjoyed significant success in elementary schooling, though the gains were short-lived for reasons we will describe. More recently, under Michelle Rhee, Washington D.C. schools have made the most dramatic gains among city school systems. These successes in urban crime control and public schooling have not been widely copied. Accordingly, we argue that the real conundrum of impossible jobs is why agency leaders fail to copy successful innovations. Building on the work of Teodoro (2009), we will discuss how the relative illegitimacy of clients and inflexibility of personnel systems combine with the professional norms, job mobility and progressive ambition of agency leaders to limit the diffusion of innovations in law enforcement and schooling. We will conclude with ideas about how to overcome these barriers

Organization Culture as an Explanation for Employee Discipline Practices

Most supervisors dread employee discipline and often employ strategies not officially sanctioned by the organization. Poorly designed discipline systems cause this variation in discipline practices. Inconsistent discipline can cause losses in productivity and reduce employee morale. Extant literature offers little in the form of guidance for improving this important human resource activity. This article explore where normative literature on organizational culture may have explanatory value for understanding variation in discipline practices. The article suggests two groups of factors that have causal effects on discipline practices. The tangible factors are those describing the formal practices the organization wishes its employees to follow. The intangible factors provide cues for explaining why informal strategies emerge as successful practices for getting things done. Using this conception of organization culture, the article proposes hypotheses for future testing to validate the suspected influence of culture on decisions regarding employee discipline.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Randomized controlled trial: The effects of short message service on mothers� oral health knowledge and practice

Objective: Mobile health has provided an effective means to educate, empower, and provide access to health services for individuals and groups. This study aimed to compare the effects of gain-frame and loss-frame SMS on the knowledge and practice of mothers with children under the age of six years regarding pediatric oral health. Research design: This randomized controlled trial was conducted in kindergartens and preschool centers of Shiraz, Iran in 2016. There were 71 mothers in the gain-frame group, 66 in the loss-frame group and 74 in the control group. The data were collected before and three-four weeks after the intervention. Data analysis used descriptive statistics, independent t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation test, ANCOVA, and post-hoc LSD test (Least Significant Difference). Results: There was a significant difference between the control (8.83±2.03) and gain-frame (11.8±2.17, p<0.001) and loss-frame (12.09±1.94, p<0.001) groups for post-test knowledge scores. A difference was also observed between the control group (56.27±11.53) and gain-frame (60.8±7.77, p<0.001) and loss-frame (60.25±8.96, p<0.001) groups for post-test practice scores. No difference was found between the gain-frame and loss-frame groups for the post-test scores (p=0.69). Conclusion: Gain-frame and loss-frame SMS had similar impacts on the mothers� knowledge and practices about their children�s oral health. However, both improved the mothers� knowledge and practice. Therefore, regardless of the style of text message framing, this method may be useful for educating mothers. © BASCD 2020