A team-based approach to reducing cardiac monitor alarms.

Background And Objectives: Excessive cardiac monitor alarms lead to desensitization and alarm fatigue. We created and implemented a standardized cardiac monitor care process (CMCP) on a 24-bed pediatric bone marrow transplant unit. The aim of this project was to decrease monitor alarms through the use of team-based standardized care and processes.

A flexible approach for assessing functional landscape connectivity, with application to greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus).

Connectivity of animal populations is an increasingly prominent concern in fragmented landscapes, yet existing methodological and conceptual approaches implicitly assume the presence of, or need for, discrete corridors. We tested this assumption by developing a flexible conceptual approach that does not assume, but allows for, the presence of discrete movement corridors. We quantified functional connectivity habitat for greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) across a large landscape in central western North America.

The validity of gait variability and fractal dynamics obtained from a single, body-fixed triaxial accelerometer.

A single triaxial accelerometer has the ability to collect a large amount of continuous gait data to quantitatively assess the control of gait. Unfortunately, there is limited information on the validity of gait variability and fractal dynamics obtained from this device. The purpose of this study was to test the concurrent validity of the variability and fractal dynamic measures of gait provided by a triaxial accelerometer during a continuous 10 minute walk in older adults.

Evaluation of age-related differences in the stride-to-stride fluctuations, regularity and symmetry of gait using a waist-mounted tri-axial accelerometer.

Purpose: To compare the stride-to-stride fluctuations, regularity and symmetry of gait using a body-fixed accelerometer in a group of healthy young and healthy older adults.

Methods: Forty-one healthy young adults (24 ± 3 years) and forty-one healthy older adults (76 ± 5 years) completed a 10-min walk at a self-selected, normal walking speed while wearing a single waist-mounted tri-axial accelerometer. The following gait parameters were compared between age groups: mean step and stride time, step and stride time variability, stride time fractal scaling index and the regularity and symmetry of the acceleration pattern in the vertical, mediolateral and anteroposterior directions (unbiased autocorrelation procedure).

Identifying and prioritizing greater sage-grouse nesting and brood-rearing habitat for conservation in human-modified landscapes.

Background: Balancing animal conservation and human use of the landscape is an ongoing scientific and practical challenge throughout the world. We investigated reproductive success in female greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) relative to seasonal patterns of resource selection, with the larger goal of developing a spatially-explicit framework for managing human activity and sage-grouse conservation at the landscape level.

Methodology/principal Findings: We integrated field-observation, Global Positioning Systems telemetry, and statistical modeling to quantify the spatial pattern of occurrence and risk during nesting and brood-rearing.