Non-Clinical Benefits of Evidence - Based Veterinary Medicine

<div><strong>Clinical bottom line</strong></div><ul><li>There are few studies addressing business benefits of EBVM.</li><li>While the need for a wider adoption of EBVM has been highlighted and linked to commercial benefits, further empirical studies are needed to identify and quantify such linkages.</li></ul><p><br /> <img src="https://www.veterinaryevidence.org/rcvskmod/icons/oa-icon.jpg" alt="Open Access" /> <img src="https://www.veterinaryevidence.org/rcvskmod/icons/pr-icon.jpg" alt="Peer Reviewed" /></p

The Evidence Base for Developing a Veterinary Business Management Curriculum

<p><strong>Objective: </strong>This paper sets out to highlight the ongoing need for integrated teaching of business skills in the veterinary curriculum.</p><p><strong>Background:</strong> In response to the changing environment of the veterinary profession, it is important to understand the future needs of veterinary practitioners. While changes to the veterinary curriculum have been made in recent years, they have been highly varied across schools and little evidence is available on how these have improved students’ non-technical skills, knowledge, aptitudes, and attitudes. </p><p><strong>Evidentiary value:</strong> This literature review of 23 papers provides a solid basis for the further development of knowledge on business management issues in veterinary curricula. The impact on practice from our findings is substantial. The role of clinicians in academia is recognised as a primary source of engaging students with business management through their day-to-day teaching. Furthermore, the role of first-opinion vets who take on placement students (known as extra mural studies or ‘EMS’ in the UK) cannot be underestimated as they play an essential role in ensuring that students perceive business skills with the same importance as clinical skills.</p><p><strong>Methods:</strong> This research draws on the findings of 23 papers that emerged as relevant from the structured literature search.  The search yielded 124 papers but many were excluded because they focused on issues beyond the search strategy, did not report empirical findings so were based largely on discussion and conjecture, were not about the undergraduate veterinary curriculum, were not written in English or were not related to business teaching.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong> Employers of recent graduates highly value business skills, and often base their hiring decision on non-technical skills, rather than clinical skills. While changes to the veterinary curriculum have been made to include more non-technical training by individual veterinary schools, it is unclear how effective these programmes have been.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong> Veterinarians have identified a need for greater inclusion of business skills in the veterinary curriculum, however successfully integrating business skills into the curriculum will mean that students learn business principles in non-traditional, non-lecture-style environments with materials inter-twining with clinical teaching. This will mean a significant shift from traditional classroom based delivery of business lectures to an integrated approach. This can only be achieved if business and clinical teaching staff work together in delivering business education to the next generation of veterinarians. That said, the evidence regarding the importance of business within the veterinary medical curriculum, coupled with increasing competition in the market for first-opinion veterinary services, means that changes in the approach to teaching business may be easier to achieve than ever before.</p><p><strong>Application:</strong> The results of this research are applicable to practicing veterinarians in both academic and private practice. It is clear that business management needs to be integrated throughout the veterinary curriculum and thus ‘owned’ by academics with both clinical and non-clinical roles. Veterinarians in private practice also have a critical role to play as these people are the gatekeepers to the real-world experience that placement students encounter. </p><br /> <img src="https://www.veterinaryevidence.org/rcvskmod/icons/oa-icon.jpg" alt="Open Access" /> <img src="https://www.veterinaryevidence.org/rcvskmod/icons/pr-icon.jpg" alt="Peer Reviewed" /

Toroidal Imploding Detonation Wave Initiator for Pulse Detonation Engines

Imploding toroidal detonation waves were used to initiate detonations in propane–air and ethylene–air mixtures inside of a tube. The imploding wave was generated by an initiator consisting of an array of channels filled with acetylene–oxygen gas and ignited with a single spark. The initiator was designed as a low-drag initiator tube for use with pulse detonation engines. To detonate hydrocarbon–air mixtures, the initiator was overfilled so that some acetylene oxygen spilled into the tube. The overfill amount required to detonate propane air was less than 2% of the volume of the 1-m-long, 76-mm-diam tube. The energy necessary to create an implosion strong enough to detonate propane–air mixtures was estimated to be 13% more than that used by a typical initiator tube, although the initiator was also estimated to use less oxygen. Images and pressure traces show a regular, repeatable imploding wave that generates focal pressures in excess of 6 times the Chapman–Jouguet pressure.Atheoretical analysis of the imploding toroidal wave performed using Whitham’s method was found to agree well with experimental data and showed that, unlike imploding cylindrical and spherical geometries, imploding toroids initially experience a period of diffraction before wave focusing occurs. A nonreacting numerical simulation was used to assist in the interpretation of the experimental data

Channel-wall limitations in the magnetohydrodynamic induction generator

Discussion of magnetohydrodynamic induction generator examines the machine in detail and materials problems influencing its design. The higher upper-temperature limit of the MHD system promises to be more efficient than present turbine systems for generating electricity

The changes in chemical composition during development of the bovine nuchal ligament

Whole bovine nuchal ligaments, or portions thereof (in the case of commercially valuable animals), were obtained from 45 animals (28 fetal and 17 postnatal) ranging in age from 110 days of gestation to 10 yr. Insoluble elastin was quantitatively prepared from the fresh ligaments by extraction with hot alkali and by a combination of multiple extractions with alkaline buffer and then repeated autoclaving. When adult samples were examined, the yields of insoluble residue by these two methods were very similar, but with young fetal samples the second method gave significantly higher values, because of incomplete purification of the elastin residue. The changes in the concentration of collagen, alkali-insoluble elastin, and DNA have been examined. DNA concentration, and, thus, cell population density, fell progressively during the fetal period of development, to reach a steady value soon after birth. Collagen appeared in appreciable quantities before elastin, but its concentration was rapidly halved at about the time of birth. Insoluble elastin concentration was low until the end of the 7th fetal month, at which time it began to rise rapidly. The rate of increase in elastin concentration remained high throughout the next 10–12 wk, by which time the adult value had been reached. Quantitative studies, on the basis of the whole ligament, showed that the total cell content rises to a maximum at birth, but falls soon after to a level about half that at birth. Total collagen production and elastin deposition continue at a steady, maximal rate over the interval from 235 days of gestation to the end of the 1st postnatal month. It is concluded that the immediate postnatal period would be the most favorable phase in which to attempt the isolation of the soluble precursor elastin

A system identification technique based on the random decrement signatures. Part 1: Theory and simulation

Identification of the system parameters of a randomly excited structure may be treated using a variety of statistical techniques. Of all these techniques, the Random Decrement is unique in that it provides the homogeneous component of the system response. Using this quality, a system identification technique was developed based on a least-squares fit of the signatures to estimate the mass, damping, and stiffness matrices of a linear randomly excited system. The mathematics of the technique is presented in addition to the results of computer simulations conducted to demonstrate the prediction of the response of the system and the random forcing function initially introduced to excite the system