Replacing Fertilizer with Dried Distillers' Grains in Stocker Cattle Systems on Southern Great Plains Old World Bluestem, USA

The objective was to examine the effects of dried distillers' grains supplementation and fertilization strategies on the cattle performance and resource use efficiency of stocker cattle grazing on Plains Old World bluestem. Over 4 consecutive years, heifers and steers (average n = 239) were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 treatments: (1) low input, low stocking density, and no fertilizer or distillers grains supplementation (LOW); (2) high stocking density and no fertilizer with distillers grains supplementation (DDGS); (3) high stocking density and 90 kg of nitrogen/ha with no distillers grains supplementation (NFERT); (4) high stocking density, 90 kg of nitrogen/ha, and 39 kg of phosphorus/ha with no distillers grains supplementation (NPFERT). Cattle grazed in the pastures from mid-May to mid-September each year, except for 2011, when the experiment ended in July due to lack of forage. Data were analyzed using a linear model with fixed effects of treatment, year, and treatment × year (R software). Nitrogen use efficiency (retained/inputs) was affected by a treatment × year interaction, where LOW had the greatest efficiency in all years and DDGS was greater than NFERT and NPFERT in all years except 2012, with NFERT and NPFERT being not different in all years. The estimated total carbon equivalent emissions were greater for DDGS, NFERT, and NPFERT than LOW, but the carbon footprint (kg CO2eq/kg weight gain) was lesser for LOW and DDGS, which were not different, than NFERT and NPFERT, which were also not different. Replacing nitrogen fertilizer with dried distiller's grains improved the cattle performance and the efficiency of resource use, and could be a viable economic alternative to traditional systems.

Nurses' perceptions of the support of patient autonomy in do-not-resuscitate (DNR) decisions

This replication of Ott's study [Ott, B. (1986). An Ethical Problem Facing Nurses: The Support of Patient Autonomy in the Do Not Resuscitate Decision. University Microfilms International, Dissertation, Texas Women's University] and McLaughlin et al.'s study [McLaughlin, T., Brown, O. and Herman, J. (1988). Nurses' Perception of the Support of Patient Autonomy in Do Not Resuscitate Situations. Unpublished Research Report] explored hospital staff nurses' perceptions of their role in supporting patient autonomy in the do-not-resuscitate (DNR) decision. One-hundred and sixty-five registered nurses (RNs) participated: 93 from the Veterans Administration Medical Center and 72 from a private non-profit hospital. Ott's questionnaire had four hypothetical cases in which a DNR decision would probably be made with three questions about whose opinion would most support patient autonomy and whose opinion would actually be regarded as the most appropriate for making the DNR decision. Seventy per cent of perceptions of the person whose decision would be best able to support the patient's autonomy in the DNR decision and 51% of the people perceived to actually be deemed most appropriate to make the DNR decision were consistent with Ott's DNR Decision Model.