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Unit Characteristics (unit + characteristic)
Selected AbstractsFinancial performance and the long-term link with HR practices, work climate and job stressHUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, Issue 4 2005Marc van Veldhoven Using data front a large financial services organisation in the Netherlands, this article reports a longitudinal study at the business unit level. The study addresses the question of which longitudinal relations exist between survey data on perceived HR practices, work climate and job stress on the one hand, and prospective and retrospective financial performance on the other. Data from 223 business units were available for this study. Eight scales were selected from an employee survey answered by 18,142 respondents. These were aggregated to mean scores at the business unit level. Financial performance is operationalised by a yearly profits-to-costs ratio. Correcting for employee and business unit characteristics, the eight survey scales predict 22 per cent of the variance in business unit financial performance in the year after the survey.,Co-operation between departments' appears to be the most important predictor. Equally strong evidence was friund for a reverse causation sequence: business unit financial performance in the year before the survey was a significant predictor for four out of eight survey scales, especially for ,co-operation between departments' and ,job security'. The results underline the importance of studying variance in HR and performance variables within large organisatiuns, and the possibilities of using employee surveys in this research context. Limitations and implications of the findings are discussed. [source] Nurse absenteeism and workload: negative effect on restraint use, incident reports and mortalityJOURNAL OF ADVANCED NURSING, Issue 6 2007Lynn Unruh Abstract Title.,Nurse absenteeism and workload: negative effect on restraint use, incident reports and mortality Aim., This paper is a report of a study to assess the impact of nurse absenteeism on the quality of patient care. Background., Nurse absenteeism is a growing management concern. It can contribute to understaffed units, staffing instability, and other factors that could have a negative impact on patient care. The impacts of absenteeism on the quality of nursing care have rarely been studied. Method., Retrospective monthly data from incident reports and staffing records in six inpatient units for 2004 were analysed. Dependent variables were the numbers of restraints, alternatives to restraints, incident reports, deaths, and length of stay. Explanatory variables were nurse absenteeism hours, patient days per nursing staff, and interaction between these variables. Controls were patient acuity and unit characteristics. Fixed effects regressions were analysed as regular or negative binomial models. Findings., Neither high Registered Nurse absenteeism nor high patient load was related to restraint use when taken separately. However, high Registered Nurse absenteeism was related to restraint use when patient load was high. Registered Nurse absenteeism was related to a lower use of alternatives to restraints. Incident reports were increased by high patient load, but not absenteeism, or absenteeism given patient load. When both patient load and absenteeism were high, deaths were higher also. Conclusion., Absenteeism alone may not be a strong factor in lowering quality, but the combination of high Registered Nurse absenteeism and high patient load could be a factor. Staffing and absenteeism may be part of a vicious cycle in which low staffing contributes to unit absenteeism, which contributes to low staffing, and so on. [source] What do we learn from motor unit action potentials in surface electromyography?MUSCLE AND NERVE, Issue S11 2002Karin Roeleveld PhD Abstract This article gives an overview of what multichannel surface electromyography can teach us about a motor unit. Background information is given about the generation of surface electromyography in general and surface motor unit potentials in particular. Furthermore, we describe how surface motor unit potentials are related to several motor unit characteristics, such as size, location, neuromuscular junction position, fiber length, fiber type, and metabolic fiber properties. In addition, we show how the spatial characteristics of multichannel surface electromyography can be used to obtain single-surface motor unit potentials. The possibilities, challenges, and problems are discussed. Finally, several examples of surface motor unit potential analyses are given. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Muscle Nerve Supplement 11: S92,S97, 2002 [source] Nurse staffing and medication errors: Cross-sectional or longitudinal relationships?,RESEARCH IN NURSING & HEALTH, Issue 1 2009Barbara A. Mark Abstract We used autoregressive latent trajectory (ALT) modeling to examine the relationship between change in nurse staffing and change in medication errors over 6 months in 284 general medical-surgical nursing units. We also investigated the impact of select hospital and nursing unit characteristics on the baseline level and rate of change in medication errors. We found essentially no support for a nurse staffing,medication error relationship either cross-sectionally or longitudinally. Few hospital or nursing unit characteristics had significant relationships to either the baseline level or rate of change in medication errors. However, ALT modeling is a promising technique that can promote a deeper understanding of the theoretically complex relationships that may underlie the nurse staffing,medication error relationship. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Res Nurs Health 32:18,30, 2009 [source] Toward direct determination of conformations of protein building units from multidimensional NMR experiments VI.JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY, Issue 13 2005Chemical shift analysis of his to gain 3D structure, protonation state information Abstract NMR,chemical shift structure correlations were investigated by using GIAO-RB3LYP/6-311++G(2d,2p) formalism. Geometries and chemical shifts (CSI values) of 103 different conformers of N,-formyl-L-histidinamide were determined including both neutral and charged protonation forms. Correlations between amino acid torsional angle values and chemical shifts were investigated for the first time for an aromatic and polar amino acid residue whose side chain may carry different charges. Linear correlation coefficients of a significant level were determined between chemical shifts and dihedral angles for CSI[1H,]/,, CSI[13C,]/,, and CSI[13C,]/,. Protonation of the imidazole ring induces the upfield shift of CSI[13C,] for positively charged histidines and an opposite effect for the negative residue. We investigated the correspondence of theoretical and experimental 13C,, 13C,, and 1H, chemical shifts and the nine basic conformational building units characteristic for proteins. These three chemical shift values allow the identification of conformational building units at 80% accuracy. These results enable the prediction of additional regular secondary structural elements (e.g., polyProlineII, inverse ,-turns) and loops beyond the assignment of chemical shifts to ,-helices and ,-pleated sheets. Moreover, the location of the His residue can be further specified in a ,-sheet. It is possible to determine whether the appropriate residue is located at the middle or in a first/last ,-strand within a ,-sheet based on calculated CSI values. Thus, the attractive idea of establishing local residue specific backbone folding parameters in peptides and proteins by employing chemical shift information (e.g., 1H, and 13C,) obtained from selected heteronuclear correlation NMR experiments (e.g., 2D-HSQC) is reinforced. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem 26: 1307,1317, 2005 [source] | ||||||||||