Iranian Nursing Students' Perceptions of Nursing and The Ideal Career: A Descriptive Comparative Study

Background: Identification of the attributes of nursing and the ideal career, and their similarities and differences, as perceived by nursing students will help to plan strategies to train and retain future nursing workforce. Objectives: This study aimed to compare the attributes of nursing with the ideal career, as perceived by nursing students. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted from April to June 2012 at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. The participants were 181 undergraduate nursing students (127 females and 54 males) selected using a census method. Data were collected using a questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, Spearman correlation, and Wilcoxon rank sign test. Results: Perceptions of nursing and the ideal career were different in nineteen attributes (P < 0.001). Nursing students expected a career which provides them more respect, appreciation, safety, income, power, and facility. Both nursing and an ideal career share an altruistic nature, academic advancement, a desire to please God, and somehow low level of excitement. Conclusions: Perceptions of nursing were significantly different from those of the ideal career in most of the attributes. Therefore, it is recommended that nurses’ income, workplace safety, and sense of being appreciated and respected by all authorities should be improved

Oxidative stress in anoxic habitats

Oxygen and its reactive species —hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), superoxide (O2-) and hydroxyl radicals (HO•)— can cause a plethora of damages in the cell, from DNA damage to inactivation of iron containing enzymes. Virtually all life forms experience oxidative stress to some degree, and they are all equipped with mechanisms to protect themselves and to repair the damaged moieties. While oxidative stress is an obvious caveat of oxic life, it can also affect the organisms in anoxic environments and at oxic- anoxic interfaces. The present body of work looks into the latter condition by investigation the effects of oxidative stress endured by a facultative anaerobe (Escherichia coli) and an obligate anaerobe (Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron). E. coli lives adjacent to the epithelia in mammalian intestines. The encounter of oxygen penetrating from the epithelial layer and the reduced molecules like H2S from the center of the lumen creates an oxic-anoxic interface with different reactive oxygen species that can affect E. coli. B. thetaiotaomicron is another gut-dwelling bacterium living in the intestinal lumen, where it occasionally experiences oxidative stress. Bacteroides species in general are staple members of the gut microbiome because of their role in breaking down complex carbohydrates and thereby providing carbon sources for the rest of the community. Both E. coli and B. thetaiotaomicron should deal with high levels of oxidative stress during pathogenesis and the transition periods between hosts. The first chapter is an introduction to oxidative stress, its targets and the defense mechanisms against it in both of the bacteria discussed above. The second chapter focuses on finding a new periplasmic H2O2 degrading enzyme in E. coli that is only induced in the absence of oxygen and in presence of H2O2. The regulation mechanism of this enzyme, along with the detailed calculations of H2O2 fluxes through cellular membranes, revealed that it cannot protect the cytoplasm against exogenous H2O2. Instead, it enables E. coli to use H2O2 as a terminal electron acceptor for anaerobic respiration. The third chapter of this thesis looks into the molecular basis of obligate anaerobiosis. Previous reports have identified three points of oxidative damage in the central metabolism of B. thetaiotaomicron. Two of these enzymes, fumarase and pyruvate formate lyse (PFL), were reported to be damaged by O2- and molecular O2 respectively. In this study, we show that the third enzyme, pyruvate ferredoxin oxidoreductase (PFOR), is also damaged by molecular O2 itself. Pyruvate dissimilation in this bacterium depends upon PFL and PFOR; therefore, even in the absence of other reactive species O2 can directly inhibit this key metabolic node and block growth. The rate of fumarase damage by O2- approaches the PFL and PFOR inactivation by O2. We infer that the titer of scavenging enzymes in B. thetaiotaomicron is set so targets of H2O2 and O2- are neither more nor less sensitive to aeration than is pyruvate dissimilation. The role of oxygen in the phenomenon of obligate anaerobiosis is therefore multifaceted. In the fourth chapter, I provide a detailed summary of the works done in chapters two and three. Some important questions raised by these studies are also discussed in this chapter. Overall, this thesis attempts to explore different aspects of oxidative stress in anoxic habitats

The effect of leadership style on professional ethical behavior: An empirical study in cement factory

This study indicates the theoretical perspective and examines the relevant literature that supports the significance of leadership style and professional ethics among employees. The methodology for con-ducting the study was the use of two quantitative questionnaires aimed at determining the relative contribution that task-oriented and relations-oriented styles of leadership have on different dimen-sions of professional ethical behavior. This study is conducted in a manufacturing company and data were collected from 200 employees working in the cement factory. Firstly, the study revealed the type of leadership in this factory and then examined the relation between the leadership style and ethical behavior. To test the hypothesis structural equations modeling was used. The results showed that simultaneous high relations-oriented and high task-oriented leadership styles (i.e. supportive behav-ior) have significant effect positively on professional ethics among employees. Research paper Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Khademian, N. (2016). “The effect of leadership style on professional ethical behavior: An empirical study in cement factory”, Journal of Entrepre-neurship, Business and Economics, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 128–14