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Selected AbstractsHydrology and nitrogen balance of a seasonally inundated Danish floodplain wetlandHYDROLOGICAL PROCESSES, Issue 3 2004Hans Estrup Andersen Abstract This paper characterizes a seasonally inundated Danish floodplain wetland in a state close to naturalness and includes an analysis of the major controls on the wetland water and nitrogen balances. The main inputs of water are precipitation and percolation during ponding and unsaturated conditions. Lateral saturated subsurface flow is low. The studied floodplain owes its wetland status to the hydraulic properties of its sediments: the low hydraulic conductivity of a silt,clay deposit on top of the floodplain maintains ponded water during winter, and parts of autumn and spring. A capillary fringe extends to the soil surface, and capillary rise from groundwater during summer maintains near-saturated conditions in the root zone, and allows a permanently very high evapotranspiration rate. The average for the growing season of 1999 is 3·6 mm day,1 and peak rate is 5·6 mm day,1. In summer, the evapotranspiration is to a large degree supplied by subsurface storage in a confined peat layer underlying the silt,clay. The floodplain sediments are in a very reduced state as indicated by low sulphate concentrations. All nitrate transported into the wetland is thus denitrified. However, owing to modest water exchange with surrounding groundwater and surface water, denitrification is low; 71 kg NO3,N ha,1 during the study period of 1999. Reduction of nitrate diffusing into the sediments during water ponding accounts for 75% of nitrate removal. Biomass production and nitrogen uptake in above-ground vegetation is high,8·56 t dry matter ha,1 year,1 and 103 kg N ha,1 year,1. Subsurface ammonium concentrations are high, and convective upward transport into the root zone driven by evapotranspiration amounted to 12·8 kg N ha,1year,1. The floodplain wetland sediments have a high nitrogen content, and conditions are very favourable for mineralization. Mineralization thus constitutes 72% of above-ground plant uptake. The study demonstrates the necessity of identifying controlling factors, and to combine surface flow with vadose and groundwater flow processes in order to fully comprehend the flow and nitrogen dynamics of this type of wetland. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Developing Clinical Terms for Health Visiting in the United KingdomINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NURSING TERMINOLOGIES AND CLASSIFICATION, Issue 2003June Clark BACKGROUND The UK health visiting service provides a universalist preventive health service that focuses mainly on families with young children and the elderly or vulnerable, but anyone who wishes can access the services. The principles of health visiting have been formally defined as the search for health needs, the stimulation of awareness of health needs, influencing policies that affect health, and the facilitation of health-enhancing activities. The project is currently in its fourth phase. In phase 1, 17 health visitors recorded their encounters with families with new babies over a period of 3 months; in phase 2, 27 health visitors recorded their encounters with a wider range of clients (769 encounters with 205 families) over a period of 9 months; in phase 3, the system is being used by a variety of healthcare professionals in a specialist program that provides intensive parenting support; phase 4 is developing a prototype of an automated version for point-of-contact recording. UK nursing has no tradition of standardized language and the concept of nursing diagnosis is almost unknown. Over the past decade, however, the government has initiated the development of a standardized terminology (Read codes) to cover all disciplines and all aspects of health care, and it is likely that the emerging SNOMED-CT terminology (a merger of the Read codes with the SNOMED terminology) will be mandated for use throughout the National Health Service (NHS). MAIN CONTENT POINTS The structure and key elements of the Omaha System were retained but the terminology was modified to take account of the particular field of practice and emerging UK needs. Modifications made were carefully tracked. The Problem Classification Scheme was modified as follows: ,All terms were anglicized. ,Some areas , notably relating to antepartum/postpartum, neonatal care, child protection, and growth and development,were expanded. ,The qualifiers "actual,""potential," and "health promotion" were changed to "problem,""risk," and "no problem." ,Risk factors were included as modifiers of "risk" alongside the "signs and symptoms" that qualify problems. The Intervention Classification was modified by substituting synonymous terms for "case management" and "surveillance" and dividing "health teaching, guidance, and counseling" into two categories. The Omaha System "targets" were renamed "focus" and a new axis of "recipient" was introduced in line with SNOMED-CT. The revised terminologies were tested in use and also sent for review to 3 nursing language experts and 12 practitioners, who were asked to review them for domain completeness, appropriate granularity, parsimony, synonymy, nonambiguity, nonredundancy, context independence, and compatibility with emerging multiaxial and combinatorial nomenclatures. Review comments were generally very favourable and modifications suggested are being incorporated. CONCLUSIONS The newly published government strategy for information management and technology in the NHS in Wales requires the rapid development of an electronic patient record, for which the two prerequisites are structured documentation and the use of standardized language. The terminology developed in this project will enable nursing concepts to be incorporated into the new systems. The experiences of the project team also offer many lessons that will be useful for developing the necessary educational infrastructure. [source] The impact of a new educational strategy on acquiring neonatology skillsMEDICAL EDUCATION, Issue 5 2002I Treadwell Overview A shortage of staff for teaching neonatology skills to large numbers of students, in small groups and following a new curriculum, necessitated an innovative educational strategy. This entailed the development and implementation of an interactive multimedia program (CD-ROM) to deliver information about skills and to demonstrate them. Methods Students had to study a specific skill using the CD-ROM and then practise in the Skills Laboratory, supported by lecturers who provided formative evaluation. Objectives The aims of this study were to assess the students' perspectives on the new strategy, and to compare the skills of students following the new curriculum to those of students following the traditional curriculum, who do not follow structured programmes on practical skills but experience a practical neonatology rotation. Results The evaluation of the CD-ROM program was very favourable. The majority of students still preferred live demonstrations but found the CD-ROM useful for revision purposes. With the exception of one skill, endotracheal intubation, the new curriculum students were found to be as competent as the students following the traditional curriculum and performed mask ventilation and cardiac massage significantly better than them. [source] Faculty-development activity to promote effective communication between instructors and studentsTHE CLINICAL TEACHER, Issue 2 2010Netta Notzer Summary Background:, Educators claim that conflicts and teacher,student miscommunications interfere in achieving optimal learning outcomes. Context:, Conflicts arise when clinical instructors communicate in a patronising fashion, expressing values that are not those of their medical students. This paper presents our approach of coping with such conflicts. It is based on the notion that language is comprised of developmental levels. The objective is to switch the instructor's lower level of language from an uncontrolled reaction to a high level of efficient communication. Innovation:, During our faculty-development workshops, we piloted sessions consisting of vignettes depicting instructor,student conflicts. The workshop participants were asked to react and discuss questions on their feelings in similar conflicts, and their immediate speech reaction to students. The workshop's facilitator pointed out that there was no one right solution. She singled out the reaction that takes into account the student's personality, avoiding imposing solutions. The feedback on these sessions was very favourable, indicating a high level of satisfaction. Implications:, The positive feedback is very encouraging. We believe that our workshops amplify the desired effective instructor,student communication, and suggest that the success of this intervention is partly achieved by selecting problematic issues of communication, and adjusting them to the current needs of our faculty members. In order to reproduce our approach, we suggest that other institutions should define their own values and communication code. We recommend them to use the same technique of intervention among a small group in an empowering atmosphere of discussion, using their own situations. [source] Modified De Vita pinning technique for the management of canine hip luxation: preliminary findingsAUSTRALIAN VETERINARY JOURNAL, Issue 8 2000IH DOUGLAS Objective To describe for the first time a modification of the De Vita pinning technique to manage hip luxation in the dog and to assess its use in a preliminary study. Design A prospective, clinical study using five client-owned dogs with naturally occurring injuries. Procedure A modified De Vita pinning technique was employed, using a nonthreaded Steinmann pin to reduce the risk of trauma to the sciatic nerve during pin insertion. The pin was anchored by implanted Kirschner-Ehmer clamps in an attempt to lower the risk of postoperative pin migration. Results Surgical outcome was very favourable with respect to pain on manipulation, restriction of range of movement and lameness in all dogs as assessed by veterinary examination. In four of five dogs, owners also reported normal movement at rest, walk and trot. The fifth dog was lost to follow-up. Conclusion This preliminary study found that a modified De Vita pinning technique was useful in dogs with uni and bilateral hip luxation and hip luxation in the presence of other limb injuries. The modified technique may provide a sound surgical alternative to existing procedures. The described modification allows the use of a nonthreaded pin and also substantially reduces the risk of postoperative pin migration. [source] Three-Component Entanglements Consisting of Three Crescent-Shaped Bidentate Ligands Coordinated to an Octahedral Metal CentreCHEMISTRY - A EUROPEAN JOURNAL, Issue 31 2007Fabien Durola Abstract 3,3,-Biisoquinoline ligands (biiq) L, bearing aromatic substituents on their 8 and 8, positions, have been used to generate interwoven systems consisting of three crescent-shaped ligands disposed around an octahedral metal centre. Mono-ligand complexes of the type [ReL(CO)3py]+ (py: pyridine) have also been prepared, leading to sterically non-hindering complexes in spite of the endotopic nature of the chelate used. The three-component entanglements have been prepared by using either FeII or RuII as gathering metal centre. The synthetic procedure is simple and efficient, affording fully characterised complexes as their PF6 or SbCl6 salts. X-ray crystallography clearly shows that the crescent-shaped ligands do not repel each other in the tris-chelate complexes. In an analogous way, the ReI complexes show open structures with no steric repulsion between the L ligand and the ancillary CO or py groups. The FeL3 or RuL3 compounds are very unusual in the sense that, contrary to all the other tris-bidentate chelate complexes made till now, the three organic components are tangled up, in a situation which will be very favourable to the formation of new non trivial topologies of the catenane type. [source] | ||||||||||