Aberrant Work Environments, Rationed Care as System Failure or Missed Care as Skills Failure?

Missed’ care has emotional, professional and legal connotations because, as one participant from our study noted, the environment can change so quickly and staffing is not allocated to accommodate this. This study used the MISSCARE survey distributed to nurses in New Zealand to find out what care was routinely missed, and why they missed it. The analysis of data returned from 199 nurses revealed that nurses routinely miss care and become frustrated because they are unable to use the knowledge and skill to provide the care; rather they are forced to prioritise care, some of which is either delayed or consciously missed. Whilst this study supported findings of previous research, the emergence of presenteeism as a factor that affects nurses missing care, was highlighted. This has wider implications to the nursing workforce related to their ability to provide safe and effective care, as well as to the organisations in terms of both budget and safety in care provision

Distributional overlap and potential competition between a threatened habitat specialist and generalist frog species in coastal wallum habitats of South East Queensland, Australia

Coastal wallum wetlands inhabited by the vulnerable wallum sedgefrog (Litoria olongburensis) are highly susceptible to habitat degradation owing to their unusual hydrology and water chemistry. Anthropogenic impacts on wallum wetland environs pose a significant threat to the wallum sedgefrog by allowing the eastern sedgefrog (Litoria fallax), a habitat generalist and closely related competitor species, to colonise and displace the wallum sedgefrog from disturbed wallum habitat. To identify ‘at risk’ areas, overlapping species distribution models were utilised to highlight areas of sympatry between these species in south east Queensland, where competition with the eastern sedgefrog poses a particular threat to the wallum sedgefrog. Significant areas of distributional overlap (including 47% of the wallum sedgefrog's modelled distribution) were identified, primarily in mainland areas where anthropogenic disturbance is highest. When overlayed with the boundaries of protected areas, 84% of the area exclusively inhabited by the wallum sedgefrog occurs within the bounds of protected lands. In contrast, 74% of overlapping distribution of the two species occurred outside of these parks, highlighting the importance of protected areas in the conservation of the wallum sedgefrog. This study highlights areas where competition with the eastern sedgefrog presents a particular threat to the wallum sedgefrog, helping inform effective conservation initiatives for this species.DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT : The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are available in the University of Queensland UQ eSpace data repository: https://doi.org/10.14264/ffe73a3SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: APPENDIX S1: The 13 environmental, anthropogenic and climatic variables used to derive species distribution models. Note: resampling using bilinear and nearest neighbour methods were utilised with continuous and categorical data respectively; polygon data were converted using the maximum combined area approach.APPENDIX S2: Colour map showing areas of overlap between the modelled distributions of wallum sedgefrog and eastern sedgefrog where areas of wallum sedgefrog only occurrence are blue, eastern sedgefrog only occurrence are orange, and areas of overlap are red. The map is overlayed with the boundaries of protected areas (national parks, scientific national parks, conservation parks, state forests, resource reserves, forest reserves and timber reserves).Research Funding: Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship; Brisbane City Council (as part of the University of Queensland Science with Impact Fund Award); Smart Cities and Suburbs Program; Stockland Corporation Limited. Open access publishing facilitated by The University of Queensland, as part of the Wiley - The University of Queensland agreement via the Council of Australian University Librarians.https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14429993hj2023Zoology and Entomolog

Distribution mapping of specialized amphibian species in rare, ephemeral habitats: implications for the conservation of threatened “acid” frogs in south‐east Queensland

The acid frogs of eastern Australia are a highly specialized group of threatened species endemic to acidic coastal wetlands of southern Queensland and New South Wales. The distribution of these species overlaps with areas of increasing development where land‐use intensification poses a significant threat. Successful conservation of these species requires that areas of high conservation value for acid frogs are properly identified and protected, particularly in south‐east Queensland which supports important populations of all four acid frog species: Litoria olongburensis, Litoria freycineti, Crinia tinnula, and the Queensland‐endemic Litoria cooloolensis. Species distribution modeling using rigorously vetted species occurrence data was used to identify areas of potential acid frog habitat with >89% predictive power for all species. Key predictor variables for acid frog species occurrence included: soil sandiness, vegetation, presence and/or type of wetland, and soil clay content. All species' predicted distributions occurred primarily in coastal regions, overlapping with densely human‐populated areas. Our modeling and analysis of species' distributions highlight local government areas where protection of wallum habitat is most important for the conservation of acid frogs, as well as areas of higher conservation value providing habitat for multiple acid frog species

Discursive practice - lean thinking, nurses’ responsibilities and the cost to care

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the literature regarding work intensification that is being experienced by nurses, to examine the effects this is having on their capacity to complete care. The authors contend that nurses’ inability to provide all the care patients require, has negative implications on their professional responsibility. Design/methodology/approach: The authors used institutional ethnography to review the discourse in the literature. This approach supports inquiry through the review of text in order to uncover activities that remain institutionally accepted but unquestioned and hidden. Findings: What the authors found was that the quality and risk management forms an important part of lean thinking, with the organisational culture influencing outcomes; however, the professional cost to nurses has not been fully explored. Research limitations/implications: The text uncovered inconsistency between what organisations accepted as successful cost savings, and what nurses were experiencing in their attempts to achieve the care in the face of reduced time and human resources. Nurses’ attempts at completing care were done at the risk of their own professional accountability. Practical implications: Nurses are working in lean and stressful environments and are struggling to complete care within reduced resource allocations. This leads to care rationing, which negatively impacts on nurses’ professional practice, and quality of care provision. Originality/value: This approach is a departure from the standard qualitative review because the focus is on the textual relationships between what is being advocated by organisations directing cost reduction and what is actioned by the nurses working at the coalface. The discordant standpoints between these two juxtapositions are identified

Balancing the scales—Nurses’ attempts at meeting family and employer needs in a work-intensified environment

Baldwin, AE ORCiD: 0000-0002-6325-4142; Harvey, CL ORCiD: 0000-0001-9016-8840; Willis, EM ORCiD: 0000-0001-7576-971XAims: This paper describes findings from a survey conducted in New Zealand exploring nurses’ decision-making about when to delay care, delegate care, hand care over or leave care undone. Unanticipated findings identified processes that nurses go through when deciding to take planned/unplanned leave when wards are constrained through budget limitations. Background: Missed/rationed care is increasingly the focus of attention in international studies, identifying a complex interplay of organisational, professional and personal factors affecting nurses’ decision-making when faced with limited organisational time, human and material resources to provide care. Methods: The survey presented nurses with Likert-scale questions with option for free text comments. This paper reports on the commentaries about work–life balance. Results: Nurses described workload pressures that lead to rationing care affected them, and the long-term effect on them as individuals. Nurses verbalized the difficulties and associated guilt about taking leaving and sick leave when wards were short staffed. Conclusions: Nurses consider how their absence will affect the workspace and their home first, considering the impact on themselves last. Implications: The findings may provide valuable insights for nurse managers in relation to workforce allocations and resources where acknowledgement of work–life balance is considered. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Lt

Refining individualized consideration: Distinguishing developmental leadership and supportive leadership

This study explores the theoretical and empirical distinction between developmental leadership and supportive leadership, which are currently encompassed in a single sub dimension of transformational leadership, individualized consideration. Items were selected to assess these constructs, and hypotheses regarding the differential effects of developmental and supportive leadership were proposed. Confirmatory factor analyses provided support for the proposed distinction between developmental and supportive leadership, although these leadership factors were very strongly associated. Structural equation modelling and multi-level modelling results indicated that both developmental leadership and supportive leadership displayed unique relationships with theoretically selected outcome measures. Developmental leadership displayed significantly stronger relationships with job satisfaction, career certainty, affective commitment to the organization and role breadth self-efficacy than did supportive leadership. Results provide initial evidence in support of the discriminant validity of these two types of leadership. Discussion focuses on the need to further examine the construct of developmental leadership

Cell Surface Profiling Using High-Throughput Flow Cytometry: A Platform for Biomarker Discovery and Analysis of Cellular Heterogeneity

<div><p>Cell surface proteins have a wide range of biological functions, and are often used as lineage-specific markers. Antibodies that recognize cell surface antigens are widely used as research tools, diagnostic markers, and even therapeutic agents. The ability to obtain broad cell surface protein profiles would thus be of great value in a wide range of fields. There are however currently few available methods for high-throughput analysis of large numbers of cell surface proteins. We describe here a high-throughput flow cytometry (HT-FC) platform for rapid analysis of 363 cell surface antigens. Here we demonstrate that HT-FC provides reproducible results, and use the platform to identify cell surface antigens that are influenced by common cell preparation methods. We show that multiple populations within complex samples such as primary tumors can be simultaneously analyzed by co-staining of cells with lineage-specific antibodies, allowing unprecedented depth of analysis of heterogeneous cell populations. Furthermore, standard informatics methods can be used to visualize, cluster and downsample HT-FC data to reveal novel signatures and biomarkers. We show that the cell surface profile provides sufficient molecular information to classify samples from different cancers and tissue types into biologically relevant clusters using unsupervised hierarchical clustering. Finally, we describe the identification of a candidate lineage marker and its subsequent validation. In summary, HT-FC combines the advantages of a high-throughput screen with a detection method that is sensitive, quantitative, highly reproducible, and allows in-depth analysis of heterogeneous samples. The use of commercially available antibodies means that high quality reagents are immediately available for follow-up studies. HT-FC has a wide range of applications, including biomarker discovery, molecular classification of cancers, or identification of novel lineage specific or stem cell markers.</p></div

Coronal Heating as Determined by the Solar Flare Frequency Distribution Obtained by Aggregating Case Studies

Flare frequency distributions represent a key approach to addressing one of the largest problems in solar and stellar physics: determining the mechanism that counter-intuitively heats coronae to temperatures that are orders of magnitude hotter than the corresponding photospheres. It is widely accepted that the magnetic field is responsible for the heating, but there are two competing mechanisms that could explain it: nanoflares or Alfv\'en waves. To date, neither can be directly observed. Nanoflares are, by definition, extremely small, but their aggregate energy release could represent a substantial heating mechanism, presuming they are sufficiently abundant. One way to test this presumption is via the flare frequency distribution, which describes how often flares of various energies occur. If the slope of the power law fitting the flare frequency distribution is above a critical threshold, $\alpha=2$ as established in prior literature, then there should be a sufficient abundance of nanoflares to explain coronal heating. We performed $>$600 case studies of solar flares, made possible by an unprecedented number of data analysts via three semesters of an undergraduate physics laboratory course. This allowed us to include two crucial, but nontrivial, analysis methods: pre-flare baseline subtraction and computation of the flare energy, which requires determining flare start and stop times. We aggregated the results of these analyses into a statistical study to determine that $\alpha = 1.63 \pm 0.03$. This is below the critical threshold, suggesting that Alfv\'en waves are an important driver of coronal heating.Comment: 1,002 authors, 14 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, published by The Astrophysical Journal on 2023-05-09, volume 948, page 7