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Background The establishment of interprofessional education (IPE) as an effective method for training future health care providers, the subsequent establishment of IPE requirements in accreditation standards, and the challenges to integrating IPE into professional-centric curricula have created an environment that encourages opportunity for innovation and collaboration in curriculum design. Interprofessional education activity Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) Core Competencies were integrated into an Interprofessional Case Conference (ICC) model that included six annual case conferences involving students from eight health professions across multiple campuses. Students worked in groups of eight with no more than two students from each profession per group. Interprofessional teams facilitated live progressive cases consisting of iterative guided student discussion alternating with group problem solving, followed by “talk-show style” reports. A retrospective pre-post study design using the validated IPEC Competency Self-Assessment V3 and Student Perspective of Interprofessional Clinical Education tools assessed student perspectives of the ICC model. The online survey was sent to participants who attended at least one ICC in 2015–2016 and 2016–2017. Discussion Pre-/post-data was available from 94 students. Results revealed modest, but significant, score changes across both instruments, confirming the value of IPE and the ICC training model. Implications The ICC formula allowed flexibility in applying IPE, resolved scheduling and resources challenges, complemented other IPE programming, and assisted in meeting pharmacy accreditation requirements and the diverse IPE needs of health professions education. The model is flexible, inexpensive, and could be readily replicated at other institutions.

Interprofessional education (IPE) has been widely embraced over the past several years, in a variety of ways among different institutions. Due to heterogeneity of IPE programming, it has been challenging to determine the efficacy of pre-professional IPE across the field. However, individual institutions need to assess efficacy of their own IPE programming. The purpose of this study was to assess whether the interprofessional competence course (IPC) at Pacific University was effective as determined by changes in pre- to post-course scores on the Attitudes Towards Health Care Teams Scale (ATHCTS).First-year students in the College of Health Professions completed the ATHCTS on the first and last days of the IPC course. Descriptive and inferential analyses were completed using SPSS.Student cohorts from both 2016 (n=423) and 2017 (n=445) demonstrated significant improvements in scores on the ATHCTS (p0.01). Changes in attitudes differed as a function of gender, with men demonstrating a larger improvement (p=0.013). Changes in attitudes did not differ as a function of professional program.The IPC course demonstrated effective content delivery as measured by changes in the ATHCTS scores.

Introduction This commentary explores the link between lifelong learning and the creative “art” of academic writing. Can lifelong learning have benefits in academic writing? And (correspondingly), can writing help us in our lifelong learning journey? Commentary An individual with a lifelong learning habit naturally fuels the fire of repeated moments of creativity and innovation and wants to share these moments with others through a variety of outlets, including writing. As we share our creativity, i.e. our new ideas and innovative solutions, through writing, others read, learn, analyze, synthesize, and innovate further. As we share our creative thoughts and ideas together through writing back and forth, we build a perpetually creating and innovating society. This is the creative “art” of academic writing. Implications Building a lifelong-learning habit provides fertile soil within which creative ideas and innovative solutions grow. However, the true beauty of these creations comes from sharing them with others.

INTRODUCTION Many health professions’ accrediting agencies require interprofessional training for students, yet impact of faculty attitudes toward interprofessional education (IPE) is unclear. The objectives of this study were to compare faculty and student attitudes toward working in interprofessional healthcare teams before and after taking an interprofessional course (IPC) and to assess and compare attitudes of faculty directly involved with IPE to those who are not. METHODS The Attitudes toward Healthcare Teams Scale (ATHCTS) was selected to test the objectives. Fulltime faculty at the College of Health Professions (CHP) were invited to complete the ATHCTS assessment. In addition, all first-year health professions students’ pre- and post-IPC assessment scores were collected during the mandatory introductory IPC. RESULTS Responses were collected from 428 students and 68 faculty members for response rates of 97% and 47% respectively. Students’ reported more positive attitudes after the IPC class ended (M = 4.19) compared to before the class began (M = 3.95) p < .001. Findings also showed that students reported slightly more positive attitudes towards interprofessional teams compared to faculty post IPC (p = .02). CONCLUSION Findings suggest faculty attitudes are positive whether directly involved in IPE or not. Institutions implementing IPE may gain insight for planning and recruitment by assessing the climate among faculty to have the greatest impact on their students.

A baccalaureate dental hygiene education program was intentionally designed and implemented to prepare dental hygienists to work in expanded public health practice. Background Expanded practice dental hygienists (EPDH) in Oregon practice without the supervision of a dentist to provide dental hygiene services for underserved patients with limited access to dental care. Ten competencies were identified for the successful EPDH, and then these competencies were incorporated into the curriculum of a baccalaureate dental hygiene program. Methods When recent graduates of the innovative program were surveyed, results indicated that they felt well prepared for expanded practice, they had a high level of interest in working as an EPDH, and all were planning to apply for an expanded practice permit. Two graduates and their unique contributions to individuals in need are profiled. Conclusions Intentional preparation of dental hygienists for expanded public health roles suggested the need for a baccalaureate curriculum designed specifically for that purpose. Advocacy and collaboration among educators, legislators, and administrators in Oregon led to the development and implementation of such an innovative dental hygiene education program at Pacific University. Graduates are likely to pursue opportunities working as EPDHs. Further research will document the viability of this purposefully designed curriculum to prepare dental hygienists to help meet the public need for optimal oral health.

In this study, we present a coarse-scale, first approximation of the geographic areas where privately owned forests support at-risk species in the conterminous United States. At-risk species are defined as those species listed under the US Endangered Species Act or with a global conservation status rank of critically imperiled, imperiled, or vulnerable. Our results indicate that two-thirds of the watersheds in the conterminous US contain at-risk species associated with private forests, with counts ranging from one to 101 species. Those watersheds with the greatest number and density of such species are found in the Southeast, Midwest, and west coast states. Many private forests are threatened by land-use conversion. Those forests projected to experience the greatest increase in housing density within the next 25 years, and with relatively high densities of at-risk species, are found in over 100 watersheds, most of them in the Southeastern states.

Sustainable management of natural resources requires informed decision making and post-decision assessments of the results of those decisions. Increasingly, both activities rely on analyses of spatial data in the forms of maps and digital data layers. Fortunately, a variety of supporting maps and data layers rapidly are becoming available. Unfortunately, however, user-friendly tools to assist decision makers and analysts in the use and interpretation of these data generally are not available. Such tools would properly be in the form of decision support systems that incorporate basic geographic information system (GIS) functionality. A spatial decision support system featuring basic GIS functionality was designed to illustrate how such systems may be used to support decision making and post-decision assessments. This utility is illustrated with four sustainable forest management examples. Decision making is the focus of three of the examples: (1) allocating funding for forest wildfire mitigation purposes, (2) identifying forested watersheds at risk of conversion to non-forest land uses, and (3) identifying lands in the Rocky Mountains with potential for management for water yield. An assessment of the results of previous decisions is the focus of the example: (4) evaluating the socio-economic effects of the allocation of wildfiremitigation funds.

The United States Pharmacopeia (USP) revised and renumbered the chapter describing sterile product preparation. Renumbering the document resulted in enforceable requirements for sterile preparation. This document, the infamous Chapter , will improve sterile preparation in many institutions. The regulation change was a result of contaminated preparations following attempts to standardize sterile guidelines. The process to understand, review, plan, and implement change and improvement in sterile preparation process is an initially vast, but ongoing task. The journey of USP implementation at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) involved education, gap analysis, reorganization, and training. Sections of Chapter posed particular challenges and issues in areas including environmental and equipment, product preparation, storage, and dating, as well as, personnel training and testing. Financial implications of fully implementing the recommendations can be overwhelming. Regardless, institutions must start the process by working in their current environment, while maintaining focus on a vision of a fully compliant sterile product preparation system.

This report provides an overview of expected housing density changes and related impacts to private forests on America's islands in the Pacific and Caribbean, specifically Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. We discuss the vulnerability of island forests to conversion for housing development, introduction and spread of invasive species, and risk of uncharacteristic wildfire, among other concerns. Our maps and projections suggest that in localized areas from 3 to 25 percent of private forest land is likely to experience a substantial increase in housing density from 2000 to 2030. Resource managers, developers, community leaders, and landowners should consider the impacts of housing development and invasive species on ecosystem services in coming decades.

Electroless metallization processes have been used to develop photopatterned films of poly(diisopropyl vinylbenzylphosphonate-co-N-methylmaleimide) and deposit metallic nickel selectively in the exposed regions of the films. A 100 A thick film of nickel provides an effective etch mask to the underlying polymer in an oxygen plasma. Carboxylate polymers can also serve as substrates for electroless nickel deposition. These results suggest that phosphonate or carboxylate polymers could potentially serve as imaging layers for at-the-surface imaging approaches to 14 and 193 nm lithography.

A new class of photodefinable polymers based on phosphonic acid esters has been developed. Photogenerated acid catalysts convert the esten to phosphonic acids in the exposed regions of films during postexposure bake. These phosphonic acids, in addition to providing the base solubility necessary for positive-tone development, are also uniquely capable of binding metal ions and cations from solution. Preliminary lithographic evaluations indicate that these polymers generally show high contrast (∼10), good sensitivity, low volume loss (< 15%), and the potential for submicron resolution. More importantly, the patterned deposition of refractory metal ions has also been demonstrated, which could be useful for circuit fabrication via at-the-surface imaging schemes

Objective. To determine the effect of a 1-day teaching-methods course for pharmacy and nursing faculty members on teaching proficiency and perceptions of effective teaching. Design. A 1-day teaching-methods course was created and presented to 12 pharmacy and nursing faculty members. Participants’ teaching sessions were video-recorded pre- and post-course. Assessment. A panel of educators evaluated pre- and post-course video-recorded teaching presentations to assess teaching effectiveness. Participants completed pre- and post-course self-evaluations and surveys. Panelists’ assessments confirmed significant improvement in 7 of 10 domains. Perceptions of teaching efficacy and proficiency to teach effectively improved after completion of the course. Conclusion. A 1-day teaching-methods course, requiring minimal resources, is a valuable development resource that can improve teaching effectiveness through enhanced communication and teaching techniques. Because effective teaching is positively correlated with students’ learning, training seminars can be integral to comprehensive quality improvement.

The self-assembly of refractory films on organic resist surfaces is used to provide an etching mask during the plasma transfer of patterns through underlying organic resists. Multilayer self-assembly using ZrOCl2 and H4P2O7 reagents affords multilayer structures that are selectively bound to oxidized resist layers. Imaging is achieved using phenolic resin materials that are exposed to 193 nm radiation.

Advances in silylation materials, a bilayer resist scheme and innovative processing at each processing step have afforded optimum resolution with Shipley XP-8844 positive resist. In a bilayer resist version 0.2μm l/s were resolved by DUV exposure, while for EUVL exposure 0.1μm l/s were resolved.

The first general single-step route to dendritic or cascade polyaryl ethers analogous to common linear polyaryl ethers is described. The sodium salts of four AB2 monomers each containing a single phenolic hydroxyl group and two aryl fluorides activated toward nucleophilic substitution by carbonyl, sulphonyl, or tetrafluorophenyl moieties are shown to polymerize in hot N, N-dimethylacetamide. The products are high molecular weight polymers (7000 < Mn < 36000), have narrow polydispersities (1.50 < Mw/Mn < 4.50), and are highly soluble in organic solvents. The molecular weights of two of the polymers increase with monomer concentration. The polymers are thermally stable (500 °C under N2) and have glass transition temperatures ranging from 135 to 231 °C.

INTRODUCTION Much of the published literature surrounding teaching effectiveness is based on student perspectives. Explicit standards for what constitutes effective teaching in health professions education do not currently exist. Best practices for training and evaluation in teaching effectiveness could be better addressed with detail from expertbased sources. OBJECTIVE This study sought to identify elements of effective teaching by gathering perceptions of exemplary educators. In addition, profession-centric differences in perceptions of effective teaching were also evaluated. METHODS An iterative consensus-building method was used to gather the perceptions of nursing and pharmacy educators regarding effective teaching. Individual semi-structured interviews were initially used to gather example items within four pre-defined categories: effective methods, ineffective methods, active learning methods, and effective traits. These example items were then collated into an electronic survey that was then administered to the same participants to be rated on a numerical scale. RESULTS Ten educators from nursing and pharmacy participated in this study. Based on the participants’ rankings of the collated lists, a high level of consensus was observed for many items in each of the four categories. With other items, wide variability in ratings was also seen. Further analysis by discipline subgroups revealed patterns of item ranking that appear to be profession-centric. CONCLUSION Exemplary nursing and pharmacy educators revealed consensus regarding perceptions of certain elements of effective teaching. The results also suggested some elements where profession-centric perceptions exist. These results could be incorporated into best practices for effective teaching training and interprofessional teaching design.

The first general single-step route to dendritic or cascade polyaryl ethers analogous to common linear polyaryl ethers is described. The sodium salts of four AB2 monomers each containing a single phenolic hydroxyl group and two aryl fluorides activated toward nucleophilic substitution by carbonyl, sulphonyl, or tetrafluorophenyl moieties are shown to polymerize in hot N, N-dimethylacetamide. The products are high molecular weight polymers (7000 < Mn < 36000), have narrow polydispersities (1.50 < Mw/Mn < 4.50), and are highly soluble in organic solvents. The molecular weights of two of the polymers increase with monomer concentration. The polymers are thermally stable (500 °C under N2) and have glass transition temperatures ranging from 135 to 231 °C.

Close to 80 percent of the U.S. population lives in urban areas and depends on the essential ecological, economic, and social benefits provided by urban trees and forests. However, the distribution of urban tree cover and the benefits of urban forests vary across the United States, as do the challenges of sustaining this important resource. As urban areas expand across the country, the importance of the benefits that urban forests provide, as well as the challenges to their conservation and maintenance, will increase. The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of the current status and benefits of America's urban forests, compare differences in urban forest canopy cover among regions, and discuss challenges facing urban forests and their implications for urban forest management.

Over half (56 percent) of America’s forests are privately owned and managed and provide a vast array of public goods and services, such as clean water, timber, wildlife habitat, and recreational opportunities. These important public benefits are being affected by increased housing density in urban as well as rural areas across the country. The Forests on the Edge project, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, seeks to improve our understanding of where across the country housing density increases, as well as other threats, might affect these critical goods and services. For this study, we map and rank watersheds across the conterminous United States to analyze the relative contributions of private forest land to water quality, timber volume, at-risk species habitat, and interior forest. In addition, we rank watersheds according to the pressures on private forest contributions from increased housing density, wildfire, insect pests and diseases, and air pollution. Results indicate that private forest land contributions to forest cover, clean water, and timber volume are greatest in the East, but are also important in many Western watersheds. Private forests making substantial contributions to interior forest and at-risk species are more uniformly distributed across the country. Development pressures on these contributions are concentrated in the Eastern United States but are also found in the north-central region, parts of the West and Southwest, and the Pacific Northwest; nationwide, more than 57 million acres of rural forest land are projected to experience a substantial increase in housing density from 2000 to 2030. Private forests in both the Eastern and Western United States are under pressure from insect pests and diseases. The bulk of private forests most susceptible to wildfire are located in the West and parts of the Southeast. Lastly, ozone pollution affecting private forests is localized in California and several areas of the East.

Many of America’s national forests and grasslands—collectively called the National Forest System—face increased risks and alterations from escalating housing development on private rural lands along their boundaries. National forests and grasslands provide critical social, ecological, and economic benefits to the American public. This study projects future housing density increases on private rural lands at three distances—2, 3, and 10 miles—from the external boundaries of all national forests and grasslands across the conterminous United States. Some 21.7 million acres of rural private lands (about 8 percent of all private lands) located within 10 miles of the National Forest System boundaries are projected to undergo increases in housing density by 2030. Nine national forests are projected to experience increased housing density on at least 25 percent of adjacent private lands at one or more of the distances considered. Thirteen national forests and grasslands are each projected to have more than a half-million acres of adjacent private rural lands experience increased housing density. Such development and accompanying landscape fragmentation pose substantial challenges for the management and conservation of the ecosystem services and amenity resources of National Forest System lands, including access by the public. Research such as this can help planners, managers, and communities consider the impacts of local land use decisions.

To evaluate whether a novel integrated longitudinal curricular activity to prepare graduating doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) students for 2 comprehensive examinations was successful, and to assess whether it engaged other pharmacy students in curricular discussion and learning.Thirty-eight of 91graduating third-year (P3) students in a PharmD program formed 11 teams to create and present pharmacotherapeutic posters to their peers. The impact of the novel activity on graduating students' performance on the North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination (NAPLEX) and a comprehensive commercial examination was assessed. All first-year (P1), second-year (P2), and P3 students reviewed and discussed the content of each poster.Participants in the integrated longitudinal curricular activity performed better than nonparticipants on the commercial examination (p=0.023) and NAPLEX (p=0.033). However, regardless of participation, commercial examination scores predicted a significant amount of variance (ie, 34%) in NAPLEX scores. The P3 participants (83%) believed the curricular activity assisted them in their NAPLEX preparation, while 75% of P1 students, 79% of P2 students, and 80% of P3 students agreed that poster review provided an effective summary of different disease states. Ninety percent of faculty poster evaluators reported that the posters were professional, and all evaluators agreed that participants effectively conveyed their message to the intended audience.The integrated longitudinal curricular activity provided a positive learning environment for all pharmacy students and may have better prepared graduating students' for the NAPLEX.

Within health science programs there has been a call for more faculty development, particularly for teaching and learning. The primary objectives of this review were to describe the current landscape for faculty development programs for teaching and learning and make recommendations for the implementation of new faculty development programs. A thorough search of the pertinent health science databases was conducted, including the Education Resource Information Center (ERIC), MEDLINE, and EMBASE, and faculty development books and relevant information found were reviewed in order to provide recommendations for best practices. Faculty development for teaching and learning comes in a variety of forms, from individuals charged to initiate activities to committees and centers. Faculty development has been effective in improving faculty perceptions on the value of teaching, increasing motivation and enthusiasm for teaching, increasing knowledge and behaviors, and disseminating skills. Several models exist that can be implemented to support faculty teaching development. Institutions need to make informed decisions about which plan could be most successfully implemented in their college or school.