135 research outputs found
Modification of an OSCE format to enhance patient continuity in a high-stakes assessment of clinical performance
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Traditional Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) are psychometrically sound but have the limitation of fragmenting complex clinical cases into brief stations. We describe a pilot study of a modified OSCE that attempts to balance a typical OSCE format with a semblance of a continuous, complex, patient case.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Two OSCE scenarios were developed. Each scenario involved a single standardized patient and was subdivided into three sequential 10 minute sections that assessed separate content areas and competencies. Twenty Canadian PGY-4 internal medicine trainees were assessed by trained examiner pairs during each OSCE scenario. Paired examiners rated participant performance independent of each other, on each section of each scenario using a validated global rating scale. Inter-rater reliabilities and Pearson correlations between ratings of the 3 sections of each scenario were calculated. A generalizability study was conducted. Participant and examiner satisfaction was surveyed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There was no main effect of section or scenario. Inter-rater reliability was acceptable. The g-coefficient was 0.68; four scenarios would achieve 0.80. Moderate correlations between sections of a scenario suggest a possible halo effect. The majority of examiners and participants felt that the modified OSCE provided a sense of patient continuity.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The modified OSCE provides another approach to the assessment of clinical performance. It attempts to balance the advantages of a traditional OSCE with a sense of patient continuity.</p
Transport and cooling of singly-charged noble gas ion beams
The transport and cooling of noble gas singly-charged ion beams by means of a
Radio Frequency Quadrupole Cooler Buncher (RFQCB) have been studied at the
LIMBE low energy beam line of the GANIL facility. Ions as light as
have been cooled and stored before their extraction in bunches using as
buffer gas. Bunches characteristics have been studied as a function of the
parameters of the device. Sizeable transmissions of up to 10 have been
obtained. A detailed study of the lifetime of ions inside the buncher has been
performed giving an estimate of the charge exchange cross-section. Results of a
microscopic Monte-Carlo transport code show reasonable agreement with
experimental data.Comment: 13 figure
Weak Interaction Studies with 6He
The 6He nucleus is an ideal candidate to study the weak interaction. To this
end we have built a high-intensity source of 6He delivering ~10^10 atoms/s to
experiments. Taking full advantage of that available intensity we have
performed a high-precision measurement of the 6He half-life that directly
probes the axial part of the nuclear Hamiltonian. Currently, we are preparing a
measurement of the beta-neutrino angular correlation in 6He beta decay that
will allow to search for new physics beyond the Standard Model in the form of
tensor currents.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, proceedings for the Eleventh Conference on the
Intersections of Particle and Nuclear Physics (CIPANP 2012
Superallowed Fermi transitions in RPA with a relativistic point-coupling energy functional
The self-consistent random phase approximation (RPA) approach with the
residual interaction derived from a relativistic point-coupling energy
functional is applied to evaluate the isospin symmetry-breaking corrections
{\delta}c for the 0+\to0+ superallowed Fermi transitions. With these {\delta}c
values, together with the available experimental ft values and the improved
radiative corrections, the unitarity of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM)
matrix is examined. Even with the consideration of uncertainty, the sum of
squared top-row elements has been shown to deviate from the unitarity condition
by 0.1% for all the employed relativistic energy functionals.Comment: 13 pages,2 figure
Paul trapping of radioactive 6He+ions and direct observation of their beta-decay
We demonstrate that abundant quantities of short-lived beta unstable ions can
be trapped in a novel transparent Paul trap and that their decay products can
directly be detected in coincidence. Low energy 6He+ (807 ms half-life) ions
were extracted from the SPIRAL source at GANIL, then decelerated, cooled and
bunched by means of the buffer gas cooling technique. More than 10^8 ions have
been stored over a measuring period of six days and about 10^5 decay
coincidences between the beta particles and the 6Li^{++} recoiling ions have
been recorded. The technique can be extended to other short-lived species,
opening new possibilities for trap assisted decay experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys.Rev.Let
An Improved Search for the Neutron Electric Dipole Moment
A permanent electric dipole moment of fundamental spin-1/2 particles violates
both parity (P) and time re- versal (T) symmetry, and hence, also charge-parity
(CP) symmetry since there is no sign of CPT-violation. The search for a neutron
electric dipole moment (nEDM) probes CP violation within and beyond the Stan-
dard Model. The experiment, set up at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), an
improved, upgraded version of the apparatus which provided the current best
experimental limit, dn < 2.9E-26 ecm (90% C.L.), by the RAL/Sussex/ILL
collaboration: Baker et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 131801 (2006). In the next
two years we aim to improve the sensitivity of the apparatus to sigma(dn) =
2.6E-27 ecm corresponding to an upper limit of dn < 5E-27 ecm (95% C.L.), in
case for a null result. In parallel the collaboration works on the design of a
new apparatus to further increase the sensitivity to sigma(dn) = 2.6E-28 ecm.Comment: APS Division for particles and fields, Conference Proceedings, Two
figure
A highly stable atomic vector magnetometer based on free spin precession
We present a magnetometer based on optically pumped Cs atoms that measures
the magnitude and direction of a 1 T magnetic field. Multiple circularly
polarized laser beams were used to probe the free spin precession of the Cs
atoms. The design was optimized for long-time stability and achieves a scalar
resolution better than 300 fT for integration times ranging from 80 ms to 1000
s. The best scalar resolution of less than 80 fT was reached with integration
times of 1.6 to 6 s. We were able to measure the magnetic field direction with
a resolution better than 10 rad for integration times from 10 s up to 2000
s
Gravitational depolarization of ultracold neutrons: comparison with data
We compare the expected effects of so-called gravitationally enhanced depolarization of ultracold neutrons to measurements carried out in a spin-precession chamber exposed to a variety of vertical magnetic-field gradients. In particular, we have investigated the dependence upon these field gradients of spin-depolarization rates and also of shifts in the measured neutron Larmor precession frequency. We find excellent qualitative agreement, with gravitationally enhanced depolarization accounting for several previously unexplained features in the data
Electron shakeoff following the β+ decay of trapped 35Ar+ ions
The electron shakeoff of 35Cl atoms resulting from the β+ decay of 35Ar+ ions has been investigated using a Paul trap coupled to a recoil-ion spectrometer. The charge-state distribution of the recoiling daughter nuclei is compared to theoretical calculations accounting for shakeoff and Auger processes. The calculations are in excellent agreement with the experimental results and enable one to identify the ionization reaction routes leading to the formation of all charge states.D.R. acknowledges support from the Spanish ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the project FPA2010-14803 and the action AIC10-D000562
First Measurement of Pure Electron Shakeoff in the β Decay of Trapped 6He+ Ions
Expérience GANIL/SPIRAL/LIRATThe electron shakeoff probability of 6Li2+ ions resulting from the β- decay of 6He+ ions has been measured with high precision using a specially designed recoil ion spectrometer. This is the first measurement of a pure electron shakeoff following nuclear β decay, not affected by multielectron processes such as Auger cascades. In this ideal textbook case for the application of the sudden approximation, the experimental ionization probability was found to be Psoexp=0.023 39(36) in perfect agreement with simple quantum mechanical calculations
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