1,177 research outputs found
An assessment of student satisfaction with peer teaching of clinical communication skills
Background: Peer teaching is now used in medical education with its value increasingly being recognised. It is
not yet established whether students differ in their satisfaction with teaching by peer-teachers compared to those
taught by academic or clinical staff. This study aimed to establish satisfaction with communication skills teaching
between these three teaching groups.
Methods: Students participated in a role-play practical facilitated either by clinicians, peer-teachers or non-clinical
staff. A questionnaire was administered to first-year medical students after participating in a communication skills
role-play session asking students to evaluate their satisfaction with the session. Data were analysed in SPSS 20.
Results: One hundred and ninety eight students out of 239 (83%) responded. Students were highly satisfied with
the teaching session with no difference in satisfaction scores found between those sessions taught by peers, clinical
and non-clinical staff members. 158 (80%) considered the session useful and 139 (69%) strongly agreed tutors facilitated
their development. There was no significant difference in satisfaction scores based on tutor background.
Conclusions: Satisfaction is as high when tutored by peer-teachers compared to clinicians or non-clinical staff.
Constructive feedback is welcomed from a range of personnel. Final-year students could play an increasing role in the
teaching of pre-clinical medical students
Flight testing and frequency domain analysis for rotorcraft handling qualities characteristics
A demonstration of frequency domain flight testing techniques and analyses was performed on a U.S. Army OH-58D helicopter in support of the OH-58D Airworthiness and Flight Characteristics Evaluation and the Army's development and ongoing review of Aeronautical Design Standard 33C, Handling Qualities Requirements for Military Rotorcraft. Hover and forward flight (60 knots) tests were conducted in 1 flight hour by Army experimental test pilots. Further processing of the hover data generated a complete database of velocity, angular rate, and acceleration frequency responses to control inputs. A joint effort was then undertaken by the Airworthiness Qualification Test Directorate (AQTD) and the U.S. Army Aeroflightdynamics Directorate (AFDD) to derive handling qualities information from the frequency response database. A significant amount of information could be extracted from the frequency domain database using a variety of approaches. This report documents numerous results that have been obtained from the simple frequency domain tests; in many areas, these results provide more insight into the aircraft dynamics that affect handling qualities than to traditional flight tests. The handling qualities results include ADS-33C bandwidth and phase delay calculations, vibration spectral determinations, transfer function models to examine single axis results, and a six degree of freedom fully coupled state space model. The ability of this model to accurately predict aircraft responses was verified using data from pulse inputs. This report also documents the frequency-sweep flight test technique and data analysis used to support the tests
Single-shot quantum memory advantage in the simulation of stochastic processes
Stochastic processes underlie a vast range of natural and social phenomena.
Some processes such as atomic decay feature intrinsic randomness, whereas other
complex processes, e.g. traffic congestion, are effectively probabilistic
because we cannot track all relevant variables. To simulate a stochastic
system's future behaviour, information about its past must be stored and thus
memory is a key resource. Quantum information processing promises a memory
advantage for stochastic simulation that has been validated in recent
proof-of-concept experiments. Yet, in all past works, the memory saving would
only become accessible in the limit of a large number of parallel simulations,
because the memory registers of individual quantum simulators had the same
dimensionality as their classical counterparts. Here, we report the first
experimental demonstration that a quantum stochastic simulator can encode the
relevant information in fewer dimensions than any classical simulator, thereby
achieving a quantum memory advantage even for an individual simulator. Our
photonic experiment thus establishes the potential of a new, practical resource
saving in the simulation of complex systems
Dynamical Belyi maps
We study the dynamical properties of a large class of rational maps with
exactly three ramification points. By constructing families of such maps, we
obtain infinitely many conservative maps of degree ; this answers a question
of Silverman. Rather precise results on the reduction of these maps yield
strong information on the rational dynamics.Comment: 21 page
Optimization-based controller design for rotorcraft
An optimization-based methodology for linear control system design is outlined by considering the design of a controller for a UH-60 rotorcraft in hover. A wide range of design specifications is taken into account: internal stability, decoupling between longitudinal and lateral motions, handling qualities, and rejection of windgusts. These specifications are investigated while taking into account physical limitations in the swashplate displacements and rates of displacement. The methodology crucially relies on user-machine interaction for tradeoff exploration
Reduced lasing threshold from organic dye microcavities
We demonstrate an unexpected tenfold reduction in the lasing threshold of an organic vertical microcavity under subpicosecond optical excitation. In contrast to conventional theory of lasing, we find that the lasing threshold depends on the rate at which excitons are created rather than the total energy delivered within the exciton lifetime. The threshold reduction is discussed in the context of microcavity-enhanced super-radiant coupling between the excitons. The interpretation of super-radiance is supported by the temporal relaxation dynamics of the microcavity emission, which follows the super-radiance time rather than the cavity lifetime. This demonstration suggests that room-temperature super-radiant effects could generally lower the threshold in four-level lasing systems of similar relaxation dynamics.United States. Dept. of Energy. Office of Basic Energy Sciences (Grant DE-SC0001088)Hertz FoundationNational Science Foundation (U.S.). Graduate Research Fellowshi
Electron-hole and plasmon excitations in 3d transition metals: Ab initio calculations and inelastic x-ray scattering measurements
We report extensive all-electron time-dependent density-functional
calculations and nonresonant inelastic x-ray scattering measurements of the
dynamical structure factor of 3d transition metals. For small wave vectors, a
plasmon peak is observed which is well described by our calculations. At large
wave vectors, both theory and experiment exhibit characteristic low-energy
electron-hole excitations of d character which correlate with the presence of d
bands below and above the Fermi level. Our calculations, which have been
carried out in the random-phase and adiabatic local-density approximations, are
found to be in remarkable agreement with the measured dynamical structure
factor of Sc and Cr at energies below the semicore onset energy (M-edge) of
these materials.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev.
Patients with atrial fibrillation undergoing total joint arthroplasty increase hospital burden.
BACKGROUND: More than 3 million people in the United States have atrial fibrillation, most of whom are being managed with anticoagulation therapy for life. The goal of the present study was to examine the effect of chronic anticoagulation therapy on patients with atrial fibrillation who undergo total joint arthroplasty.
METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed all patients undergoing aseptic primary or revision total joint arthroplasty at our facility from March 2007 to August 2011. One hundred and sixty-one patients with atrial fibrillation (Group A) were compared with 161 matched controls (Group B). A total of 112 hips and 210 knees underwent 239 primary arthroplasties and eighty-three revisions. The groups were compared with use of conditional logistic regression (with matching on the basis of the involved joint [hip or knee], type of procedure [revision or primary], age, and sex) with regard to the length of hospital stay, postoperative hemoglobin levels, transfusion requirements, and readmissions.
RESULTS: The preoperative length of stay (1.7 versus 0.2 days; p \u3c 0.0001), postoperative length of stay (4.6 versus 3.2 days; p = 0.0002), and total length of stay (6.3 versus 3.4 days; p \u3c 0.0001) were significantly longer for patients with atrial fibrillation (Group A). Hemoglobin levels were lower (but not significantly so) for Group A at baseline (13.1 versus 13.8 mg/dL), on Postoperative Day 2 (10.1 versus 10.6 mg/dL), on Postoperative Day 3 (9.8 versus 10.2 mg/dL), on Postoperative Day 4 (9.6 versus 10.1 mg/dL), on Postoperative Day 5 (9.7 versus 9.9 mg/dL), and at discharge (9.9 versus 10.3 mg/dL). Group A had a significantly higher prevalence of blood transfusion (15.5% versus 3.7%; p = 0.0005) and periprosthetic joint infection (5.6% versus 0.62%; p = 0.0196). A diagnosis of atrial fibrillation (odds ratio, 4.09; 95% confidence interval, 2.05 to 8.18; p \u3c 0.0001) significantly increased the odds of total joint arthroplasty complication and the need for hospital readmission.
CONCLUSIONS: Patients with preoperative atrial fibrillation undergoing total joint arthroplasty had an increased length of hospital stay, increased transfusion requirements, and an increased risk of periprosthetic joint infection and unplanned hospital readmission
Massey products in symplectic manifolds
The paper is devoted to study of Massey products in symplectic manifolds.
Theory of generalized and classical Massey products and a general construction
of symplectic manifolds with nontrivial Massey products of arbitrary large
order are exposed. The construction uses the symplectic blow-up and is based on
the author results, which describe conditions under which the blow-up of a
symplectic manifold X along its submanifold Y inherits nontrivial Massey
products from X ot Y. This gives a general construction of nonformal symplectic
manifolds.Comment: LaTeX, 48 pages, 2 figure
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