Women working at university restaurants: life and work conditions and gender-based violence

This is an exploratory and descriptive study with a quantitative approach that aimed to understand the social production and reproduction processes of women working at university restaurants and the occurrence and the magnitude of gender-based violence committed against them by their intimate partners. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The analysis categories used were social production and reproduction, gender and gender-based violence. The interviewees held a subordinate social position during the productive and reproductive periods of their lives. Approximately 70% reported having experienced gender-based violence from an intimate partner (66% psychological violence, 36.3% physical violence and 28.6% sexual violence). Most of the health problems resulting from violence were related to mental health. The results indicate that the situation requires immediate interventions, mostly guided by the instrumentalization of these women and the support by the state and the university as appropriate to address violence.

The work environment and leadership in nursing: an integrative review

Objective: To investigate the relationship between the work environment and leadership in nursing. Method: An integrative review of literature which was based on data from LILACS, PubMed, CINAHL and the SciELO portal for journals covering the period from January to April 2013. The inclusion criteria were: the indexing of research covering leadership exercised by nurses over a team and whether the research was available in English, Spanish or Portuguese. Results: The sample consisted of 12 articles that met the criteria. Conclusion: The results showed that leadership had an impact on the work environment. However, no studies were found that showed the influence of the working environment on leadership in nursing.

Cardiac paraganglioma: diagnostic work up and review of the literature.

Paraganglioma of the heart are potentially invasive, highly vascularized tumors for which complete resection may be curative. Derived from the cardiac wall in most instances, resectability can be assessed after integration of the data provided by MRI in T2 sequence, and coronarography. A fully documented case of a large cardiac pheochromocytoma of the left atrium and AV groove is reported and the pertinent literature on the subject is here presented.

Work motivation and pro-social behavior in the delivery of public services : theoretical and empirical insights

This Ph.D. dissertation seeks to study the work motivation of employees in the delivery of public services. The questioning on work motivation in public services in not new but it becomes central for governments which are now facing unprecedented public debts. The objective of this research is twofold : First, we want to see if the work motivation of employees in public services is a continuum (intrinsic and extrinsic motivations cannot coexist) or a bi-dimensional construct (intrinsic and extrinsic motivations coexist simultaneously). The research in public administration literature has focused on the concept of public service motivation, and considered motivation to be uni-dimensional (Perry and Hondeghem 2008). However, no study has yet tackled both types of motivation, the intrinsic and extrinsic ones, in the same time. This dissertation proposes, in Part I, a theoretical assessment and an empirical test of a global work motivational structure, by using a self-constructed Swiss dataset with employees from three public services, the education sector, the security sector and the public administrative services sector. Our findings suggest that work motivation in public services in not uni-dimensional but bi-dimensional, the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations coexist simultaneously and can be positively correlated (Amabile et al. 1994). Our findings show that intrinsic motivation is as important as extrinsic motivation, thus, the assumption that employees in public services are less attracted by extrinsic rewards is not confirmed for this sample. Other important finding concerns the public service motivation concept, which, as theoretically predicted, represents the major motivational dimension of employees in the delivery of public services. Second, the theory of public service motivation makes the assumption that employees in public services engage in activities that go beyond their self-interest, but never uses this construct as a determinant for their pro-social behavior. In the same time, several studies (Gregg et al. 2011 and Georgellis et al. 2011) bring evidence about the pro-social behavior of employees in public services. However, they do not identify which type of motivation is at the origin of this behavior, they only make the assumption of an intrinsically motivated behavior. We analyze the pro-social behavior of employees in public services and use the public service motivation as determinant of their pro-social behavior. We add other determinants highlighted by the theory of pro-social behavior (Bénabou and Tirole 2006), by Le Grand (2003) and by fit theories (Besley and Ghatak 2005). We test these determinants on Part II and identify for each sector of activity the positive or the negative impact on pro-social behavior of Swiss employees. Contrary to expectations, we find, for this sample, that both intrinsic and extrinsic factors have a positive impact on pro-social behavior, no crowding-out effect is identified in this sample. We confirm the hypothesis of Le Grand (2003) about the positive impact of the opportunity cost on pro-social behavior. Our results suggest a mix of action-oriented altruism and out-put oriented altruism of employees in public services. These results are relevant when designing incentives schemes for employees in the delivery of public services.

Precarious Work: Agenda and Implications for Corporate Social Responsibility

Precarious work, in contrast to regular, permanent wage work, is commonly associated to insecure and unstable, and often poor quality jobs. The concept of precarious work relates either to a socioeconomic group which allows one to refer it to a "class in itself," or as - pursued more recently - to the precarization process which results in a growing fragmentation of societal structures. Common to both conceptions is that they refer to the exposition of workers to employment instability, limited access to legal and union protection, socially irresponsible and discriminating employment practices, and social and economic vulnerability in general. The present contribution provides an overview of some key issues and future directions of research on precarious work relevant to CSR researchers, policy-makers, and social scientists.

World-line condition and the noninteraction theorem

A 6N-dimensional alternative formulation is proposed for constrained Hamiltonian systems. In this context the noninteraction theorem is derived from the world-line conditions. A model of two interacting particles is exhibited where physical coordinates are canonical.

The european higher education area at work: Lights and shadows defining continuous assessment

The aim of this paper is to analyse how learning assessment, particularly the Continuous Assessment system, has been defined in the Public Administration and Management Diploma Course of the University of Barcelona (Spain). This course was a pioneering experiment at this university in implementing the guidelines of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), and thus represents a good case study for verifying whether one of the cornerstones of the EHEA has been accomplished with success. Using data obtained from the Teaching Plans elaborated by the lecturers of each subject, we are able to establish that the CA system has been progressively accepted to such an extent that it is now the assessment formula used by practically all of the lecturers, conforming in this way to the protocols laid down by the Faculty of Law in which this diploma course is taught. Nevertheless, we find that high dispersion exists in how Continuous Assessment is actually defined. Indeed, it seems that there is no unified view of how Continuous Assessment should be performed. This dispersion, however, seems to diminish over time and raises some questions about the advisability of agreement on criteria, considering the potential which CA has as a pedagogical tool. Moreover, we find that the Unique Assessment system, which students may also apply for, is an option chosen only by a minority, with lecturers usually defining it as merely a theoretical and/or practical test, of little innovation in relation to traditional tests.

The european higher education area at work: Lights and shadows defining continuous assessment

The aim of this paper is to analyse how learning assessment, particularly the Continuous Assessment system, has been defined in the Public Administration and Management Diploma Course of the University of Barcelona (Spain). This course was a pioneering experiment at this university in implementing the guidelines of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), and thus represents a good case study for verifying whether one of the cornerstones of the EHEA has been accomplished with success. Using data obtained from the Teaching Plans elaborated by the lecturers of each subject, we are able to establish that the CA system has been progressively accepted to such an extent that it is now the assessment formula used by practically all of the lecturers, conforming in this way to the protocols laid down by the Faculty of Law in which this diploma course is taught. Nevertheless, we find that high dispersion exists in how Continuous Assessment is actually defined. Indeed, it seems that there is no unified view of how Continuous Assessment should be performed. This dispersion, however, seems to diminish over time and raises some questions about the advisability of agreement on criteria, considering the potential which CA has as a pedagogical tool. Moreover, we find that the Unique Assessment system, which students may also apply for, is an option chosen only by a minority, with lecturers usually defining it as merely a theoretical and/or practical test, of little innovation in relation to traditional tests.