Sevoflurane or halothane with target-controlled sufentanil infusions for coronary artery bypass surgery

Objectives: Comparison of hemodynamics, circulatory efficiency, myocardial ischemia and recall during and after sevoflurane or halothane (0.6 MAC {Minimum Alveolar Concentration} inspired) combined with a target-controlled sufentanil infusion (2 ng.ml-1) for coronary artery bypass grafting. Methods: Prospective randomised non-blinded study in a university teaching hospital of 45 patients undergoing on-pump surgery. Inhalation anesthetic agent was delivered before, during and after cardiopulmonary bypass. Results: Intraoperative hemodynamics were maintained within predetermined limits using vasoactive and cardioactive drugs. Heart rate was unchanged from baseline, however the sevoflurane-sufentanil group required more glycopyrrollate, indicating a tendency towards a slower heart rate. In both groups, similar low incidences of myocardial ischemia were detected. After induction of anesthesia, as well as intraoperatively, oxygen consumption decreased by up to 36.6% compared with the awake values in both groups. Oxygen delivery remained unchanged during all measuring periods. Mixed venous oxygen tensions rose after induction, even in patients with cardiac indices below 2.2 L.min-1.m-2, indicating maintenance of an effective circulation when utilising these techniques. Twelve hours postoperatively, oxygen consumption exceeded awake values by 31%. No explicit recall was reported by any patient on enquiry on the third postoperative day. Conclusions: Low concentrations of sevoflurane or halothane, supplementing target-controlled sufentanil infusions, were both suitable for providing anesthesia for coronary bypass surgery.Keywords: Coronary artery bypass grafting, anesthesia, hemodynamics, sevoflurane, halothane, sufentanil, mixed venous oxygen tension, oxygen consumption, balanced anesthesi

The importance of non-financial motivators to pharmaceutical sales representatives: A demographic study

To succeed, sales managers will need to learn new roles and reinvent others such as applying flexible motivation approaches in working with a multicultural, hybrid, diverse sales force. Many organisations invest a great deal of time and money in designing incentive schemes that are failing to achieve their objective of motivating employees. Large amounts of money are spent on financial incentives, while ignoring non-financial incentives. As companies become increasingly cash-strapped, using non-financial motivators may be the solution. Self-administered questionnaires were completed by a sample of 100 pharmaceutical sales representatives from three South African companies. The questionnaire made use of a four-point Likert scale to rate the importance of various non-financial motivational factors. The respondents indicated that ‘good relationships with customers’ and ‘being well informed’ are the two most important non-financial motivators. The study also showed that demographic groups differ in the importance they attach to non-financial motivators. ‘Having power over other people’ was a more important motivator for sales representatives with a lower educational background. ‘Growth and promotion opportunities’ were more important to males, while differences were found between various age groups and the importance they attached to ‘flexibility of their jobs’. The results of this study could influence the structure of motivational schemes at pharmaceutical companies and enable management to recognise those factors that might lead to increased performance levels.Key words: motivation, sales representatives, non-financial motivators, demographics, reward structures, incentive scheme

Employees’ psychosocial career preoccupations in relation to their work-related commitment

The shift in career conceptualisation and concomitant career mobility and flexibility characteristic of contemporary career behaviour have raised questions about working adults’ commitment to their jobs and careers and whether their commitment is influenced by their career preoccupations. The study explored the association between working adults’ psychosocial career preoccupations (measured by the psychosocial career preoccupations scale) and their work-related commitment (measured by the organisation-related commitment scale). One hundred and sixty predominantly early-career professional adults (67% black people; 59% females) who were employed in the human resource and financial fields participated in the study. The results suggested that addressing employees’ career establishment preoccupations is likely to positively influence their commitment to the present organisational job and career. Career adaptation preoccupations were negatively related to work-related commitment and predicted attachment to external interests beyond the present job and career. Limitations, directions for future research and implications for organisational career-development practices are presented.Key words: career preoccupations, career stages, career establishment, career adaptation, vocational developmental tasks, work/life adjustment, work-related commitmen

The fairness of affi rmative action: In the eye of the beholder

The purpose of this study was to identify the major components ofaffi rmative action (AA) fairness from an organisational justice pointof view and to measure the perceptions of employees on AA fairness.9A literature study and an empirical study were conducted. A questionnaire was developed to collect information on respondents’ biographical details and their perceptions of the fairness of AA. 10Using SPSS, principal axis factor analysis was performed on the data, with a Varimax rotation, in order to uncover the diff erent factors related to affi rmative action fairness. Four factors with latent roots greater than unity (Kaiser’s criteria) were extracted from the factor matrix of affi rmative action. The factors postulating affi rmative action fairness included interactional justice, procedural justice (input), procedural justice (criteria) and distributive justice. 11The infl uence and eff ect of the biographical variables on fairness perceptions were determined by comparing the responses of various employee subsets with one another by means of univariate andmultivariate analysis of variance. The results of the t-tests revealedthat staff category and ethnicity have a statistically signifi canteff ect on employees’ perceptions of the distributive justice of AA.Decisions such as granting AA employees token positions, payingunrealistically high salaries to AA managers and appointing lessqualified AA employees play a key role when employees form perceptions of the fairness of AA. This study contributes to a better understanding of the dimensionality of employee perceptions of AA fairness. It should assist organisations with the knowledge required for more eff ective management of AA in the workplace

Sources of job stress, work engagement and career orientations of employees in a South African fi nancial institution

The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between employees’ sources of job stress, work engagement and career orientations and how they diff er with respect to these variables in terms of socio-demographic contextual factors such as gender, race, employment status and age. A sample of 90 employees participated in this study, and a Sources of Job Stress Scale, the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale and the Career Orientations Inventory were administered. The results indicated a signifi cant relationship between the participants’ sources of job stress, levels of work engagement and career orientations. Signifi cant diff erences regarding these variables were also detected between males and females, blacks and whites, temporary and permanently employed participants and the various age groups. The fi ndings add new knowledge that may inform organisational wellness and career development practices

A model for a socially-aware mobile tourist recommendation system

People, whether for business or pleasure, often travel or visit locations they are unfamiliar with. To overcome this, a mobile tourist recommendation system can be used. This system is able to generate tourist attraction recommendations for a person, based on a number of criteria such as time and location. One criterion often overlooked though, is a person's social environment. This is an important consideration as touring is often done with more than one person. By not considering the other people within a person's social environment, recommendations will only be limited to the preferences of a single person. The purpose of this paper is to propose a model for a mobile tourist guide recommendation system that considers a persons social environment when generating tourist attraction recommendations. This is done by studying other tourist recommendation systems, eliciting key requirements for a socially aware tourist guide system from them, and using these requirements as input for a mobile tourist recommendation system model that can harness a person's social environment when recommending tourist attractions

The influence of job embeddedness on black employees’ organisational commitment

The objective of the study was to explore whether individuals’ organisational commitment (measured by the Organisational Commitment Scale) is significantly influenced by their job embeddedness (measured by the Job Embeddedness Scale). A crosssectional quantitative survey was conducted on a non-probability sample of employed black (92%) and female (71%) adults (N = 355) at managerial and staff level in the South African services industry. Canonical correlation analysis and structural equation modelling were used to analyse the data. The findings add new knowledge that can be used to inform organisational practices for the retention of black staff members in the South African organisational context.Key words: job embeddedness, organisational commitment, affective commitment, normative commitment, continuance commitmen

En route to a PhD: Mapping the journey through a sensemaking lens

Doing a PhD is for most scholars a demanding and emotionally strenuous experience, frequently resulting in potentially promising researchers succumbing to despair soon after embarking on the journey. However, those who complete their doctoral studies recollect subsequently both the frustrations and exciting experiences encountered. This article describes one researcher’s ruminations to make sense of the extensive systematic analysis utilised in a quest to obtain a PhD and to understand the academic essence of the scholarly contribution of her PhD. Using the seven fundamental properties of Weick’s (1995) sensemaking theory as the theoretical lens, the researcher reflects on the experiences and observations faced en route to completing her PhD. The seven properties form the backdrop of the researcher’s qualitative sensemaking methodology in which she formulated three key phases to illustrate her sensemaking road, namely Mapping the Journey, Travelling the Road, and Reaching the Destination. This article reinforces the extent of the challenges a PhD study holds and provides detail of and insight into the application of the sensemaking theory that may be useful to postgraduate researchers and supervisors involved in qualitative inquiry

Method for Vanadium Speciation in Aqueous Samples by HPLC-ICP-OES

A method for vanadium speciation is proposed. The method uses a low concentration eluent, 10 mmol L–1 EDTA and 14 mmol L–1 sodium carbonate, for the ion chromatographic separation of vanadium species at a flow rate of 1.2 mL min–1. The quantitative detection limits were 0.14mgL–1 for V(IV) and 0.20mgL–1 for V(V) using ICP-OESdetection. The method was successfully applied to the analysis of synthetic samples and  mineral processing samples.KEYWORDS: Anion exchange, vanadium speciation, EDTA, HPLC, ICP-OES