Enhancing cultural competence: Trans-Atlantic experiences of European and Canadian nursing students

This paper describes the enhancement of cultural competence through trans-Atlantic rural community experiences of European and Canadian nursing students using critical incident technique (CIT) as the students' reflective writing method. The data generated from 48 students' recordings about 134 critical incidents over a 2-year project were analysed by qualitative content analysis. Five main learning categories were identified as: cross-cultural ethical issues; cultural and social differences; health-care inequalities; population health concerns; and personal and professional awareness. Four emergent cultural perspectives for the health sector that became apparent from the reflections were: health promotion realm; sensitivity to social and cultural aspects of people's lives; channels between the health sector and society; cultural language and stories of local people. CIT was successfully used to foster European and Canadian undergraduate students' cultural reflections resulting in considerations and suggestions for future endeavours to enhance cultural competence in nursing education

Differential Impact of Directors’ Social and Financial Capital on Corporate Interlock Formation

Edited by Dean Lusher, Johan Koskinen and Garry Robins</p

Narrating Reunions with Birth Families in Interviews of Adult International Adoptees

Narrating Reunions with Birth Families in Interviews of Adult International AdopteesMaarit Koskinen (University of Jyvaskyla, Finland

Fractional Periodicity of Persistent Currents: A Signature of Broken Internal Symmetry

We show from the symmetries of the many body Hamiltonian, cast into the form of the Heisenberg (spin) Hamiltonian, that the fractional periodicities of persistent currents are due to the breakdown of internal symmetry and the spin Hamiltonian holds the explanation to this transition. Numerical diagonalizations are performed to show this explicitely. Persistent currents therefore, provide an easy way to experimentally verify broken internal symmetry in electronic systems.Comment: minor correction

Low-lying excitations of a trapped rotating Bose-Einstein condensate

We investigate the low-lying excitations of a weakly-interacting, harmonically-trapped Bose-Einstein condensed gas under rotation, in the limit where the angular mometum $L$ of the system is much less than the number of the atoms $N$ in the trap. We show that in the asymptotic limit $N \to \infty$ the excitation energy, measured from the energy of the lowest state, is given by $27 N_{3}(N_{3}-1) v_0 /68$, where $N_{3}$ is the number of octupole excitations and $v_{0}$ is the unit of the interaction energy.Comment: 3 pages, RevTex, 2 ps figures, submitted to PR

Plastic anisotropy of soft reconstituted clays

The aim of the paper is to extend the experimental validation of the S-CLAY1 model, which is a recently proposed elastoplastic constitutive model that accounts for initial and plastic strain-induced anisotropy. Drained stress path controlled tests were performed on reconstituted samples of four Finnish clays to study the effects of anisotropy in the absence of the complexities of structure present in natural undisturbed clays. Each test involved several loading, unloading, and reloading stages with different values of stress ratio and, hence, induced noticeable changes in the fabric anisotropy. Comparisons between test results and model predictions with the S-CLAY1 model and the modified Cam clay model demonstrate that despite its simplicity, the S-CLAY1 model can provide excellent predictions of the behaviour of unstructured soil

On the structure and spectrum of classical two-dimensional clusters with a logarithmic interaction potential

We present a numerical study of the effect of the repulsive logarithmic inter-particle interaction on the ground state configuration and the frequency spectrum of a confined classical two-dimensional cluster containing a finite number of particles. In the case of a hard wall confinement all particles form one ring situated at the boundary of the potential. For a general r^n confinement potential, also inner rings can form and we find that all frequencies lie below the frequency of a particular mode, namely the breathing-like mode. An interesting situation arises for the parabolic confined system(i.e. n=2). In this case the frequency of the breathing mode is independent of the number of particles leading to an upper bound for all frequencies. All results can be understood from Earnshaw's theorem in two dimensions. In order to check the sensitivity of these results, the spectrum of vortices in a type II superconductor which, in the limit of large penetration depths, interact through a logarithmic potential, is investigated.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure

Effects of Diet-Induced Obesity on Extracellular Matrix Remodeling During Skeletal Muscle Regeneration

THE EFFECT OF DIET-INDUCED OBESITY ON EXTRACELLULAR MATRIX REMODELING DURING SKELETAL MUSCLE REGENERATION Michelle A. Tedrowe, Lemuel A. Brown, Richard A. Perry Jr., Megan E. Rosa, Jacob L. Brown, David E. Lee, Nicholas P. Greene, Tyrone A. Washington. University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas Skeletal muscle has the ability to regenerate from damage; however, recent studies have reported a negative effect of obesity on skeletal muscle regenerative capacity. The extracellular matrix (ECM) contributes to skeletal muscle structure acting as a scaffold for skeletal muscle. Additionally, skeletal muscle serves as a reservoir for proteins and growth factors that promote regeneration. Optimal skeletal muscle regeneration includes inflammation, ECM remodeling, and myofiber growth. Disruption to any of these processes can negatively affect skeletal muscle regeneration. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine how diet-induced obesity (DIO) affects ECM remodeling during skeletal muscle regeneration. METHODS: Fifty-six male C57BL/6J mice were randomly assigned to two groups; lean diet (10% fat) and high fat diet (HFD) (60% fat). Within those two groups, mice were randomly assigned to either a PBS (uninjured) group or a bupivacaine (injured) group. Bupivacaine is a myotoxin which induces injury to skeletal muscle. Both groups received injections into the tibialis anterior (TA). Three or 28 days post-bupivacaine injection, the TAs were extracted and PCR reaction was done to quantify ECM-related gene expression (i.e. Collagen-I, Collagen-III, Fibronectin, TGF-β, MMP-2, MMP-9, and TIMP-I). RESULTS: There was no difference in Collagen III:I gene expression 3 days post-injection in the lean group (p\u3e0.05). However, there was a 3 fold increase (p0.05). Three and 28 days post injection there was a main effect of injury to increase MMP-2 gene expression (pCONCLUSION: Obesity altered ECM composition during skeletal muscle regeneration. This could negatively impact the ability of obese muscle to recovery form injury. These findings suggest that an altered composition could lead to a change in exercise prescription for this specific population. This work was supported by a grant from the American Biosciences Institute and a Student Undergraduate Research Fellowship Grant

Geoeffectiveness and efficiency of CIR, Sheath and ICME in generation of magnetic storms

We investigate relative role of various types of solar wind streams in generation of magnetic storms. On the basis of the OMNI data of interplanetary measurements for the period of 1976-2000 we analyze 798 geomagnetic storms with Dst < -50 nT and their interplanetary sources: corotating interaction regions (CIR), interplanetary CME (ICME) including magnetic clouds (MC) and Ejecta and compression regions Sheath before both types of ICME. For various types of solar wind we study following relative characteristics: occurrence rate; mass, momentum, energy and magnetic fluxes; probability of generation of magnetic storm (geoeffectiveness) and efficiency of process of this generation. Obtained results show that despite magnetic clouds have lower occurrence rate and lower efficiency than CIR and Sheath they play an essential role in generation of magnetic storms due to higher geoeffectiveness of storm generation (i.e higher probability to contain large and long-term southward IMF Bz component).Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, submitted to JGR special issue "Response of Geospace to High-Speed Streams