Predicting student success: a 10-year review using integrative review and meta-analysis.

This article describes research funded by a Dean's New Investigator Award conducted to describe and evaluate nursing education research on predictors of retention, graduation, and National Council Licensure Examination success of baccalaureate-degree nursing students through an integrative review and meta-analysis of nursing research. The sample (n = 47) for the integrative review included all nursing research conducted within the years 1981 to 1990 related to predicting student success that had at least one nurse author and was published in US nursing journals or dissertations from a US university. Four studies from the corpus were appropriate to be treated meta-analytically. Ninety-four per cent of the studies were descriptive, used convenience samples, and most often identified quantitative measures, including American College Test, Scholastic Aptitude Test, and grade point average as predictor variables. Findings of the integrative review showed grade point averages in nursing and science courses as the greatest cognitive predictors of student success and parental education and age as the greatest demographic predictors. The meta-analysis portion of the study showed significant effectiveness of interventions used in the experimental studies. The Fail-Safe N (NFS) was used to assess the comprehensiveness and exhaustiveness of the literature searches. The NFS = 162 studies indicated that it would require 162 studies to overturn the conclusions.

Persistence of sodium monofluoroacetate in rabbits and risk to non-target species.

1. Sodium monofluoroacetate (1080), a vertebrate pesticide used in New Zealand, was administered orally to rabbits at two dose levels (sub-lethal and lethal) to determine how long 1080 would persist in plasma, liver, kidney, and muscle so that the risk of consumption of meat from lethally or sub-lethally poisoned rabbits by non-target species could be assessed. 2. The plasma elimination half-life in rabbits receiving a sub-lethal dose was 1.1 h. Retention of 1080 in tissue was greater in rabbits dosed with a lethal dose than in those that received a sub-lethal dose. Irrespective of the dose level, concentration of 1080 in muscle, kidney, and liver was substantially lower than in the plasma. 3. Poisoning of dogs is possible because of their extreme susceptibility to 1080. Poisoning of birds is less likely. The risk of secondary poisoning is reduced as the concentration of 1080 declines in putrefying carcasses.

A balancing act: the curriculum vitae and the interview process.

The authors believe that one possible solution to the dearth of minority nursing faculty in higher education is thorough preparation for the search process by the minority applicant. This article discusses the appointment/hiring process and provides the reader with authoritative and experiential information necessary for constructing a curriculum vitae (CV) and preparing for an interview. Armed with a proper CV and knowledge of potential interview questions, the authors believe that minority applicants will be able to maneuver their way through the maize of job interviews. In addition, suggestions are offered to those serving on promotion and tenure committees and administrators.

Factors affecting aminoglycoside disposition: effects of circadian rhythm and dietary protein intake on gentamicin pharmacokinetics.

The effects of dietary protein loading and circadian cycle on the pharmacokinetics of gentamicin were studied in healthy adult men. Ten subjects fasted overnight, and at 8 AM the next morning they received gentamicin, 1.5 mg/kg. Serum and urine samples were obtained over a 6-hour period. In two additional clearance studies with 2-week washout periods in between, 10 subjects were given the same dose of gentamicin at 8 PM in the fasted state and six subjects were also studied in a protein-supplemented (90 gm) state. Pharmacokinetic analysis revealed no significant effect of circadian cycle on gentamicin pharmacokinetic parameters at each of the two fasted periods. In contrast, dietary protein loading resulted in a significant decrease in the elimination t1/2 (P less than 0.05) and an increase in total body clearance compared with the fasted 8 PM study. Urinary excretion of gentamicin was also found to increase significantly (P = 0.03) as a result of protein intake compared with the fasted evening study period. Our study demonstrates the importance of dietary controls in chronopharmacokinetic studies of drugs eliminated predominantly by renal mechanisms.