Voices from a minority: experiences of chinese male nursing students in clinical practice.

In Hong Kong, males constituted only about 10.2% of the nursing workforce in 2010. The learning experiences of male nursing students in Hong Kong during their clinical practicum have rarely been explored. If these students cannot maintain their psychological well-being and psychological health in formal education and clinical placements, then their physical health will also suffer. This ethnographic qualitative study gave male nursing students in Hong Kong a chance to voice their experiences during their clinical practicum. Selected through snowball sampling, 18 male nursing students from a local university participated in individual face-to-face semistructured interviews. The data were processed with content analysis. The findings indicated that male students not only received more support and understanding from male rather than female members of staff but endured a certain amount of oppression while working in female wards. According to the students' comments on nursing culture, the work climate of male nursing students could be improved by reorganizing the clinical placements and providing extra support to male nursing students.

TAURINE AND HYPOTAURINE: THEIR EFFECTS ON MOTILITY, CAPACITATION AND THE ACROSOME REACTION OF HAMSTER SPERM IN VITRO AND THEIR PRESENCE IN SPERM AND REPRODUCTIVE TRACT FLUIDS OF SEVERAL MAMMALS.

Previous work from this laboratory has shown that the ß-amino acid taurine can support and stimulate hamster sperm motility during in vitro capacitation in the presence or absence of epinephrine. The present report describes in vitro results which demonstrate that hypotaurine, a precursor of taurine, can also support and stimulate motility under these conditions and that a higher number of acrosome reactions occur in the presence of taurine as compared to hypotaurine (both in the presence and absence of epinephrine). In all cases, the greates percentage of acrosome reactions occurs in the presence of epinephrine. Whether these ß-amino acids act independently of epinephrine of in a synergistic manner with it remains to be determined. In addition to these in vitro studies, we report that hypotaurine and taurine are present at high levels in bovine follicular fluid, rabbit uterine and ampullar oviductal fluid (11 hr after mating, i.e., 1 hr after ovulation), monkey oviductal fluid, bovine adrenal cortex "motility factor" preparation and human, guinea pig and hamster sperm preparations. Based on these results, we suggest the possibility that taurine and hypotaurine may have roles in vivo in the maintenance and stimulation of sperm motility and stimulation of capacitation and/or acrosome reactions.

Further evidence in support of a role for hamster sperm hydrolytic enzymes in the acrosome reaction.

The effects of trypsin inhibitors and phospholipase inhibitors on the acrosome reaction of washed cauda epididymal sperm of golden hamsters were studied using two different incubation systems. One incubation system, a non-synchronous acrosome reaction inducing system, included the use of a highly purified BSA and a protein-free motility factor preparation from hamster adrenal gland. The other system was a relatively synchronous acrosome reaction-inducing-system utilizing the calcium ionophore A23187. Acrosome reactions were inhibited by three low molecular weight synthetic trypsin inhibitors, benzamidine, NPGB and TLCK, when they were added five minutes prior to the initial occurrence of acrosome reactions in the non-synchronous system or five minutes prior to induction of acrosome reactions by A23187 in the synchronous system. Two phospholipase A inhibitors, p-bromophenacyl bromide and mepacrine, were also effective in inhibiting hamster sperm acrosome reactions in both incubation systems. TPCK, an inhibitor of several non-trypsin-like proteases, indomethacin, a prostaglandin synthetase inhibitor, and soybean trypsin inhibitor, a large molecular weight polypeptide, did not inhibit acrosome reactions. The inhibition of those acrosome reactions induced by A23187 provides further indirect evidence that the effective inhibitors were functioning at a site within the sperm. The overall results provide: (1) further support for our earlier work suggesting the involvement of an internal trypsin-like enzyme (presumably acrosin) rather than an exogenous trypsin-like enzyme in the hamster sperm acrosome reaction and (2) the first evidence suggesting the possibility that a sperm phospholipase may also be involved in the mammalian acrosome reaction.

Biosynthesis of crustacean lipovitellin. III. The incorporation of labeled amino acids into the purified lipovitellin of the crab Pachygrapsus crassipes.

Electrophoretically pure subunits were obtained from the lipovitellin (LV) of the intertidal crab, Pachygrapsus crassipes. The molecular weights of these subunits were determined. In addition, it was demonstrated that the ovaries of Pachygrapsus, incubated in vitro, incorporated 3H-leucine into the two principal subunits of lipovitellin. At the end of a 30 hour incubation the specific activity of each of the principal subunits was approximately 30,000 dpm/mg protein. It is concluded that the ovaries of Pachygrapsus crassipes are capable of synthesizing the proteinaceous yolk found in the mature egg.

Evidence for the role of a trypsin-like enzyme in the hamster sperm acrosome reaction.

Acrosome reactions occurring in vitro in hamster sperm capacitated by bovine follicular fluid were severly inhibited by four synthetic trypsin inhibitors and by Zn2+. Three polypeptide trypsin inhibitors and a synthetic chymotrypsin inhibitor did not inhibit the acrosome reaction, and Ca2+ overcame the inhibition by Zn2+. These results suggest that a trypsin-like enzyme (possibly acrosin) plays a role in the acrosome reaction.

Biosynthesis of lipovitellin by the crustacean ovary. II. Characterization of and in vitro incorporation of amino acids into the purified subunits.

The amino acid composition has been determined for two of the five subunits of the crayfish lipovitellin. In addition the molecular weight of each subunit has also been ascertained. Most importantly, it is demonstrated that following in vitro incubation radioactive amino acids are incorporated into each of three purified subunits. These data strongly support the suggestion that the vitellogenic ovary of the crayfish is capable of in situ synthesis of lipovitellin.