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Saving the World on a Shoestring: Utilising Cohort Diversity and Enhanced Technology to Bridge the Higher Education Expectation Gap Introduction. Education is at the heart of global development goals, catalysing advancement towards decreased poverty and inequality. This policy context has led to a heightened demand for higher education (HE), with universities expected to contribute to global productivity, growth and social equality through the development of human capital (OECD, 2018). To achieve these outcomes, and within a context of declining HE government funding, HE institutions must ensure students receive a holistic experience that prepares them for real world employment and achieves outcomes that are greater than the sum of its parts. Curriculum designs and assessment practices are therefore creating tensions between standardisation and measurability, and the development of creative and reflective learners (Biggs and Tang, 2011). Global research also indicates an indifference to student diversity which has intensified to hostility for credential-focused domestic students (Arkoudis et. al. 2018). This research indicates that, while student diversity exists, genuine inclusion does not (Boulton, 2019). Aims. Focused on developing multicultural competence to provide psychologically safe learning environments for all students, the three-staged intervention involved more than 5,700 business/accounting students. Methods. Utilising culturally responsive pedagogies and learning technologies, a cross-discipline and cross-university, targeted intervention (Zhang and Zhou, 2019) was prepared and actioned over a twelve-year period (2008-2019). Results. Utilising anonymous and voluntary survey responses and formal, university reported grading statistics, the intervention outcomes included: a significant reduction in hostility levels between diverse group members; student satisfaction ratings averaging 87% to 100%; a minimum cohort average one-grade increase in pre versus post peer review process assessment outcomes; and low, unit-based, failure rates (PG: 2-3%; UG: 4-8%). Discussion. The data indicates that adoption of a holistic and inclusive focus for intercultural team building and peer review, has achieved a sustainable and potentially ‘exportable’ resource for supporting, influencing, motivating and inspiring heterogeneous student cohorts, and their teachers, to learn together.

Education is at the heart of global development goals, catalysing advancement towards other aims such as decreased poverty and inequality. This goal has led to a heightened demand for higher education (HE) globally and has transformed internationalisation from a useful add-on to a core strategic pillar for all universities aspiring to global significance. In turn, there is increasing pressure on academics and HE internationalisation strategies to prepare students for real world employment contexts in which cross boundary teams are becoming increasingly prevalent. Key Tensions and Conflicts: Curriculum designs and assessment practices of academics are therefore under scrutiny, creating tensions between standardisation and measurability and the development of creative and reflective learners who are capable of working in varied cultural contexts. Of concern, international research indicates that while university-based diversity exists, genuine inclusion does not. Consistent with these global trends, the teaching staff within an Australian University, experienced increasing levels of hostility between domestic and international students within summative assessments, particularly for domestic, credential-focused, graduating students within a post-Global Financial Crisis employment environment. Intervention Objectives: While there is converging evidence that the success of collaborative learning activities in culturally diverse small teams is sensitive to the contextual conditions in which the actual encounter occurs, there is a paucity of empirical work on the impact of learning contexts on students' attitudes towards intercultural interactions. To address cross-boundary hostilities by creating psychologically safe learning environments where students can express themselves individually and find a place within their new communities, a targeted intervention process was designed and actioned. Methodology: Employing culturally responsive pedagogies and learning technologies, and supported by experts in curriculum/assessment design, cultural competency and psychology, the cross-discipline/cross-university, three-stage intervention included more than 5,700 under-graduate and post-graduate, International Business/Accounting students across a twelve-year period (2008-2019). Results: Utilising ethics-cleared, anonymous and voluntary survey responses and university reported grading statistics, the intervention outcomes for students included: positive changes in the attitudes, values and collective capacities for self-optimisation when operating in diverse teams for the participating students which resulted in reduced hostility levels between team members; student satisfaction ratings averaging 87% to 100%; a minimum cohort average one-grade increase in pre versus post peer review process assessment outcomes; and low, unit-based, failure rates (PG: 2-3%; UG: 4-8%). For staff, the peer review and team building intervention brought to life the reality of a psychologically safe community of practice where students and staff are inspired to learn together by intertwining the learning process with the assessment framework. Discussion: In the end, a sustainable and potentially ‘exportable’ resource for supporting, influencing, motivating and inspiring heterogenous student cohorts and their teaching staff has been created using the very diversity in student cohorts to produce graduates for the real world of globalised citizens. Keywords: Responsive pedagogy, internationalisation, cross-boundary team work, accounting assessment, peer review, reflective learning, reframing interventions.

As a new year of challenges sets in for practice managers there will almost always be complaints to handle. Terri Bonnici and Sue Taylor discuss ways complaints can be prevented, managed, and used as an opportunity to make improvements

The Australian Superannuation Industry is generally seen as very strong and successful by global standards. However, three decades of legislative reform in the Australian superannuation industry have created a paradox: ongoing reforms but continuing dissatisfaction with areas of governance and outcomes. These include high levels of administrative and investment fees, and systematic problems around a culture of conflicted investment advice. In seeking to further elaborate and then resolve this paradox, this article draws upon an extensive research project conducted by the authors within the Australian superannuation industry, including three voluntary and anonymous surveys of superannuation trustees/licensees. This research has revealed that fund members are vulnerable to significant and expanding private-interest rents generated by the financial services sector. This may be explained by regulatory capture mechanisms variously described as statutory, agency, corrosive and intellectual capture. The article examines ways to better achieve public interest outcomes, and at a time when public sector integrity remains an area of particular attention, how more can be done to blunt the force of private interest rent seeking.

This study of self-regulation draws on Boerkaert’s (1999) model but proposes adaptations. In particular, it examines the role of the teacher in the promotion of self-regulation, and the importance of curriculum for creating opportunities for autonomous learning. Since Boerkaert’s model was devised for older learners, adaptations are proposed to reflect its possible meaning for younger learners, particularly through the supportive scaffolding of their learning and development toward self-regulation. The study uses an international sample survey of children’s responses to curricular experiences, as well as making comparisons between different educational systems and environments. The article concludes with suggestions for changes in practice to develop self-regulated learners from the early primary years.

Higher education is becoming a major driver of economic competitiveness in an increasingly knowledge-driven global economy. Maintaining the competitive edge has seen an increase in public accountability of higher education institutions through the mechanism of ranking universities based on the quality of their teaching and learning outcomes. As a result, assessment processes are under scrutiny, creating tensions between standardisation and measurability and the development of creative and reflective learners. These tensions are further highlighted in the context of large undergraduate subjects, learner diversity and time-poor academics and students. Research suggests that high level and complex learning is best developed when assessment, combined with effective feedback practices, involves students as partners in these processes. This article reports on a four-phase, cross-institution and cross-discipline project designed to embed peer-review processes as part of the assessment in two large, under-graduat...

In his seminal 1992 paper, Dunbar examined three hypotheses advanced to explain primate intelligence, arguing that whereas his social group size hypothesis was supported, neither of two ecological hypotheses, the extractive foraging and frugivory hypotheses, were supported. Following this, and Dunbar's subsequently elaborated argument, many investigators concluded that primate intelligence arose as social rather than ecological adaptations. This paper questions Dunbar's characterization of extractive foraging and social intelligence as alternative hypotheses, raises sampling issues about Dunbar's brain data, species choice, and measurement of extractive foraging. It summarizes the extractive foraging hypothesis, and counters its critics. It reexamines the hypothesis in light of recent behavioral and brain data, new methodology for quantifying extractive foraging, and a new phylogeny of primate intelligence. It concludes that the extractive foraging hypothesis is now supported by several converging lines of evidence.

By December 2010 total superannuation assets had reached $1.3 trillion, covering 94% of all Australians. This substantial growth was not a natural evolution. Rather it can be directly traced to three decades of bipartisan reform strategies based on a claimed public interest ideology. This article investigates the concerns raised by Superannuation Select Committees, consumer and union organisations, independent researchers and actuarial experts that, in contrast to the public interest rhetoric, the regulatory reforms have primarily achieved major private interest gains for powerful lobbyists. The findings of this analysis indicate that the democratic power of Australian governments to set economic policy agendas has been progressively eclipsed by the power of the financial services industry's producer groups. Rather than producing a best practice governance structure, fund members remain trapped in a post-reform cost paradox: no right of exit regardless of the deepening cost burden imposed. In an industry set to control a projected nominal figure of $6.7 trillion in superannuation assets by 2035, these findings suggest that the real change necessary to improve the deepening cost burden faced by fund members within a life-long, mandatory superannuation investment is now beyond any government's reach.

Background Most smokers want to stop smoking and many try to quit. However abstinence rates are low and most smokers do not manage to abstain for even a week. Relapse to smoking can be related to the occurrence of tobacco withdrawal symptoms (e.g., sleep disturbance, irritability, and craving) and weight gain. If regular exercise mitigates these effects it could have potential as an aid to smoking cessation. The aim of the Fit2Quit study is to determine the effects of a home and community-based exercise intervention on smoking abstinence at six months when used as an adjunct to usual care (telephone smoking-cessation counseling and nicotine replacement therapy; NRT). Methods/design A prospective parallel two-arm randomized controlled trial. Participants (n = 1400, 700 per arm) will be randomized to a structured home and community-based exercise program plus usual care (behavioral counseling and NRT) or to usual-care alone. It is targeted that at least 25% of the sample will be of Māori ethnicity (New Zealand indigenous). Outcomes to be measured using intention-to-treat analysis include: seven-day point prevalence of smoking abstinence verified by salivary cotinine (primary outcome); 6 months continuous abstinence; body mass index (BMI); cardio-respiratory fitness; physical activity levels; and cost effectiveness. Discussion The Fit2Quit study is an example of a large, pragmatic randomized controlled trial in a community setting. Specific components of the exercise intervention are outlined in detail. Trial registration Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12609000637246.

Three decades of bipartisan reforms have taken place in the Australian superannuation industry ostensibly in the public interest. The regulatory reforms have created a paradox: ongoing reforms but flawed fund member outcomes. For example, the superannuation system is not delivering lifetime retirement incomes but high levels of administrative and investment fees are currently costing fund members more than $21 billion each year. Systematic problems remain with conflicted investment advice, and periodic large-scale, financial collapses have resulted in further losses to members. In seeking to elaborate and resolve this paradox, the research project outlined in this paper provides a voice to Australia’s superannuation trustees through the mechanism of three surveys across a thirteen-year period. The surveys confirm that dissatisfaction with regulatory reform is widely shared amongst stakeholders most involved with reform implementation. While all regulation is ostensibly in the public interest, regulators can be thwarted by the lobbying of vested interests and be subject to subtler forms of regulatory capture. One form particularly identified in the Australian context is regulatory complexity, which acts to protect incumbents through barriers to entry, and benefits the professional consultants that provide most input into the regulatory process. More needs to be done to blunt the force of private interest rent seeking. We believe that one solution lies in the proper integration and implementation of the Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) framework as recommended by the OECD Council on Regulatory Policy and Governance. RIA has the capacity to minimise rent seeking by fostering transparency and engagement and reinforcing the system of checks and balances to ensure that policies and regulations serve the public interest.

A well designed peer review process in higher education subjects can lead to more confident and reflective learners who become skilled at making independent judgements of their own and others’ work; essential requirements for successful lifelong learning. The challenge for educators is to ensure their students gain these important graduate attributes within the constraints of a range of internal and external tensions currently facing higher education systems, including, respectively, the realities of large undergraduate Accounting subjects, culturally diverse and time-poor academics and students, and increased calls for public accountability of the Higher Education sector by groups such as the OECD. Innovative curriculum and assessment design and collaborative technologies have the capacity to simultaneously provide some measure of relief from these internal and external tensions and to position students as responsible partners in their own learning.

Contents: Preface. S.T. Parker, Piaget's Legacy in Cognitive Constructivism, Niche Construction, and Phenotype Development and Evolution. S.T. Parker, Piaget's Phenocopy Model Revisited: A Brief History of Ideas About the Origins of Adaptive Genetic Variations. T.W. Deacon, Beyond Piaget's Phenocopy: A Baby in the Lamarckian Bath. K.R. Gibson, Human Brain Evolution: Developmental Perspectives. C.E. MacLeod, Cerebellar Anatomy and Function: From the Corporeal to the Cognitive. V. Gallese, From Mirror Neurons to the Shared Manifold Hypothesis: A Neurophysiological Account of Intersubjectivity. E. Bates, Plasticity, Localization, and Language Development. D.I. Slobin, From Ontogenesis to Phylogenesis: What Can Child Language Tell Us About Language Evolution? R.J. Senghas, A. Senghas, J.E. Pyers, The Emergence of Nicaraguan Sign Language: Questions of Development, Acquisition, and Evolution. A. Karmiloff-Smith, M. Thomas, Can Developmental Disorders Be Used to Bolster Claims From Evolutionary Psychology? A Neuroconstructivist Approach.

Regular exercise has been proposed as a potential smoking cessation aid. This study aimed to determine the effects of an exercise counseling program on cigarette smoking abstinence at 24 weeks. A parallel, two-arm, randomized controlled trial was conducted. Adult cigarette smokers (n = 906) who were insufficiently active and interested in quitting were randomized to receive the Fit2Quit intervention (10 exercise telephone counseling sessions over 6 months) plus usual care (behavioral counseling and nicotine replacement therapy) or usual care alone. There were no significant group differences in 7-day point-prevalence and continuous abstinence at 6 months. The more intervention calls successfully delivered, the lower the probability of smoking (OR, 0.88; 95 % CI 0.81–0.97, p = 0.01) in the intervention group. A significant difference was observed for leisure time physical activity (difference = 219.11 MET-minutes/week; 95 % CI 52.65–385.58; p = 0.01). Telephone-delivered exercise counseling may not be sufficient to improve smoking abstinence rates over and above existing smoking cessation services. (Australasian Clinical Trials Registry Number: ACTRN12609000637246.)

Objective To assess the role of ultrasound with respect to management decisions in premenopausal women with abnormal uterine bleeding attending an outpatient hysteroscopy clinic. Design Retrospective analysis of ultrasound and hysteroscopic findings, in 264 women referred with abnormal uterine bleeding. Setting Outpatient hysteroscopy clinic in a busy district general hospital. Results In situations where hysteroscopy findings were normal, additional information gained from a preliminary ultrasound did not affect management decisions. No malignant adnexal pathology was detected, and ultrasound assessment of the endometrium did not correlate well with either hysteroscopic or histological findings. Conclusion Ultrasound findings do not alter management decisions in this situation. The presence of irregular bleeding, and patients' prior expectations, are more significant determinants.

Contemporary cancer treatment requires a multidisciplinary approach in order to ensure the safe prescribing and administration of chemotherapy. The increasing complexity of drug regimens and the introduction of new cytotoxic agents, combined with the inexperience of medical staff in this area, highlighted the need for a comprehensive educational reference tool. Our experience highlighted inconsistencies in prescribing anti-emetics and hydration regimens and the need for ongoing education.1 A multidisciplinary team was established to address these issues and develop a Chemotherapy Practice Manual which consists of chemotherapy protocols, administration guidelines including cost-effective premedication recommendations and supportive therapy such as hydration regimens. It also includes patient monitoring parameters for before, during and after treatment and protocol specific patient education. Preprinted prescription charts were designed to aid the medical officer in prescribing the chemotherapy and include discharge medication to ensure appropriate post treatment therapy. These have been incorporated into a computer-generated prescribing program. The introduction of the manual to the oncology unit has proved beneficial: prescriptions are legible and include all supportive treatment and follow up medication. The nursing staff now have guidelines regarding chemotherapy administration and patient education. By working together and combining our knowledge we have provided a complete package that ensures safety in prescribing and administration of chemotherapy as well as an educational reference tool. Other benefits include both time and cost savings.

Dethiobiotin synthetase (DTBS; E.C. 6.6.6.6), the penultimate enzyme in the biosynthesis of the essential vitamin biotin, is a new potential target for novel herbicides. Inhibitors were designed based on mechanistic and structural information. The in-vitro activities of these potential inhibitors versus the bacterial enzyme are reported here. Mimics of 7,8-diaminopelargonic acid (DAPA) or the DAPA carbamate reaction intermediate were substrates or partial substrates for the enzyme. Synergistic binding with ATP was noted with compounds which contained an amino functionality. NMR studies and X-ray structures confirmed that the inhibitors could be phosphorylated by the enzyme. Several series of potential inhibitors were designed to take advantage of this partial substrate activity by generating potentially more tightly bound phosphorylated inhibitors in situ. Structure-activity relationships for these series based on both substrate and inhibitory activity are described herein. An X-ray structure for one of these inhibitors is also discussed. Although considerable potential for inhibitors of this type was demonstrated, none of the compounds reported showed sufficient herbicidal activity to be a commercial proposition.

In many calculations of attributable risk (AR), there are a number of parameters (excess risks, exposure rates, and so on) that are not known accurately, and one should take into account the variability in these parameters in determining a range of ‘plausible values’ of the attributable number (AN) of incidences due to the exposure. This is often done through simple tabulation of extreme combinations of the factors, but this can give a spurious picture of the real dimensions of the attributable risk. In this paper we describe graphical displays leading to more accurate evaluations of the AN range using multiple box plots, and a multiple regression approach to deciding on the most sensitive parameters for display in this way. The methods are illustrated by giving calculations of the ANs for lung cancer and for heart disease attributed to exposure to active and passive smoking. These expand analyses previously given by the United States EPA, the Australian NH&MRC and the United States OSHA.© 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This article offers a general definition of self-knowledge that embraces all forms and levels of self-knowledge in animals and humans. It is hypothesized that various levels of self-knowledge constitute an ordinal scale such that each species in a lineage displays the forms of self-knowledge found in related species as well as new forms it and its sister species may have evolved. Likewise, it is hypothesized that these various forms of levels of self-knowledge develop in the sequence in which they evolved. Finally, a general hypothesis for the functional significance of self-knowledge is proposed along with subhypotheses regarding the adaptive significance of various levels of self-knowledge in mammals including human and nonhuman primates. The general hypothesis is that self-knowledge serves as a standard for assessing the qualities of conspecifics compared to those of the self. Such assessment is crucial to deciding among alternative reproductive and subsistence strategies. The qualities that are assessed, which vary across taxa, range from the size and strength of the self to its mathematical or musical abilities. This so-called assessment model of self-knowledge is based on evolutionary biological models for social selection and the role of assessment in animal communication.

The recent public expenditure cuts have meant that many academic libraries are having to take an even more rigorous approach to their journals collection, rationalising their holding in accordance with static or reduced budgets. Making use of the voting method for periodical evaluation, this paper outlines how one library evaluated the existing journals and the demand for new titles in the field of engineering. The benefits and pitfalls of the technique are outlined.

The crystal structures of six complexes of homodimeric Escherichia coli dethiobiotin synthetase with a variety of substrates, substrate analogs, and products have been determined to high resolution. These include (1) the binary complex of dethiobiotin synthetase and the N7-carbamate of 7,8-diaminononanoic acid, (2) the binary complex of enzyme and the alternate substrate, 3-(1-aminoethyl)-nonanedioic acid, (3) the binary complex of enzyme with the product ADP, (4) the quaternary complex of enzyme, ADP, the N7-carbamate of 7,8-diaminononanoic acid, and Ca2+, (5) the ternary complex of enzyme, the ATP analog adenylyl (beta, gamma-methylene)diphosphonate, and the N7-carbamate of 7,8-diaminononanoic acid, and (6) the quaternary complex of enzyme, the ATP analog adenylyl (beta, gamma-methylene)diphosphonate, 7,8-diaminononanoic acid, and Mn2+. One molecule of each substrate binds to one monomer of the enzyme. ADP and the ATP analogue bind to the classical mononucleotide binding fold with the phosphate groups close to the phosphate binding loop Gly8--Thr16 between beta-strand beta 1 and the N-terminus of alpha-helix alpha 1. The adenine ring is bound in a pocket between beta-strands beta 6 and beta 7. In the quaternary complex with Mn2+, the metal binding site is found in the vicinity of the beta- and gamma-phosphate groups. Two oxygen atoms from the phosphates and oxygen atoms from the side chains of Asp54, Thr16, and Glu115 are ligands to the Mn2+ ion in the quaternary complex. In the complex with ADP and the N7-carbamate of 7,8-diaminononanoic acid prepared in the presence of Ca2+ ions, a different metal binding site is found. The Ca2+ ion is coordinated to an oxygen atom of the alpha-phosphate group of the nucleotide, the side chain of Asp54, and solvent molecules. The 7,8-diaminononanoic acid substrate molecule interacts with residues from both subunits, making the dimer the minimal functional unit. The diamino group binds between the loops after beta 2 and beta 4, and the terminal carboxyl group at the hydrophobic tail of the substrate interacts with the amino terminus of helix alpha 5 and with the side chain of Tyr187 in helix alpha 6 of the second subunit at the monomer-monomer interface. Strong additional electron density close to the N7 nitrogen atom of the 7,8-diaminononanoic acid substrate in some complexes indicates that, even in the absence of added bicarbonate in the crystallization mixture, the carbamylated intermediate is formed in the crystal.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Effective engagement with people who experience mental health care services, as research participants and as research leads, is presented. A group of volunteer mental health survivors, called INFORM, worked for 6 years to develop and complete a research project, exploring service user experience of a home treatment and crisis resolution service. Within the article, discussion is given to the significance of service continuity, alongside personal accounts of the impact and consequences of health care staff's interpersonal interactions. Two contrasting messages arise from this study: first, the articulation of what services users want from services, and how that relates to what they actually receive, continues to be a necessary debate and issue for consideration at a time of considerable health care reform. The second message is that such articulation, although necessary, is not sufficient in itself to ensure that services are responsive to service user needs and preferences. Findings from the evaluation are consistent with other service user-led research. However, what is also evident is that more work is required in enabling health care consumers to provide feedback that can then be used to inform practice and service delivery improvement.

Etude des deux formes de communication utilisee par les humains : le langage et la communication non verbale ; cette derniere forme etant utilisee par les primates pour communiquer. Commentaires, reponse de l'auteur.

(1993). Oviri: Gauguin's savage woman. Konsthistorisk tidskrift/Journal of Art History: Vol. 62, No. 3-4, pp. 197-220.

Sue Taylor and Davina Allen argue that there are two fundamental ideas behind evidence-based nursing practice in the UK and look at the tensions within them.

This essay explores a curious phenomenon in the work of several European surrealist artists, notably Hans Bellmer and René Magritte, from the late 1920s through the 1950s: In images of the body, a penis may appear in place of a nose; breasts, testicles, or buttocks stand in for the eyes of a face, a vaginal opening for the nostrils, an anus for the mouth. Alternatively, disembodied arms and legs or an elongated neck take on a phallic character, or the entire body becomes an erect penis. Aside from the shock value of these disconcerting substitutions, for which the Surrealists surely strove, what are we to make of them? Psychoanalytic accounts of fetishism point to castration anxiety as one explanatory factor in the creation of such metaphors-Freud's paradigmatic fetishist cathected a "shine on the nose" in place of the missing phallus, as described in the analyst's now-classic essay of 1927. Moreover, the aggression underlying an artist's disfiguring a face by adding genitalia is discussed in light of a general theory of caricature formulated by another contemporary of the Surrealists, Ernst Kris ("The Psychology of Caricature," 1936.) In light of a postwar social reality that included wounded bodies and widespread devastation, Surrealism can be said to reflect the experience of actual disfigurement and death. Additionally, however, biographical information on individual artists suggest possible intrapsychic sources for the hostility behind these sexualized representations.

The media attention regarding mefloquine side effects has meant that many travellers are concerned about taking anti-malarial drugs even for high risk areas.

Objective: The development of acute renal failure following cardiac surgery is a rare but devastating complication with high morbidity and mortality. This study aimed to assess the incidence of acute renal failure necessitating continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) in patients who required cardiopulmonary bypass, to determine the factors associated with mortality and to evaluate long-term outcome. Methods: Patients who underwent cardiac surgery between October 1997 and 2003 and treated with CRRT were included (nZ98). Six patients were then excluded (already in established renal failure pre-operatively) and one patient lost to follow-up. A retrospective analysis was carried out. Results: Overall CRRT was used in 2.9% (92/3172). The mean (SD) age of patients was 68 (10) years. Their mean pre-operative creatinine level and duration of cardiopulmonary bypass were 154 (87) micromol/l and 160 (84) min, respectively. Mean duration from surgery to establishment of CRRT was 50 (42) h. Mean creatinine level prior to hospital discharge was 168 (93) micromol/l. Thirty-day mortality was 42%. Significant risk factors for death were complex procedures (odds ratioZ9.9), gastro-intestinal complications (ORZ7.2), cross-clamp time over 88 min (ORZ 5.9), re-exploration (ORZ4.0) and patients age over 75 years (ORZ3.3). Actuarial 1 and 5-year survivals (95% CI) were 53 (43, 63) % and 52 (42, 62) %, respectively. Only 2 (2.2%) patients required long term renal support. Conclusions: Acute renal failure necessitating the use of CRRT is a rare but serious complication post cardiopulmonary bypass. In the long-term, surviving patients are not likely to require further renal support. Q 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Fundamental concepts in statistics form the cornerstone of scientific inquiry. If we fail to understand fully these fundamental concepts, then the scientific conclusions we reach are more likely to be wrong. This is more than supposition: for 60 years, statisticians have warned that the scientific literature harbors misunderstandings about basic statistical concepts. Original articles published in 1996 by the American Physiological Society’s journals fared no better in their handling of basic statistical concepts. In this review, we summarize the two main scientific uses of statistics: hypothesis testing and estimation. Most scientists use statistics solely for hypothesis testing; often, however, estimation is more useful. We also illustrate the concepts of variability and uncertainty, and we demonstrate the essential distinction between statistical significance and scientific importance. An understanding of concepts such as variability, uncertainty, and significance is necessary, but it is not sufficient; we show also that the numerical results of statistical analyses have limitations.