Corporate Culture and Its Connection with External and Internal Public Relations

The main aim of this article is to present the influence of corporate culture on company's stakeholders. This paper signalises the tendency in corporate communication with its internal and external publics. It is focused on two issues: corporate social responsibility and employer branding. Those two categories are consequences of corporate culture model.Głównym celem artykułu jest zaprezentowanie wpływu jaki wywiera charakter kultury korporacyjnej na związanych z przedsiębiorstwem interesariuszy (stakeholders). W artykule zasygnalizowane zostały główne tendencje wyznaczające charakter komunikacji między organizacją a jej wewnętrznym i zewnętrznym otoczeniem. Tekst koncentruje się na dwóch kwestiach: społecznej odpowiedzialności przedsiębiorstwa (corporate social responsibilty) i budowanie wizerunku pracodawcy (employer branding), które zaprezentowane zostały jako efekty określonego modelu kultury organizacyjnej

Instantons and Chiral Symmetry on the Lattice

I address the question of how much of QCD in the chiral limit is reproduced by instantons. After reconstructing the instanton content of smoothed Monte Carlo lattice configurations, I compare hadron spectroscopy on this instanton ensemble to the spectroscopy on the original ``physical'' smoothed configurations using a chirally optimised clover fermion action. By studying the zero mode zone in simple instances I find that the optimised action gives a satisfactory description of it. Through the Banks-Casher formula, instantons by themselves are shown to break chiral symmetry but hadron correlators on the instanton backgrounds are strongly influenced by free quark propagation. This results in unnaturally light hadrons and a small splitting between the vector and the pseudoscalar meson channels. Superimposing a perturbative ensemble of zero momentum gauge field fluctuations (torons) on the instantons is found to be enough to eliminate the free quarks and restore the physical hadron correlators. I argue that the torons that are present only in finite volumes, are probably needed to compensate the unnaturally large finite size effects due to the lack of confinement in the instanton ensemble.Comment: 32 pages, LaTeX with 14 eps figure

The autonomy of the contracting partner. An argument for heuristic contractarian business ethics

Due to the domain characteristics of business ethics, a contractarian theory for business ethics will need to be essentially different from the contract model as it is applied to other domains. Much of the current criticism of contractarian business ethics (CBE) can be traced back to autonomy, one of its three boundary conditions. After explaining why autonomy is so important, this article considers the notion carefully vis à vis the contracting partners in the contractarian approaches in business ethics. Autonomy is too demanding a condition for the realm of CBE. But a less stringent version of the contract may be possible, a version which uses the contract as a heuristic device, which merely requires moral responsibility. Furthermore, it is argued that views of (human) agency and the moral subject should be made explicit in such a theory. © Springer 2006

Simulation research to enhance patient safety and outcomes: recommendations of the Simnovate Patient Safety Domain Group

The use of simulation-based training has established itself in healthcare but its implementation has been varied and mostly limited to technical and non-technical skills training. This article discusses the possibilities of the use of simulation as part of an overarching approach to improving patient safety, and represents the views of the Simnovate Patient Safety Domain Group, an international multidisciplinary expert group dedicated to the improvement of patient safety. The application and integration of simulation into the various facets of a learning healthcare system is discussed, with reference to relevant literature and the different modalities of simulation which may be employed. The selection and standardisation of outcomes is highlighted as a key goal if the evidence base for simulation-based patient safety interventions is to be strengthened. This may be achieved through the establishment of standardised reporting criteria. If such safety interventions can be proven to be effective, financial incentives are likely to be necessary to promote their uptake, with the intention that up-front cost to payers or insurers be recouped in the longer term but reductions in complications and lengths of stay.This research was funded through an unrestricted donation from the Blema and Arnold Steinberg Foundation. NS's research was supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care South London at King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. NS is a member of King's Improvement Science, which is part of the NIHR CLAHRC South London and comprises a specialist team of improvement scientists and senior researchers based at King's College London. Its work is funded by King's Health Partners (Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, King's College London and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust), Guy's and St Thomas' Charity, the Maudsley Charity and the Health Foundation. RT's research is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI)

An outbreak of cardiovascular syndromes requiring urgent medical treatment and its association with environmental factors: an ecological study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In April 2005, syndromic surveillance based on statistical control chart methods in Sydney, Australia, signalled increasing incidence of urgent emergency department visits for cardiovascular and chest pain syndromes compared to the preceding twelve months. This paper aimed to determine whether environmental factors could have been responsible for this 'outbreak'.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The outcome studied was daily counts of emergency department visits for cardiovascular or chest pain syndromes that were considered immediately or imminently life threatening on arrival at hospital. The outbreak had a mean daily count of 5.7 visits sustained for eight weeks, compared with 4.0 in the same months in previous years. Poisson regression was used to systematically assess the emergency department visits in relation to available daily weather and pollution variables by first finding the best model that explained short-term variation in the outcome over the period 25 January 2002 to 31 May 2005, and then assessing interactions of all available variables with the 'outbreak' period, April-May 2005. Rate ratios were estimated for an interquartile increase in each variable meaning that the ratio measures the relative increase (or decrease) in the emergency department visits for an interquartile increase in the weather or pollution variable. The rate ratios for the outbreak period measure the relative increase (or decrease) in the emergency department visits for an interquartile increase in the weather or pollution variable during the outbreak period only.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The best fitting model over the whole study period included minimum temperature with a rate ratio (RR) of 0.86 (95% confidence interval (CI), 0.77–0.96), maximum relative humidity of 1.09 (95% CI 1.05–1.14) and minimum daily particulate matter less than 10 microns (PM₁₀) of 1.05 (95% CI, 1.01–1.09). During the outbreak period, maximum temperature (RR 1.27, 95% CI 1.03–1.57), solar radiation (RR 1.44, 95% CI, 1.00–2.07) and ozone (RR 1.13, 95% CI 1.01–1.26) were associated with the outcome.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The increase may have been associated with photochemical pollution. Syndromic surveillance can identify outbreaks of non-communicable diseases associated with environmental factors.</p

A Major Role for Side-Chain Polyglutamine Hydrogen Bonding in Irreversible Ataxin-3 Aggregation

The protein ataxin-3 consists of an N-terminal globular Josephin domain (JD) and an unstructured C-terminal region containing a stretch of consecutive glutamines that triggers the neurodegenerative disorder spinocerebellar ataxia type 3, when it is expanded beyond a critical threshold. The disease results from misfolding and aggregation, although the pathway and structure of the aggregation intermediates are not fully understood. In order to provide insight into the mechanism of the process, we monitored the aggregation of a normal (AT3Q24) ataxin-3, an expanded (AT3Q55) ataxin-3, and the JD in isolation. We observed that all of them aggregated, although the latter did so at a much slower rate. Furthermore, the expanded AT3Q55 displayed a substantially different behavior with respect to the two other variants in that at the latest stages of the process it was the only one that did the following: i) lost its reactivity towards an anti-oligomer antibody, ii) generated SDS-insoluble aggregates, iii) gave rise to bundles of elongated fibrils, and iv) displayed two additional bands at 1604 and 1656 cm−1 in FTIR spectroscopy. Although these were previously observed in other aggregated polyglutamine proteins, no one has assigned them unambiguously, yet. By H/D exchange experiments we show for the first time that they can be ascribed to glutamine side-chain hydrogen bonding, which is therefore the hallmark of irreversibly SDS-insoluble aggregated protein. FTIR spectra also showed that main-chain intermolecular hydrogen bonding preceded that of glutamine side-chains, which suggests that the former favors the latter by reorganizing backbone geometry

Interventions aimed at increasing research use in nursing: a systematic review

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>There has been considerable interest recently in developing and evaluating interventions to increase research use by clinicians. However, most work has focused on medical practices; and nursing is not well represented in existing systematic reviews. The purpose of this article is to report findings from a systematic review of interventions aimed at increasing research use in nursing.</p> <p>Objective</p> <p>To assess the evidence on interventions aimed at increasing research use in nursing.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A systematic review of research use in nursing was conducted using databases (Medline, CINAHL, Healthstar, ERIC, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and Psychinfo), grey literature, ancestry searching (Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews), key informants, and manual searching of journals. Randomized controlled trials and controlled before- and after-studies were included if they included nurses, if the intervention was explicitly aimed at increasing research use or evidence-based practice, and if there was an explicit outcome to research use. Methodological quality was assessed using pre-existing tools. Data on interventions and outcomes were extracted and categorized using a pre-established taxonomy.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Over 8,000 titles were screened. Three randomized controlled trials and one controlled before- and after-study met the inclusion criteria. The methodological quality of included studies was generally low. Three investigators evaluated single interventions. The most common intervention was education. Investigators measured research use using a combination of surveys (three studies) and compliance with guidelines (one study). Researcher-led educational meetings were ineffective in two studies. Educational meetings led by a local opinion leader (one study) and the formation of multidisciplinary committees (one study) were both effective at increasing research use.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Little is known about how to increase research use in nursing, and the evidence to support or refute specific interventions is inconclusive. To advance the field, we recommend that investigators: (1) use theoretically informed interventions to increase research use, (2) measure research use longitudinally using theoretically informed and psychometrically sound measures of research use, as well as, measuring patient outcomes relevant to the intervention, and (3) use more robust and methodologically sound study designs to evaluate interventions. If investigators aim to establish a link between using research and improved patient outcomes they must first identify those interventions that are effective at increasing research use.</p