The use of professional portfolios and profiles for career enhancement.

Since 1995, registered nurses and midwives have been obliged to develop and maintain a professional portfolio of evidence reflecting the learning activities that they have undertaken and how these have informed and influenced their practice. The aim of this article is to demonstrate that rather then just a retrospective account of continuing professional development activities, a portfolio can be used as a vehicle for engaging in self-assessment and personal development planning. Possible structures and type of evidence are explored and portfolios in the context of gaining accreditation for prior experiential learning, and in particular for those nurses in advanced clinical roles, are discussed

Systematic reviews of health effects of social interventions: 1. Finding the evidence: how far should you go?

Study objective: There is little guidance on how to identify useful evidence about the health effects of social interventions. The aim of this study was to assess the value of different ways of finding this type of information. Design: Retrospective analysis of the sources of studies for one systematic review. Setting: Case study of a systematic review of the effectiveness of interventions in promoting a population shift from using cars towards walking and cycling. Main results: Only four of the 69 relevant studies were found in a "first-line" health database such as Medline. About half of all relevant studies were found through the specialist Transport database. Nine relevant studies were found through purposive internet searches and seven relevant studies were found by chance. The unique contribution of experts was not to identify additional studies, but to provide more information about those already found in the literature. Conclusions: Most of the evidence needed for this review was not found in studies indexed in familiar literature databases. Applying a sensitive search strategy across multiple databases and interfaces is very labour intensive. Retrospective analysis suggests that a more efficient method might have been to search a few key resources, then to ask authors and experts directly for the most robust reports of studies identified. However, internet publications and serendipitous discoveries did make a significant contribution to the total set of relevant evidence. Undertaking a comprehensive search may provide unique evidence and insights that would not be obtained using a more focused search

Promoting walking and cycling as an alternative to using cars: systematic review

Objectives: To assess what interventions are effective in promoting a population shift from using cars towards walking and cycling, and to assess the health and distributional effects of such interventions. Data sources: Published and unpublished reports in any language identified from electronic databases, bibliographies, websites and reference lists. Review methods: Systematic search and appraisal to identify experimental or observational studies with a prospective or controlled retrospective design that evaluated any intervention applied to an urban population or area by measuring outcomes in members of the local population. Results: 22 studies met the inclusion criteria. We found some evidence that targeted behaviour change programmes can change the behaviour of motivated subgroups, resulting (in the largest study) in a modal shift of around 5% of all trips at a population level. Single studies of commuter subsidies and a new railwy station have also shown modest effects. The balance of best available evidence about publicity campaigns, engineering measures and other interventions suggests that they have not been effective. Participants in trials of active commuting experienced short-term improvements in certain health and fitness measures, but we found no good evidence about the health effects of any effective population-level intervention. Conclusions: The best available evidence of effectiveness is for targeted behaviour change programmes, but the social distribution of their effects is unclear and some other types of intervention remain to be rigorously evaluated. We need a stronger evidence base for the health impacts of transport policies, preferably based on properly conducted prospective studies

Fact sheet: Canopy cover and canopy closure

Definitions of canopy cover, canopy closure and analysis of eac

Fact sheet: The Ecological Restoration Institute and the Public Lands Institute will use terrestrial ecosystem surveys to assess potential landscape-scale treatments in Arizona and Nevada

Resource managers need a means of identifying practical management units when working with large landscapes; a method that identifies vegetation-environment relationships based on soils, topography, productivity, and microclimate. This perspective is useful because topography, soils, and microclimate vary across landscapes, with vegetation and productivity responding to this spatial variability. With a map that subdivides large landscapes into units that have similar management needs and will likely respond similarly to treatment, managers can tailor specific treatments to specific parts of the landscape

Fact sheet: 4FRI workforce analysis

Northern Arizona is home to the largest contiguous ponderosa pine forest in North America spanning the Apache-Sitgreaves, Coconino, Kaibab, and Tonto national forests. The Four Forests Restoration Initiative (4FRI) is a collaborative effort of government, private, and special interests. The collaborative aspires to thin one million acres across these national forests before more large, expensive wildfires, such as the Wallow and the Rodeo-Chediski, develop in the overgrown forest conditions now typical across the region

Fact sheet: Southwestern Ecological Restoration Institutes (SWERI)

The U.S. Forest Service estimates that 132 million acres of forested public and private land are at risk from unnatural fire. This situation poses a serious threat to the social and economic vitality of forested communities. Moreover, these lands fall short in their ability to provide wildlife habitat, a full complement of watershed values, and other ecosystem service benefits. The goal of the Southwest Forest Restoration Institutes (SWERI) is to help convert this potential liability into an asset

Fact sheet: Spatial pattern terms comparison

Definitions of clump, group, interspaces, canopy zone, opening, and meadow separatio

Fact sheet: Ecological restoration as economic stimulus

Our nation's history is a testament to the human ability to turn a time of crisis into an opportunity for positive change. As we prepare to implement the economic stimulus package in this time of economic crisis, we see many opportunities to provide sustainable, green jobs to people who need them most, while restoring ecosystems and building social capital through active restoration and stewardship

Fact sheet: Socio-economic barriers to landscape-scale restoration

A recent article in Restoration Ecology by three Northern Arizona University scholars - Tong Wu, Yeon-Su Kim, and Matthew Hurteau -- suggests that the full value of restored ponderosa pine ecosystems is not only unappreciated, but unaccounted for by forest policymakers and planners