Clinical expectations: What facilitators expect from ESL students on clinical placement

Many nursing students for whom English is a second language (ESL) face challenges related to communication on clinical placement and although clinical facilitators are not usually trained language assessors, they are often in a position of needing to assess ESL students' clinical language performance. Little is known, however, about the particular areas of clinical performance facilitators focus on when they are assessing ESL students. This paper discusses the results of a study of facilitators' written assessment comments about the clinical performance of a small group of ESL nursing students over a two and a half year period. These comments were documented on students' clinical assessment forms at the end of each placement. The results provide a more detailed insight into facilitators' expectations of students' language performance and the particular challenges faced by ESL students and indicate that facilitators have clear expectations of ESL students regarding communication, learning styles and professional demeanour. These findings may help both ESL students and their facilitators better prepare for clinical placement. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd

Assessing students' English language proficiency during clinical placement: A qualitative evaluation of a language framework

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. The increase in nursing students for whom English is an additional language requires clinical facilitators to assess students' performance regarding clinical skills, nursing communication and English language. However, assessing language proficiency is a complex process that is often conflated with cultural norms and clinical skills, and facilitators may lack confidence in assessing English language. This paper discusses an evaluation of a set of guidelines developed in a large metropolitan Australian university to help clinical facilitators make decisions about students' English language proficiency. The study found that the guidelines were useful in helping facilitators assess English language. However, strategies to address identified language problems needed to be incorporated to enable the guidelines to also be used as a teaching tool. The study concludes that to be effective, such guidelines need embedding within a systematic approach that identifies and responds to students who may be underperforming due to a low level of English language proficiency

The accuracy of diagnostic ultrasound imaging for musculoskeletal soft tissue pathology of the extremities: A comprehensive review of the literature

Musculoskeletal diagnostic ultrasound imaging (MSK-DUSI) has been growing outside the traditional radiology speciality. Increased use of this technology has been reported in several healthcare settings, however an apparent gap in the knowledge of the accuracy of this diagnostic technology indicated a review was warranted. We undertook a structured review of the literature to assess the accuracy of MSK-DUSI for the diagnosis of musculoskeletal soft tissue pathology of the extremities. An electronic search of the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed database (1972 to mid-2014) was conducted. All relevant systematic reviews of diagnostic studies, all diagnostic studies published after the date of the latest systematic reviews and relevant diagnostic studies outside the scope the systematic reviews that directly compared the accuracy of MSK-DUSI (the index test) to an appropriate reference standard for the target condition were included. A fundamental appraisal of the methodological quality of studies was completed. The individual sensitivity, specificity and likelihood ratio data were extracted and entered into diagnostic accuracy tables. A total of 207 individual studies were included. The results show that MSK-DUSI has acceptable diagnostic accuracy for a wide spectrum of musculoskeletal conditions of the extremities. However, there is a lack of high quality prospective experimental studies in this area and as such clinicians should interpret the results with some caution due to the potential for overestimation of diagnostic accuracy

Clinically speaking: A communication skills program for students from non-English speaking backgrounds

This paper reports on the design, delivery and evaluation of an innovative oral communication skills program for first year students in a Bachelor of Nursing degree at an Australian university. This program was introduced in 2004 to meet the needs of first year undergraduate students from non-English speaking backgrounds who had experienced difficulties with spoken English while on clinical placement. The program consisted of early identification of students in need of communication development, a series of classes incorporated into the degree program to address students' needs, followed by a clinical placement block. This paper describes the structure of the program, discusses some of the major problems encountered by students in the clinical setting and presents some of the teaching strategies used to address these problems. Evaluations of the program suggest that students' communication skills and confidence improved, resulting in a more positive clinical experience for the majority of students

Pulse Dryer Technology for Developing Nations Its Application to Sludge

This paper describes a simple but efficient process for converting sludge and other miscellaneous liquid/solid mixtures into a very dry powder form. Its simplicity lends itself to ease of use, mobility and cost effectiveness. The operation of this process does not present any unreviewed or new environmental issues and accommodates Best Available Treatment requirements. The process provides an opportunity for the treatment of small or large quantities of sludge and other existing hazardous wastes to create a dry product that is more easily handled, disposed of or otherwise dispositioned

Dependence on pseudorapidity and on centrality of charged hadron production in PbPb collisions at √s_(NN)=2.76 TeV

A measurement is presented of the charged hadron multiplicity in hadronic PbPb collisions, as a function of pseudorapidity and centrality, at a collision energy of 2.76TeV per nucleon pair. The data sample is collected using the CMS detector and a minimum-bias trigger, with the CMS solenoid off. The number of charged hadrons is measured both by counting the number of reconstructed particle hits and by forming hit doublets of pairs of layers in the pixel detector. The two methods give consistent results. The charged hadron multiplicity density, dN_(ch)/d_η|η=0, for head-on collisions is found to be 1612±55, where the uncertainty is dominated by systematic effects. Comparisons of these results to previous measurements and to various models are also presented

Suppression of non-prompt J/ψ, prompt J/ψ, and Y(1S) in PbPb collisions at √s_(NN) = 2.76 TeV

Yields of prompt and non-prompt J/ψ, as well as ^Y(1S) mesons, are measured by the CMS experiment via their μ^+μ^− decays in PbPb and pp collisions at √s_(NN)=276 TeV for quarkonium rapidity |y| < 2.4. Differential cross sections and nuclear modification factors are reported as functions of y and transverse momentum p_T, as well as collision centrality. For prompt J/ψ with relatively high p_T (6.5 < p_T < 30 GeV/c), a strong, centrality-dependent suppression is observed in PbPb collisions, compared to the yield in pp collisions scaled by the number of inelastic nucleon-nucleon collisions. In the same kinematic range, a suppression of non-prompt J/ψ, which is sensitive to the in-medium b-quark energy loss, is measured for the first time. Also the low-p_T ^Y(1S) mesons are suppressed in PbPb collisions

Inclusive b-jet production in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV

The inclusive b-jet production cross section in pp collisions at a center-of mass energy of 7 TeV is measured using data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. The cross section is presented as a function of the jet transverse momentum in the range 18 < p_T  < 200 GeV for several rapidity intervals. The results are also given as the ratio of the b-jet production cross section to the inclusive jet production cross section. The measurement is performed with two different analyses, which differ in their trigger selection and b-jet identification: a jet analysis that selects events with a b jet using a sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 34 pb^(−1), and a muon analysis requiring a b jet with a muon based on an integrated luminosity of 3 pb^(−1). In both approaches the b jets are identified by requiring a secondary vertex. The results from the two methods are in agreement with each other and with next-to-leading order calculations, as well as with predictions based on the pythia event generator

Search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying to W^+W^− in the fully leptonic final state in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV

A search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying to W^+W^− in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV is reported. The data are collected at the LHC with the CMS detector, and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 fb^(−1). The W^+W^− candidates are selected in events with two charged leptons and large missing transverse energy. No significant excess of events above the standard model background expectations is observed, and upper limits on the Higgs boson production relative to the standard model Higgs expectation are derived. The standard model Higgs boson is excluded in the mass range 129–270 GeV at 95% confidence level

Search for quark compositeness in dijet angular distributions from pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV

A search for quark compositeness using dijet angular distributions from pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV is presented. The search has been carried out using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.2 fb^(−1), recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC. Normalized dijet angular distributions have been measured for dijet invariant masses from 0.4 TeV to above 3 TeV and compared with a variety of contact interaction models, including those which take into account the effects of next-to-leading-order QCD corrections. The data are found to be in agreement with the predictions of perturbative QCD, and lower limits are obtained on the contact interaction scale, ranging from 7.5 up to 14.5 TeV at 95 % confidence level