Type A behaviour as a predictor of burnout and job satisfaction in intensive care units nurses

Background: Working at intensive care unit (ICU) is one of the most difficult and taxing nursing specialties. It demands not only extensive knowledge and professional skills but also specific personality-temperamental dispositions. The aim of the study was to verify if type A behavior (TAB) is a predictor of burnout and job satisfaction in ICU nurses and if this effect still exists after controlling for selected demographic and job characteristics. Material and Methods: The study group consisted of 99 nurses (77 women), aged 24–58 (mean (M) = 32.33; standard deviation (SD) = 8.81) working at ICU. The following tools were used: to measure TAB – Type A Behavior Survey BWZ by Wrzesniewski; job burnout – the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory OLBI by Demerouti et al.; and job satisfaction – the Job Satisfaction Scale by Zalewska. Results: The results of hierarchical regression analyses showed that after controlling for selected demographic and job characteristics, tendency for aggression was a predictor of higher exhaustion, disengagement and lower job satisfaction. Achievement striving and tendency to dominate were related to higher job satisfaction and lower exhaustion, respectively. Significant predictors of professional functioning were also: duty work system, place of living and gender. Conclusions: The results of the study confirmed that all 3 content features of TAB were significant predictors of job functioning of ICU nurses. They also indicate that considering TAB in the context of individual adjustment to the environment of the job at ICU would be a valuable direction for future research. Med. Pr. 2015;66(2):213–22

Broadband Metallic Carbon Nanotube Saturable Absorber for Ultrashort Pulse Generation in the 1500–2100 nm Spectral Range

Herein, we report on the possibility of ultrashort laser pulse generation in the broadband spectral range using a saturable absorber based on free-standing metallic carbon nanotube thin film. Erbium, thulium, and holmium-doped all-fiber lasers were mode-locked with a single saturable absorber containing a 300 nm thick material layer. Subpicosecond pulses were generated at 1559, 1938, and 2082 nm. Our work validates the broadband operation of metallic carbon nanotube-based saturable absorbers and highlights the suitable performance of nanomatematerial for ultrafast photonic applications

Soliton passively mode-locked pulses generation in thulium-holmium doped fiber laser (THDFL) with molybdenum oxide saturable absorber

This work proposed and demonstrated stable passive mode-locking in a thulium-holmium doped fiber laser (THDFL) using molybdenum oxide (MoOx) deposited onto a tapered fiber as a saturable absorber (SA). The SA was fabricated using the optical deposition technique for 2.0 µm region operation. The modulation depth, saturation intensity and non-saturable loss of MoOx SA were measured to be ~24.3%, ~0.01 MW/cm2 and ~75.7%, respectively. The threshold of the mode-locking operation was obtained at a pump power of 184.3 mW with a centre wavelength of 1937.1 nm and a 3-dB bandwidth of 4 nm. It has a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of ~77 dB and produces a stable pulse with a repetition rate of 11.5 MHz and a pulse width of 1.64 p