Skills for learning across disciplines in project-based learning

Education focusing on developing interdisciplinary skills is gaining traction in Higher Education. Often this type of education takes shape through project-based learning. Prior research shows that the focus of such interdisciplinary learning should lie on attaining synthesis and that the end result of an interdisciplinary project should be more than the sum of its disciplinary parts and be truly synergetic. Two important prerequisites of successful interdisciplinary (project)work are reaching a common goal in which each discipline is of added value towards synthesis and attaining a common ground of methods, concepts and views. In this research project, the focus was on mapping if students were able to reach a common ground and synthesis during working on an interdisciplinary project. The context is the Smart Solutions Semester of Saxion University of Applied Sciences, where third- and fourth-year students from three or more (engineering) disciplines work together in project teams on large (25 ECTS) projects, provided by research groups and the business community. A learning activity was developed for and conducted with four student teams after which semi-structured interviews were held with the students and corresponding tutor. Results confirm the importance of a common goal and common ground. Additionally, results show the importance of fostering interdisciplinary exchange and the crucial role of the tutor in guiding students toward synthesis

Online genetic counseling from the providers' perspective:counselors' evaluations and a time and cost analysis

Telemedicine applications are increasingly being introduced in patient care in various disciplines, including clinical genetics, mainly to increase access to care and to reduce time and costs for patients and professionals. Most telegenetics reports describe applications in large geographical areas, showing positive patients' and professionals' satisfaction. One economic analysis published thus far reported lower costs than in-person care. We hypothesized that telegenetics can also be beneficial from the professional's view in relatively small geographical areas. We performed a pilot study in the Northern Netherlands of 51 home-based online counseling sessions for cardiogenetic and oncogenetic cascade screening, and urgent prenatal counseling. Previously, we showed patient satisfaction, anxiety, and perceived control of online counseling to be comparable to in-person counseling. This study focuses on expectations, satisfaction, and practical evaluations of the involved counselors, and the impact in terms of time and costs. Most counselors expected disadvantages of online counseling for themselves and their patients, mainly concerning insufficient non-verbal communication; few expected advantages for themselves. Afterwards, counselors additionally raised the disadvantage of insufficient verbal communication, and reported frequent technical problems. Their overall mean telemedicine satisfaction itemscore was 3.38 before, and 2.95 afterwards, being afterwards slightly below the minimum level we set for a satisfactory result. We estimated reduced time and costs by online counseling with about 8% and 10–12%, respectively. We showed online genetic counseling to be effective, feasible and cost-efficient, but technical improvements are needed to increase counselors' satisfaction

Application of a Multidisciplinary Design Process to Assess the Influence of Requirements and Constraints on the Design of Military Engines

The design of supersonic military aircraft is a complex multidisciplinary optimization (MDO) process in which the dependencies and strong interactions between engine and aircraft must be imperatively considered. Applying a fully coupled propulsion-airframe design system is a highly challenging task, since it requires a set of numerically stable analysis tools capable of optimizing multiple design variables simultaneously. To improve computational efficiency, the application of low-fidelity design of experiment (DOE) methods aid in narrowing down the selection of suitable combinations of design parameters. This approach allows the division of the multidisciplinary process into subsystems, each of which can be served by specialized engineers. Interactions between the disciplines are then considered by exchanging DOE-based sensitivities. This paper presents the multidisciplinary design process developed at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), – in which the airframe and propulsion system are designed simultaneously whilst effectively utilizing DOE-based sensitivities. Guiding the work is an application case on the preliminary design of military engine concepts considering its effects on overall integrated aircraft architecture. The design process is used to investigate the influence of important engine parameters such as overall pressure ratio (OPR), bypass ratio (BPR) and turbine entry temperature (T4) on the design of military aircraft. Furthermore, the impacts of thrust requirements and technological constraints of the engine are analyzed

A group approach to genetic counselling of cardiomyopathy patients: satisfaction and psychological outcomes sufficient for further implementation

The introduction of next-generation sequencing in everyday clinical genetics practise is increasing the number of genetic disorders that can be confirmed at DNA-level, and consequently increases the possibilities for cascade screening. This leads to a greater need for genetic counselling, whereas the number of professionals available to provide this is limited. We therefore piloted group genetic counselling for symptomatic cardiomyopathy patients at regional hospitals, to assess whether this could be an acceptable alternative to individual counselling. We performed a cohort study with pre-and post-counselling patient measurements using questionnaires, supplemented with evaluations of the group counselling format by the professionals involved. Patients from eight regional hospitals in the northern part of the Netherlands were included. Questionnaires comprised patient characteristics, psychological measures (personal perceived control (PPC), state and trait anxiety inventory (STAI)), and satisfaction with counsellors, counselling content and design. In total, 82 patients (mean age 57.5 year) attended one of 13 group sessions. Median PPC and STAI scores showed significantly higher control and lower anxiety after the counselling. Patients reported they were satisfied with the counsellors, and almost 75% of patients were satisfied with the group counselling. Regional professionals were also, overall, satisfied with the group sessions. The genetics professionals were less satisfied, mainly because of their perceived large time investment and less-than-expected group interaction. Hence, a group approach to cardiogenetic counselling is feasible, accessible, and psychologically effective, and could be one possible approach to counselling the increasing patient numbers in cardiogenetics

Robust Surgery Scheduling: A Model-Based Overview

In this chapter we give a model-based overview of robust surgery scheduling literature. A robust schedule maintains to perform well in case of disturbances affecting the schedule. We distinguish three types of disturbances that affect the surgery schedule. First, internal disturbances, such as variations in surgical time. Second, external disturbances, such as non-elective surgeries. Third, disturbances due to artificial variability, such as unavailable operating rooms. For each of these disturbances, we provide an overview of models, described in literature, which reduce the effect of the disturbance on the schedule by making it robust. Furthermore, we identify relevant open problems