Turnover intention of nurses in public hospitals and its association with quality of working life: a cross-sectional survey in six provinces in China

ObjectivesHigh turnover intention can exacerbate the workforce shortage of nurses. This study aimed to determine the level of turnover intention of public hospital nurses in China and its associated factors.MethodsA cross-sectional questionnaire survey of 2,863 nurses was conducted in 48 public hospitals across six provinces in mainland China, measuring the sociodemographic (gender, age, marital status, and monthly basic salary) and work characteristics (professional title, workload, night sleep deprivation, and workplace violence) of respondents, their quality of working life (QWL), and turnover intention. Multivariate logistic regression models were established to determine the association between QWL and turnover intention after adjustment for variations of the sociodemographic and work characteristics.ResultsOverall, 42.8% of respondents reported turnover intention. Higher QWL scores (AOR = 0.824 for job and career satisfaction, p < 0.001; AOR = 0.894 for professional pride, p < 0.001; AOR = 0.911 for balance between work and family, p < 0.05) were associated with lower turnover intention. Workplace violence was the strongest predictor of higher turnover intention (AOR = 3.003–4.767) amongst the sociodemographic and work characteristics, followed by an age between 30 and 40 years (AOR = 1.457 relative to <30 years), and night sleep deprivation (AOR = 1.391–1.808). Senior professional title had a protective effect (AOR = 0.417 relative to no title) on turnover intention.ConclusionHigh levels of turnover intention are evident across China in nurses employed by public hospitals, in particular in those aged between 30 and 40 years. Low QWL and poor work environment are significant predictors of turnover intention

3D printing of bone and cartilage with polymer materials

Damage and degeneration to bone and articular cartilage are the leading causes of musculoskeletal disability. Commonly used clinical and surgical methods include autologous/allogeneic bone and cartilage transplantation, vascularized bone transplantation, autologous chondrocyte implantation, mosaicplasty, and joint replacement. 3D bio printing technology to construct implants by layer-by-layer printing of biological materials, living cells, and other biologically active substances in vitro, which is expected to replace the repair mentioned above methods. Researchers use cells and biomedical materials as discrete materials. 3D bio printing has largely solved the problem of insufficient organ donors with the ability to prepare different organs and tissue structures. This paper mainly discusses the application of polymer materials, bio printing cell selection, and its application in bone and cartilage repair

Identification and Risk Characteristics of Agricultural Drought Disaster Events Based on the Copula Function in Northeast China

Accurate feature identification of drought disaster events is required for proper risk management in agriculture. This study improved the crop water deficit index (CWDI) by including the daily meteorological, crop development stage, soil moisture content, and yield data for 1981–2020 in northeastern China. Two drought characteristic variables (drought duration and intensity) were extracted using the theory of runs to produce the improved crop water deficit index (CWDIwp). Thresholds for the bivariate indicators were also determined for agricultural drought events of varying severity. A joint distribution model for drought variables was constructed based on five types of Archimedean copulas. The joint probability and the joint recurrence period for agricultural drought events were analyzed for drought events with varying intensities in northeast China. The results suggest that the CWDIwp can reliably identify the onset, duration, and intensity of drought events over the study area and can be used to monitor agricultural drought events. The conditional probability of drought intensity (duration) decreased as the drought duration (intensity) threshold increased, whereas the drought recurrence period increased as the threshold for drought duration and intensity rose. In the period (1981–2020), drought intensity in the three Northeastern provinces showed an increasing trend in the order Jilin Province > Liaoning Province > Heilongjiang Province. The spatial distribution of the joint probability and the joint recurrence period was obvious, and the joint probability showed a decreasing distribution trend from west to east. The distribution trend for the joint probability was opposite to that of the joint recurrence period. Furthermore, the areas with high drought probability values corresponded to the areas with low values for the recurrence period, indicating that the drought occurrence probability was higher, and the recurrence period value was lower in the drought-prone areas. The high-risk drought areas (60–87%) were in western Liaoning and western Jilin, with a recurrence period of 1–3 years, whereas the low-risk areas ( moderate drought > severe drought > extreme drought. The order for the recurrence period was light drought < moderate drought < severe drought < extreme drought. The results provide technical support for disaster prevention and mitigation in drought risk management

Molecular dynamics study on the mechanical properties of nanocrystalline Ni-W alloys with bimodal structure

In order to study the effects of coarse grain size and Ni content on the mechanical properties, the molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of nanocrystalline (NC) Ni-W alloys with bimodal structure is carried out. The bimodal NC Ni-W alloys samples are established by embedding coarse grain into the fine grain matrix. The solute Ni atoms in the alloys are segregated in the grain boundary affected zone (GBAZ) through severe plastic deformation (SPD). The uniaxial tensile simulation of the samples shows that the coarse grain size and Ni content have obvious effects on the mechanical properties of bimodal NC Ni-W alloys. The dislocation activities and deformation mechanism of the NC Ni-W alloys are discussed in detail by observing the atomic configurations and strain evolutions diagrams obtained by MD simulation. At the same time, the phenomenon of Hall-Petch relationship and inverse Hall-Petch relationship is also observed in the research process

Identification and Risk Characteristics of Agricultural Drought Disaster Events Based on the Copula Function in Northeast China

Accurate feature identification of drought disaster events is required for proper risk management in agriculture. This study improved the crop water deficit index (CWDI) by including the daily meteorological, crop development stage, soil moisture content, and yield data for 1981&ndash;2020 in northeastern China. Two drought characteristic variables (drought duration and intensity) were extracted using the theory of runs to produce the improved crop water deficit index (CWDIwp). Thresholds for the bivariate indicators were also determined for agricultural drought events of varying severity. A joint distribution model for drought variables was constructed based on five types of Archimedean copulas. The joint probability and the joint recurrence period for agricultural drought events were analyzed for drought events with varying intensities in northeast China. The results suggest that the CWDIwp can reliably identify the onset, duration, and intensity of drought events over the study area and can be used to monitor agricultural drought events. The conditional probability of drought intensity (duration) decreased as the drought duration (intensity) threshold increased, whereas the drought recurrence period increased as the threshold for drought duration and intensity rose. In the period (1981&ndash;2020), drought intensity in the three Northeastern provinces showed an increasing trend in the order Jilin Province &gt; Liaoning Province &gt; Heilongjiang Province. The spatial distribution of the joint probability and the joint recurrence period was obvious, and the joint probability showed a decreasing distribution trend from west to east. The distribution trend for the joint probability was opposite to that of the joint recurrence period. Furthermore, the areas with high drought probability values corresponded to the areas with low values for the recurrence period, indicating that the drought occurrence probability was higher, and the recurrence period value was lower in the drought-prone areas. The high-risk drought areas (60&ndash;87%) were in western Liaoning and western Jilin, with a recurrence period of 1&ndash;3 years, whereas the low-risk areas (&lt;40%) were located in the mountainous areas of eastern Liaoning and eastern Jilin. The joint probability and joint recurrence period for agricultural drought events of varying severity were quite different, with the probability following the order light drought &gt; moderate drought &gt; severe drought &gt; extreme drought. The order for the recurrence period was light drought &lt; moderate drought &lt; severe drought &lt; extreme drought. The results provide technical support for disaster prevention and mitigation in drought risk management

Multi-Aperture Shower Design for the Improvement of the Transverse Uniformity of MOCVD-Derived GdYBCO Films

A multi-aperture shower design is reported to improve the transverse uniformity of GdYBCO superconducting films on the template of sputtered-LaMnO3/epitaxial-MgO/IBAD-MgO/solution deposition planarization (SDP)-Y2O3-buffered Hastelloy tapes. The GdYBCO films were prepared by the metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) process. The transverse uniformities of structure, morphology, thickness, and performance were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), step profiler, and the standard four-probe method using the criteria of 1 μV/cm, respectively. Through adopting the multi-aperture shower instead of the slit shower, measurement by step profiler revealed that the thickness difference between the middle and the edges based on the slit shower design was well eliminated. Characterization by SEM showed that a GdYBCO film with a smooth surface was successfully prepared. Moreover, the transport critical current density (Jc) of its middle and edge positions at 77 K and self-field were found to be over 5 MA/cm2 through adopting the micro-bridge four-probe method

Modeling and experimental analysis of U-shaped segmented unidirectional heat pipe array cogeneration unit

The Solar collectors and cogeneration units have gained increasing attention in research recently, while being developed and deployed rapidly. However, due to the instability of the solar energy, the heat flux input of solar collectors is unstable potentially causing an adverse effect on the cogeneration unit. This paper presents the mathematical models for two cogeneration units: (a) the thermal series U-shaped segmented unidirectional heat pipe array cogeneration unit with thermoelectric generator (TEG-TSUSUHP) and (b) the thermal parallel U-shaped segmented unidirectional heat pipe array cogeneration unit with thermoelectric generator (TEG-TPUSUHP). The proposed models have been validated by a series of experiments. Further, the cogeneration unit is then optimized using the proposed models. The results show that the heat loss rate of the TEG-TSUSUHP cogeneration unit is lower than that of the TEG-TPUSUHP cogeneration unit, and the lowest heat loss rate is 15.56%. Moreover, the cogeneration unit designed in this work has good thermal insulation performance with a high thermal storage efficiency of up to 80.53%. Therefore, the U-shape segmented unidirectional heat pipe array cogeneration units with thermoelectric generator (TEG-USUHP) proposed in this paper can promote the development of solar cogeneration units significantly