Postgraduate nurses’ insights into the nursing leadership role. Do they intuitively link the role to patient safety?

Nursing leaders are compelled to ensure a safety and quality agenda in the acute care environment as patient outcomes are linked to nursing care. Good nursing leadership where focus is directed to accountability and responsibility for clinical outcomes and patient safety, results in reduced adverse events and patient mortality. Integral to the future of high-quality effective clinical care with an absence of errors is the training of the next generation of nursing leaders. In this discussion paper, the extent to which future nurse leaders intuitively acknowledge patient safety as part of their leadership role was examined amongst a cohort of postgraduate nursing students. A content analysis to search for quality and safety terminology was conducted on 146 essay responses to a question about the nurse leader role in today’s healthcare environment. The results indicated minimal acknowledgement of patient safety as an intuitive consideration in the nursing leadership role. Recommendations are discussed for developing postgraduate nursing educational curricula with patient safety strategies as a central component to the practice of leadership

Signs as deterrents of illegal parking in spaces designated for individuals with physical disabilities.

The percentage of illegal parking in spaces reserved for the physically disabled was monitored under three sign conditions: ground markings, ground markings plus vertical signs, and vertical signs containing a message that concerned citizens were watching the spaces. Illegal parking dropped from 69.3% of 102 vehides during the initial ground-sign condition to 57.3% of 36 vehides in the first vertical-sign condition. Following removal of the vertical signs, illegal parking increased to 68.7% of 43 vehides. During the second vertical-sign condition, illegal parking dropped to 53.7% of 32 vehides, followed by an increase to 69.5% of 68 vehides after the vertical signs were removed. The lowest rate of illegal parking (27.1% of 78 vehides) occurred in the vertical-sign-plus-message condition. Illegal parking subsequently increased to 34.6% (of 94 vehides) when the message sign was removed, followed by an increase to 65.2% (of 105 vehides) when the vertical signs were removed. Originally published Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Vol. 24, No. 1, Spring 199

Generation of folk song melodies using Bayes transforms

The paper introduces the `Bayes transform', a mathematical procedure for putting data into a hierarchical representation. Applicable to any type of data, the procedure yields interesting results when applied to sequences. In this case, the representation obtained implicitly models the repetition hierarchy of the source. There are then natural applications to music. Derivation of Bayes transforms can be the means of determining the repetition hierarchy of note sequences (melodies) in an empirical and domain-general way. The paper investigates application of this approach to Folk Song, examining the results that can be obtained by treating such transforms as generative models

The impact of CHIP premium increases on insurance outcomes among CHIP eligible children

Background: Within the United States, public insurance premiums are used both to discourage private health policy holders from dropping coverage and to reduce state budget costs. Prior research suggests that the odds of having private coverage and being uninsured increase with increases in public insurance premiums. The aim of this paper is to test effects of Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) premium increases on public insurance, private insurance, and uninsurance rates. Methods: The fact that families just below and above a state-specific income cut-off are likely very similar in terms of observable and unobservable characteristics except the premium contribution provides a natural experiment for estimating the effect of premium increases. Using 2003 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) merged with CHIP premiums, we compare health insurance outcomes for CHIP eligible children as of January 2003 in states with a two-tier premium structure using a cross-sectional regression discontinuity methodology. We use difference-in-differences analysis to compare longitudinal insurance outcomes by December 2003. Results: Higher CHIP premiums are associated with higher likelihood of private insurance. Disenrollment from CHIP in response to premium increases over time does not increase the uninsurance rate. Conclusions: When faced with higher CHIP premiums, private health insurance may be a preferable alternative for CHIP eligible families with higher incomes. Therefore, competition in the insurance exchanges being formed under the Affordable Care Act could enhance choice

Mammalian and Invertebrate Models as Complementary Tools for Gaining Mechanistic Insight on Muscle Responses to Spaceflight

Bioinformatics approaches have proven useful in understanding biological responses to spaceflight. Spaceflight experiments remain resource intensive and rare. One outstanding issue is how to maximize scientific output from a limited number of omics datasets from traditional animal models including nematodes, fruit fly, and rodents. The utility of omics data from invertebrate models in anticipating mammalian responses to spaceflight has not been fully explored. Hence, we performed comparative analyses of transcriptomes of soleus and extensor digitorum longus (EDL) in mice that underwent 37 days of spaceflight. Results indicate shared stress responses and altered circadian rhythm. EDL showed more robust growth signals and Pde2a downregulation, possibly underlying its resistance to atrophy versus soleus. Spaceflight and hindlimb unloading mice shared differential regulation of proliferation, circadian, and neuronal signaling. Shared gene regulation in muscles of humans on bedrest and space flown rodents suggest targets for mitigating muscle atrophy in space and on Earth. Spaceflight responses of C. elegans were more similar to EDL. Discrete life stages of D. melanogaster have distinct utility in anticipating EDL and soleus responses. In summary, spaceflight leads to shared and discrete molecular responses between muscle types and invertebrate models may augment mechanistic knowledge gained from rodent spaceflight and ground-based studies

“How many lap choles have you done?” A linguistic-ethnographic take on counting surgical experience.

In this paper we explore a site of work and learning that is rarely investigated ethnographically and to which few applied linguists have gained access: the operating theatre. Taking up the 2011 BAAL Annual Meeting’s theme, ‘The Impact of Applied Linguistics’, we argue that linguistic ethnography, through detailed analysis of situated, embodied interaction (Maybin & Tusting 2011), can and should make an important contribution to research on and improvement of the quality and safety of health care

Superior efficacy of a human immunodeficiency virus vaccine combined with antiretroviral prevention in simian-human immunodeficiency virus-challenged nonhuman primates

International audienc

Possibilities for pedagogy in Further Education: Harnessing the abundance of literacy

In this report, it is argued that the most salient factor in the contemporary communicative landscape is the sheer abundance and diversity of possibilities for literacy, and that the extent and nature of students' communicative resources is a central issue in education. The text outlines the conceptual underpinnings of the Literacies for Learning in Further Education project in a social view of literacy, and the associated research design, methodology and analytical framework. It elaborates on the notion of the abundance of literacies in students' everyday lives, and on the potential for harnessing these as resources for the enhancement of learning. It provides case studies of changes in practice that have been undertaken by further education staff in order to draw upon students' everyday literacy practices on Travel and Tourism and Multimedia courses. It ends with some of the broad implications for conceptualising learning that arise from researching through the lens of literacy practices