An iconic language for the graphical representation of medical concepts

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Many medication errors are encountered in drug prescriptions, which would not occur if practitioners could remember the drug properties. They can refer to drug monographs to find these properties, however drug monographs are long and tedious to read during consultation. We propose a two-step approach for facilitating access to drug monographs. The first step, presented here, is the design of a graphical language, called VCM.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The VCM graphical language was designed using a small number of graphical primitives and combinatory rules. VCM was evaluated over 11 volunteer general practitioners to assess if the language is easy to learn, to understand and to use. Evaluators were asked to register their VCM training time, to indicate the meaning of VCM icons and sentences, and to answer clinical questions related to randomly generated drug monograph-like documents, supplied in text or VCM format.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>VCM can represent the various signs, diseases, physiological states, life habits, drugs and tests described in drug monographs. Grammatical rules make it possible to generate many icons by combining a small number of primitives and reusing simple icons to build more complex ones. Icons can be organized into simple sentences to express drug recommendations. Evaluation showed that VCM was learnt in 2 to 7 hours, that physicians understood 89% of the tested VCM icons, and that they answered correctly to 94% of questions using VCM (versus 88% using text, <it>p </it>= 0.003) and 1.8 times faster (<it>p </it>< 0.001).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>VCM can be learnt in a few hours and appears to be easy to read. It can now be used in a second step: the design of graphical interfaces facilitating access to drug monographs. It could also be used for broader applications, including the design of interfaces for consulting other types of medical document or medical data, or, very simply, to enrich medical texts.</p

Cosmopolitanism in Education: Theoretical Foundations of the New PEACE Curriculum

The paper presents the theoretical background on which is developed the European Funded Comenius project Philosophical Enquiry Advancing Cosmopolitan Engagemen

Philosophical Inquiry to Advance Cosmopolitan Engagement

Il progetto intende promuovere lo sviluppo di attitudini, competenze, stili di pensiero caratterizzati dalla capacità di essere riflessivamente consapevoli delle proprie radici e della propria identità e allo stesso tempo di aprirsi al nuovo e al diverso in prospettiva cosmopolita. Le azioni del progetto si declinano nella costruzione di un framework teorico, nella elaborazione di materiali didattici innovativi (racconti filosofici, piani di discussione, esercizi), nella formazione di insegnanti ed educatori, nel lavoro educativo in diversi contesti (scuole, ludoteche, educativa territoriale...) in quattro diverse realtà culturali (Austria, Israele, Italia, Spagna), nella valutazione e validazione degli esiti prodotti utilizzando un approccio di ricerca "design based ". Le attività educative saranno realizzate utlilizzando la metodologia della philosphical inquiry sviluppata da Lipman (Lipman, 2003)

Philosophical Enquiry to Advance Cosmopolitan Engagement

Workshop finalizzato a disseminare e validare i prodotti del primo anno di un progetto di ricerca finanziato dall'Unione Europea nell'ambito del programma Comenius-LLL di cui l'Università di Napoli Federico II è promotore (responsabile scientifico, prof.ssa Maura Striano9

Cosmopolitan education within the EU scenario. The Comenius Project PEACE

The paper presents the theoretical background underpinning the development of the Comenius EU funded project PEACE (Philosophical Inquiry Advancing Cosmopolitan Engagement

Cosmopolitan Education within the EU scenario. The Comenius Project PEACE

The paper presents the theoretical framework underlying the design of the European project Peace and the outcomes of the first year of researc