Self-Ratings of Confidence in Clinical and Critical Thinking Problem-Solving as a Function of Post-Qualification Experience. A Study of Radiation Therapists

Recognising one’s abilities and limits in clinical tasks is a valuable part of professionalism. This study investigated the self-ratings of problem-solving confidence of radiation therapists in two domains: clinical scenarios and critical thinking items. We divided the sixty participants into three groups based on post-qualification experience (PQE), and found that greater PQE was linked with higher self-rated confidence on clinical scenarios, but not in critical thinking items.

The descriptive complexity approach to LOGCFL

Building upon the known generalized-quantifier-based first-order characterization of LOGCFL, we lay the groundwork for a deeper investigation. Specifically, we examine subclasses of LOGCFL arising from varying the arity and nesting of groupoidal quantifiers. Our work extends the elaborate theory relating monoidal quantifiers to NC1 and its subclasses. In the absence of the BIT predicate, we resolve the main issues: we show in particular that no single outermost unary groupoidal quantifier with FO can capture all the context-free languages, and we obtain the surprising result that a variant of Greibach's ``hardest context-free language'' is LOGCFL-complete under quantifier-free BIT-free projections. We then prove that FO with unary groupoidal quantifiers is strictly more expressive with the BIT predicate than without. Considering a particular groupoidal quantifier, we prove that first-order logic with majority of pairs is strictly more expressive than first-order with majority of individuals. As a technical tool of independent interest, we define the notion of an aperiodic nondeterministic finite automaton and prove that FO translations are precisely the mappings computed by single-valued aperiodic nondeterministic finite transducers.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur

The link between post-qualification experience and self-confidence ratings in two problem-solving domains: a study of radiation therapists

Recognising one’s abilities and limits in clinical tasks is a valuable part of professionalism. This study investigated the self-ratings of problem-solving confidence of radiation therapists (RTs) in two domains: clinical scenarios and critical thinking items (CTIs). We divided the 60 participants into three groups based on post-qualification experience (PQE), and found that greater PQE was linkedwith higher selfrated confidence for clinical scenarios, but not for CTIs

High Frequency Reproduction in Binaural Ambisonic Rendering

Humans can localise sounds in all directions using three main auditory cues: the differences in time and level between signals arriving at the left and right eardrums (interaural time difference and interaural level difference, respectively), and the spectral characteristics of the signals due to reflections and diffractions off the body and ears. These auditory cues can be recorded for a position in space using the head-related transfer function (HRTF), and binaural synthesis at this position can then be achieved through convolution of a sound signal with the measured HRTF. However, reproducing soundfields with multiple sources, or at multiple locations, requires a highly dense set of HRTFs. Ambisonics is a spatial audio technology that decomposes a soundfield into a weighted set of directional functions, which can be utilised binaurally in order to spatialise audio at any direction using far fewer HRTFs. A limitation of low-order Ambisonic rendering is poor high frequency reproduction, which reduces the accuracy of the resulting binaural synthesis. This thesis presents novel HRTF pre-processing techniques, such that when using the augmented HRTFs in the binaural Ambisonic rendering stage, the high frequency reproduction is a closer approximation of direct HRTF rendering. These techniques include Ambisonic Diffuse-Field Equalisation, to improve spectral reproduction over all directions; Ambisonic Directional Bias Equalisation, to further improve spectral reproduction toward a specific direction; and Ambisonic Interaural Level Difference Optimisation, to improve lateralisation and interaural level difference reproduction. Evaluation of the presented techniques compares binaural Ambisonic rendering to direct HRTF rendering numerically, using perceptually motivated spectral difference calculations, auditory cue estimations and localisation prediction models, and perceptually, using listening tests assessing similarity and plausibility. Results conclude that the individual pre-processing techniques produce modest improvements to the high frequency reproduction of binaural Ambisonic rendering, and that using multiple pre-processing techniques can produce cumulative, and statistically significant, improvements

Exploring perceptual similarities in binaural reverberation

Reverberation is paramount to the auditory experience. It can influence the perceived size and feel of a space, impact speech intelligibility, and add depth and richness to musical performances. In a previously published perceptual study, listeners rated the similarity of binaural signals coming from different positions in a room. This study compares an objective analysis of the test signals with the perceptual results, in an attempt to determine whether certain room acoustics metrics are more perceptually important when judging the similarity of reverberation in binaural signals. A number of objective room acoustics metrics are explored, including level, colouration, reverberation time, direct-to-reverberant ratio, cross-correlation and direction-of-arrival, as well as an auditory model for predicting binaural externalisation. The results of this study can influence the development of future auditory models that predict binaural reverberation similarity

The new intrusion tort: The news media exposed?

In C v Holland, Whata J recognised that the tort of intrusion upon seclusion formed part of New Zealand’s common law. The tort protects against intentional intrusions into a person’s private space. This decision potentially exposes the news media to tortious liability when it engages in intrusive newsgathering practices. However, Whata J’s decision provides little guidance as to how the tort should be applied in later cases. In order to ascertain the meaning of the tort’s formulation, this essay draws upon the methods used, both in New Zealand and internationally, to prevent the news media from breaching individual privacy rights. It then suggests that the courts should replace the formulation with a one-step reasonable expectation of privacy test. It also argues that the legitimate public concern defence should be better tailored to the intrusion context. Finally, it briefly assesses how the intrusion tort should interact with the tort in Hosking v Runting. Ultimately, it concludes that, in future, the courts should reflect more carefully on the precise wording of the intrusion tort’s formulation so that it best vindicates the interests that it was designed to protect