A review of workplace mental health interventions and their implementation in public safety organizations.

OBJECTIVE: Workplace mental health is relevant to public safety organizations due to the exposure that many public safety personnel (PSP) have to psychological trauma in the course of their daily work. While the importance of attending to PSP mental health has been established, the implementation of workplace mental health interventions is not as well understood. This scoping review describes workplace mental health interventions and their implementation in public safety organizations. METHODS: English published primary studies with any publication date up to July 3, 2020 were considered. JBI methodology and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews was followed. RESULTS: 89 citations met inclusion criteria out of the 62,299 found. Articles and reports found were largely published within the last decade, most frequently from Western nations, and most often applied to police, followed by firefighters. The focus of interventions was commonly stress management and resilience, and a frequent implementation strategy was multi-session group training. Comprehensive quality improvement initiatives, a focus on supervisors and managers, and interventions across primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention, were infrequent. CONCLUSION: Public safety organizations are frequently reporting on stress management and resilience interventions for police and firefighters, implemented through multi-session group training. A focus across a range of PSP, including paramedics, corrections officers, and emergency dispatchers, using implementation strategies beyond group training, is suggested. This area of research is currently expanding, with many studies published within the past decade; ongoing evaluation of the quality of interventions and implementation strategies is recommended.

"Shake 'n Bake" Route to Functionalized Zr-UiO-66 Metal-Organic Frameworks.

We report a novel synthetic procedure for the high-yield synthesis of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with fcu topology with a UiO-66-like structure starting from a range of commercial ZrIV precursors and various substituted dicarboxylic linkers. The syntheses are carried out by grinding in a ball mill the starting reagents, namely, Zr salts and the dicarboxylic linkers, in the presence of a small amount of acetic acid and water (1 mL total volume for 1 mmol of each reagent), followed by incubation at either room temperature or 120 °C. Such a simple "shake 'n bake" procedure, inspired by the solid-state reaction of inorganic materials, such as oxides, avoids the use of large amounts of solvents generally used for the syntheses of Zr-MOF. Acidity of the linkers and the amount of water are found to be crucial factors in affording materials of quality comparable to that of products obtained under solvo- or hydrothermal conditions.

13C pNMR of "crumple zone" Cu(II) isophthalate metal-organic frameworks.

NMR spectroscopy of paramagnetic materials (pNMR) has the potential to provide great structural insight, but many challenges remain in interpreting the spectra in detail. This work presents a study of a series of structurally analogous metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) based on 5-substituted isophthalate linkers and Cu(II) paddlewheel dimers, of interest owing to their "crumple zone" structural rearrangement on dehydration/rehydration. 13C MAS NMR spectra reveal a wide variation in the observed resonance position for chemically similar C species in the different MOFs but, despite this, resonances are overlapped in several cases. However, by considering a combination of the integration of quantitative spectra, the resonance position as a function of temperature and T1 relaxation measurements, the spectra can be fully assigned. It is also demonstrated that the prototypical MOF in this series, STAM-1, displays a crumple zone rearrangement on dehydration, similar to the well-characterised 5-ethoxyisophthalate MOF (STAM-17-OEt) although, while the materials have similar local C environments, dehydrated STAM-1 exhibits less long-range order.

Assessing Similarity in Production from Organizational and Department-Level Financial Accounting Statements.

Hospitals are complex organizations which provide a wide array of health care services. This complexity creates challenges for stakeholders who wish to use financial accounting statements to make inferences about the productive choices made by a hospital's management. These challenges are especially salient when using data reported at the department (or cost center) level, or where the provision of care is coordinated across hospital departments. This study applies information entropy-based comparability analysis techniques to overall and department-level hospital financial data to identify hospital peer groups. Hospitals peer groups not only exhibit similar financial positions overall, but are also likely to exhibit operational similarities at the department level. Data for this analysis are drawn from the financial statements of Washington State critical access hospitals in the fiscal year 2019. The medical laboratory and pharmacy departments were specifically assessed because their services impact or support virtually every other revenue-producing department in the hospital. Findings suggest both departments significantly impact the formation of peer groups, with the pharmacy department contributing the largest impact.

Organizational Factors and Their Impact on Mental Health in Public Safety Organizations.

Public safety personnel (PSP), including correctional officers, firefighters, paramedics, and police officers, have higher rates of mental health conditions than other types of workers. This scoping review maps the impact of organizational factors on PSP mental health, reviewing applicable English language primary studies from 2000-2021. JBI methodology for scoping reviews was followed. After screening, 97 primary studies remained for analysis. Police officers (n = 48) were the most frequent population studied. Correctional officers (n = 27) and paramedics (n = 27) were the second most frequently identified population, followed by career firefighters (n = 20). Lack of supervisor support was the most frequently cited negative organizational factor (n = 23), followed by negative workplace culture (n = 21), and lack of co-worker support (n = 14). Co-worker support (n = 10) was the most frequently identified positive organizational factor, followed by supervisor support (n = 8) and positive workplace culture (n = 5). This scoping review is the first to map organizational factors and their impact on PSP mental health across public safety organizations. The results of this review can inform discussions related to organizational factors, and their relationship to operational and personal factors, to assist in considering which factors are the most impactful on mental health, and which are most amenable to change.

Workplace mental health implementation strategies in public safety organizations: a scoping review protocol.

OBJECTIVE: This scoping review aims to map workplace mental health implementation strategies in public safety organizations and describe the characteristics, participants, and contexts of these strategies. INTRODUCTION: Workplace mental health implementation strategies are relevant to public safety organizations due to the exposure that many public safety personnel, such as firefighters, paramedics, and police officers, have to psychological trauma in the course of their daily work. While the importance of attending to public safety personnel's mental health has been established, workplace mental health implementation strategies have historically varied in public safety organizations. INCLUSION CRITERIA: This scoping review will address workplace mental health implementation strategies used in public safety organizations. It will exclude studies that do not focus on workplace mental health, do not report on the implementation strategies used, or do not take place in a public safety context. METHODS: Primary studies published in English with any publication date up to the present will be considered. JBI methodology and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) will be followed. The search will be carried out in five databases and reference lists will also be searched for additional studies. Duplicates will be removed, and two independent reviewers will screen the titles, abstracts, and full text of the selected studies. Data collection will be performed using a tool developed by the researchers, based on JBI's model instrument for extracting study details, characteristics, and results. A summary of the results will be presented in diagrams, narratives, and tables.

The use of exploratory factor analysis in public health: a note on parallel analysis as a factor retention criterion.

PURPOSE: Exploratory factor analysis is used to identify latent factors for public health interventions. The most popular factor retention criterion, the eigenvalue greater than one (EVG1) rule, leads to the retention of more factors than warranted. The use of parallel analysis (PA) as a factor retention criterion is recommended. DESIGN: Environmental factors that are likely to affect the propensity of individuals to walk are identified. Results from PA are compared with those obtained by using the EVG1 rule. SETTING: Telephone survey data were collected from three communities (spanning 12 counties) in the Appalachian region. PARTICIPANTS: The sample was composed of adults between the ages of 40 and 65 years. There were 1019 completed surveys. MEASURES: The data on 14 variables, including measures of neighborhood safety, beauty, and access to walking facilities were collected. ANALYSIS: A principal components analysis was performed. The factors retained after using the EVG1 rule were compared with the factors retained after using PA. Varimax rotation was used to aid factor interpretation. RESULTS: The EVG1 rule led to the retention of nearly twice the number of latent factors as did the PA criterion. CONCLUSION: The use of the EVG1 rule in research may mislead policy makers to focus on trivial interventions. They are urged to use PA to obtain more parsimonious and externally valid interventions.

Mutation Spectra of the MRN (MRE11, RAD50, NBS1/NBN) Break Sensor in Cancer Cells.

The MRN complex (MRE11, RAD50, NBS1/NBN) is a DNA double strand break sensor in eukaryotes. The complex directly participates in, or coordinates, several activities at the break such as DNA resection, activation of the DNA damage checkpoint, chromatin remodeling and recruitment of the repair machinery. Mutations in components of the MRN complex have been described in cancer cells for several decades. Using the Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer (COSMIC) database, we characterized all the reported MRN mutations. This analysis revealed several hotspot frameshift mutations in all three genes that introduce premature stop codons and truncate large regions of the C-termini. We also found through evolutionary analyses that COSMIC mutations are enriched in conserved residues of NBS1/NBN and RAD50 but not in MRE11. Given that all three genes are important to carcinogenesis, we propose these differential enrichment patterns may reflect a more severe pleiotropic role for MRE11.

Assessing the Impact of Medical Laboratory Resource Allocations on Hospital Finances.

The relationship between resource allocation decisions within medical laboratory cost centers and overall hospital financial performance is empirically investigated using a panel of critical access hospitals in Washington State (2014-2016). In order to increase accessibility to hospital managers and health policy makers, a managerial finance perspective (defining performance using simple financial accounting ratios) is adopted. Results indicate that resource allocation decisions within the medical laboratory cost center have a significant impact on the financial performance of the hospital as a whole. However, the nature of the impact depends on the type of financial metric utilized. For instance, the proportion of the typical medical laboratory's budget that is allocated to rent is negatively and significantly related to the hospital's return on assets. Concomitantly, medical laboratory cost centers that have a larger footprint in the hospital (as measured by square footage) exhibit a significant, positive association with the hospital's current ratio. Thus, physically larger medical laboratories may allow the hospital to better manage its liquid assets.

An Assay to Study Intra-Chromosomal Deletions in Yeast.

An accurate DNA damage response pathway is critical for the repair of DNA double-strand breaks. Repair may occur by homologous recombination, of which many different sub-pathways have been identified. Some recombination pathways are conservative, meaning that the chromosome sequences are preserved, and others are non-conservative, leading to some alteration of the DNA sequence. We describe an in vivo genetic assay to study non-conservative intra-chromosomal deletions at regions of non-tandem direct repeats in Schizosaccharomyces pombe. This assay can be used to study both spontaneous breaks arising during DNA replication and induced double-strand breaks created with the S. cerevisiae homothallic endonuclease (HO). The preliminary genetic validation of this assay shows that spontaneous breaks require rad52+ but not rad51+, while induced breaks require both genes, in agreement with previous studies. This assay will be useful in the field of DNA damage repair for studying mechanisms of intra-chromosomal deletions.

Hydrolytic stability in hemilabile metal-organic frameworks.

Highly porous metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), which have undergone exciting developments over the past few decades, show promise for a wide range of applications. However, many studies indicate that they suffer from significant stability issues, especially with respect to their interactions with water, which severely limits their practical potential. Here we demonstrate how the presence of 'sacrificial' bonds in the coordination environment of its metal centres (referred to as hemilability) endows a dehydrated copper-based MOF with good hydrolytic stability. On exposure to water, in contrast to the indiscriminate breaking of coordination bonds that typically results in structure degradation, it is non-structural weak interactions between the MOF's copper paddlewheel clusters that are broken and the framework recovers its as-synthesized, hydrated structure. This MOF retained its structural integrity even after contact with water for one year, whereas HKUST-1, a compositionally similar material that lacks these sacrificial bonds, loses its crystallinity in less than a day under the same conditions.

Coordination polymers of Zn(II) and 5-methoxy isophthalate.

Solvothermal reaction of Zn(OAc)2 and 5-methoxy isophthalic acid (H2MeOip) in aqueous alcohols ROH (R = H, Me, Et, or (i)Pr) affords four different novel coordination polymers. Zn2(HMeOip)(MeOip)(OAc) (1) forms as a 1D 'ribbon of rings' polymer. Zn6(MeOip)4.5(HMeOip)(OH)2(H2O)2·5.5H2O (2) crystallises as a complex 3D framework. Zn(MeOip)(H2O)2 H2O (3) is a 1D coordination polymer that contains almost planar strips of Zn(MeOip). compound 4, Zn5(MeOip)4(OH)2(H2O)4·H2O, obtained from aqueous (i)PrOH, crystallises as a 2D polymer containing two crystallographically distinct Zn5(OH)2 clusters. Preliminary nitric oxide release experiments have been conducted.

Ionic Liquid assisted Synthesis of Zeolite-TON.

An ionic liquid assisted strategy for the synthesis of zeolitic material is reported. This strategy is a solid state synthetic method and the ionic liquid is employed as structure directing agent. A TON-type zeolite, which contains one-dimensional 10-member-ring, is successfully synthesized with the assistance of the ionic liquid, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide. This finding improves our understanding about the challenge of ionothermally synthesizing siliceous and aluminosilicate zeolites.

Measuring shared inefficiency between hospital cost centers.

In this article, a combination of data envelopment analysis, spreadsheet modeling and regression techniques is applied to a panel of nonprofit Washington State hospitals in an effort to determine whether (and if so, to what extent) inefficiency in one hospital cost center is shared with inefficiency in other cost centers. The findings suggest that a significant amount of inefficiency is shared across hospital cost centers. The authors further determine that certain cost centers contribute more to the overall performance of a given hospital than others. As such, managerial decisions and government policies designed to enhance hospital efficiency should be implemented differently, depending on the characteristics of the hospital in question.