Exploring dental faculty perceptions of current strategies and barriers to retention.

PURPOSE: The aims of the study were to identify perceived strategies for and barriers to faculty retention and examine differences regarding age, gender, and race. METHODS: Cross-sectional data was captured from the eight author-affiliated dental schools. A Qualtrics survey was emailed to all faculty members at these institutions (1467 possible participants) between November 2021 and February 2022. The survey was formulated from best practices listed in the American Dental Education Association Faculty Diversity Toolkit. It consisted of 18 questions, including demographic information and faculty perceptions of their respective workplaces. These responses were then evaluated with descriptive statistics, Chi-squared analysis, Pearson Correlation, and Fleiss' kappa. RESULTS: The survey's response rate was 19.2%. There was no significant difference in perceived retention strategies across race, age, gender, practice tenure, practice type, or clinical versus tenure track. The top four barriers identified were inadequate financial compensation, workload, poor work environment, and burnout. There was a significant difference between racial groups and their perceived barrier of support for promotion (p = 0.048). This was more prevalent among clinical faculty (47.7%) than tenure track faculty (16.2%). The work environment was listed as a leading factor for both promoting retention and encouraging the exodus of faculty members. CONCLUSION: Strategies aimed at improving financial compensation, career recognition, and transparency of the promotion process, along with those aimed at improving the work environment were shown to be vital to retaining faculty. Though the low response rate is a study limitation, these findings provide valuable information and a framework for future studies regarding dental faculty recruitment and retention.

Improving Global Health and Nursing's International Influence.

The increasing power and political involvement of nurses globally via international nursing organizations, such as Sigma Theta Tau, International and the International Council of Nurses, as well as in International Health Organizations, like Partners in Health, are discussed in this paper. The voice of nurses, like Holly Shaw at the United Nations, and influence of nurses in leadership positions, like Shelia Davis at Partners in Health, are examples of nurses using increasing power and influence in improving health globally. A brief nursing perspective on power is also included.

Self-selecting peer groups formed within the laboratory environment have a lasting effect on individual student attainment and working practices.

Within the present study, we investigate the lasting effect of laboratory peer group interactions on the end of year attainment of Biosciences and Chemistry students. By asking students to identify who they primarily work with within the laboratory environment and evaluating the interactions through cluster analysis, we identified two main categories of laboratory peer groups: the first long-lived well-established pairings of two students, 'swans', who work together for all or the majority of the laboratory sessions; and the second dynamic fluid groups, 'dolphins', of between three and nine students who work with each other interchangeably. Statistical analysis is presented, which demonstrates that individuals within each laboratory peer group were likely to achieve a similar average mark at the end of the first year of study on the course. We identified the driving factors for the formation of these groups as friendship and perceived work ethic. There is a preference for high-achieving students to work with other high-achieving students and lower-achieving to group around a shared social background. Targeted interventions, in which pairings were selected by the tutor at the onset of the study, altered the ratio from long-lived pairs to more dynamic groups and increased students' willingness to work with others outside of their group but did not change the drivers of group formation or resulting pattern of achievement. We conclude with recommendations around group working within the laboratory environment.

Targeting the Wnt signalling pathway in cancer: prospects and perils.

The Wnt pathway, involved in cancer development and progression, has for a long time been said to be undruggable, owing to its complexity and involvement in stem cell biology. This mindset has shifted in the last few years as new research and insights into the pathway mechanisms specific to tumour cells become apparent, leading to the development of multiple compounds targeting the pathway. In this review, we introduce the Wnt pathway and its connections to cancer biology and therapy resistance. We further dive into the details of drugs that have entered clinical trials, examining their successes and side effects. We show that these drugs all have one thing in common: in order to be successful, the drugs must target tumour specific activated sub-branches of the pathway, either at the receptor level or at the nuclear transcription level.

Nursing and midwifery advocacy to lead the United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda.

The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was implemented on January 1, 2016 and is composed of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and further delineated by 169 targets. This article offers background information on the 2030 Agenda as it relates to nursing and midwifery, professional organizational initiatives currently advancing the SDGs, the ethos of global citizenship, the urgency to respond to dwindling planetary health, the salience of nursing and midwifery advocacy in SDG attainment, and the myriad opportunities for nurses to lead and collaborate toward realizing these Global Goals. A US-based perspective is employed to underscore the Agenda's relevance to the US nursing workforce and healthcare system. The SDGs, with their holistic bio-psycho-social-environmental approach to health, present enormous opportunities for nurses and midwives. The SDG framework is naturally aligned with the foundational philosophy and purpose of our professions.

A high-throughput assay pipeline for specific targeting of frizzled GPCRs in cancer.

Frizzleds (FZDs) are a family of GPCRs controlling key events in all branches of the developmental Wnt signaling pathway. In this capacity these receptors are mostly active prenatally and have only a limited set of functions in the human adult. Numerous cancer types and subtypes were shown to be dependent on aberrant Wnt signaling and FZDs in particular. Taken together with their GPCR properties, this makes them an attractive drug target for the development of highly specific and efficient targeted therapies against cancer. Despite that, there are few chemical or other agents described targeting FZDs, and an even smaller number bears any clinical relevance. This sparsity dictates the necessity for broader efforts in order to advance in the Wnt pathway-targeting drug discovery. The current work describes the concepts and methodology of an inexpensive high-throughput screening followed by the pipeline of secondary assays in order to identify anti-FZD agents, which will efficiently deactivate Wnt signaling in cancer cells. Specifically, we describe a process and criteria for the selection, generation and statistical validation of a stable cancer cell line based on the well-described luciferase readout (TopFlash) which is then converted into a disease-representative high-throughput-ready screening system. We also provide information on the follow-up test sequence and the post-screening criteria to select FZD-targeting compounds among the hits and to validate them as such. We expect that use of this pipeline will boost the research on clinically valuable Wnt-targeting anti-cancer compounds.

Admixture mapping and fine-mapping of birth weight loci in the Black Women's Health Study.

Several genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified genetic variants associated with birth weight. To date, however, most GWAS of birth weight have focused primarily on European ancestry samples even though prevalence of low birth weight is higher among African-Americans. We conducted admixture mapping using 2918 ancestral informative markers in 2596 participants of the Black Women's Health Study, with the goal of identifying novel genomic regions where local African ancestry is associated with birth weight. In addition, we performed a replication analysis of 11 previously identified index single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), and fine-mapped those genetic loci to identify better or new genetic variants associated with birth weight in African-Americans. We found that high African ancestry at 12q14 was associated with low birth weight, and we identified multiple independent birth weight-lowering variants in this genomic region. We replicated the association of a previous GWAS SNP in ADRB1 and our fine-mapping efforts suggested the presence of new birth weight-associated variants in ADRB1, HMGA2, and SLC2A4. Further studies are needed to determine whether birth weight-associated loci can in part explain race-associated birth weight disparities.

A Second WNT for Old Drugs: Drug Repositioning against WNT-Dependent Cancers.

Aberrant WNT signaling underlies cancerous transformation and growth in many tissues, such as the colon, breast, liver, and others. Downregulation of the WNT pathway is a desired mode of development of targeted therapies against these cancers. Despite the urgent need, no WNT signaling-directed drugs currently exist, and only very few candidates have reached early phase clinical trials. Among different strategies to develop WNT-targeting anti-cancer therapies, repositioning of existing drugs previously approved for other diseases is a promising approach. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like aspirin, the anti-leprotic clofazimine, and the anti-trypanosomal suramin are among examples of drugs having recently revealed WNT-targeting activities. In total, 16 human-use drug compounds have been found to be working through the WNT pathway and show promise for their prospective repositioning against various cancers. Advances, hurdles, and prospects of developing these molecules as potential drugs against WNT-dependent cancers, as well as approaches for discovering new ones for repositioning, are the foci of the current review.

Multi-ethnic high school students' perceptions of nursing in the USA and Israel: a descriptive quantitative study.

BACKGROUND: In order to target new recruits or future generation of ethnic minority nurses about their potential fit in nursing, it is necessary to understand their perceptions of the profession. Successful recruitment of high school students into nursing in part requires congruency between perceptions of an ideal career and perceptions of nursing as a career. The purposes of this study were to compare ethnic minority high school students in the USA and in Israel on their perceptions of nursing as a career, and to understand how those perceptions compare to their perceptions of an ideal career. DESIGN: A descriptive quantitative design was employed to study a sample of 330 ethnic minority high school students from the USA and from Israel. METHODS: The Mann-Whitney U procedure was used to compare the groups' perceptions; a two-sided Wilcoxon Signed-Ranks test was used to determine the differences between their perceptions of an ideal career and of nursing as a career. RESULTS: The USA students had more positive perceptions of nursing as a career than did the Israeli students. Both groups of students did not perceive nursing as an ideal career: They perceived nurses as hard workers, performing arduous tasks and busy work, not academically challenged, with limited opportunity for leadership and autonomy, and earning less money than they would want in an ideal career. Caring for others was a highly valued attribute for an ideal career and for nursing as a career. CONCLUSION: A minority career development plan that underscores the positive attributes of nursing should be designed in both the USA and in Israel for ethnic minority high school students. The plan should effectively communicate nursing as a caring profession that is academically rigorous and intellectually challenging with available leadership opportunities in institutions and society.

A pathway for repair of NAD(P)H in plants.

Unwanted enzyme side reactions and spontaneous decomposition of metabolites can lead to a build-up of compounds that compete with natural enzyme substrates and must be dealt with for efficient metabolism. It has recently been realized that there are enzymes that process such compounds, formulating the concept of metabolite repair. NADH and NADPH are vital cellular redox cofactors but can form non-functional hydrates (named NAD(P)HX) spontaneously or enzymatically that compete with enzymes dependent on NAD(P)H, impairing normal enzyme function. Here we report on the functional characterization of components of a potential NAD(P)H repair pathway in plants comprising a stereospecific dehydratase (NNRD) and an epimerase (NNRE), the latter being fused to a vitamin B6 salvage enzyme. Through the use of the recombinant proteins, we show that the ATP-dependent NNRD and NNRE act concomitantly to restore NAD(P)HX to NAD(P)H. NNRD behaves as a tetramer and NNRE as a dimer, but the proteins do not physically interact. In vivo fluorescence analysis demonstrates that the proteins are localized to mitochondria and/or plastids, implicating these as the key organelles where this repair is required. Expression analysis indicates that whereas NNRE is present ubiquitously, NNRD is restricted to seeds but appears to be dispensable during the normal Arabidopsis life cycle.

Acoustic and perceptual measurement of expressive prosody in high-functioning autism: increased pitch range and what it means to listeners.

Are there consistent markers of atypical prosody in speakers with high functioning autism (HFA) compared to typically-developing speakers? We examined: (1) acoustic measurements of pitch range, mean pitch and speech rate in conversation, (2) perceptual ratings of conversation for these features and overall prosody, and (3) acoustic measurements of speech from a structured task. Increased pitch range was found in speakers with HFA during both conversation and structured communication. In global ratings listeners rated speakers with HFA as having atypical prosody. Although the HFA group demonstrated increased acoustic pitch range, listeners did not rate speakers with HFA as having increased pitch variation. We suggest that the quality of pitch variation used by speakers with HFA was non-conventional and thus not registered as such by listeners.

Preparing for an influenza pandemic: model of an immunization clinic in an urban family practice.

PROBLEM ADDRESSED: The surge in patient demand for the H1N1 influenza vaccine during the 2009 pandemic. OBJECTIVE OF THE PROGRAM: To facilitate timely delivery of the 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine to a family practice population while preserving regular clinic function and to create a model of effective vaccination delivery for future outbreaks. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: An academic family practice in Toronto, Ont, adopted a process-improvement approach and implemented 3 Saturday stand-alone H1N1 vaccination clinics to accommodate increased demand for the vaccine. Medical directives were developed to give nurses the authority to vaccinate patients. Consent forms with eligibility criteria and risks versus benefits sheets were provided to patients in the waiting area to make optimal use of time. The clinic with "appointment blocks" for patients had improved efficiency (ie, fewer bottlenecks from waiting area to vaccination room), which was satisfactory to both staff and patients. CONCLUSION: During a pandemic, when patient demand for vaccination is high, such stand-alone vaccination clinics in conjunction with family practices can deliver vaccines to patients in a timely and acceptable manner while promoting continuity of care. This model requires the commitment of extra staffing resources if regular primary care delivery is to be maintained.

Integrating the core professional values of nursing: a profession, not just a career.

To meet the predicted deficit of more than 1 million nurses by 2020, traditional nursing recruitment must target previously un-recruited populations, as well as a culturally diversified workforce to include variations in age, ethnicity, gender, life style, national origin, and sexual orientations. As diversity increases, differences must be bridged to acculturate new nurses to recognize and identify with a shared nursing ideology and culture. The core professional nursing values (CPNVs) impart a common foundation that unites students and nurses in a meaningful, collective culture. Baccalaureate nursing programs actively promulgate these professional nursing values, however, methods to incorporate them into curricula are often absent from the literature. Following an intervention integrating the CPNVs into academic education, students affirmed the usefulness of this approach describing that the integration of the core values created a shared culture of professional nursing and deepened their commitment to the profession. Incorporating the CPNVs provided a promising approach that bridged the cultural chasm of a highly diverse student population and the profession of nursing by creating a shared professional culture across the myriad differences.

Urban high school students' perceptions of nursing as a career choice.

One hundred and fourteen high school students (n = 114) completed the Attitudes, Values, and Beliefs Questionnaire. A two-sided Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test revealed that students perceived an ideal career as having more power, more positive evaluation, and less activity than a career in nursing would. The areas of greatest perceived disparity and those that showed nursing less favorably were making decisions for one's self, always having a job, working in a safe place, making a lot of money, and earning appreciation and respect. Areas in which nursing appeared more favorable were working with one's hands and being very busy. Caring for others and working hard were valued equally for both careers. Students' perceptions of nursing may have been based on misinformation, on a lack of awareness about the options available within the profession, or based simply on a higher regard for a different career. Future endeavors to recruit these students into nursing must include exposure to the multiple opportunities that await them as experienced by contemporary nursing professionals.