Nursing Faculty Shortage: Nurses\u27 Perceptions as a Key to Administrative Solutions

The nursing faculty shortage is well documented. Higher education administrators turn away qualified student applicants because of the lack of qualified nursing faculty. Furthermore, they find recruitment and retention of qualified nursing faculty a challenge. The purpose of this study was to explore perceptions of the nursing faculty role, causes of the faculty shortage, and solutions to the shortage as perceived by: 1) nurses currently in a faculty role and 2) nurses with a master’s degree who were not employed in a full-time faculty position. A qualitative study using the phenomenological method was undertaken. Two groups of nurses were interviewed. The faculty group was eight nurses teaching full-time selected from faculty teaching in schools of nursing in West Virginia. The service group was eight nurses with masters’ degrees in nursing but not in a faculty position selected from nurses licensed in West Virginia. In interviews, participants were asked to describe their current position, perceptions of the nursing faculty role, causes of the shortage, and solutions to the shortage. Participants believed the causes of the shortage included low salaries, lack of nurses with advanced degrees, nurses without training in teaching, and other career options. Their solutions included presenting a positive image of the nursing faculty role, supporting doctoral education, utilizing nurses with masters’ degrees, mentoring new faculty, and networking with nurses in service positions. Those in both groups described a passion for nursing and teaching and viewed themselves as educators. The positive aspects of the faculty role were relationships with the students, watching students develop into nurses, relationships with colleagues, and flexible schedules. Nursing administrators will continue to be challenged with recruiting and retaining qualified nursing faculty. This study found that nurses in both faculty and service settings enjoyed teaching but they selected their positions based on cost-benefit analyses. In other words, for these participants, the costs of pursuing faculty positions are unduly high considering the perceived benefits

Playing House with Coward’s “Hay Fever”

A retired actress and her quirky family trap four guests in elaborately woven games in Noel Coward’s Hay Fever. Within the concept of “playing house,” the glamour of Coward’s work lives on through scenery, costumes, and lighting, while his quirkier side is highlighted in hopes of making his Comedy of Manners accessible to a new audience

Size-resolved evaluation of simulated deep tropical convection

Deep moist convection is an inherently multiscale phenomenon with organization processes coupling convective elements to larger-scale structures. A realistic representation of the tropical dynamics demands a simulation framework that is capable of representing physical processes across a wide range of scales. Therefore, storm-resolving numerical simulations at 2.4 km have been performed covering the tropical Atlantic and neighboring parts for 2 months. The simulated cloud fields are combined with infrared geostationary satellite observations, and their realism is assessed with the help of object-based evaluation methods. It is shown that the simulations are able to develop a well-defined intertropical convergence zone. However, marine convective activity measured by the cold cloud coverage is considerably underestimated, especially for the winter season and the western Atlantic. The spatial coupling across the resolved scales leads to simulated cloud number size distributions that follow power laws similar to the observations, with slopes steeper in winter than summer and slopes steeper over ocean than over land. The simulated slopes are, however, too steep, indicating too many small and too few large tropical cloud cells. It is also discussed that the number of larger cells is less influenced by multiday variability of environmental conditions. Despite the identified deficits, the analyzed simulations highlight the great potential of this modeling framework for process-based studies of tropical deep convection. © 2018 American Meteorological Society

Синтез мультитопных лигандов -производных имидазола и триазола с использованием фениленового линкера

Aufgrund veränderter Marktbedingungen sind produzierende Unternehmen zunehmend gezwungen, sich mit immer komplexeren Produkten und steigender Variantenvielfalt in kürzeren Zeitabschnitten auf wettbewerbsintensiven Märkten zu behaupten. Als Konsequenz ist es erforderlich, die Produktentwicklung effektiver und effizienter zu gestalten. Demzufolge müssen auch die mit Werkstoff- und Verfahrensinnovationen verbundenen Rationalisierungspotentialen gezielt genutzt werden. Dies ist jedoch nur möglich, wenn werkstoff- und verfahrensspezifische Restriktionen bereits in einer frühen Produktentwicklungsphase Berücksichtigung finden. Um hierfür geeignete Voraussetzungen zu schaffen, wurden EDV-Hilfsmittel entwickelt. Die Prototypen Innotech, Ratech und Techbase unterstützen die integrierte Technologieplanung und ermöglichen bereits in frühen Phasen der Produktentwicklung eine optimale Abstimmung der Faktoren Gestalt, Werkstoff und Technologie

Scanning Electron Microscopy of 2,8-Dihydroxyadenine Crystals and Stones

The lack of purine salvage enzyme, adenine phosphoribosyltransferase (APRT), leads to 2,8-dihydroxyadenine stone formation and/or crystalluria because it is insoluble in urine. Urolithiasis composed of 2,8-dihydroxyadenine is not only formed in a complete defect of APRT, but also in a partial deficiency of this enzyme. The defect is inherited as an autosomal recessive trait, the homozygous state is associated with high urinary levels of 2,8-dihydroxyadenine and with crystalluria, calculus formation, and potential nephrotoxicity. Determination of the APRT activity will facilitate quantification of the enzyme deficiency and elucidation of the hereditary history. 2,8-dihydroxyadenine excretion in the 24-hour urine and its circadian rhythm were determined using a new method of high performance liquid chromatography determination. By means of a standard case presentation, we illustrate the analysis of urinary sediments and calculi as well as the scanning electron microscopic images of this kind of stone

Experimental Study on Surface Integrity of Cryogenically Machined Ti-6Al-4V Alloy for Biomedical Devices

Titanium and its alloys are widely used in the biomedical sector. In this field, titanium and its alloys are the material of choice for biomedical devices such as hip and knee replacements. Usually, a Total Hip Replacement (THR) is based on four components, made out of different materials due to the material properties associated with the functional performance. One approach to lower the overall manufacturing costs and enhance the reliability of THR’s is to manufacture the prosthesis out of one material. The titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V is, therefore, feasible as it exhibits better osseous integration compared to other metallic materials used as orthopedic devices. The sole use of Ti-6Al-4V alloy requires improvements of surface integrity (SI) and characteristics that are sensitive to SI. One possible way to improve the tribological properties of the THR and the biocompatibility of Ti-6Al-4V alloy is to deliberately decrease the material grain size in the surface layer from the micron scale (\u3e 1 µm) to the region of nano-sized grains (\u3c 100 nm). The objective of this paper is to study and prove the formation of nano-sized grains within the surface as well as the characterization of surface integrity when machining Ti-6Al-4V alloy. Therefore, different cryogenic cooling strategies are used where liquid nitrogen (LN2) is applied to the flank and rake face, and just to the flank face respectively. To compare the effect of cryogenic machining, conventional flood cooling was applied as third cooling strategy. As cutting tool, a roughing tool, having a large cutting edge radius, was used, since severe plastic deformation (SPD) has shown to be capable to produce nano-sized grains in the surface. The results showed, that cryogenic machining using a large cutting edge radius tool is able to decrease the materials grain size to the region of nano-sized grains

Screening of microbial communities associated with endive lettuce during postharvest processing on industrial scale

In this study, the composition of the microbial community on endive lettuce (Cichorium endivia) was evaluated during different postharvest processing steps. Microbial community structure was characterized by culture-dependent and culture-independent methods. Endive lettuce was sampled exemplarily at four different stages of processing (raw material, cut endive lettuce, washed endive lettuce, and spin-dried (ready to pack) endive lettuce) and analysed by plate count analysis using non-selective and selective agar plates with subsequent identification of bacteria colonies by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of light mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). Additionally, terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism (TRFLP) analysis and 16S rRNA gene nucleotide sequence analysis were conducted. The results revealed structural differences in the lettuce microbiomes during the different processing steps. The most predominant bacteria on endive lettuce were detected by almost all methods. Bacterial species belonging to the families Pseudomonadaceae, Enterobacteriaceae, Xanthomonadaceae, and Moraxellaceae were detected in most of the examined samples including some unexpected potentially human pathogenic bacteria, especially those with the potential to build resistance to antibiotics (e.g., Stenotrophomonas maltophilia (0.9 % in cut sample, 0.4 % in spin-dried sample), Acinetobacter sp. (0.6 % in raw material, 0.9 % in cut sample, 0.9 % in washed sample, 0.4 % in spin-dried sample), Morganella morganii (0.2 % in cut sample, 3 % in washed sample)) revealing the potential health risk for consumers. However, more seldom occurring bacterial species were detected in varying range by the different methods. In conclusion, the applied methods allow the determination of the microbiome's structure and its dynamic changes during postharvest processing in detail. Such a combined approach enables the implementation of tailored control strategies including hygienic design, innovative decontamination techniques, and appropriate storage conditions for improved product safety

A 16S rDNA-Based Quantitative Assay for Monitoring \u3ci\u3eLactobacillus Plantarum\u3c/i\u3e in Silage

Ensilage of herbaceous biomass can be enhanced by applying pre-selected fermentative bacteria, however insufficient is known about the population dynamics of such starter cultures under a range of ensiling conditions. Classical methods for species-specific quantification of bacteria are labour intensive. An alternative approach is the detection of bacteria based on molecular markers for species-specific regions within their genomic DNA (e.g. the 16S rDNA sequence). In this study, a quantitative marker assay using the real-time PCR technique (Q-PCR) is described for Lactobacillus plantarum, a bacterium often used for silage starter cultures