Introduction: Healthcare organisations require optimal leadership to achieve goals and deliver high-quality services. Leadership is the ability to influence employee behaviour and beliefs and is an ...essential element of a successful organisation. Improving job satisfaction is a key objective in addressing the challenges related to achieving and maintaining quality standards, ensuring patient satisfaction and staff retention. Similarly, transformational leadership has positive effects on nurses' job satisfaction and promotes organisational wellbeing in the workplace. Objective: The purpose of the review is to describe transformational leadership and job satisfaction in the nursing profession through a narrative revision. Materials and methods: The bibliographic research was carried out between September 2022 and March 2024 by consulting databases such as PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycInfo, with time limits of 12 years and Italian and English language filters. All items deemed relevant have been stored and managed with the Zotero IT platform. Results: 16 studies were examined: 1 comparative study, 5 descriptive correlational studies, 1 meta-analysis, 1 systematic review, 4 cross-sectional studies, 2 mixed method studies and 2 unspecified studies. The results of this study are consistent with transformational leadership theory, which highlights the leader's role in providing employees with supportive work environments that result in higher levels of job satisfaction and efficiency. Conclusions: The skills of a transformative leader, such as the ability to listen, provide support, and promote fairness and recognition, are fundamental to increasing nurses' job satisfaction and sustaining environments with a high level of quality of care. Healthcare managers must protect the quality of work undertaken by staff, implementing strategies that can improve nurses' working conditions.
We review the recent results of the CMS experiment in the field of b-quark production, B hadron spectroscopy and decays. The beauty quark production cross section measurements are performed both in ...inclusive and exclusive channels. In addition, we present the observation of a new Ξb baryon and searches for rare charmed hadron decays.
The accurate determination of the Parton Distribution Functions (PDFs) of the proton is an essential ingredient of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) program. PDF uncertainties impact a wide range of ...processes, from Higgs boson characterisation and precision Standard Model measurements to New Physics searches. A major recent development in modern PDF analyses has been to exploit the wealth of new information contained in precision measurements from the LHC Run I, as well as progress in tools and methods to include these data in PDF fits. In this report we summarise the information that PDF-sensitive measurements at the LHC have provided so far, and review the prospects for further constraining PDFs with data from the recently started Run II. This document aims to provide useful input to the LHC collaborations to prioritise their PDF-sensitive measurements at Run II, as well as a comprehensive reference for the PDF-fitting collaborations.
Graphene and its related materials have attracted much interest in sensing applications because of their optimized ratio between active surface and bulk volume. In particular, several forms of ...oxidized graphene have been studied to optimize the sensing efficiency, sometimes moving away from practical solutions to boost performance. In this paper, we propose a practical, high-sensitivity, and easy to fabricate gas sensor based on high quality graphene oxide (GO), and we give the rationale to the high performance of the device. The device is fabricated by drop-casting water-dispersed single-layer GO flakes on standard 30 μm spaced interdigitated Pt electrodes. The exceptional size of the GO flakes (27 μm mean size and ∼500 μm maximum size) allows single GO flake to bridge adjacent electrodes. A typical p-type response is observed by testing the device in both reducing and oxidizing environments. The specific response to NO2 is studied by varying the operating temperature and the gas concentration. Sensing activity is demonstrated to be mainly mediated by the oxygen functional groups. A 20 ppb detection limit is measured. Besides illustrating a simple and efficient approach to gas sensing, this work is an example of the versatility of graphene oxide, accomplishing tasks that are complementary to graphene.
Graphene oxide (GO) is attracting an ever-growing interest in different fields and applications. Not much is known about the possible impact of GO sheet lateral dimensions on their effects in vitro, ...especially on human primary cells. In an attempt to address this issue, we present a study to evaluate, how highly soluble 2-dimensional GO constituted of large or small flakes affects human monocyte derived macrophages (hMDM). For this purpose, the lateral size of GO was tuned using sonication and three samples were obtained. The non sonicated one presented large flakes (~1.32 μm) while sonication for 2 and 26 hours generated small (~0.27 μm) and very small (~0.13 μm) sheets of GO, respectively. Cell studies were then conducted to evaluate the cytotoxicity, the oxidative stress induction, the activation potential and the pro-inflammatory effects of these different types of GO at increasing concentrations. In comparison, the same experiments were run on murine intraperitoneal macrophages (mIPM). The interaction between GO and cells was further examined by TEM and Raman spectroscopy. Our data revealed that the GO sheet size had a significant impact on different cellular parameters (i.e. cellular viability, ROS generation, and cellular activation). Indeed, the more the lateral dimensions of GO were reduced, the higher were the cellular internalization and the effects on cellular functionality. Our data also revealed a particular interaction of GO flakes with the cellular membrane. In fact, a GO mask due to the parallel arrangement of the graphene sheets on the cellular surface was observed. Considering the mask effect, we have hypothesized that this particular contact between GO sheets and the cell membrane could either promote their internalization or isolate cells from their environment, thus possibly accounting for the following impact on cellular parameters.
An optical gas sensor was prepared by depositing graphene oxide flakes over a monolayer of gold nanoparticles, chemically attached to a functionalized fused silica substrate. The coupling between ...flakes and nanoparticles lead to optical changes upon exposure to different gases: in particular, we observed a shift of the surface plasmon resonance band in presence of both reducing and oxidizing gases. This effect can be explained in terms of a strong gold–graphene interaction and specifically of electron transfer between the gold nanoparticles and the two-dimensional sheet of the sp2-hybridized carbons of graphene oxide.
There has been a perpetual interest in identifying suitable nanocarriers for drug delivery. In this regard, graphene-based two-dimensional materials have been proposed and demonstrated as drug ...carriers. In this paper, we have investigated the adsorption characteristics of a widely used anticancer drug, doxorubicin (DOX), on graphene (G) and graphene oxide (GO) by density functional theory calculations and fluorescence and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopies. From the calculated structural and electronic properties, we have concluded that G is a better binder of DOX compared to GO, which is also supported by our fluorescence measurements. The binding of DOX to G is mainly based on strong π–π stacking interactions. Consistent with this result, we also found that the sp2 regions of GO interact with DOX stronger than the sp3 regions attached with the functional groups; the binding is characterized by π–π and hydrogen-bonding interactions, respectively.
In this study, we examined three different syntheses of hydroxyapatite (HAp) and graphene oxide–hydroxyapatite (GO–HAp) composites with a GO content of 9, 33, and 43% wt. The materials were prepared ...from various precursors of calcium and phosphate ions, using an in situ synthesis method, with mild conditions to avoid reducing the GO. In situ bonding technology proposed that calcium ions bond with GO at first and then HAp nanoflakes in situ grow on GO sheets, forming GO–HAp nanocomposite. The aim of the present work was to analyze the differences due to the use of different starting reagents and verify, with the addition of increasing amounts of GO, the changes in morphology, crystallinity, and solubility of the obtained HAp composites. Detailed structural and morphological characterization studies of the composites were carried out using scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X‐ray spectrometry, X‐ray powder diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. We found that GO sheets act as a nucleation site for HAp mineralization, but we observed a loss of the crystallographic order due to the intercalation of the graphenic sheets between the HAp particles.
Graphene oxide (GO) is a promising material for the development of cost-effective detection systems. In this work, we have devised a simple and rapid GO-based method for the sequence-specific ...identification of DNA molecules generated by PCR amplification. The csp genes of Escherichia coli, which share a high degree of sequence identity, were selected as paradigm DNA templates. All tested csp genes were amplified with unlabelled primers, which can be rapidly removed at the end of the PCR taking advantage of the preferential binding to GO of single-stranded versus duplex DNA molecules. The amplified DNAs (targets) were heat-denatured and hybridized to a fluorescently-labelled single strand oligonucleotide (probe), which recognizes a region of the target DNAs displaying sequence variability. This interaction is extremely specific, taking place with high efficiency only when target and probe show perfect or near perfect matching. Upon GO addition, the unbound fraction of the probe was captured and its fluorescence quenched by the GO's molecular properties. On the other hand, the probe-target complexes remained in solution and emitted a fluorescent signal whose intensity was related to their degree of complementarity.
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