Attitudes of Medical Students Towards Interprofessional Education: A mixed methods study

Background: Interprofessional Education (IPE) aims to improve students’ attitudes towards collaboration, teamwork, and leads to improved patient care upon graduation. However, the best time to introduce IPE into the undergraduate curriculum is still under debate. Methods: We used a mixed-methods design based on a sequential explanatory model. Medical students from all six years at the University of Bern, Switzerland (n=683) completed an online survey about attitudes towards interprofessional learning using a scale validated for German speakers (G-IPAS). Thirty-one medical students participated in nine semi-structured interviews focusing on their experience in interprofessional learning and on the possible impact it might have on their professional development. Results: Women showed better attitudes in the G-IPAS across all years (p=0,007). Pre-clinical students showed more positive attitudes towards IPE [Year 1 to Year 3 (p=0.011)]. Students correctly defined IPE and its core dimensions. They appealed for more organized IPE interventions throughout the curriculum. Students also acknowledged the relevance of IPE for their future professional performance. Conclusions: These findings support an early introduction of IPE into the medical curriculum. Although students realise that interprofessional learning is fundamental to high-quality patient care, there are still obstacles and stereotypes to overcome

Mandarin Singing Voice Synthesis Based on Harmonic Plus Noise Model and Singing Expression Analysis

The purpose of this study is to investigate how humans interpret musical scores expressively, and then design machines that sing like humans. We consider six factors that have a strong influence on the expression of human singing. The factors are related to the acoustic, phonetic, and musical features of a real singing signal. Given real singing voices recorded following the MIDI scores and lyrics, our analysis module can extract the expression parameters from the real singing signals semi-automatically. The expression parameters are used to control the singing voice synthesis (SVS) system for Mandarin Chinese, which is based on the harmonic plus noise model (HNM). The results of perceptual experiments show that integrating the expression factors into the SVS system yields a notable improvement in perceptual naturalness, clearness, and expressiveness. By one-to-one mapping of the real singing signal and expression controls to the synthesizer, our SVS system can simulate the interpretation of a real singer with the timbre of a speaker.Comment: 8 pages, technical repor

Affective Music Information Retrieval

Much of the appeal of music lies in its power to convey emotions/moods and to evoke them in listeners. In consequence, the past decade witnessed a growing interest in modeling emotions from musical signals in the music information retrieval (MIR) community. In this article, we present a novel generative approach to music emotion modeling, with a specific focus on the valence-arousal (VA) dimension model of emotion. The presented generative model, called \emph{acoustic emotion Gaussians} (AEG), better accounts for the subjectivity of emotion perception by the use of probability distributions. Specifically, it learns from the emotion annotations of multiple subjects a Gaussian mixture model in the VA space with prior constraints on the corresponding acoustic features of the training music pieces. Such a computational framework is technically sound, capable of learning in an online fashion, and thus applicable to a variety of applications, including user-independent (general) and user-dependent (personalized) emotion recognition and emotion-based music retrieval. We report evaluations of the aforementioned applications of AEG on a larger-scale emotion-annotated corpora, AMG1608, to demonstrate the effectiveness of AEG and to showcase how evaluations are conducted for research on emotion-based MIR. Directions of future work are also discussed.Comment: 40 pages, 18 figures, 5 tables, author versio

A study of the oxygen exchange between chromate ion and water

The kinetics of the isotopic exchange reaction between O¹⁸-enriched chromate ion and solvent water have been measured as a function of pH and chromate ion concentration. The exchange kinetics can be explained in terms of the dimerization equilibria HCrO4̄ + Cr₂O[subscript 7 with double dash above] [double arrows] Cr₂O[subscript 7 with double dash above] + OH⁻ and 2HCrO4̄ [double arrows] Cr₂O[subscript 7 with double dash above] + H₂O except at high pH, where it is independent of pH. Rate constants at 30ºC for the reactions of the dimerization equilibria and the first order reaction at the high pH have been evaluated from the exchange results. The activation energy of the exchange at pH 8.70 and 1.15M̲ chromate ion is 11,400 cal mole⁻¹. The reaction proceeds faster in D₂O with RD/RH equal to 1.64 at pH 7.2. The experimental results are compared with the values obtained by other investigators --Abstract, page ii

An analysis of the debate between economic gobalization and regionalization based on Rawls’s theory of justice

Driven by globalization, international economic integration has become unavoidable. Within this broader trend, two distinctive modes of international regime building can be identified globalism and regionalism. Globalism, illustrated using the case of the World Trade Organization (WTO), pushes forward global economic integration using established norms. In contrast, regionalism involves gradual expansion of regional integration mechanisms based on interests of member states. This study assesses these two development modes with justice as a concept of moral rightness. To this effect, Rawls’s theory of justice is applied to evaluate standards of justice in international regimes. Based on Rawls’s two principles of justice, three assessment criteria are developed: (1) equal qualification principle, (2) equal opportunity principle, and (3) difference principle. These criteria are applied for comparative analysis of justice in the development of global and regional regimes in order to develop a model for international regimes that is consistent with the concept of justice. A comparison of (1) qualifications for membership; (2) fairness of decision making mechanisms, and (3) institutionalization of differential treatment shows that justice in global regimes is superior to that in regional regimes. In other words, in terms of the philosophy of moral rightness, states should pursue integration based on the principles of globalism

Bridge to the Future: A Career Exploration Frame of Reference for Students with Disabilities

Exploring and facilitating the transition process from school to employment for young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), especially those still in the school system, has now become an important concern for researchers, educators, and service providers working in this area. The Bridge to the Future (BTTF) Frame of Reference offers a new approach to facilitate the school-to-work transition for secondary school students with IDD in a self-contained classroom setting by adopting the Social Cognitive Career Theory and Self-Determination Theory as its main theoretical foundation. The BTTF Frame of Reference was developed for use by the team of transdisciplinary school professionals. It aims to facilitate students’ learning in the area of career exploration, goal setting, and work-related skills, as well as to improve students’ self-efficacy and self-determination skills. The purpose of the BTTF Frame of Reference is to provide guidelines to teach students with IDD vocational skills as well as other life skills, including ADLs, IADLs, and community participation, and to increase students’ readiness for transition through engaging them in career exploration activities