Student perceptions of handover diaries and reflective learning in an undergraduate MBChB anatomy course

Quantitative (Likert-type survey results) and Qualitative (student open comments) data sets supporting the results of a survey developed to assess student perceptions of a dissection diary and reflective learning

How do central banks identify risks? A survey of indicators

Para los bancos centrales son cruciales el desarrollo y el mantenimiento de un marco de identificación de riesgos que permita la detección temprana de posibles amenazas para la estabilidad financiera y que facilite la aplicación de las políticas más adecuadas. Este documento resume los principales indicadores desarrollados para la identificación de riesgos tanto por parte del Banco de España como por otros bancos centrales y autoridades prudenciales. Así, esta recopilación de indicadores contribuye a mejorar la transparencia y la comunicación del Banco de España en su objetivo de potenciar la estabilidad del sistema financiero. El Banco de España utiliza algunos de estos indicadores en sus tareas regulares de identificación y seguimiento de riesgos, mientras que otros proceden de trabajos de investigación concretos. Este conjunto de medidas puede clasificarse en dos amplias categorías, en función del tipo de riesgo monitorizado: estándar o sistémico. Dada la naturaleza multidimensional del riesgo sistémico, su identificación va más allá de la propia suma de los riesgos estándar presentados en este documento (concretamente, riesgos de crédito, macroeconómico, de mercado, de liquidez y bancario). Este estudio también clasifica los indicadores en función del tipo de segmento institucional donde se originan los riesgos; concretamente, sector público, hogares, sociedades no financieras, bancos, sector financiero no bancario, mercado inmobiliario residencial y mercados financieros. Este trabajo muestra que los indicadores desarrollados y utilizados habitualmente por el Banco de España permiten una monitorización exhaustiva de las vulnerabilidades potenciales. En cualquier caso, el mantenimiento de un sistema de identificación de riesgos requiere una adaptación continua a los nuevos desarrollos teóricos y herramientas econométricas, así como a los nuevos desafíos. En este sentido, actualmente se están desarrollando nuevos indicadores para evaluar los riesgos derivados del cambio climático y los relacionados con los ciberriesgos. Se espera que las necesidades de seguimiento relacionadas con estos riesgos aumenten en el futuro.For central banks, it is crucial to develop and maintain risk identification frameworks that allow them to detect in good time and address potential threats to financial stability with the most appropriate policy tools. This paper reviews the main indicators developed for this purpose by the Banco de España and by other central banks and prudential authorities. In this way, this stocktaking exercise contributes to improving the transparency and effective communication of the financial stability-related tasks carried out at the Banco de España. Some of the indicators are used in regular Banco de España surveillance activities, whereas others pertain to specific research activities. We classify our set of measures into two broad categories depending on the risk monitored: standard or systemic risks. Given the multidimensional nature of systemic risk, its identification goes beyond the sum of the standard risks explored in this paper (namely credit, macroeconomic, market, and liquidity and bank risks). This survey also classifies indicators by the type of institutional segment that triggers risks; namely, sovereigns, households, non-financial corporations, banks, non-bank financial sector, residential real estate and the financial markets. This work shows how the measures developed and regularly used at the Banco de España allow potential vulnerabilities to be comprehensively monitored. Nevertheless, maintaining an adequate risk-identification framework requires continuous adaptation to new theoretical developments and econometric tools, and, more importantly, to emerging challenges. In this respect, there is a current drive to develop new indicators to assess potential risks arising from climate change and those linked to the risk of system-wide cyber incidents. It is expected that the monitoring needs related to these risks will increase in the future

Evidence of a relation between hippocampal volume, white matter hyperintensities, and cognition in subjective cognitive decline and mild cognitive impairment

Objective: The concepts of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and subjective cognitive decline (SCD) have been proposed to identify individuals in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), or other neurodegenerative diseases. One approach to validate these concepts is to investigate the relationship between pathological brain markers and cognition in those individuals. Method: We included 126 participants from the Consortium for the Early Identification of Alzheimer’s disease-Quebec (CIMA-Q) cohort (67 SCD, 29 MCI, and 30 cognitively healthy controls [CH]). All participants underwent a complete cognitive assessment and structural magnetic resonance imaging. Group comparisons were done using cognitive data, and then correlated with hippocampal volumes and white matter hyperintensities (WMHs). Results: Significant differences were found between participants with MCI and CH on episodic and executive tasks, but no differences were found when comparing SCD and CH. Scores on episodic memory tests correlated with hippocampal volumes in both MCI and SCD, whereas performance on executive tests correlated with WMH in all of our groups. Discussion: As expected, the SCD group was shown to be cognitively healthy on tasks where MCI participants showed impairment. However, SCD’s hippocampal volume related to episodic memory performances, and WMH to executive functions. Thus, SCD represents a valid research concept and should be used, alongside MCI, to better understand the preclinical/prodromal phase of AD

The Resource Identification Initiative: A cultural shift in publishing

A central tenet in support of research reproducibility is the ability to uniquely identify research resources, i.e., reagents, tools, and materials that are used to perform experiments. However, current reporting practices for research resources are insufficient to allow humans and algorithms to identify the exact resources that are reported or answer basic questions such as What other studies used resource X? To address this issue, the Resource Identification Initiative was launched as a pilot project to improve the reporting standards for research resources in the methods sections of papers and thereby improve identifiability and reproducibility. The pilot engaged over 25 biomedical journal editors from most major publishers, as well as scientists and funding officials. Authors were asked to include Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs) in their manuscripts prior to publication for three resource types: antibodies, model organisms, and tools (including software and databases). RRIDs represent accession numbers assigned by an authoritative database, e.g., the model organism databases, for each type of resource. To make it easier for authors to obtain RRIDs, resources were aggregated from the appropriate databases and their RRIDs made available in a central web portal ( www.scicrunch.org/resources). RRIDs meet three key criteria: they are machine readable, free to generate and access, and are consistent across publishers and journals. The pilot was launched in February of 2014 and over 300 papers have appeared that report RRIDs. The number of journals participating has expanded from the original 25 to more than 40. Here, we present an overview of the pilot project and its outcomes to date. We show that authors are generally accurate in performing the task of identifying resources and supportive of the goals of the project. We also show that identifiability of the resources pre- and post-pilot showed a dramatic improvement for all three resource types, suggesting that the project has had a significant impact on reproducibility relating to research resources

Adapting the Chumbley Score to Match Striae on Land Engraved Areas (LEAs) of Bullets

The same‐source problem remains a major challenge in forensic toolmark and firearm examination. Here, we investigate the applicability of the Chumbley method (J Forensic Sci, 2018, 63, 849; J Forensic Sci, 2010, 55, 953) (10,12), developed for screwdriver markings, for same‐source identification of striations on bullet LEAs. The Hamby datasets 44 and 252 measured by NIST and CSAFE (high‐resolution scans) are used here. We provide methods to identify parameters that minimize error rates for matching of LEAs, and a remedial algorithm to alleviate the problem of failed tests, while increasing the power of the test and reducing error rates. For 85,491 land‐to‐land comparisons (84,235 known nonmatches and 1256 known matches), the adapted test does not provide a result in 176 situations (originally more than 500). The Type I and Type II error rates are 7.2% (6105 out of 84,235) and 21.4% (271 out of 1256), respectively. This puts the proposed method on similar footing as other single‐feature matching approaches in the literature

Performance-Driven Measurement System Design for Structural Identification

Much progress has been achieved in the research field of structural identification, which is attributable to a better understanding of uncertainties, improvement in sensor technologies, and cost reductions. However, data interpretation remains a bottleneck. Too often, too much data are acquired, which hinders interpretation. In this paper, the writers describe a methodology that explicitly indicates when instrumentation can hinder the ability to interpret data. The approach includes uncertainties and dependencies that may affect model predictions. The writers use two performance indices to optimize measurement system designs, i.e.,monitoring costs and expected identification performance. A case study shows that the approach is able to justify a reduction in monitoring costs of 50% compared with an initial measurement configuration

Associations of Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Obesity With Risks of Impaired Fasting Glucose and Type 2 Diabetes in Men

OBJECTIVE—The purpose of this study was to examine the associations of cardiorespiratory fitness (hereafter fitness) and various obesity measures with risks of incident impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and type 2 diabetes