Impact of a Nurse-Led Palliative Care Screening Tool on Medical Oncology Units.

There is a lack of early integration of palliative care in patients with advanced cancer, which has been shown to result in suboptimal quality of life across their disease continuum. Standardized palliative care screening too.

Net nitrogen mineralization and leaching in response to warming and nitrogen deposition in a temperate old field: the importance of winter temperature.

While climate warming can increase plant N availability over the growing season by increasing rates of N mineralization, increased N mineralization over winter at a time when plant roots are largely inactive, coupled with an increased frequency of soil freeze-thaw cycles, may increase soil N leaching losses. We examined changes in soil net N mineralization and N leaching in response to warming and N addition (6 g m(-2) year(-1)) in a factorial experiment conducted in a temperate old field. We used two warming treatments, year-round and winter-only warming, to isolate the effects of winter warming on soil N dynamics from the year-round warming effects. We estimated net N mineralization using in situ soil cores with resin bags placed at the bottom to catch throughput, and we measured N leaching using lysimeters located below the plant rooting zone at a depth of 50 cm. There were minor effects of warming on changes in soil extractable N and resin N in the soil cores over winter. Nevertheless, the overall effects of both warming and N addition on net N mineralization (the sum of changes in soil extractable N and resin N) were not significant over this period. Likewise, there were no significant treatment effects on the concentration of N in leachate collected below the plant rooting zone. However, in response to winter warming, net N mineralization over summer was approximately double that of both the ambient and year-round warming treatments. This result demonstrates a potentially large and unexpected effect of winter warming on soil N availability in this old field system.

Relative merits of ARC guidelines for ECC.

Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation is an important component of the pre-hospital emergency care process. Location of the correct site for application of compression in External Cardiac Compression is crucial if patients are not to be exposed to the risk of iatrogenic injury. The procedures approved by the Australian Resuscitation Council for locating the correct site are described as well as a concern that one of these methods (the caliper method) depends on the relation between patients' sternum length and the palm width of the rescuer. The purpose of this study was to measure palm widths and compare these to sternum lengths to determine the likelihood that using the caliper method would result in pressure being applied over the xiphoid process. Results indicated that, using the most conservative comparison, such pressure would be applied in 97% of instances, if the rescuer strictly adhered to the caliper method for locating the correct site. It is recommended that the caliper method be removed as an approved procedure.