Care, Culture, and Education Nursing Students\u27 Perceptions of Care and Culture: Implications for Practice

Today\u27s nurses work and live in a multicultural society where they encounter patients whose backgrounds are different from theirs, and who need care from nurses who are both proficient in their work and knowledgeable about the role that culture plays in patient treatment. In this study, 45 student nurses enrolled in a baccalaureate program at a northeastern urban college completed a survey about their perceptions of care and culture including their relevance and application to the practice of nursing. Findings based on qualitative analyses indicated that parents and family were instrumental in students\u27 learning about care and a combination of family and educators influenced their learning about culture. Responses revealed that while the importance of obtaining specific cultural information from patients through effective communication was noted, the use of an interpreter was considered important by only one student. This finding is problematic since students were unaware of the importance of utilizing interpreter services when caring for a patient who has limited knowledge of the English language. The findings of this survey suggest the need for further transcultural education on the baccalaureate nursing level specifically as it pertains to communication with patients of diverse cultures in the provision of care

Bacteriology of Hemodialysis Fluids: Are Current Practices Meaningful?

A report submitted by Ted Pass to the Research and Creative Productions Committee on September 25, 1990 on the current practices for monitoring bacterial contamination of fluids employed in the preparation and execution of hemodialysis therapy

Proportional Cerebellum Size Predicts Fear Habituation in Chickens

The cerebellum has a highly conserved neural structure across species but varies widely in size. The wide variation in cerebellar size (both absolute and in proportion to the rest of the brain) among species and populations suggests that functional specialization is linked to its size. There is increasing recognition that the cerebellum contributes to cognitive processing and emotional control in addition to its role in motor coordination. However, to what extent cerebellum size reflects variation in these behavioral processes within species remains largely unknown. By using a unique intercross chicken population based on parental lines with high divergence in cerebellum size, we compared the behavior of individuals repeatedly exposed to the same fear test (emergence test) early in life and after sexual maturity (eight trials per age group) with proportional cerebellum size and cerebellum neural density. While proportional cerebellum size did not predict the initial fear response of the individuals (trial 1), it did increasingly predict adult individuals response as the trials progressed. Our results suggest that proportional cerebellum size does not necessarily predict an individual's fear response, but rather the habituation process to a fearful stimulus. Cerebellum neuronal density did not predict fear behavior in the individuals which suggests that these effects do not result from changes in neuronal density but due to other variables linked to proportional cerebellum size which might underlie fear habituation

Carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation using macroalgae: a state of knowledge review

The conservation, restoration, and improved management of terrestrial forests significantly contributes to mitigate climate change and its impacts, as well as providing numerous co-benefits. The pressing need to reduce emissions and increase carbon removal from the atmosphere is now also leading to the development of natural climate solutions in the ocean. Interest in the carbon sequestration potential of underwater macroalgal forests is growing rapidly among policy, conservation, and corporate sectors. Yet, our understanding of whether carbon sequestration from macroalgal forests can lead to tangible climate change mitigation remains severely limited, hampering their inclusion in international policy or carbon finance frameworks. Here, we examine the results of over 180 publications to synthesise evidence regarding macroalgal forest carbon sequestration potential. We show that research efforts on macroalgae carbon sequestration are heavily skewed towards particulate organic carbon (POC) pathways (77% of data publications), and that carbon fixation is the most studied flux (55%). Fluxes leading directly to carbon sequestration (e.g. carbon export or burial in marine sediments) remain poorly resolved, likely hindering regional or country-level assessments of carbon sequestration potential, which are only available from 17 of the 150 countries where macroalgal forests occur. To solve this issue, we present a framework to categorize coastlines according to their carbon sequestration potential. Finally, we review the multiple avenues through which this sequestration can translate into climate change mitigation capacity, which largely depends on whether management interventions can increase carbon removal above a natural baseline or avoid further carbon emissions. We find that conservation, restoration and afforestation interventions on macroalgal forests can potentially lead to carbon removal in the order of 10's of Tg C globally. Although this is lower than current estimates of natural sequestration value of all macroalgal habitats (61–268 Tg C year−1), it suggests that macroalgal forests could add to the total mitigation potential of coastal blue carbon ecosystems, and offer valuable mitigation opportunities in polar and temperate areas where blue carbon mitigation is currently low. Operationalizing that potential will necessitate the development of models that reliably estimate the proportion of production sequestered, improvements in macroalgae carbon fingerprinting techniques, and a rethinking of carbon accounting methodologies. The ocean provides major opportunities to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and the largest coastal vegetated habitat on Earth should not be ignored simply because it does not fit into existing frameworks.publishedVersio

Effects of heavy metals on Cyanothece sp. CCY 0110 growth, extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) production, ultrastructure and protein profiles

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Common Minimum Technical Standards and Protocols for Biobanks Dedicated to Cancer Research

Biological specimens collected, processed, and stored under optimal conditions increasingly provide a necessary foundation for cancer research. Information obtained from such samples opens opportunities to learn more about the causes, prevention, and treatment of the disease. International comparisons made possible by the study of sample collections from different parts of the world are also invaluable in the pursuit of the evidence base for cancer control. However, the above-mentioned opportunities are accompanied by many challenges and potential pitfalls. At times, pragmatic decisions have to be made in response to the constraints faced when conducting clinical or population-based studies. These constraints may be technical, may relate to infrastructure or finance, or may be ethical, legal, or social in nature. Being unaware of these types of risk to successful biobanking can place important scientific advances in jeopardy. In this context, it is a great pleasure to introduce this publication from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). The purpose of the text is to provide clear and practical advice on the common practices needed to create and maintain biobanks, recognizing that the circumstances faced by the curators of biobanks vary across the world. The international cooperation that went into formulating these Common Minimal Technical Standards provides confidence that the content is realistic, while at the same time maintaining the minimal standards needed in order for the biospecimens to be valid and to yield the reliable research data being sought. In providing this Foreword, I would like to place on record my thanks to all authors and reviewers who have contributed to this final product, as well as to all the contributors to Common Minimum Technical Standards and Protocols for Biological Resource Centres Dedicated to Cancer Research, known as the \u201cGreen Book\u201d, published by IARC in 2007. In publishing this book, my hope is for a balanced focus, not only on what goes into a biobank but also on what comes out. There is a risk that biobanks remain untouched or underexploited, a deposit that is rarely put to work for the common good. While this book aims to ensure that what goes into a biobank is of high quality and well managed, it has as its ultimate objective to drive the use of those same biospecimens in research. This will involve the analysis of biospecimens, but to maximize the benefits it will also require linkage to other well-documented epidemiological and clinical data sets. In this period of spiralling numbers of cancer cases and costs of cancer care, the failure to use stored samples to answer critical research questions is indefensible. In conclusion, I trust that readers will find this publication to be a support to successful biobanking and will find herein one important foundation for cancer research in the 21st century

Thinking like a man? The cultures of science

Culture includes science and science includes culture, but conflicts between the two traditions persist, often seen as clashes between interpretation and knowledge. One way of highlighting this false polarity has been to explore the gendered symbolism of science. Feminism has contributed to science studies and the critical interrogation of knowledge, aware that practical knowledge and scientific understanding have never been synonymous. Persisting notions of an underlying unity to scientific endeavour have often impeded rather than fostered the useful application of knowledge. This has been particularly evident in the recent rise of molecular biology, with its delusory dream of the total conquest of disease. It is equally prominent in evolutionary psychology, with its renewed attempts to depict the fundamental basis of sex differences. Wars over science have continued to intensify over the last decade, even as our knowledge of the political, economic and ideological significance of science funding and research has become ever more apparent

Pioglitazone Represents an Effective Therapeutic Target in Preventing Oxidative/Inflammatory Cochlear Damage Induced by Noise Exposure

Recent progress in hearing loss research has provided strong evidence for the imbalance of cellular redox status and inflammation as common predominant mechanisms of damage affecting the organ of Corti including noise induced hearing loss. The discovery of a protective molecule acting on both mechanisms is challenging. The thiazolidinediones, a class of antidiabetic drugs including pioglitazone and rosiglitazone, have demonstrated diverse pleiotrophic effects in many tissues where they exhibit anti-inflammatory, anti-proliferative, tissue protective effects and regulators of redox balance acting as agonist of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs). They are members of the family of ligand regulated nuclear hormone receptors that are also expressed in several cochlear cell types, including the outer hair cells. In this study, we investigated the protective capacity of pioglitazone in a model of noise-induced hearing loss in Wistar rats and the molecular mechanisms underlying this protective effects. Specifically, we employed a formulation of pioglitazone in a biocompatible thermogel providing rapid, uniform and sustained inner ear drug delivery via transtympanic injection. Following noise exposure (120 dB, 10 kHz, 1 h), different time schedules of treatment were employed: we explored the efficacy of pioglitazone given immediately (1 h) or at delayed time points (24 and 48 h) after noise exposure and the time course and extent of hearing recovery were assessed. We found that pioglitazone was able to protect auditory function at the mid-high frequencies and to limit cell death in the cochlear basal/middle turn, damaged by noise exposure. Immunofluorescence and western blot analysis provided evidence that pioglitazone mediates both anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant effects by decreasing NF-κB and IL-1β expression in the cochlea and opposing the oxidative damage induced by noise insult. These results suggest that intratympanic pioglitazone can be considered a valid therapeutic strategy for attenuating noise-induced hearing loss and cochlear damage, reducing inflammatory signaling and restoring cochlear redox balance