The Influence of Staff Nurse Ethnicity on Perceptions of the Work Environment

This study investigated the relationship among Registered Nurses (RNs) from different ethnic groups and their perceptions of the work environment in a community hospital in California. Moos\u27 Work Environment Scale (WES) was used to examine three Dimensions of the work climate. Statistically significant differences were found in the way Caucasian and non-Caucasian RNs perceived Peer Cohesion and Work Pressure. These findings have implications for nurse leaders interested in transforming the work environment as perceptions of Peer Cohesion and Work Pressure are important factors influencing RN retention and quality of patient care

New Constraints on variations of the fine structure constant from CMB anisotropies

We demonstrate that recent measurements of Cosmic Microwave Background temperature and polarization anisotropy made by the ACBAR, QUAD and BICEP experiments substantially improve the cosmological constraints on possible variations of the fine structure constant in the early universe. This data, combined with the five year observations from the WMAP mission yield the constraint alpha/alpha_0 = 0.987 \pm 0.012 at 68% c.l.. The inclusion of the new HST constraints on the Hubble constant further increases the accuracy to alpha/alpha_0 = 1.001 \pm 0.007 at 68% c.l., bringing possible deviations from the current value below the 1% level and improving previous constraints by a factor 3.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figure

How are firms’ wages and prices linked : survey evidence in Europe

This paper presents new evidence on the patterns of price and wage adjustment in European firms and on the extent of nominal rigidities. It uses a unique dataset collected through a firm-level survey conducted in a broad range of countries and covering various sectors. Several conclusions are drawn from this evidence. Firms adjust wages less frequently than prices: the former tend to remain unchanged for about 15 months on average, the latter for around 10 months. The degree of price rigidity varies substantially across sectors and depends strongly on economic features, such as the intensity of competition, the exposure to foreign markets and the share of labour costs in total cost. Instead, country specificities, mostly related to the labour market institutional setting, are more relevant in characterising the pattern of wage adjustment. The latter exhibits also a substantial degree of time-dependence, as firms tend to concentrate wage changes in a specific month, mostly January in the majority of countries. Wage and price changes feed into each other at the micro level and there is a relationship between wage and price rigiditysurvey, wage rigidity, price rigidity, indexation, institutions, time dependent

Evaluating delinquency policy interventions in Portugal

Social program and policies, interventions, and services, should be required to undergo rigorous systematic evaluation to address the policy question of how society should invest in the treatment of juvenile offenders in the institutional care system. Public policy decisions regarding programs for youths should be grounded on research-based knowledge and experience of academia and practitioners, program participants. Despite developments in intervention science, the existing empirical literature is seriously underdeveloped with respect to the issue of delinquency interventions and policies in Portugal. In other words, there is little systematic knowledge on the effects of existing policies in the youth system. In this paper, we address the available research and evidence on juvenile justice institutional interventions. We seek to explore the extent to which these are 1) informed by previous studies and 2) subject to analysis during and following policy termination.CIEC – Research Centre on Child Studies, IE, UMinho (FCT R&D unit 317), Portugal;National Funds through the FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology) and co-financed by European Regional Development Funds (FEDER) through the Competitiveness and Internationalization Operational Program (POCI) with the reference POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007562info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

How are firms' wages and prices linked: survey evidence in Europe

This paper presents new evidence on the patterns of price and wage adjustment in European firms and on the extent of nominal rigidities. It uses a unique dataset collected through a firm-level survey conducted in a broad range of countries and covering various sectors. Several conclusions are drawn from this evidence. Firms adjust wages less frequently than prices: the former tend to remain unchanged for about 15 months on average, the latter for around 10 months. The degree of price rigidity varies substantially across sectors and depends strongly on economic features, such as the intensity of competition, the exposure to foreign markets and the share of labour costs in total cost. Instead, country specificities, mostly related to the labour marketÂ’s institutional setting, are more relevant in characterising the pattern of wage adjustment. The latter also exhibits a substantial degree of time-dependence, as firms tend to concentrate wage changes in a specific month, mostly January in the majority of countries. Wage and price changes feed into each other at the micro level and there is a relationship between wage and price rigidity.survey, wage rigidity, price rigidity, indexation, labour market institutions, time dependence

The Fine Structure Constant and the CMB Damping Scale

The recent measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropies at arcminute angular scales performed by the ACT and SPT experiments are probing the damping regime of CMB fluctuations. The analysis of these datasets unexpectedly suggests that the effective number of relativistic degrees of freedom is larger than the standard value of Neff = 3.04, and inconsistent with it at more than two standard deviations. In this paper we study the role of a mechanism that could affect the shape of the CMB angular fluctuations at those scales, namely a change in the recombination process through variations in the fine structure constant. We show that the new CMB data significantly improve the previous constraints on variations of {\alpha}, with {\alpha}/{\alpha}0 = 0.984 \pm 0.005, i.e. hinting also to a more than two standard deviation from the current, local, value {\alpha}0. A significant degeneracy is present between {\alpha} and Neff, and when variations in the latter are allowed the constraints on {\alpha} are relaxed and again consistent with the standard value. Deviations of either parameter from their standard values would imply the presence of new, currently unknown physics.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Impact of Diet Composition on Insulin Resistance

Funding: FO Martins is supported by Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (CEECIND/04266/2017).Insulin resistance is a complex condition in which the body does not respond adequately to insulin, a hormone secreted by the pancreas with an essential role in the regulation of blood sugar levels [...].publishersversionpublishe

Mental Disorders and Mental Health Service Use Across Asian American Subethnic Groups in the United States

This study analyzed the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions data, 2001–2002, to compare the prevalence and odds of DSM-IV mood, anxiety, and substance use disorders and mental health service use across Asian American subethnic groups (648 East Asians, 485 Southeast Asians, 298 South Asians). Asian American subethnic groups varied in lifetime prevalence of psychiatric disorders (p = 0.004), mainly due to differences in the presence of any substance use disorder (p = 0.06), and specifically, drug use disorders (p = 0.02). While Southeast Asians had the highest prevalence of substance use disorders (16.7 %), fewer Southeast Asians with substance use disorders used mental health services (11.1 %) compared to South Asians with substance use disorders (24.2 %). East Asians compared to South Asians had significantly lower odds of mental health service use for substance use disorders (confidence interval = 0.08–0.84). Asian American subethnic groups vary in the prevalence of mental disorders and in mental health service use, especially for substance use disorders