188 research outputs found
How to identify and recruit nurses to a survey 14 and 24 years after graduation in a context of scarce data: lessons learnt from the 2012 nurses at work pilot study on nurses' career paths.
BACKGROUND: Nursing workforce data are scarce in Switzerland, with no active national registry of nurses. The worldwide nursing shortage is also affecting Switzerland, so that evidence-based results of the nurses at work project on career paths and retention are needed as part of the health care system stewardship; nurses at work is a retrospective cohort study of nurses who graduated in Swiss nursing schools in the last 30 years. Results of the pilot study are presented here (process and feasibility). The objectives are (1) to determine the size and structure of the potential target population by approaching two test-cohorts of nursing graduates (1988 and 1998); (2) to test methods of identifying and reaching them 14 and 24 years after graduation; (3) to compute participation rates, and identify recruitment and participation biases.
METHODS: Graduates' names were retrieved from 26 Swiss nursing schools: 488 nurses from the 1988 cohort and 597 from 1998 were invited to complete a web-based questionnaire. Initial updated addresses (nâ=â278, seed sample) were found using the Swiss Nursing Association member file. In addition, a snowball method was applied for recruitment, where directly-contacted respondents provided additional names of graduate mates or sent them the invitation. The study was further advertized through the main employers, study partners, and a press release.
RESULTS: Participation rate was 26.5% (nâ=â287), higher for the older cohort of 1988 (29.7%, nâ=â145) than for 1998 (15.6%, nâ=â93). Additional nurses (nâ=â363) not belonging to the test cohorts also answered. All schools were represented among respondents. Only 18 respondents (6%) worked outside nursing or not at all. Among respondents, 94% would 'probably' or 'maybe' agree to participate in the main study.
CONCLUSION: The pilot study demonstrated that targeted nurses could be identified and approached. There is an overwhelming interest in the project from them and from policymakers. Recommendations to increase nurses' participation rate for nurses at work include: (1) to open nurses at work recruitment to all nurses in Switzerland, while recreating cohorts post-hoc for relevant analysis; (2) to define a comprehensive communication strategy with special attention to graduate nurses who are harder to reach
The State-of-the-Art of Collaborative Technologies for Initial Vocational Education: A Systematic Literature Review
Future workplaces require collaboration skills in which members of different work communities use technologies to solve complex problems. Vocational education and training (VET) programs need to meet the challenge to prepare students to be part of a competent workforce. Particularly initial vocational education is under pressure to develop learnersâ collaboration skills and abilities. To date, however, no attempt has been made to perform a comprehensive review of the use of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) technologies across different vocational education settings to account for contextual factors of VET. In this systematic review, 26 published studies were analyzed with respect to their demographics, research methodology, use of technology, and measured outcomes. This review illuminates that research on CSCL still leaves the vocational learning context as an under-represented field of study. At the same time, technologies offer a range of new types of learning possibilities for vocational education. As the direct result of that development, vocational education is increasingly taking place in new technology-enhanced learning settings. Education can benefit from the opportunities of CSCL technologies, but on the other hand, such technologies create new challenges for facilitating vocational learning. Therefore, this review also identifies three topic areas specific to vocational learning (collaborative writing-to-learn, simulations and game-like solutions, and tangible objects) and enumerates desirable lines for future research
Methodological considerations when translating "burnout"
No study has systematically examined how researchers address cross-cultural adaptation of burnout. We conducted an integrative review to examine how researchers had adapted the instruments to the different contexts. We reviewed the Content Validity Indexing scores for the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey from the 12-country comparative nursing workforce study, RN4CAST. In the integrative review, multiple issues related to translation were found in existing studies. In the cross-cultural instrument analysis, 7 out of 22 items on the instrument received an extremely low kappa score. Investigators may need to employ more rigorous cross-cultural adaptation methods when attempting to measure burnout
Expression of GPR17 receptor in a murine model of perinatal brain neuroinflammation and its possible interaction with Wnt pathway
Oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) are generated in specific germinal regions and progressively maturate to myelinating cells. Oligodendrocytes (OLs) differentiation is regulated by a complex interplay of intrinsic, epigenetic and extrinsic factors, including Wnt and the G protein-coupled receptor referred to as GPR17 (Mitew et al., 2014). This receptor responds to both extracellular nucleotides (UDP, UDP-glucose) and cysteinyl-leukotrienes (Ciana et al., 2006), endogenous signaling molecules involved in inflammatory response and in the repair of brain lesions. GPR17 is highly expressed in OPCs during the transition to immature OLs, but it is down-regulated in mature cells. Accordingly, GPR17-expressing OPCs are already present in mice at birth, increase over time, reach a peak at P10, before the peak of myelination, and then decline in the adult brain (Boda et al., 2011). Of note, in cultured OPCs, early GPR17 silencing has been shown to profoundly affect their ability to generate mature OLs (Fumagalli et al., 2011, 2015). Myelination defects characterize many brain disorders, including perinatal brain injury caused by systemic inflammation (Favrais et al., 2011), which is a leading cause of preterm birth. It has already been suggested that an imbalance in the Wnt/\u3b2-catenin/TCF4 pathway could be involved in the maturation arrest of OLs that is observed in premature infants (Yuen et al., 2014). No data are currently available on GPR17 in perinatal brain injury and on its possible interaction with Wnt pathway. Based on these premises, the aim of this work was to assess if the maturational blockade of OLs due to mild systemic perinatal inflammation, induced by intraperitoneal injections of interleukin-1\u3b2 (IL- 1\u3b2), is accompanied by defects in GPR17 expression and whether the Wnt pathway is involved in the regulation of GPR17. Data showed that in newborn mice exposed to IL-1\u3b2, which induces a blockade of oligodendrocyte maturation, GPR17 expression is not affected at early time point (P5), but it is downregulated at P10, when its expression should be maximal. Moreover, in vitro studies revealed that the maturation blockade of the oligodendroglial cell line Oli-Neu, after treatment with a Wnt Agonist II, is accompanied by a severe inhibition of GPR17 expression. In conclusion, our data have shown that myelination defects observed in perinatal brain injury are associated with defects in GPR17 expression; further studies are needed to characterize the molecular link between Wnt pathway and GPR17 receptor
On the Theory of Vibronic Laser
Some aspects of lasing at vibronic transitions in impurity crystals are
theoretically studied. The threshold conditions for a vibronic laser are shown
to be dependent on the strength of interaction of optical centers with a local
vibration, which forms the vibronic spectrum, and the crystal lattice
temperature. The theory can be easily generalized to the spectrum containing a
structureless phonon sideband and well agrees with the experimental temperature
dependence of the output power of a Mg2SiO4:Cr4+ forsterite laser.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figur
Interaction of the NRF2 and p63 transcription factors promotes keratinocyte proliferation in the epidermis
Epigenetic regulation of cell and tissue function requires the coordinated action of transcription factors. However, their combinatorial activities during regeneration remain largely unexplored. Here, we discover an unexpected interaction between the cytoprotective transcription factor NRF2 and p63-a key player in epithelial morphogenesis. Chromatin immunoprecipitation combined with sequencing and reporter assays identifies enhancers and promoters that are simultaneously activated by NRF2 and p63 in human keratinocytes. Modeling of p63 and NRF2 binding to nucleosomal DNA suggests their chromatin-assisted interaction. Pharmacological and genetic activation of NRF2 increases NRF2-p63 binding to enhancers and promotes keratinocyte proliferation, which involves the common NRF2-p63 target cyclin-dependent kinase 12. These results unravel a collaborative function of NRF2 and p63 in the control of epidermal renewal and suggest their combined activation as a strategy to promote repair of human skin and other stratified epithelia
Commissioning of the MEG II tracker system
The MEG experiment at the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) represents the state
of the art in the search for the charged Lepton Flavour Violating (cLFV) decay. With the phase 1, MEG set the new world best
upper limit on the \mbox{BR}(\mu^+ \rightarrow e^+ \gamma) < 4.2 \times
10^{-13} (90% C.L.). With the phase 2, MEG II, the experiment aims at reaching
a sensitivity enhancement of about one order of magnitude compared to the
previous MEG result. The new Cylindrical Drift CHamber (CDCH) is a key detector
for MEG II. CDCH is a low-mass single volume detector with high granularity: 9
layers of 192 drift cells, few mm wide, defined by wires in a
stereo configuration for longitudinal hit localization. The filling gas mixture
is Helium:Isobutane (90:10). The total radiation length is
\mbox{X}_0, thus minimizing the Multiple Coulomb Scattering (MCS)
contribution and allowing for a single-hit resolution m and an
angular and momentum resolutions of 6 mrad and 90 keV/c respectively. This
article presents the CDCH commissioning activities at PSI after the wiring
phase at INFN Lecce and the assembly phase at INFN Pisa. The endcaps
preparation, HV tests and conditioning of the chamber are described, aiming at
reaching the final stable working point. The integration into the MEG II
experimental apparatus is described, in view of the first data taking with
cosmic rays and beam during the 2018 and 2019 engineering runs. The
first gas gain results are also shown. A full engineering run with all the
upgraded detectors and the complete DAQ electronics is expected to start in
2020, followed by three years of physics data taking.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figures, 1 table, proceeding at INSTR'20 conference,
accepted for publication in JINS
On the Theory of Vibronic Superradiance
The Dicke superradiance on vibronic transitions of impurity crystals is
considered. It is shown that parameters of the superradiance (duration and
intensity of the superradiance pulse and delay times) on each vibronic
transition depend on the strength of coupling of electronic states with the
intramolecular impurity vibration (responsible for the vibronic structure of
the optical spectrum in the form of vibrational replicas of the pure electronic
line) and on the crystal temperature through the Debye-Waller factor of the
lattice vibrations. Theoretical estimates of the ratios of the time delays, as
well as of the superradiance pulse intensities for different vibronic
transitions well agree with the results of experimental observations of
two-color superradiance in the polar dielectric KCl:O2-. In addition, the
theory describes qualitatively correctly the critical temperature dependence of
the superradiance effect.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur
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