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The ability to see ultraviolet (UV) light (

Humans group components of visual patterns according to their colour, and perceive colours separately from shape. This property of human visual perception is the basis behind the Ishihara test for colour deficiency, where an observer is asked to detect a pattern made up of dots of similar colour with variable lightness against a background of dots made from different colour(s) and lightness. To find out if fish use colour for object segregation in a similar manner to humans, we used stimuli inspired by the Ishihara test. Triggerfish (Rhinecanthus aculeatus) were trained to detect a cross constructed from similarly coloured dots against various backgrounds. Fish detected this cross even when it was camouflaged using either achromatic or chromatic noise, but fish relied more on chromatic cues for shape segregation. It remains unknown whether fish may switch to rely primarily on achromatic cues in scenarios where target objects have higher achromatic contrast and lower chromatic contrast. Fish were also able to generalize between stimuli of different colours, suggesting that colour and shape are processed by fish independently.

After the poorly planned evacuation for Hurricane Rita in 2005, many health care systems in the Houston area updated the disaster plans they would implement in the event of a major disaster. In September 2008, Texas health care systems in the Houston-Galveston area had the opportunity to execute those plans when Hurricane Ike made landfall. Despite hours of hurricane preparation at the Texas Orthopedic Hospital in Houston, TX, before the storm, we found that there were still lessons to be learned from Hurricane Ike that can be used by other health care systems to prepare for disaster.

Perioperative nursing typically is a small part of nursing school curricula, which makes it difficult to recruit new graduates into the perioperative field. St Luke's Episcopal Hospital, Houston, has taken a unique approach to addressing this problem by establishing a collaborative relationship with Prairie View A&M University, Houston. This collaborative relationship introduces perioperative nursing to nursing students who may never have considered the OR as an area of practice. In addition, it provides an opportunity for students to network with perioperative nurses, and it serves as a method for recruiting new graduates to St Luke's Episcopal Hospital. AORN J 76 (Nov 2002) 842–850.

Nurses often encounter ethical dilemmas during the course of their practice and play a key role in the ethical decision-making process. This article identifies resources available to assist the nurse in making sound ethical decisions. Institution-based resources, such as institutional review boards and pastoral care, and unit-based resources, including nursing ethics rounds and peer support, are discussed.