To deal with the upcoming challenges and complexity of the nursing profession, it is deemed important to reflect on our current organization of care. However, before starting to rethink the organization of nursing care, an overview of important elements concerning nursing care organization, more specifically nursing models, is necessary. The aim of this study was to conduct a mapping review, accompanied by an evidence map to map the existing literature, to map the field of knowledge on a meta‐level and to (...) identify current research gaps concerning nursing models in a hospital setting. Next to nursing models, two other organizational correlates seem to be of importance when looking at the organization of nursing care: nurse staffing and skill mix. Although it seems that in recent research, the theoretical focus on the organization of nursing care has been left behind, the increasingly complex healthcare environment might gain from the use of nursing theory, or in this case, care delivery models. As almost no fundamental studies have been done toward the combination of care delivery models, nurse staffing, and skill mix, those elements should be taken into account to fully capture the organization of nursing care in future research. (shrink)

Monica Colvin-Adams,1 Nonyelum Harcourt,1 Robert LeDuc,2 Ganesh Raveendran,1 Yassir Sonbol,3 Robert Wilson,1 Daniel Duprez11Cardiovascular Division, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA; 2Division of Biostatistics University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA; 3Cardiovascular Division, St Luke's Hospital System, Sugar Land, TX, USAObjective: Arterial elasticity is a functional biomarker that has predictive value for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in nontransplant populations. There is little information regarding arterial elasticity in heart transplant recipients. This study aimed to characterize small and large artery elasticity in heart (...) transplant recipients in comparison with an asymptomatic population free of overt cardiovascular disease. A second goal was to identify demographic and clinical factors associated with arterial elasticity in this unique population.Methods: Arterial pulse waveform was registered noninvasively at the radial artery in 71 heart transplant recipients between 2008 and 2010. SAEs and LAEs were derived from diastolic pulse contour analysis. Comparisons were made to a healthy cohort of 1,808 participants selected from our prevention clinic database. Multiple regression analyses were performed to evaluate associations between risk factors and SAE and LAE within the heart transplant recipients.Results: LAE and SAE were significantly lower in heart transplant recipients than in the normal cohort. Female sex and history of ischemic cardiomyopathy were significantly associated with reduced LAE and SAE. Older age and the presence of moderate cardiac allograft vasculopathy were also significantly associated with reduced SAE. Transplant duration was associated with increased SAE.Conclusion: Heart transplants are associated with peripheral endothelial dysfunction and arterial stiffness, as demonstrated by a significant reduction in SAE and LAE when compared with a healthy population. Furthermore, cardiac allograft vasculopathy is associated with a significant reduction in SAE, suggesting a potential use in screening heart transplant recipients at risk for developing this complication.Keywords: heart transplant, endothelial function, arterial elasticity, cardiac allograft vasculopathy. (shrink)

Background: Only data of published study results are available to the scientific community for further use such as informing future research and synthesis of available evidence. If study results are reported selectively, reporting bias and distortion of summarised estimates of effect or harm of treatments can occur. The publication and citation of results of clinical research conducted in Germany was studied.Methods: The protocols of clinical research projects submitted to the research ethics committee of the University of Freiburg in 2000 were (...) analysed. Published full articles in several databases were searched and investigators contacted. Data on study and publication characteristics were extracted from protocols and corresponding publications.Results: 299 study protocols were included. The most frequent study design was randomised controlled trial , followed by uncontrolled studies , laboratory studies and non-randomised studies . 182 were multicentre studies including 97 international collaborations. 152 of 299 had commercial funding and 46 non-commercial funding. 109 of the 225 completed protocols corresponded to at least one full publication ; the publication rate was 48%. 168 of 210 identified publications were cited in articles indexed in the ISI Web of Science. The median was 11 citations per publication .Conclusions: Results of German clinical research projects conducted are largely underreported. Barriers to successful publication need to be identified and appropriate measures taken. Close monitoring of projects until publication and adequate support provided to investigators may help remedy the prevailing underreporting of research. (shrink)

Following a previous article published in Biological Theory, in this study we present a mathematical theory for a science of qualities as directly perceived by living organisms, and based on morphological patterns. We address a range of qualitative phenomena as observables of a psychological system seen as an impredicative system. The starting point of our study is the notion that perceptual phenomena are projections of underlying invariants, objects that remain unchanged when transformations of a certain class under consideration are applied. (...) The study develops with the observables, the entailed total order and metric, whence the algebra and the geometry of such a science, presenting a formal phenomenological model for phenomena that are not rigidly Euclidean. We show how non-Euclidean perception can have many useful Euclidean formalizations, as well as locally-homeomorphic-to-Euclidean-space models. The mathematical models we provide are tested on the basis of results from experimental psychology, in particular from the field of color, time, and space perception. (shrink)

The author has recently shown that a mathematical question regarding the fundamental constituents of hardrons cannot be resolved unless the classical axioms of nonfinite mathematics are revised in such a way as to produce a new theory of particle motion in continuous space-time. Under this new theory, the instantaneous position of a moving object has a magnitude that is increasing as the object's velocity. The purpose of this paper is to show that, quite apart from the question of Cantorian axiomatics, (...) the new theory of motion is more consistent with what physicists really believe than the traditional theory of motion. (shrink)

The issue of sexual relations between spouses is a major cause of broken homes in Nigeria and Christian couples are not an exception. People believe that a large percentage of broken homes have the root of their problem traced to sex. The preponderance of broken homes notwithstanding, most studies in this area have been from the socio-scientific and medical cum psychological point of view and many more have focused on teenagers and young people to the exclusion of married couples that (...) need healing in this regard. This article is aimed at bringing out biblical instruction concerning the issue of sex that could help to restore peace to many homes at the verge of breaking down. The focal passage is 1 Corinthians 7:1–5, which was Paul’s instructions to the Corinthian church when they faced a similar problem. This article is an exegetical analysis of the passage and is read rhetorically with the Nigerian situation in mind. It concludes that sex must be enjoyed within the ambits of marriage and within this ambit, the only reason for abstinence is mutual agreement for the purpose of prayer.Contribution: The article upholds gender equality in initiating and enjoying sex and rejects looking down on women who request sex. It also calls for the eradication of female genital mutilation, a tradition based on making women not enjoy sex. (shrink)

В монографии представлена систематизация современных западных и отечественных подходов в исследовании качеств современного человека, таких как креативность и информативность. Для читателей, интересующихся проблемами социальной философии.

Публикация рассчитана как на специалистов, так и на широкий круг читателей.

El hombre crea su moral tomando en cuenta las aportaciones más íntimas de su espíritu. Así como la historia de la humanidad presenta una serie gradual y emocional de conquistas espirituales, así también la moral se ha logrado a través de la historia, pero siempre sobre el fundamento de la esencia humana, pues no cabe duda de que la jerarquía de los valores depende de cada ser humano. Ella orienta toda su conducta y señala sus grandes metas. El espíritu religioso (...) coloca, en primer término, a los valores de la religión, el moralista a los éticos, el pragmático a los útiles; el estético a las bellas artes, dando preferencia cada una a su valor favorito. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the target article “From Objects to Processes: A Proposal to Rewrite Radical Constructivism” by Siegfried J. Schmidt. Upshot: In the 1990s the emergence of radical constructivism as a meta-theory inspired many scientific disciplines. Since more or less simple realistic concepts of the media as mirroring the world prevailed, communication science was challenged to re-think the relation of media and reality as well. Recently, criticism of constructivist media theory has grown, while those constructivst approaches have not developed (...) any further. Thus, the commentary examines the potential for Schmidt”s process-oriented constructivism, which is interpreted as part of a non-dualistic paradigm, to revitalize the debate. I will argue that the idea of acting as a perpetual process of positings and presuppositions [Setzungen und Voraussetzungen] can especially be related to current research on media and memory. (shrink)

In this work we show that, within the framework of double-slit experiment, it is possible to ascertain simultaneously more incompatible properties together with the measurement of the position of the final impact-point. A wide family of solutions is concretely found and an ideal experiment realizing such a detection is designed, relatively to the detection of two incompatible properties. In the case of three incompatible properties, general conditions for the existence of solutions are singled out and a particular family of solutions (...) is provided. (shrink)

Seminar papers on the philosophical thoughts of the people of Bangladesh.

Classical work, with exhaustive Hindi commentary, on Mimamsa philosophy.