Objectives
To examine the mechanisms of coping strategies on nurses’ psychological well‐being, practice environments and safety attitudes.
Methods
A cross‐sectional study design was used. Structural ...equation modeling was performed to analyze the results. Five hundred clinical nurses were randomly selected from a large group of 1,500 from a medical center with 1,350 beds in Taipei, Taiwan, from July to October 2015. Self‐report questionnaires were administered to measure coping strategies (Brief COPE), psychological well‐being (Ryff's Psychological Well‐being Scale), nurses’ practice environments (Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index), and safety attitudes (Safety Attitudes Questionnaire).
Results
Of the 500 participants who gave written consent, 474 (94.8%) filled out the questionnaire. Results showed that using more approach‐oriented coping strategies and fewer avoidant coping strategies was associated with greater psychological well‐being. Psychological well‐being was directly associated with quality of nurses’ practice environments and safety attitudes. The impact of psychological well‐being on safety attitudes was mediated significantly by the quality of the practice environment. The use of approach‐oriented coping strategies was significantly predictive of positive psychological well‐being, a good practice environment, and good safety attitudes.
Conclusions and Clinical Relevance
This study found a distinct pathway for the relationships between clinical nurses’ psychological well‐being, practice environment, and safety attitudes. Psychological well‐being in clinical nurses was higher for those with more approach‐oriented coping strategies. Psychological well‐being directly impacted safety attitudes, which mediated nurses’ practice environments. The practical implications of the results suggest that interventions designed to promote positive psychological well‐being may help improve nurses’ practice environments, which, in turn, may result in better safety attitudes and nursing care outcomes.
This study investigated the cognition, information behaviors and preventive behaviors of Taiwanese citizens in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. An online survey was administered and 610 valid ...responses were collected. The relationships between demographic variables and optimistic bias, social trust, information credibility, personal protective measures, avoidance of human contact, and immune system strengthening were examined. Results showed that optimistic bias existed, but there was no significant correlation between optimistic bias and personal protective measures. Laypersons had high trust in the government, but also optimistic bias. Gender was the most important predictor; with occupation and region of residence also interacting with different preventive behaviors. People in Taiwan may be overly optimistic in facing the epidemic; relevant information should be properly disclosed to help reduce this bias. Social trust in the government seems to be an important successful factor in the fight against COVID-19 in Taiwan.
The increase in the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has become a major public health concern. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are emerging as promising candidates addressing this issue. In ...this study, we designed several AMPs by increasing α-helical contents and positive charges and optimizing hydrophobicity and amphipathicity in the Sushi 1 peptide from horseshoe crabs. A neural network-based bioinformatic prediction tool was used for the first stage evaluations of peptide properties. Among the peptides designed, Sushi-replacement peptide (SRP)-2, an arginine-rich and highly α-helical peptide, showed broad-spectrum bactericidal activity against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii; nevertheless, it showed little hemolytic and cytotoxic activity against mammalian cells. Atomic force microscopy results indicated that SRP-2 should interact directly with cell membrane components, resulting in bacterial cell death. SRP-2 also neutralized LPS-induced macrophage activation. Moreover, in an intraperitoneal multidrug-resistant A. baumannii infection mouse model, SRP-2 successfully reduced the bacterial number in ascitic fluid and tumor necrosis factor-α production. Our study findings demonstrate that bioinformatic calculations can be powerful tools to help design potent AMPs and that arginine is superior to lysine for providing positive charges for AMPs to exhibit better bactericidal activity and selectivity against bacterial cells.
Ketamine has been used for medical purposes, most typically as an anesthetic, and recent studies support its use in the treatment of depression. However, ketamine tends to be abused by adolescents ...and young adults. In the current study, we examined the effects of early ketamine exposure on brain structure and function. We employed MRI to assess the effects of ketamine abuse on cerebral gray matter volume (GMV) and functional connectivity (FC) in 34 users and 19 non-users, employing covariates. Ketamine users were categorized as adolescent-onset and adult-onset based on when they were first exposed to ketamine. Imaging data were processed by published routines in SPM and AFNI. The results revealed lower GMV in the left precuneus in ketamine users, with a larger decrease in the adolescent-onset group. The results from a seed-based correlation analysis show that both ketamine groups had higher functional connectivity between left precuneus (seed) and right precuneus than the control group. Compared to controls, ketamine users showed decreased GMV in the right insula, left inferior parietal lobule, left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex/superior frontal gyrus, and left medial orbitofrontal cortex. These preliminary results characterize the effects of ketamine misuse on brain structure and function and highlight the influence of earlier exposure to ketamine on the development of the brain. The precuneus, a structure of central importance to cerebral functional organization, may be particularly vulnerable to the influences of early ketamine exposure. How these structural and functional brain changes may relate to the cognitive and affective deficits remains to be determined with a large cohort of participants.
Predictable network performance is critical for cloud applications and can be achieved by providing tenants a dedicated virtual data center (VDC) with bandwidth guarantee. Recently, the extended Hose ...model was applied to the VDC abstraction to characterize the tradeoff between cost and network performance. The acceptability determination problem of a VDC with heterogeneous bandwidth demand was proved to be NP-complete, even in the simple tree topology. In this paper, we investigate the embedding problem for heterogeneous bandwidth VDC in substrate networks of general topology. The embedding problem involves two coupled sub-problems: virtual machine (VM) placement and multipath route assignment. First, we formulate the route assignment problem with linear programming to minimize the maximum link utilization, and provide K-widest path load-balanced routing with controllable splitting paths. Next, we propose a polynomial-time heuristic algorithm, referred to as the perturbation algorithm, for the VM placement. The perturbation algorithm is congestion-aware as it detects the bandwidth bottlenecks in the placement process and then selectively relocates some assigned VMs to eliminate congestion. Simulation results show that our algorithm performs better in comparison with the existing well-known algorithms: first-fit, next-fit, and greedy, and very close to the exponential-time complexity backtracking algorithm in typical data center network architectures. For the tree substrate network, the perturbation algorithm performs better than the allocation-range algorithm. For the homogeneous bandwidth VDC requests, the perturbation algorithm produces a higher success rate than the recently proposed HVC-ACE algorithm. Therefore, it provides a compromised solution between time complexity and network performance.
Nicotinic acetylcholine receptor activation on the perivascular sympathetic nerves via axo-axonal interaction mechanism causes norepinephrine release, which triggers the neurogenic nitrergic ...relaxation in basilar arteries to meet the need of a brain. Donepezil and huperzine A, which are the cholinesterase inhibitors used for Alzheimer's disease therapy, exert controversial effects on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. Therefore, we investigated how donepezil and huperzine A via the axo-axonal interaction regulate the neurogenic vasodilation of isolated porcine basilar arteries and define their action on different subtypes of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor by using blood vessel myography, calcium imaging, and electrophysiological techniques. Both nicotine (100 μM) and transmural nerve stimulation (TNS, 8 Hz) induce NO-mediated dilation in the arteries. Nicotine-induced vasodilations were concentration-dependently inhibited by huperzine A and donepezil, with the former being 30 fold less potent than the latter. Both cholinesterase inhibitors weakly and equally decreased TNS-elicited nitrergic vasodilations. Neither huperzine A nor donepezil affected isoproterenol (a β adrenoceptor-agonist)- or sodium nitroprusside (a NO donor)-induced vasodilation. Further, huperzine A was less potent than donepezil in inhibiting nicotine-elicited calcium influxes in rodent superior cervical ganglionic neurons and inward currents in α7- and α3β2-nicotinic acetylcholine receptor-expressing Xenopus oocytes. In conclusion, huperzine A may exert less harmful effect over donepezil on maintaining brainstem circulation and on the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor-associated cognition deficits during treatment for Alzheimer's disease.
The fifteen-year performance of a granular iron, permeable reactive barrier (PRB; Elizabeth City, North Carolina) is reviewed with respect to contaminant treatment (hexavalent chromium and ...trichloroethylene) and hydraulic performance. Due to in-situ treatment of the chromium source zone, reactive and hydraulic longevity of the PRB has outlived the mobile chromate plume. Chromium concentrations exceeding 3μg/L have not been detected in regions located hydraulically down-gradient of the PRB. Trichloroethylene treatment has also been effective, although non-constant influent concentrations of trichloroethylene have at times resulted in incomplete dechlorination. Daughter products: cis-1,2-dichloroethylene, vinyl chloride, ethene, and ethane have been observed within and down-gradient of the PRB at levels <10% of the influent trichloroethylene. Analysis of potentiometric surfaces up-gradient and across the PRB suggests that the PRB may currently represent a zone of reduced hydraulic conductivity; however, measurements of the in-situ hydraulic conductivity provide values in excess of 200m/d in some intervals and indicate no discernible loss of bulk hydraulic conductivity within the PRB. The results presented here are particularly significant because they provide the longest available record of performance of a PRB. The longevity of the Elizabeth City PRB is principally the result of favorable groundwater geochemistry and hydrologic properties of the site.
•We examine the fifteen-year performance record of a permeable reactive barrier.•The longest available performance record of a PRB for groundwater treatment.•Chromate concentrations have been reduced to below regulatory thresholds.•Trichloroethylene treatment has also been effective.•Groundwater in the PRB remains moderately alkaline and moderately reducing.
The utility of rare-earth elements (REEs) as natural geochemical tracers for the analysis of groundwater remediation was examined in several example permeable reactive barriers (PRBs). The PRBs ...utilize zero-valent iron and organic carbon plus limestone mixtures for contaminant treatment. Zero-valent iron removed REEs from groundwater to below detection levels (2–4 ng/L) and subsequent rebound of REE concentrations in regions down-gradient of the treatment zones was not observed. In addition, REE concentrations within and down-gradient of an organic carbon/limestone PRB were significantly reduced to <1% of influent levels. Thus, REEs are sensitive tracers for evaluating the interaction of groundwater with materials placed in the subsurface for contaminant remediation. Analysis of geochemical tracers for understanding in situ remediation becomes important in situations where down-gradient contaminant concentrations fail to decrease within expected timeframes. The field data indicated that increased solid-phase partitioning of REEs occurred with increasing pH and heavy REEs were preferentially removed compared to light REEs in ZVI systems. In the organic carbon PRB, unexpected negative europium anomalies were observed, revealing new information about redox conditions within the treatment zone. REE concentrations and shale-normalized profiles can be used as natural tracers to better understand in situ technologies for groundwater remediation.
•Resilience and relationships were negatively related to depressive symptoms.•Resilience partially mediated link between relationships and depressive symptoms.•Relationships partially mediated the ...association between sex and resilience.
The aim of this study was to explore the associations among interpersonal relationships, resilience and depressive symptoms, and to examine if resilience is a mediator between interpersonal relationships and depressive symptoms in senior high school students.
Of 463 randomly selected participants from among 3,900 high school students, 450 (97.19%) consented to and completed a structured 4-part questionnaire consisting of demographic items, Inventory of Adolescent Resilience, Taiwan Relationship Inventory for Children and Adolescents, and Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale for Children. The associations between interpersonal relations and resilience and their associations with depressive symptoms were analyzed using MPlus 8.0 software for structural equation modeling.
Results from structural equation modeling indicate that resilience and interpersonal relationships were negatively associated with students’ depressive symptoms, and resilience partially mediated the associations between interpersonal relationships and depressive symptoms after controlling for demographics.
Findings support that resilience and better interpersonal relationships are protective factors against depressive symptoms in adolescents. The positive association between the two protectors implies that interpersonal relationships might increase resilience and then alleviate depression amongst adolescents.
PDF
