Evaluation of a religious family enrichment program

The purpose of this research was to evaluate a religious family enrichment program conducted in a church camp setting in North Carolina during the summer of 1984. Forty participating families comprised the sample, with 20 families in the treatment group, and 20 in the control group. Both parents and the oldest participating child in each family were included in the analysis. The Moos Family Environment Scale and a self-reported questionnaire were used in a pretest-posttest design. The pretest was administered to both groups one week before the treatment group began the experience. The posttest was administered and the questionnaire completed on the day that the treatment group completed the experience

Exploring the experiences and coping strategies of international medical students

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Few studies have addressed the challenges that international medical students face and there is a dearth of information on the behavioural strategies these students adopt to successfully progress through their academic program in the face of substantial difficulties of language barrier, curriculum overload, financial constraints and assessment tasks that require high proficiency in communication skills.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This study was designed primarily with the aim of enhancing understanding of the coping strategies, skill perceptions and knowledge of assessment expectations of international students as they progress through the third and fourth years of their medical degree at the School of Medicine, University of Tasmania, Australia.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Survey, focus group discussion and individual interviews revealed that language barriers, communication skills, cultural differences, financial burdens, heavy workloads and discriminatory bottlenecks were key factors that hindered their adaptation to the Australian culture. Quantitative analyses of their examination results showed that there were highly significant (p < 0.001) variations between student performances in multiple choice questions, short answer questions and objective structured clinical examinations (70.3%, 49.7% & 61.7% respectively), indicating existence of communication issues.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Despite the challenges, these students have adopted commendable coping strategies and progressed through the course largely due to their high sense of responsibility towards their family, their focus on the goal of graduating as medical doctors and their support networks. It was concluded that faculty needs to provide both academic and moral support to their international medical students at three major intervention points, namely point of entry, mid way through the course and at the end of the course to enhance their coping skills and academic progression. Finally, appropriate recommendations were made.</p

Teager-Kaiser Operator improves the accuracy of EMG onset detection independent of signal-to-noise ratio

A temporal analysis of electromyographic (EMG) activity has widely been used for non-invasive study of muscle activation patterns. Such an analysis requires robust methods to accurately detect EMG onset. We examined whether data conditioning supplemented with Teager–Kaiser Energy Operator (TKEO) would improve accuracy of the EMG burst onset detection. EMG signals from vastus lateralis collected during maximal voluntary contractions performed by seventeen subjects (8 males 9 females mean age of 46 yrs) were analyzed. The error of onset detection using enhanced signal conditioning was significantly lower than that of onset detection performed on signals onditioned without the TKEO (40 ±99 ms vs. 229 ±356 ms t-test p = 0.023). The Pearson correlations revealed that neither accuracy after enhanced conditioning nor accuracy after standard conditioning was significantly related to signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) (r = −0.05 p = 0.8 and r = −0.19 p = 0.46 respectively). It is concluded that conditioning of the EMG signals with TKEO significantly improved the accuracy of the threshold-based onset detection methods regardless of SNR magnitude. Originally published Acta Bioeng Biomech Vol. 10 No. 2 200