Integrating service learning into the RN to BSN curriculum with the application of QSEN competencies.

To accomplish the goal of a more highly educated nursing workforce, academic nursing has supported a significant increase in the number of RN to BSN programs. The focus of educating practicing registered nurses is moving toward revising and designing curriculum that promote positive patient outcomes and supports contemporary healthcare practices. Facilitating a service-learning model for RN to BSN curricula and applying the Quality and Safety Education in Nursing (QSEN) competencies are two effective methods for enhancing professional practice. The purpose of this article is to promote the concept of integrating service learning into the RN to BSN curriculum and applying the QSEN competencies to learning activities to achieve improved quality and patient safety.

Australasian bronchiolitis guideline.

AIM: Bronchiolitis is the most common lower respiratory tract disorder in infants aged less than 12 months, and research has demonstrated that there is substantial variation in practice patterns despite treatment being well defined. In order to align and improve the consistency of the management of bronchiolitis, an evidence-based guideline was developed for the Australasian population. METHODS: The guideline development committee included representation from emergency and paediatric specialty medical and nursing personnel in addition to geographical representation across Australia and New Zealand - rural, remote and metropolitan. Formulation of the guideline included identification of population, intervention, comparator, outcomes and time questions and was associated with an extensive literature search from 2000 to 2015. Evidence was summarised and graded using the National Health and Medical Research Council and Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation methodology, and consensus within the guideline group was sought using nominal group technique principles to formulate the clinical practice recommendations. The guideline was reviewed and endorsed by key paediatric health bodies. RESULTS: The guideline consists of a usable clinical interface for bedside functionality supported by evidence summary and tables. The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation and National Health and Medical Research Council processes provided a systematic and transparent process to review and assess the literature, resulting in a guideline that is relevant to the management of bronchiolitis in the Australasian setting. CONCLUSION: This is the first robust Australasian acute paediatric guideline and provides clear guidance for the management of the vast majority of patients seen in Australasian emergency departments and general paediatric wards with bronchiolitis.

Neural correlates of facial motion perception.

Several neuroimaging studies have revealed that the superior temporal sulcus (STS) is highly implicated in the processing of facial motion. A limitation of these investigations, however, is that many of them utilize unnatural stimuli (e.g., morphed videos) or those which contain many confounding spatial cues. As a result, the underlying mechanisms may not be fully engaged during such perception. The aim of the current study was to build upon the existing literature by implementing highly detailed and accurate models of facial movement. Accordingly, neurologically healthy participants viewed simultaneous sequences of rigid and nonrigid motion that was retargeted onto a standard computer generated imagery face model. Their task was to discriminate between different facial motion videos in a two-alternative forced choice paradigm. Presentations varied between upright and inverted orientations. In corroboration with previous data, the perception of natural facial motion strongly activated a portion of the posterior STS. The analysis also revealed engagement of the lingual gyrus, fusiform gyrus, precentral gyrus, and cerebellum. These findings therefore suggest that the processing of dynamic facial information is supported by a network of visuomotor substrates.

Categorizing identity from facial motion.

Advances in marker-less motion capture technology now allow the accurate replication of facial motion and deformation in computer-generated imagery (CGI). A forced-choice discrimination paradigm using such CGI facial animations showed that human observers can categorize identity solely from facial motion cues. Animations were generated from motion captures acquired during natural speech, thus eliciting both rigid (head rotations and translations) and nonrigid (expressional changes) motion. To limit interferences from individual differences in facial form, all animations shared the same appearance. Observers were required to discriminate between different videos of facial motion and between the facial motions of different people. Performance was compared to the control condition of orientation-inverted facial motion. The results show that observers are able to make accurate discriminations of identity in the absence of all cues except facial motion. A clear inversion effect in both tasks provided consistency with previous studies, supporting the configural view of human face perception. The accuracy of this motion capture technology thus allowed stimuli to be generated that closely resembled real moving faces. Future studies may wish to implement such methodology when studying human face perception.

Impaired perception of facial motion in autism spectrum disorder.

Facial motion is a special type of biological motion that transmits cues for socio-emotional communication and enables the discrimination of properties such as gender and identity. We used animated average faces to examine the ability of adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) to perceive facial motion. Participants completed increasingly difficult tasks involving the discrimination of (1) sequences of facial motion, (2) the identity of individuals based on their facial motion and (3) the gender of individuals. Stimuli were presented in both upright and upside-down orientations to test for the difference in inversion effects often found when comparing ASD with controls in face perception. The ASD group's performance was impaired relative to the control group in all three tasks and unlike the control group, the individuals with ASD failed to show an inversion effect. These results point to a deficit in facial biological motion processing in people with autism, which we suggest is linked to deficits in lower level motion processing we have previously reported.

Event-related alpha suppression in response to facial motion.

While biological motion refers to both face and body movements, little is known about the visual perception of facial motion. We therefore examined alpha wave suppression as a reduction in power is thought to reflect visual activity, in addition to attentional reorienting and memory processes. Nineteen neurologically healthy adults were tested on their ability to discriminate between successive facial motion captures. These animations exhibited both rigid and non-rigid facial motion, as well as speech expressions. The structural and surface appearance of these facial animations did not differ, thus participants decisions were based solely on differences in facial movements. Upright, orientation-inverted and luminance-inverted facial stimuli were compared. At occipital and parieto-occipital regions, upright facial motion evoked a transient increase in alpha which was then followed by a significant reduction. This finding is discussed in terms of neural efficiency, gating mechanisms and neural synchronization. Moreover, there was no difference in the amount of alpha suppression evoked by each facial stimulus at occipital regions, suggesting early visual processing remains unaffected by manipulation paradigms. However, upright facial motion evoked greater suppression at parieto-occipital sites, and did so in the shortest latency. Increased activity within this region may reflect higher attentional reorienting to natural facial motion but also involvement of areas associated with the visual control of body effectors.

Increasing RN-BSN enrollments: facilitating articulation through curriculum reform.

Increasing enrollments in nursing programs is one method to deal with the shortage of nurses. However, the majority of these new graduates will be educated at the associate degree in nursing (ADN) level. The need to increase the number of nurses educated at the baccalaureate (BSN) level is significant. Research has shown that patient outcomes can be attributed to higher levels of nursing education. A viable way to increase the volume of BSN graduates is to promote statewide and mandated articulation agreements and create an environment where academic progression is facilitated. The initial step in the process of implementing articulation agreements is to bring together nursing educators at the BSN and ADN level to assess prerequisites, transfer credits, and evaluate overall curriculum. This article reviews the current trends in registered nurse-BSN curriculum at 13 public 4-year universities in California and discusses the potential opportunities to reform curriculum and facilitate articulation.

Comparison of form and motion coherence processing in autistic spectrum disorders and dyslexia.

A large body of research has reported visual perception deficits in both people with dyslexia and autistic spectrum disorders. In this study, we compared form and motion coherence detection between a group of adults with high-functioning autism, a group with Asperger's disorder, a group with dyslexia, and a matched control group. It was found that motion detection was intact in dyslexia and Asperger. Individuals with high-functioning autism showed a general impaired ability to detect coherent form and motion. Participants with Asperger's syndrome showed lower form coherence thresholds than the dyslexic and normally developing adults. The results are discussed with respect to the involvement of the dorsal and ventral pathways in developmental disorders.

Visual form-processing deficits in autism.

People with autism have a number of reported deficits in object recognition and global processing. Is there a low-level spatial integration deficit associated with this? We measured spatial-form-coherence detection thresholds using a Glass stimulus in a field of random dots, and compared performance to a similar motion-coherence task. A coherent visual patch was depicted by dots separated by a rotational transformation in space (form) or space-time (motion). To measure parallel visual integration, stimuli were presented for only 250 ms. We compared detection thresholds for children with autism, children with Asperger syndrome, and a matched control group. Children with autism showed a significant form-coherence deficit and a significant motion-coherence deficit, while the performance of the children with Asperger syndrome did not differ significantly from that of controls on either task.

When new graduate nurses fail the NCLEX: what role can the hospital play?

New graduate nurses employed at a hospital who have failed the National Council Licensure Examination are in need of guidance. They are no longer a part of the academic system, and hospital educators are often at a loss as to how to assist them in successful completion of the licensing exam. This article provides information on how to support and guide the new graduate during this difficult time.

Infants' discrimination of faces by using biological motion cues.

We report two experiments in which we used animated averaged faces to examine infants' ability to perceive and discriminate facial motion. The faces were generated by using the motion recorded from the faces of volunteers while they spoke. We tested infants aged 4-8 months to assess their ability to discriminate facial motion sequences (condition 1) and discriminate the faces of individuals (condition 2). Infants were habituated to one sequence with the motion of one actor speaking one phrase. Following habituation, infants were presented with the same sequence together with motion from a different actor (condition 1), or a new sequence from the same actor coupled with a new sequence from a new actor (condition 2). Infants demonstrated a significant preference for the novel actor in both experiments. These findings suggest that infants can not only discriminate complex and subtle biological motion cues but also detect invariants in such displays.

Form and motion coherence processing in dyspraxia: evidence of a global spatial processing deficit.

Form and motion coherence was tested in children with dyspraxia and matched controls to assess their global spatial and global motion processing abilities. Thresholds for detecting form coherence patterns were significantly higher in the dyspraxic group than in the control group. No corresponding difference was found on the motion coherence task. We tested eight children with dyspraxic disorder (mean age 8.2 years) and 50 verbal-mental-age matched controls (mean age 8.4 years) to test for a neural basis to the perceptual abnormalities observed in dyspraxia. The results provide evidence that children with dyspraxia have a specific impairment in the global processing of spatial information. This finding contrasts with other developmental disorders such as Williams syndrome, autism and dyslexia where deficits have been found in global motion processing and not global form processing. We conclude that children with dyspraxia may have a specific occipitotemporal deficit and we argue that testing form and motion coherence thresholds might be a useful diagnostic tool for the often coexistent disorders of dyspraxia and dyslexia.