Staffing and job satisfaction: nurses and nursing assistants

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106848/1/jonm12012.pd

One-pot Enzymatic Synthesis of Deoxy-thymidine-diphosphate (TDP)-2-deoxy-∝-d-glucose Using Phosphomannomutase

Production of deoxy-thymidine-diphosphate (TDP)-sugars as substrates of glycosyltransferases, has been one of main hurdles for combinatorial antibiotic biosynthesis, which combines sugar moiety with aglycon of various antibiotics. Here, we report the one-pot enzymatic synthesis of TDP-2-deoxy-glucose employing high efficient TMP kinase (TMK; E.C. 2.7.2.12), acetate kinase (ACK; E.C. 2.7.1.21), and TDP-glucose synthase (TGS; E.C. 2.7.7.24) with phosphomannomutase (PMM; E.C. 5.4.2.8). In this study, replacing phosphoglucomutase (PGM; E.C. 5.4.2) by PMM from Escherichia coli gave four times higher specific activity on 2-deoxy-6-phosphate glucose, suggesting that the activity on 2-deoxy-glucose-6-phosphate was mainly affected by PMM activity, not PGM activity. Using an in vitro system starting from TMP and 2-deoxy-glucose-6-phosphate glucose, TDP-2-deoxy-glucose (63% yield) was successfully synthesized. Considering low productivity of NDP-sugars from cheap starting materials, this paper showed how production of NDP-sugars could be enhanced by controlling mutase activity

Student Responses to Merit Retention Rules

A common justification for HOPE-style merit-aid programs is to promote and reward academic achievement, thereby inducing greater investments in human capital. However, grade-based eligibility and retention rules encourage other behavioral responses. Using the longitudinal records of all undergraduates who enrolled at the University of Georgia (UGA) between 1989 and 1997, we estimate the effects of HOPE on course enrollment, withdrawal and completion, and the diversion of course taking from the academic year to the summer, treating non-residents as a control group. First, we find that HOPE decreased full-load enrollments and increased course withdrawals among resident freshmen. The combination of these responses results in an 11\% lower probability of full-load completion and an annual average reduction in credits completed of 1.0. The latter implies that between 1993 and 1997 Georgia-resident freshmen completed 15,710 fewer credit hours or 3,142 individual course enrollments than non-residents. Second, the scholarship's influence on course-taking behavior is concentrated on students with GPAs on or below the scholarship-retention margin. Third, the effect increased as the income cap was lifted and more students became eligible for the award. Fourth, these freshmen credit-hour reductions represent an intertemporal substitution, not a general slowdown in academic progress. Finally, residents diverted an average of 1.65 more credits from the regular academic year to the first summer term after their matriculation, which amounts to a 72\% rise in summer course taking.Education, Merit-based aid, Education Finance, HOPE Scholarship

Exploring Spatial Variations in the Relationship between National Park Visitation and Associated Factors in Texas Counties

Recreation demand such as national park visitation is influenced by various social, demographic, and economic factors. These key variables are important indicators in predicting future trends and provide beneficial information about potential park visitors for managers and planners. As parks and protected areas become impacted by socio-economic changes, it is important to understand the relationship between specific factors of recreation participation and national park visitation. From a practitioner perspective, recreation agencies require multi-scale levels of information in order to address visitor and facility needs. While site-based research or using disaggregated models are helpful to satisfy specific purposes for a park, they often do not provide this information in spatially distributed data on a statewide or regional level. Recreation planners and managers need recreation demand forecasts at levels of spatial aggregations. This study tried to identify the spatial relationships between national park visitation and its associated factors using large aggregated data. Guided by the idea of opportunity theory and Pigram’s conceptual framework, this study empirically investigated what and how factors associated with national park visitation influence demand within the Texas boundary. Specifically, this study developed a spatial regression model of national park visitation demand in Texas using Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR). This model estimated the strength of the relationship between visitation and selected demographic, socioeconomic and situational factors. Methodologically, traditional regression models (e.g., OLS) yield only a single estimate in a relationship. In comparison, GWR allows an estimate of the spatial variation of the relationship within the study area. Several private and public data sources were used in the model to create reliably aggregated data. Several explanatory variables, e.g., poverty rate, family structures, recreation-related spending patterns and level of education, were hypothesized to influence the level of national park visitation for spatially varying relationships across the study area. From a methodological perspective, this study found interesting methodological implications (e.g., rethinking the traditional regression model for recreation demand estimation) and the potential associated with the use of spatial statistics to analyze the relationships between recreation participation and societal factors. This research demonstrated the importance of including spatial variables as part of recreation demand analysis. Relatively little work has used spatial models in the field of recreation. The results of this study demonstrate the usefulness of spatial analysis for detecting various relationships within the state over traditional statistical analysis

Relationship of Emotion and Cognition to Wandering Behaviors of People with Dementia.

Wandering is one of the most frequently encountered dementia-related behavioral disturbances and has been associated with negative consequences such as higher morbidity and mortality. In terms of relating factors of wandering, it has become increasingly clear that a close relationship exists between emotion, cognition, and behavior. However, little research has focused on the influence of emotion on wandering of people with dementia (PWD). The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship of emotion and cognition to wandering behaviors of PWD. This study applied a secondary data analysis utilizing a parent study that used a cross-sectional design with repeated measure nested within subjects. A total of 115 PWD in 17 nursing homes and six assisted living facilities in Michigan and Pennsylvania were included. Subjects were randomly assigned to six 20 minute observation periods, conducted on two non-consecutive days; their behaviors were videotaped. Poisson hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was utilized to determine factors associated with wandering. Positive emotional expression increased wandering rates whereas negative emotional expression and higher MMSE score decreased wandering rates after controlling for other predictors (i.e., age, education, gender, and time of day). Therefore, both positive/negative emotional expression and cognition influence wandering; a tailored intervention that addresses both emotional and cognitive functioning may be required to improve wandering behaviors of PWD.Ph.D.NursingUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/89700/1/kheelee_1.pd

Two-dimensional heterogeneous photonic bandedge laser

We proposed and realized a two-dimensional (2D) photonic bandedge laser surrounded by the photonic bandgap. The heterogeneous photonic crystal structure consists of two triangular lattices of the same lattice constant with different air hole radii. The photonic crystal laser was realized by room-temperature optical pumping of air-bridge slabs of InGaAsP quantum wells emitting at 1.55 micrometer. The lasing mode was identified from its spectral positions and polarization directions. A low threshold incident pump power of 0.24mW was achieved. The measured characteristics of the photonic crystal lasers closely agree with the results of real space and Fourier space calculations based on the finite-difference time-domain method.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure