Pathophysiology team teaching: Bioscientist contribution to knowledge integration in a nursing subject

Bioscience content within undergraduate nursing degrees provides foundational knowledge of pathophysiology, anatomy, physiology, microbiology and pharmacology. However, nursing students often find studying the bioscience components of undergraduate nursing program daunting (Friedel & Treagust 2005, Craft et al. 2013). This is related to factors such as the volume of content, degree of difficulty and insufficient linkage between bioscience concepts and nurses' clinical practice. Students who are unable to conceptualise the relevance of bioscience with nursing subjects and subsequent nursing practice may not appreciate the broader importance of bioscience, and hence may adopt a surface approach to learning (Craft et al. 2013). The aim of this study was to develop a model within Nursing Practice in the Context theory subject, to include a bioscientist lecturing to complement the nursing lecturer, in order to explicitly demonstrate links between physiology, pathophysiology and nursing practice.

Coronary calcium scoring: Calcium location needs to be integrated!

Coronary calcium scoring (CCS) has been a topic of great interest lately. In a large population-based study comprising 6,722 patients, Detrano et al. (1) have effectively shown that CCS can be a strong predictor of incident coronary heart disease among different racial groups. Henneman et al. (2) have, however, reported that CCS does not reliably exclude the presence of (significant) atherosclerosis. This topic is quite controversial as there is significant evidence from Detrano's work that higher CCS is associated with an increased risk of acute coronary events. We think that the location of calcium within the coronary arteries should also be considered. Li et al. (3,4) have shown that the position of the calcium in the plaque is a better determinant of plaque vulnerability than the total calcium load. Using a biomechanical model, predicted maximum stress was found to increase by 47.5% when calcium deposits were located in the thin fibrous cap. The presence of calcium deposits in the lipid core or remote from the fibrous cap resulted in no increase in maximum stress. It was also noted that the presence of calcification within the lipid core may even stabilize the plaque. Integration of calcium location in CCS will, therefore, enable better assessment of severity of atherosclerosis and prediction of future cardiovascular events.

Advancing practice in critical care: A model of knowledge integration

It could be argued that advancing practice in critical care has been superseded by the advanced practice agenda. Some would suggest that advancing practice is focused on the core attributes of an individuals practice progressing onto advanced practice status. However, advancing practice is more of a process than identifiable skills and as such is often negated when viewing the development of practitioners to the advanced practice level. For example practice development initiatives can be seen as advancing practice for the masses which ensures that practitioners are following the same level of practice. The question here is; are they developing individually.

Community, Power, and Colonialism: The U.S. Army in Southern Arizona and New Mexico, 1866-1886

Empire is central to U.S. history. When we see the U.S. projecting its influence on a global scale in today s world it is important to understand that U.S. empire has a long history. This dissertation offers a case study of colonialism and U.S. empire by discussing the social worlds, labor regimes, and culture of the U.S. Army during the conquest of southern Arizona and New Mexico (1866-1886). It highlights some of the defining principles, mentalities, and characteristics of U.S. imperialism and shows how U.S. forces have in years past constructed their power and represented themselves, their missions, and the places and peoples that faced U.S. imperialism/colonialism. Using insights from postcolonial studies and whiteness studies, this work balances its attention between discursive representations (army stories) and social experience (army actions), pays attention to silences in the process of historical production, and focuses on collective group mentalities and identities. In the end the army experience reveals an empire in denial constructed on the rule of difference and marked by frustration. White officers, their wives, and the white enlisted men not only wanted the monopoly of violence for the U.S. regime but also colonial (mental/cultural) authority and power, and constructed their identity, authority, and power in discourse and in the social contexts of the everyday through difference. Engaged in warfare against the Apaches, they did not recognize their actions as harmful or acknowledge the U.S. invasion as the bloody colonial conquest it was. White army personnel painted themselves and the army as liberators, represented colonial peoples as racial inferiors, approached colonial terrain in terms of struggle, and claimed that the region was a terrible periphery with little value before the arrival of white civilization. Officers and wives also wanted to place themselves at the top of colonial hierarchies as the refined and respectable class who led the regeneration of the colony by example: they tried to turn army villages into islands of civilization and made journeys, leisure, and domestic life to showcase their class sensibilities and level of sophistication. Often, however, their efforts failed, resulting in frustration and bitterness. Many blamed the colony and its peoples for their failures. The army itself was divided by race and class. All soldiers were treated as laborers unfit for self-government. White enlisted men, frustrated by their failures in colonial warfare and by constant manual labor, constructed worlds of resistance, whereas indigenous soldiers sought to negotiate the effects of colonialism by working in the army. As colonized labor their position was defined by tension between integration and exclusion and between freedom and colonial control.

Comment on path integration of a quadratic action with a generalized memory

Using the promeasure technique, we give an alternative evaluation of a path integral corresponding to a quadratic action with a generalized memory.

Advancing practice in critical care : A model of knowledge integration: A Singaporean context

It could be argued that advancing practice in critical care has been superseded by the advanced practice agenda. Some would suggest that advancing practice is focused on the core attributes of an individuals practice progressing onto advanced practice status. However, advancing practice is more of a process than identifiable skills and as such is often negated when viewing the development of practitioners to the advanced practice level. For example practice development initiatives can be seen as advancing practice for the masses which ensures that practitioners are following the same level of practice. The question here is; are they developing individually. To discuss the potential development of a conceptual model of knowledge integration pertinent to critical care nursing practice. In an attempt to explore the development of leading edge critical care thinking and practice, a new model for advancing practice in critical care is proposed. This paper suggests that reflection may not be the best model for advancing practice unless the individual practitioner has a sound knowledge base both theoretically and experientially. Drawing on the contemporary literature and recent doctoral research, the knowledge integration model presented here uses multiple learning strategies that are focused in practise to develop practice, for example the use of work-based learning and clinical supervision. Ongoing knowledge acquisition and its relationship with previously held theory and experience will enable individual practitioners to advance their own practice as well as being a resource for others.

Advancing practice in critical care: A model of knowledge integration

Explore and describe a conceptual model of knowledge integration pertinent to the development of individual practitioners in critical care. Discussion of how multiple learning strategies that are embedded in practice can be beneficial in developing knowledge.

Feature integration in human vision

The earliest stages of human cortical visual processing can be conceived as extraction of local stimulus features. However, more complex visual functions, such as object recognition, require integration of multiple features. Recently, neural processes underlying feature integration in the visual system have been under intensive study. A specialized mid-level stage preceding the object recognition stage has been proposed to account for the processing of contours, surfaces and shapes as well as configuration. This thesis consists of four experimental, psychophysical studies on human visual feature integration. In two studies, classification image a recently developed psychophysical reverse correlation method was used. In this method visual noise is added to near-threshold stimuli. By investigating the relationship between random features in the noise and observer s perceptual decision in each trial, it is possible to estimate what features of the stimuli are critical for the task. The method allows visualizing the critical features that are used in a psychophysical task directly as a spatial correlation map, yielding an effective "behavioral receptive field". Visual context is known to modulate the perception of stimulus features. Some of these interactions are quite complex, and it is not known whether they reflect early or late stages of perceptual processing. The first study investigated the mechanisms of collinear facilitation, where nearby collinear Gabor flankers increase the detectability of a central Gabor. The behavioral receptive field of the mechanism mediating the detection of the central Gabor stimulus was measured by the classification image method. The results show that collinear flankers increase the extent of the behavioral receptive field for the central Gabor, in the direction of the flankers. The increased sensitivity at the ends of the receptive field suggests a low-level explanation for the facilitation. The second study investigated how visual features are integrated into percepts of surface brightness. A novel variant of the classification image method with brightness matching task was used. Many theories assume that perceived brightness is based on the analysis of luminance border features. Here, for the first time this assumption was directly tested. The classification images show that the perceived brightness of both an illusory Craik-O Brien-Cornsweet stimulus and a real uniform step stimulus depends solely on the border. Moreover, the spatial tuning of the features remains almost constant when the stimulus size is changed, suggesting that brightness perception is based on the output of a single spatial frequency channel. The third and fourth studies investigated global form integration in random-dot Glass patterns. In these patterns, a global form can be immediately perceived, if even a small proportion of random dots are paired to dipoles according to a geometrical rule. In the third study the discrimination of orientation structure in highly coherent concentric and Cartesian (straight) Glass patterns was measured. The results showed that the global form was more efficiently discriminated in concentric patterns. The fourth study investigated how form detectability depends on the global regularity of the Glass pattern. The local structure was either Cartesian or curved. It was shown that randomizing the local orientation deteriorated the performance only with the curved pattern. The results give support for the idea that curved and Cartesian patterns are processed in at least partially separate neural systems.

Comment on “path integration of a quadratic action with a generalized memory

Using the promeasure technique, we give an alternative evaluation of a path integral corresponding to a quadratic action with a generalized memory.

Stress and Resilience in Combat-Related PTSD: Integration of Psychological Theory and Biological Mechanisms

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating psychiatric disorder that has a major impact on the ability to function effectively in daily life. PTSD may develop as a response to exposure to an event or events perceived as potentially harmful or life-threatening. It has high prevalence rates in the community, especially among vulnerable groups such as military personnel or those in emergency services. Despite extensive research in this field, the underlying mechanisms of the disorder remain largely unknown. The identification of risk factors for PTSD has posed a particular challenge as there can be delays in onset of the disorder, and most people who are exposed to traumatic events will not meet diagnostic criteria for PTSD. With the advent of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM V), the classification for PTSD has changed from an anxiety disorder into the category of stress- and trauma-related disorders. This has the potential to refocus PTSD research on the nature of stress and the stress response relationship. This review focuses on some of the important findings from psychological and biological research based on early models of stress and resilience. Improving our understanding of PTSD by investigating both genetic and psychological risk and coping factors that influence stress response, as well as their interaction, may provide a basis for more effective and earlier intervention.

The con-stitutional re-cognition (s)cam-pain: The campaign for the hidden recognition of first nations peoples' racial inferiority

The constitutional recognition campaign has received party-wide support and its efforts have been promoted by Prime Minister Tony Abbott as being something that would ‘complete our Constitution.’ The broader rhetoric surrounding this campaign suggests that it will result in a just, albeit delayed, recognition of indigenous peoples in the Australian legal system. However, beneath the surface of this seemingly benevolent gesture, is a reaffirmation of the colonial subordination and erasure of the several hundred original nations’ peoples and ways of being.

Integration of clinical information systems in Saudi Arabian health care contexts: A grounded theory exploration

This research examined the implementation of clinical information system technology in a large Saudi Arabian health care organisation. The research was underpinned by symbolic interactionism and grounded theory methods informed data collection and analysis. Observations, a review of policy documents and 38 interviews with registered nurses produced in-depth data. Analysis generated three abstracted concepts that explained how imported technology increased practice and health care complexity rather than enhance quality patient care. The core category, Disseminating Change, also depicted a hierarchical and patriarchal culture that shaped the implementation process at the levels of government, organisation and the individual.

DAQ00129 Improving the Integration of Legumes in Grain and Sugarcane Farming Systems in Southern Queensland

The farming systems and agribusinesses of the inland Burnett and southern coastal cropping regions of Queensland are becoming increasingly interlinked as grain legume crops, a key component of dryland cropping systems, become more firmly entrenched in the coastal sugarcane cropping areas. Soybeans, peanuts and possibly winter cereals like barley have a real and demonstrated role in sugarcane rotations, and assistance with the integration of those crops into viable and sustainable cropping systems with sugarcane will be critical to the futuer development of these industries.

Better integration of crop-legume sequencing under limited water

It is proposed that over 4-5 years of study period, multiple collaborative sites will be established with on-farm cooperators to demonstrate better integration of crop-legume sequencing for improved root growth and functioning under limited water, leading to improved productivity and carbon sequestration, and reduced runoff and deep drainage losses.