Understanding and Motivating Salesperson Resilience

Prior research has shown that approximately half of salespeople fail to achieve their targets each year. Not only is the role difficult but also sales jobs are often marked by high levels of stress, rejection, and burnout. Thus, salesperson resilience is critical. However, a gap remains in our understanding of how resilience influences performance and how managers can motivate salespeople to be more resilient. To answer these questions, we collected survey data from 110 salespeople from a large firm based in the Midwest, along with objective effort and performance data provided by the company prior to and following a poor performance review. Our analyses reveal that intrinsically motivated salespeople are more resilient than salespeople driven by a desire for financial compensation. In addition, resilience leads to sales performance through increasing two types of effort—both initiating more calls with customers and achieving longer average call duration. Hence, our findings demonstrate that resilient salespeople not only persevere but also become better at selling in the process

The Development and Testing of a Chemotherapy-Induced Phlebitis Severity (CIPS) Scale for Patients Receiving Anthracycline Chemotherapy for Breast Cancer

A chemotherapy induced phlebitis severity (CIPS) scale was developed in patients receiving anthracycline chemotherapy for breast cancer. A five-point severity scoring scale for chemotherapy-induced phlebitis was tested for inter-rater reliability. Ease of use was observed through timing assessments and a review of the completeness of documentation. A comparison of CIPS scale grade with participant reported severity scores was made. The final version was tested for inter-rater reliability, with 122 patient assessments. There was an 89.3% (109 of 122) agreement between the assessors (κ = 0.82, SE ± 0.042, 95% CI 0.74–0.90). Mean time to complete the scale was 1 min 36 s and documentation was fully completed for 98% of assessments. Patient reported severity closely matched the CIPS grade (κ = 0.54, SE ± 0.045, 95% CI 0.46–0.63). This new scale provides a list of symptoms associated with chemotherapy phlebitis, which can be scored quickly and accurately. It provides a reliable method for assessing chemotherapy-induced phlebitis, enabling a better understanding of its impact on patients’ quality of life, and to inform the appropriate choice of peripheral or central intravenous administration. Multicentre testing of the CIPS scale is recommended

Scaling in Plasticity-Induced Cell-Boundary Microstructure: Fragmentation and Rotational Diffusion

We develop a simple computational model for cell boundary evolution in plastic deformation. We study the cell boundary size distribution and cell boundary misorientation distribution that experimentally have been found to have scaling forms that are largely material independent. The cell division acts as a source term in the misorientation distribution which significantly alters the scaling form, giving it a linear slope at small misorientation angles as observed in the experiments. We compare the results of our simulation to two closely related exactly solvable models which exhibit scaling behavior at late times: (i) fragmentation theory and (ii) a random walk in rotation space with a source term. We find that the scaling exponents in our simulation agree with those of the theories, and that the scaling collapses obey the same equations, but that the shape of the scaling functions depend upon the methods used to measure sizes and to weight averages and histograms

HIV incidence among sexual health clinic attendees in England: First estimates for black African heterosexuals using a biomarker, 2009-2013.

INTRODUCTION: The HIV epidemic in England is largely concentrated among heterosexuals who are predominately black African and men who have sex with men (MSM). We present for the first time trends in annual HIV incidence for adults attending sexual health clinics, where 80% of all HIV diagnoses are made. METHODS: We identified newly diagnosed incident HIV using a recent infection testing algorithm (RITA) consisting of a biomarker (AxSYM assay, modified to determine antibody avidity), epidemiological and clinical information. We estimated HIV incidence using the WHO RITA formula for cross-sectional studies, with HIV testing data from sexual health clinics as the denominator. RESULTS: From 2009 to 2013, each year, between 9,700 and 26,000 black African heterosexuals (of between 161,000 and 231,000 heterosexuals overall) were included in analyses. For the same period, annually between 19,000 and 55,000 MSM were included. Estimates of HIV incidence among black Africans increased slightly (although non-significantly) from 0.15% (95% C.I.0.05%-0.26%) in 2009 to 0.19% (95% C.I.0.04%-0.34%) in 2013 and was 4-5-fold higher than among all heterosexuals among which it remained stable between 0.03% (95% C.I.0.02%-0.05%) and 0.05% (95% C.I.0.03%-0.07%) over the period. Among MSM incidence was highest and increased (non-significantly) from 1.24% (95%C.I 0.96-1.52%) to 1.46% (95% C.I 1.23%-1.70%) after a peak of 1.52% (95%C.I 1.30%-1.75%) in 2012. CONCLUSION: These are the first nationwide estimates for trends in HIV incidence among black African and heterosexual populations in England which show black Africans, alongside MSM, remain disproportionately at risk of infection. Although people attending sexual health clinics may not be representative of the general population, nearly half of black Africans and MSM had attended in the previous 5 years. Timely and accurate incidence estimates will be critical in monitoring the impact of the reconfiguration of sexual health services in England, and any prevention programmes such as pre-exposure prophylaxis