Is naming of hospitals a matter for nursing ethics? The case of San Francisco General Hospital and Mark Zuckerberg.

Countries without fully funded healthcare rely on charitable donations from individuals and corporations to fund healthcare for vulnerable groups. In some cases, donations result in departments or hospitals being named for the donor. Naming buildings for persons or institutions potentially allows both parties to benefit from reputational connection, which is why a high commercial premium is placed upon, for example, stadium naming rights. Some ‘donations’ to charitable causes are better considered investment because resultant virtue signalling can lead to reputational enhancement. This can cast a different light on the intention on some donors, resulting in a long history of declined donations, notably by tobacco companies. Reputational enhancement of the donor can come at the cost of diminished reputation of the recipient, and it is possible that these changes in public perception have public health implications. Part of the function of nurses and other healthcare professionals is to promote public health and so anything that threatens it is of fundamental concern. Mark Zuckerberg is inextricably connected to social media particularly Facebook and Instagram and while these platforms have been used to some benefit in healthcare there are also significant concerns in respect of privacy, lacklustre responses to sharing of inappropriate material, and willingness to manipulate users. Facebook has not apologised for undertaking a large study when the emotions of 700,000 people were manipulated without notification, consent or concern for subsequent wellbeing. Taken together, these assessments of the operation and motivation of companies controlled by Mark Zuckerberg argue that they constitute a public health and wellbeing threat which needs to be addressed by healthcare professionals, including public campaigning for changes in social media practice and revocation of naming rights for hospitals

Development of an international survey attitude scale: measurement equivalence, reliability, and predictive validity

Declining response rates worldwide have stimulated interest in understanding what may be influencing this decline and how it varies across countries and survey populations. In this paper, we describe the development and validation of a short 9-item survey attitude scale that measures three important constructs, thought by many scholars to be related to decisions to participate in surveys, that is, survey enjoyment, survey value, and survey burden. The survey attitude scale is based on a literature review of earlier work by multiple authors. Our overarching goal with this study is to develop and validate a concise and effective measure of how individuals feel about responding to surveys that can be implemented in surveys and panels to understand the willingness to participate in surveys and improve survey effectiveness. The research questions relate to factor structure, measurement equivalence, reliability, and predictive validity of the survey attitude scale. The data came from three probability-based panels: the German GESIS and PPSM panels and the Dutch LISS panel. The survey attitude scale proved to have a replicable three-dimensional factor structure (survey enjoyment, survey value, and survey burden). Partial scalar measurement equivalence was established across three panels that employed two languages (German and Dutch) and three measurement modes (web, telephone, and paper mail). For all three dimensions of the survey attitude scale, the reliability of the corresponding subscales (enjoyment, value, and burden) was satisfactory. Furthermore, the scales correlated with survey response in the expected directions, indicating predictive validity

Manipulating the autolytic pathway of a Bacillus protease

Autolytic degradation of Bacillus subtilis thermolysin-like proteinase (TLP-sub) is responsible for the irreversible inactivation of the enzyme at elevated temperatures. Previously, we reported five autolysis sites in B. subtilis neutral protease (Van den Burg et al., 1990, Biochem. J. 272:93-97). In an attemp to render the enzyme less susceptible to autolytic breakdown, one of the sites, located between Leu156 and Ile157, was modified by substituting the residue C-terminal of the fission (P-1' residue), Ile157, by Asp. The introduction of the Asp, which is unfavoured at the P-1' position in substrates for TLPs, resulted in an altered autolysis pattern. The peptides formed in wild-type TLP-sub by chain cleavage N-terminal of Ile157, were absent in the constructed mutant (I157D). However, an autolysis product was detected with I157D that was not seen in case of the wild-type. The N-terminal sequence of this peptide was determined and it was concluded that in the mutant a peptide accumulated as the result of chain cleavage of the Gly148-Val149 bond. Structural aspects and effects of the mutation on the activity have been analyzed.</p

Engineering thermolysin-like proteases whose stability is largely independent of calcium

AbstractThermal stability of the thermolysin-like protease produced by Bacillus stearothermophilus (TLP-ste) is highly dependent on calcium at concentrations in the millimolar range. We describe the rational design and production of a fully active TLP-ste variant whose stability is only slightly dependent on calcium concentration.© 1997 Federation of European Biochemical Societies