Nurses' Personality Traits and Perceived Work Environments During Public Health Emergencies: Implications for Nursing Workforce Planning.

Background: The nursing workforce faces substantial challenges, particularly in the aftermath of the COVID-19 era. Developing an effective strategy for workforce maintenance and the strategic deployment of nurses is crucial. Purpose: This study aimed to explore and categorize nurses' personality traits, with a focus on analyzing differences in their perceptions of the nursing work environment. Participants and Methods: Between January 2023 and February 2023, a multi-center cross-sectional study was carried out involving nurses from 12 tertiary hospitals actively engaged in frontline COVID-19 response duties. Through cluster sampling, surveys were distributed among eligible nursing staff, comprising a general information questionnaire, the Chinese Big Five Personality Questionnaire-Short Form, subjective evaluations of emergency nursing management, and the Chinese Nursing Work Environment Scale for Public Health Emergencies. Various statistical analyses, such as descriptive analysis, cluster analysis, non-parametric tests, and general linear model analysis, were employed to investigate the correlation between personality types and the perception of nursing work environments. Results: The analysis encompassed 1059 valid questionnaires, reflecting the experiences of frontline nurses. The majority of these nurses possessed 1-5 years of experience, held junior professional titles, volunteered for their roles, and served as attending nurses. Categorization based on personality traits revealed three groups: resilient (35.60%), ordinary (16.15%), and distressed (48.25%) types. Significantly distinct perceptions of nursing work environments emerged among these categories, with resilient and ordinary types expressing notably higher satisfaction compared to the distressed group (H value = 256.487, p < 0.001). Conclusion: This study illustrates the connection between nurses' perceived working environment and their personality traits. Nursing managers should factor in nurses' personality traits when choosing and deploying frontline responders during public health emergencies. Prioritizing resilient-type nurses and crafting a supportive work environment that aligns with nurses' characteristics is indispensable for an effective emergency response.

Vibrational coupling with O-H stretching increases catalytic efficiency of sucrase in Fabry-Pérot microcavity.

Vibrational strong coupling (VSC) has been reported as a polariton-based method for modulating the rate of biochemical reactions. Herein, we studied how VSC modulates the sucrose hydrolysis. By monitoring the refractive index-induced shift of Fabry-Pérot microcavity, in which the catalytic efficiency of sucrose hydrolysis can be increased at least two times, as VSC was tuned to resonate with the stretching vibration of O-H bonds. This research provides new evidence for applying VSC in life sciences, which holds great promise to improving enzymatic industries.

Real-time fluorescence dynamics in one-step synthesis of gold nanoclusters coupling with peptide motifs.

The molecule-like electronic structure endows gold nanoclusters (AuNCs) a most intriguing property, fluorescence, thereby AuNCs offer a great potential for biomedical applications. Recent efforts to improve the fluorescence of AuNCs mainly focus on tailoring size, structure and chemical environments. Herein, with the help of molecular dynamics simulation, we designed tyrosine-containing peptide motifs as the reducing agents, protecting ligands to synthesis P (peptide)-AuNCs in one-step reaction, which was developed to real-time monitor the fluorescence evolution of P-AuNCs. P-AuNCs with a quantum yield of ∼ 18 % were synthesized and further demonstrated for multiple biomedical applications, such as sensing of temperature (10-55 â„ƒ) and metal ions (with a limit of detection of 5 nM for Hg2+), as well as cell labeling and imaging. With the excellent biocompatibility, wide spectral range and potential capacity for bio-recognition, this study provides a useful one-step synthesis strategy for screening out peptide motifs to real-time modulate the optical properties of peptide-containing hybrid nanomaterials.

Molecular Simulation Study on the Interaction between Tyrosinase and Flavonoids from Sea Buckthorn.

Isorhamnetin, kaempferol, myricetin, and quercetin are four kinds of secondary metabolites in sea buckthorn, which have a wide range of biological activities. Investigating their interactions with tyrosinase at the atomic level can improve the bioavailability of sea buckthorn. Both molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation methods were employed to study the interactions of these ligands with tyrosinase. The results of molecular docking indicated that these four small molecules such as isorhamnetin, kaempferol, myricetin, and quercetin can all dock into the active center of tyrosinase, and by occupying the active site, they can prevent substrate binding, thereby reducing the catalytic activity of tyrosinase. Molecular dynamics simulation trajectory analysis showed that all tyrosinase-ligand complexes reach an equilibrium within 100 ns. In addition, quercetin has the lowest binding energy among these four ligands, and the complex with tyrosinase is the most stable. This study not only provides valuable information for improving the bioavailability of sea buckthorn but also contributes to the discovery of effective natural inhibitors of tyrosinase.

Green Fluorescent Tripeptide Nanostructures: Synergetic Effects of Oxidation and Hierarchical Assembly.

Peptide-based fluorescent materials hold promise for applications in energy harvesting and biomedicine. One remaining challenge is to overcome the barrier of fluorescence red shift, especially for peptide probes merely made of natural amino acids. Here we demonstrated an about 100 nm fluorescence red shift using a tripeptide GYK. Under UV illumination or in Fenton reactions, the hydroxyl free radical-based oxidation crosslinks GYK tripeptides into dimers, which can further act as building blocks to hierarchically assemble into nanostructures of different sizes and finally can shift the fluorescence from blue to green color (∼510 nm). Such assemblies can form core-shell-like nanostructures through further crosslinking of their surface with additional GYK monomers, which can not only make the nanostructures more robust but also efficiently improve their quantum yields. This research will deepen our understanding of bioluminescence, which sheds light on various biomedical applications of peptide-based fluorescent probes.

Study on physisorption between phycocyanin and gold nanoparticles.

Interactions between nanoparticles (NPs) and biomolecules, especially proteins, have attracted increasing attention. Photoresponsive proteins have shown high potential for optogenetic research. The combination between optogenetics and nanotechnology will bring a new biological era in which photoresponsive proteins will inevitably encounter NPs, therefore their interactions will be a key point to investigate. Here, we have systematically studied the interactions between a photoresponsive protein (called phycocyanin, PC) and a typical kind of amphiphilic polymer-coated gold NPs (AP-AuNPs) using fluorescence quenching methods. The results showed that the binding constant between PCs and AP-AuNPs is 4.427 × 106  M-1 with a positive cooperativity, and the robust affinity was hydrophobic interaction driven mortise-tenon conjugation, which could even resist gel electrophoresis. These results could also shed light on potential designs for building up artificial protein-NP light-harvesting systems.

Preparation of pH-responsive avermectin/feather keratin-hyaluronic acid with anti-UV and sustained-release properties.

In an effort to improve the utilization of pesticides, an environmentally friendly carrier material was prepared to encapsulate pesticides and to prevent pesticides from decomposing under natural conditions with sustained-release effect. The carrier of feather keratin-hyaluronic acid (FK-HA) was prepared by Maillard reaction. Using avermectin (AVM) as a model drug, AVM/FK-HA was obtained by heating. Its structure and morphology were measured by SDS-PAGE, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermal gravimetric analyzer (TGA) and dynamic light scattering (DLS). Furthermore, the encapsulation efficiency, anti-UV, sustained-release and toxicological properties were investigated. The results showed that AVM/FK-HA featured an average particle size of 473.82 nm, with nearly spherical shape. Furthermore, the material exhibited a high surface charge and was capable of homogeneous dispersion. The encapsulation efficiency was found to be as high as 81.25%. Compared to pure AVM, the pesticide encapsulated by FK-HA (i.e. AVM/FK-HA) could reduce drug decomposition by 20% after ultraviolet irradiation for 52 h. Moreover, mass ratio, temperature and varying pH values exhibited an effect on the sustained release of the drug and the release mechanism was consistent with Fick diffusion. Finally, the difference between the toxicological effects of AVM encapsulated by FK-HA and pure AVM were not significant.