An optimization method to keep synchronization features when decreasing network nodes

Synchronization is one of the substantial network features, which depends on the eigenvalues of the network connectivity matrix. This paper presents an approach based on an optimization algorithm to keep the synchronization pattern when the number of nodes of the network is decreased. The proposed algorithm refines the initially random weights of the reduced connectivity matrix to minimize the mean square error between the eigenvalues of the original and small matrixes. This technique is applied to the network of Lorenz systems with different couplings which have different synchronization patterns. The numerical synchronization error is also computed for the original and small network. It is shown that the smaller network has the same synchronizability as the original one

Evaluation of Internal Efficiency and External Effectiveness of the General Medicine Curriculum: Perspectives of Students, Graduates and Faculty Members at Shahid Sadughi University of Medical Sciences

Introduction: Educating efficient doctors has always been a concern for medical schools. Therefore, it is necessary to study the educational programs and do revision and quality improvements accordingly. This study was performed to evaluate the internal efficiency and external effectiveness of the general medicine curriculum in Shahid Sadughi University of medical sciences. Methods: This study was a descriptive survey research done in 2012 in Shahid Sadughi University of Medical Sciences (Yazd, Iran). The population included all general medicine graduates from 2007 to 2012, all undergraduate medical students passing their fourth to seventh academic year, and all faculty members of the medical school. Seventy faculty members and 40 graduates were selected using convenient sampling method, and 200 students through simple random method. Internal quality of curriculum was analyzed by Kuchakpoor questionnaire based on Akker's curriculum classification. External effectiveness of curriculum was analyzed by a researcher-made questionnaire designed to cover knowledge, skill, and attitude aspects. Data were analyzed through standard t and MANOVA. Results: Internal efficiency of all elements of the general medicine curriculum was less than the desirable level (third quartile: Q3) and more than acceptable level (second quartile: Q2) from the students’, graduates’ and faculty members’ viewpoints. External effectiveness of curriculum regarding graduate knowledge and attitude was at a desirable level, while the graduate skills were not at desirable level. In all of elements of the curriculum, faculty members gave the highest internal efficiency averages and graduates had the lowest. Conclusion: Review and revision of general medicine curriculum is necessary to promote internal efficiency and external effectiveness from average level to desired level

Converting high-dimensional complex networks to lower-dimensional ones preserving synchronization features

Studying the stability of synchronization of coupled oscillators is one of the prominent topics in network science. However, in most cases, the computational cost of complex network analysis is challenging because they consist of a large number of nodes. This study includes overcoming this obstacle by presenting a method for reducing the dimension of a large-scale network, while keeping the complete region of stable synchronization unchanged. To this aim, the first and last non-zero eigenvalues of the Laplacian matrix of a large network are preserved using the eigen-decomposition method and Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization. The method is only applicable to undirected networks and the result is a weighted undirected network with smaller size. The reduction method is studied in a large-scale a small-world network of Sprott-B oscillators. The results show that the trend of the synchronization error is well maintained after node reduction for different coupling schemes