Josef Lauri

Patient-oriented personality traits of first-year pharmacy students.

Objective. To determine, using the Gordon Personal Profile-Inventory (GPP-I), if the personality traits of first-year pharmacy students match the traits required for patient-centered practice. Methods. The GPP-I, which measures the personality traits of ascendency, responsibility, emotional stability, sociability, cautiousness, original thinking, personal relations, and vigor, was administered to incoming pharmacy students at the beginning of their first semester. Results. The pharmacy school had attracted students with strong traits of original thinking, followed by personal relations, and vigor. The students, however, were limited in emotional stability and ascendency. Conclusion. The pharmacy profession needs to be more proactive in projecting the desired image and communicate its increasingly challenging and patient-oriented practice to attract individuals whose personalities are conducive to current practice models.

Constructing graphs with several pseudosimilar vertices or edges

Some of the most interesting problems connected with pseudosimilarity in graphs concern the construction of graphs with large sets of pseudosimilar vertices or edges. This can be understood in two ways: either the graph contains a large set of vertices or edges which are mutually pseudosimilar or else for every vertex (edge) in the graph there is another vertex (edge) to which it is pseudosimilar. We shall survey the methods used to construct such graphs and on the way we shall also discuss some related results and point out some unanswered questions.

Edge-reconstruction of planar graphs with minimum valency 5

The object of this paper is to show tht every planar graph of minimum valency 5 is reconstructible from its family of edge-deleted subgraphs.

On a formula for the number of Euler trails for a class of digraphs

Abstract In this note we give an elementary combinatorial proof of a formula of Macris and Pule for the number of Euler trails in a diagraph all of whose vertices have in-degree and out-degree equal to 2.

Proof of Harary's conjecture on the reconstruction of trees

We prove that a tree with at least three cutvertices is reconstructible from its cutvertex- deleted subgraphs. This answers in the affirmative a question raised by Professor Harary at the Seventh British Combinatorial Conference in 1979.

Constrained Colouring and σ-Hypergraphs

Abstract A constrained colouring or, more specifically, an (α, β)-colouring of a hypergraph H, is an assignment of colours to its vertices such that no edge of H contains less than α or more than β vertices with different colours. This notion, introduced by Bujtás and Tuza, generalises both classical hypergraph colourings and more general Voloshin colourings of hypergraphs. In fact, for r-uniform hypergraphs, classical colourings correspond to (2, r)-colourings while an important instance of Voloshin colourings of r-uniform hypergraphs gives (2, r −1)-colourings. One intriguing aspect of all these colourings, not present in classical colourings, is that H can have gaps in its (α, β)-spectrum, that is, for k1 < k2 < k3, H would be (α, β)-colourable using k1 and using k3 colours, but not using k2 colours. In an earlier paper, the first two authors introduced, for being a partition of r, a very versatile type of r-uniform hypergraph which they called -hypergraphs. They showed that, by simple manipulation of the param- eters of a σ -hypergraph H, one can obtain families of hypergraphs which have (2, r − 1)-colourings exhibiting various interesting chromatic proper- ties. They also showed that, if the smallest part of is at least 2, then H will never have a gap in its (2, r − 1)-spectrum but, quite surprisingly, they found examples where gaps re-appear when α = β = 2. In this paper we extend many of the results of the first two authors to more general (α, β)-colourings, and we study the phenomenon of the disappearance and re-appearance of gaps and show that it is not just the behaviour of a particular example but we place it within the context of a more general study of constrained colourings of σ -hypergraphs.

Career paths and personality in pharmacy

Background Pharmacists choose different career paths which may have different requirements in terms of demands and environments, irrespective of knowledge and intellectual capability. A contributing factor could be personality whereby pharmacists seek to work in an environment which is compatible with their personality. Objective To explore the relationship between personality and career paths taken by pharmacists. Methods Data regarding pharmacists’ personality profile as determined by The Gordon Personal Profile Inventory (GPPI) were gathered using an anonymous survey. The inventory booklet was mailed to all pharmacists registered to practice in Malta who were at the time residing in the country. Demographic data and information regarding areas of practice was also gathered. Analysis was carried out using variety of statistical tests including t-test, Manova and Multiple Correspondence Analysis. Results Most of the types of pharmacists considered, lie somewhat close to the average categories of the GPPI attributes, with those who work in importation and wholesale being the ones who stand out most from the rest by scoring high on self esteem, ascendency, original thinking, vigour, sociability. Those who work in industry and, especially, in hospitals are the two categories of pharmacists who seem to score low on the GPPI traits in general, while those who work in the Community scored high in personal relations and are a little more likely to score higher in cautiousness and responsibility. Conclusion Pharmacists are not a homogeneous group of individuals. It is evident that their personality is a significant factor in the career path that they have chosen. Not all pharmacists possess personalities that are conducive to patient-oriented practice. Those that do not primarily possess the latter personality traits, appear to have chosen to practice in non-traditional areas where, possibly, they have found a good fit with their personality and other factors.

Edge-Reconstruction of Graphs With Topological Properties

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses two kinds of graphs having certain topological properties. The chapter discusses the way all 4-connected planar graphs are edge-reconstructible. The chapter also discusses the edge-reconstruction of certain graphs that triangulate surfaces. There are two reconstruction techniques to establish the results. The conditions of 4-connectedness and planarity allow us to make heavy use of embedding properties and of Kuratowskis characterization of planar graphs. In general, these are no longer available for surfaces of higher genera.

Links between two semisymmetric graphs on 112 vertices via association schemes

This paper provides a model of the use of computer algebra experimentation in algebraic graph theory. Starting from the semisymmetric cubic graph L on 112 vertices, we embed it into another semisymmetric graph N of valency 15 on the same vertex set. In order to consider systematically the links between L and N, a number of combinatorial structures are involved and related coherent configurations are investigated. In particular, the construction of the incidence double cover of directed graphs is exploited. As a natural by-product of the approach presented here, a number of new interesting (mostly non-Schurian) association schemes on 56, 112 and 120 vertices are introduced and briefly discussed. We use computer algebra system GAP (including GRAPE and nauty), as well as computer package COCO.

Personality traits of pharmacy and medical students throughout their course of studies

Background: Pharmacists and medical doctors are two professional groups that very often receive their education and practice in the same environment. However, their approach to patient care and collaboration tends to be different and this may lead to both frustration and conflict which may adversely affect patient care. Personality has been identified as a psychological issue that could contribute to conflict in a work situation. Objective: To study the personality traits of a cohort of students studying pharmacy and medicine at the University of Malta in their first and final year. Methods: The Gordon Personal Profile – Inventory was administered to a cohort of pharmacy and medical students in their first year and once again administered to the same cohort who completed their course of study in their final year. Basic demographic data was also collected. Results: In first year the most pronounced traits for both student groups were those of Emotional Stability and Personal Relations. Over a period of five years, there were shifts in personality traits. In their final year pharmacy students were characterized by high scores for Cautiousness and Personal Relations while medical students exhibited medium scores in Cautiousness and Emotional Stability. Conclusion: The changes in personality traits over the duration of the course were not radical changes but rather that of traits becoming more pronounced.