The neurocognitive gains of diagnostic reasoning training using simulated interactive veterinary cases

The present longitudinal study ascertained training-associated transformations in the neural underpinnings of diagnostic reasoning, using a simulation game named “Equine Virtual Farm” (EVF). Twenty participants underwent structural, EVF/task-based and resting-state MRI and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) before and after completing their training on diagnosing simulated veterinary cases. Comparing playing veterinarian versus seeing a colorful image across training sessions revealed the transition of brain activity from scientific creativity regions pre-training (left middle frontal and temporal gyrus) to insight problem-solving regions post-training (right cerebellum, middle cingulate and medial superior gyrus and left postcentral gyrus). Further, applying linear mixed-effects modelling on graph centrality metrics revealed the central roles of the creative semantic (inferior frontal, middle frontal and angular gyrus and parahippocampus) and reward systems (orbital gyrus, nucleus accumbens and putamen) in driving pre-training diagnostic reasoning; whereas, regions implicated in inductive reasoning (superior temporal and medial postcentral gyrus and parahippocampus) were the main post-training hubs. Lastly, resting-state and DTI analysis revealed post-training effects within the occipitotemporal semantic processing region. Altogether, these results suggest that simulation-based training transforms diagnostic reasoning in novices from regions implicated in creative semantic processing to regions implicated in improvised rule-based problem-solving

On the Complexity of Exact Maximum-Likelihood Decoding for Asymptotically Good Low Density Parity Check Codes: A New Perspective

The problem of exact maximum-likelihood (ML) decoding of general linear codes is well-known to be NP-hard. In this paper, we show that exact ML decoding of a class of asymptotically good low density parity check codes — expander codes — over binary symmetric channels (BSCs) is possible with an average-case polynomial complexity. This offers a new way of looking at the complexity issue of exact ML decoding for communication systems where the randomness in channel plays a fundamental central role. More precisely, for any bit-flipping probability p in a nontrivial range, there exists a rate region of non-zero support and a family of asymptotically good codes which achieve error probability exponentially decaying in coding length n while admitting exact ML decoding in average-case polynomial time. As p approaches zero, this rate region approaches the Shannon channel capacity region. Similar results can be extended to AWGN channels, suggesting it may be feasible to eliminate the error floor phenomenon associated with belief-propagation decoding of LDPC codes in the high SNR regime. The derivations are based on a hierarchy of ML certificate decoding algorithms adaptive to the channel realization. In this process, we propose an efficient O(n^2) new ML certificate algorithm based on the max-flow algorithm. Moreover, exact ML decoding of the considered class of codes constructed from LDPC codes with regular left degree, of which the considered expander codes are a special case, remains NP-hard; thus giving an interesting contrast between the worst-case and average-case complexities