Student Perceptions of the Professional Behavior of Faculty Physicians

This study was conducted to obtain a baseline understanding of the professional behavior of clinical faculty physicians from the medical students’ perspective. Students completed a professionalism evaluation of supervising faculty at the end of each required third-year clerkship over a one year period. Results were analyzed by specific behaviors and across clerkships. Differences were noted in the frequency of the types of problems seen, and varied by clerkship discipline. The most common transgressions of professional behavior reported were the use of derogatory language towards other services or patients and the disrespectful treatment of others. Our study served to provide objective feedback to the faculty about student perceptions of faculty as role models for professionalism while on clinical rotations

Energy Index For Aircraft Maneuvers

Method and system for analyzing, separately or in combination, kinetic energy and potential energy and/or their time derivatives, measured or estimated or computed, for an aircraft in approach phase or in takeoff phase, to determine if the aircraft is or will be put in an anomalous configuration in order to join a stable approach path or takeoff path. A 3 reference value of kinetic energy andor potential energy (or time derivatives thereof) is provided, and a comparison index .for the estimated energy and reference energy is computed and compared with a normal range of index values for a corresponding aircraft maneuver. If the computed energy index lies outside the normal index range, this phase of the aircraft is identified as anomalous, non-normal or potentially unstable

Dichotic integration of acoustic-phonetic information: Competition from extraneous formants increases the effect of second-formant attenuation on intelligibility

Differences in ear of presentation and level do not prevent effective integration of concurrent speech cues such as formant frequencies. For example, presenting the higher formants of a consonant-vowel syllable in the opposite ear to the first formant protects them from upward spread of masking, allowing them to remain effective speech cues even after substantial attenuation. This study used three-formant (F1+F2+F3) analogues of natural sentences and extended the approach to include competitive conditions. Target formants were presented dichotically (F1+F3; F2), either alone or accompanied by an extraneous competitor for F2 (i.e., F1±F2C+F3; F2) that listeners must reject to optimize recognition. F2C was created by inverting the F2 frequency contour and using the F2 amplitude contour without attenuation. In experiment 1, F2C was always absent and intelligibility was unaffected until F2 attenuation exceeded 30 dB; F2 still provided useful information at 48-dB attenuation. In experiment 2, attenuating F2 by 24 dB caused considerable loss of intelligibility when F2C was present, but had no effect in its absence. Factors likely to contribute to this interaction include informational masking from F2C acting to swamp the acoustic-phonetic information carried by F2, and interaural inhibition from F2C acting to reduce the effective level of F2

Plant–pathogen interactions and elevated CO2: morphological changes in favour of pathogens

Crop losses caused by pests and weeds have been estimated at 42% worldwide, with plant pathogens responsible for almost $10 billion worth of damage in the USA in 1994 alone. Elevated carbon dioxide [ECO2] and associated climate change have the potential to accelerate plant pathogen evolution, which may, in turn, affect virulence. Plant–pathogen interactions under increasing CO2 concentrations have the potential to disrupt both agricultural and natural systems severely, yet the lack of experimental data and the subsequent ability to predict future outcomes constitutes a fundamental knowledge gap. Furthermore, nothing is known about the mechanistic bases of increasing pathogen agressiveness. In the absence of information on crop species, it is shown here that plant pathogen (Erysiphe cichoracearum) aggressiveness is increased under ECO2, together with changes in the leaf epidermal characteristics of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana L. Stomatal density, guard cell length, and trichome numbers on leaves developing post-infection are increased under ECO2 in direct contrast to non-infected responses. As many plant pathogens utilize epidermal features for successful infection, these responses provide a positive feedback mechanism facilitating an enhanced susceptibility of newly developed leaves to further pathogen attack. Furthermore, a screen of resistant and susceptible ecotypes suggest inherent differences in epidermal responses to ECO2

A Youth Compendium of Physical Activities: Activity Codes and Metabolic Intensities

A Youth Compendium of Physical Activities (Youth Compendium) was developed to estimate the energy costs of physical activities using data on youth only