Using the Job Demands-Resources Model to Underpin the Pandemic Nurses’ Turnover Intention Model to Examine Nurse Turnover Intentions in The Bahamas During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Theory Paper

Nurse turnover can affect the accessibility of healthcare services, quality of patient care, and nurse well-being. Various individual and contextual factors have been found to predict nurse turnover. A growing body of evidence now suggests the emergence of another potential predictor─fear related to the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 also known as COVID-19. To limit consequences, stakeholders must collaboratively develop empirically supported interventions to reduce nurse turnover. The purpose of this paper is to explain the novel use of the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model as a theoretical underpinning of the empirically supported Pandemic Nurses’ Turnover Intention (PNTI) model which is used to examine factors influencing nurses’ turnover intentions in The Bahamas during the COVID-19 pandemic

El ejercicio del derecho de defensa del contratista de manera previa a la declaración de nulidad de oficio de los contratos públicos celebrados y regidos por la ley de contrataciones del estado y su reglamento, y sus efectos, en aplicación de las normas comunes del texto único ordenado de la ley de procedimiento administrativo general

El presente trabajo de investigación busca analizar el ejercicio del derecho de defensa del administrado cuando la Administración, por causas concretas, pretende declarar la nulidad de oficio de un acto, concretamente, de un Contrato Público. Este tema resulta sumamente relevante, debido a que permite asegurar el interés y la seguridad jurídica del contratista, dado que, cuando la Administración le corra traslado del oficio o documento donde se manifieste la intención de declarar la nulidad del acto, este podrá realizar su descargo en el plazo de cinco (5) días, para que, posterior a ello, corresponda el pronunciamiento determinado, debidamente motivado por parte de la Entidad respectiva. En este análisis se trabaja desde el ámbito de lo establecido en el Texto Único Ordenado de la Ley N° 27444, Ley de Procedimiento Administrativo General, específicamente en cuanto a los dispuesto en su artículo 211°, y aterrizando a las Contrataciones del Estado y a su normativa especial, así como, además, a lo señalado en nuestra Constitución Política, y legislación comparada. Se concluye que el contratista puede ejercer su derecho de defensa –derecho protegido constitucionalmente-, antes de la declaración que realiza la Entidad respecto a la nulidad de oficio de un contrato público suscrito, en virtud a que dicha nulidad recae sobre la resolución mediante la cual se le adjudica la buena pro, y no a una relación contractual propiamente dicha. Por ello, es posible precisar que el contratista, antes de que la decisión de declarar la nulidad sea firme, puede presentar sus argumentos de defensa a fin de hacer preservar su derecho legítimamente obtenido, asegurar su derecho constitucional a un debido procedimiento, derecho de defensa, y debida motivación de manera antelada.Trabajo académic

Modelling the Surface Heat Flow Distribution in the Area of Brandenburg (Northern Germany)

A lithosphere scale geological model has been used to determine the surface heat flow component due to conductive heat transport for the area of Brandenburg. The modelling results have been constrained by a direct comparison with available heat flow measurements. The calculated heat flow captures the regional trend in the surface heat flow distribution which can be related to existing thermal conductivity variations between the different sedimentary units. An additional advective component due to topography induced regional flow and focused flow within major fault zones should be considered to explain the spatial variation observed in the surface heat flow

Reproductive planning, vitamin knowledge and use, and lifestyle risks of women attending pregnancy care with a severe mental illness

Objective Women with severe mental illnesses are a vulnerable population and little is known about their reproductive planning needs. The aim of our study was to describe rates of unintended pregnancies, postpartum contraception, identify use and knowledge of prenatal/pregnancy vitamins and identify modifiable lifestyle risks. Design Mixed methods study incorporating a cross-sectional survey and prospective pregnancy data collection Setting A multidisciplinary antenatal clinic in Australia Method Thirty-eight pregnant women with severe mental illnesses: schizophrenia, schizoaffective, bipolar and severe post-traumatic stress disorder Main outcome measures Unintended pregnancy rates, immediate postpartum contraception, use of prenatal and pregnancy vitamins and knowledge sources, obesity, and use and cessation rates for smoking, and substances, and comorbid medical conditions Results Overall 42% of women had unintended pregnancy, with those with schizophrenia at most risk (56%). A long acting reversible contraception was inserted in 5 women (13%), with 45% having no immediate contraception prescribed prior to postnatal discharge. Women's main source of vitamin supplementation for pregnancy was from general practitioners. Prenatal folic acid use occurred in 37%, with rates differing for those with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder (52%) and schizophrenia (25%). Vitamin deficiencies occurred in pregnancy, with iron deficiency (ferritin Discussion Addressing gaps in use of effective contraception, proactive reproductive planning and lifestyle management may improve outcomes for women with mental illnesses and their babies.Peer reviewe

Creating Talk & Texts: Taking the Classroom into the Community

This project report highlights a partnership among Communication & Rhetoric university members and staff and students from El Centro del Quinto Sol which is a community recreation center. We describe the context and background of our project, workshops that employ Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) techniques, and provide some reflections and pictures documenting this joint learning experience

Modular synthetic biology toolkit for filamentous fungi

Filamentous fungi are highly productive cell factories, often used in industry for the production of enzymes and small bioactive compounds. Recent years have seen an increasing number of synthetic-biology-based applications in fungi, emphasizing the need for a synthetic biology toolkit for these organisms. Here we present a collection of 96 genetic parts, characterized in Penicillium or Aspergillus species, that are compatible and interchangeable with the Modular Cloning system. The toolkit contains natural and synthetic promoters (constitutive and inducible), terminators, fluorescent reporters, and selection markers. Furthermore, there are regulatory and DNA-binding domains of transcriptional regulators and components for implementing different CRISPR-based technologies. Genetic parts can be assembled into complex multipartite assemblies and delivered through genomic integration or expressed from an AMA1-sequence-based, fungal-replicating shuttle vector. With this toolkit, synthetic transcription units with established promoters, fusion proteins, or synthetic transcriptional regulation devices can be more rapidly assembled in a standardized and modular manner for novel fungal cell factories

"A country with land but no habitat": women, violent accumulation and negative-value in Yvonne Vera’s The Stone Virgins

In the work of Zimbabwean novelist Yvonne Vera, land is shown to be a complex and contested resource to which the typically abject fates of her female protagonists are inextricably bound. As she put it in a 2001 interview shortly before the publication of her final novel, “the connection between women and land in Zimbabwe is negative”. This article situates Vera’s work in the context of debates over Zimbabwean land reform, and considers examples of how the “negative” connection between women and land is articulated in her fiction through contrasting leitmotifs of abjection and habitat, culminating in the cautiously redemptive conclusion of her last published novel, The Stone Virgins (2002). The discussion draws on Silvia Federici’s work on women, the body and primitive accumulation and on Jason Moore’s theory of negative-value in the capitalist world-ecology, to account for why, in Vera’s work, the female body is invariably positioned, abjectly, at the nexus of colonial governance and what David Moore has described as Zimbabwe’s postcolonial regime of “violent accumulation”

Nanoflow-nanospray mass spectrometry metabolomics reveals disruption of the urinary metabolite profiles of HIV-positive patients on combination antiretroviral therapy

Background: The use of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) has substantially improved the outlook for patients with HIV infection. However, lifelong exposure to cART is also associated with adverse metabolic changes and an enhanced risk of renal, hepatic and cardiovascular dysfunction. This study investigated disruptions of the urinary metabolome of cART-exposed patients, thereby furthering our understanding of some of the side effects of pharmaceutical intervention. Methods: HIV-positive patients were recruited from an HIV clinic and divided into cART-naive and cART-exposed groups. HIV-negative patients were recruited from a sexual health clinic. All 89 subjects were white males. Targeted biochemistry analyses were performed on plasma samples. Urine samples were collected following an overnight fast and analysed with a highly sensitive untargeted metabolomic method using nanoflow/nanospray liquid chromatography-time of flight mass spectrometry. Datasets were analysed using projection modelling to detect metabolite markers of cART exposure. Results: Metabolites or parent compounds of all cART drugs were detected in urine extracts of all but one of the cART-exposed patients confirming adherence to the pharmaceutical regimen. Analysis of urine samples from patients on cART revealed significant reductions in selected bile acids, lipid, nucleoside and androgen metabolites. However, plasma concentrations of free or conjugated testosterone were unchanged indicating possible disruption of androgen transport or excretion in urine of patients on cART. Conclusions: Discovery-based metabolomics reveals the potential to identify novel markers of cART intervention and metabolite disruption in HIV-positive patients, which may enable the efficacy, compliance and side effects of these pharmaceutical mixtures to be investigated

Development of the DONOR prediction model on the risk of hypertensive complications in oocyte donation pregnancy:Study protocol for a multicentre cohort study in the Netherlands

Introduction: Oocyte donation (OD) pregnancy is accompanied by a high incidence of hypertensive complications, with serious consequences for mother and child. Optimal care management, involving early recognition, optimisation of suitable treatment options and possibly eventually also prevention, is in high demand. Prediction of patient-specific risk factors for hypertensive complications in OD can provide the basis for this. The current project aims to establish the first prediction model on the risk of hypertensive complications in OD pregnancy. Methods and analysis: The present study is conducted within the DONation of Oocytes in Reproduction project. For this multicentre cohort study, at least 541 OD pregnancies will be recruited. Baseline characteristics and obstetric data will be collected. Additionally, one sample of maternal peripheral blood and umbilical cord blood after delivery or a saliva sample from the child will be obtained, in order to determine the number of fetal-maternal human leucocyte antigen mismatches. Following data collection, a multivariate logistic regression model will be developed for the binary outcome hypertensive complication 'yes' and 'no'. The Prediction model Risk Of Bias ASsessment Tool will be used as guide to minimise the risk of bias. The study will be reported in line with the 'Transparent Reporting of a multivariable prediction model for Individual Prognosis Or Diagnosis' guideline. Discrimination and calibration will be determined to assess model performance. Internal validation will be performed using the bootstrapping method. External validation will be performed with the 'DONation of Oocytes in Reproduction individual participant data' dataset. Ethics and dissemination: This study is approved by the Medical Ethics Committee LDD (Leiden, Den Haag, Delft), with protocol number P16.048 and general assessment registration (ABR) number NL56308.058.16. Further results will be shared through peer-reviewed journals and international conferences.</p