Active Learning: An Integrative Learning Approach for Adult Learners

In order to appeal to adult learners, the Analytics in Medicine course utilizes active learning methodology to foster self-directed learning, critical thinking, communication skills, and acquisition of knowledge. The modified flipped classroom model requires weekly assigned reading and a written reflection exercise completed several days before face-to-face class time. The reflections are used to better inform course instructors regarding areas needing further explanation in person. In the weekly 2-hour class, students explore topics in-depth by incorporating active learning methods. Examples include think-pair-share or small group activities requiring movement, discussion, and reflection focusing on question prompts or application of principles (e.g., carousel method). The instructor continuously circulates to ensure student engagement and grasp of the material, allowing for areas of clarification to be immediately identified. Instructors often involve peers to coach one another as a method of continued active learning without going into “lecture mode.”https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/btp_expo/1092/thumbnail.jp

An interesting note on floating corals.

The floating stone on a closer examination reveals that it is a coral. Corals of the genus Favia, Platygyra etc. are kept floating in a tank filled with water. The scientific explanations of the floating corals are examined. The scientific significance of floating coral are here described

A Deep Learning Technique to Clinch the Detection of Parkinson’s Disease using Speech and Voice Attributes

Among the neurodegenerative diseases Parkinson’s Disease ranks second only to Alzheimer’s disease. Though extensive research is carried out in this area there have been no biomarker suggested. At present the diagnosis and monitoring of the disease progression is possible only through clinical examination and function symptoms observation. Voice impairment has been identified as an early marker for Parkinson’s Disease and hence the research in this field is gaining popularity. Machine Learning algorithms have proved useful in analyzing the enormous data with high dimensionality. But this has not been successful in extricating features that will have a strong correlation in predicting the disease accurately. This calls for a more effective and powerful technique like Deep Learning that uses deep neural networks that can select the optimal features and can contribute in the identification of the disease. In this paper an initial step was made by designing an Artificial Neural Network model. This yielded a train and test accuracy more than ninety-nine percentage and seventy-five percentage respectively for classifying the disease but showed overfitting problem which resulted in a decrease in the performance. Hence, the Artificial Neural Network model was hyper-tuned to reduce this problem and there was a slight improvement in the performance. Two methods were employed for optimization – a regularization method early stop and another validation method called Stratified K -Fold Cross Validation. Among these the second approach showed better results by slightly reducing the overfitting issue and it yielded a train and test accuracy score of approximately ninety-nine percentage and ninety-seven percentage with K-fold as five and Stochastic Gradient Descent as the optimizer. Even though the results were promising it was unable to unravel the prime attributes that would eventually identify the disease

Evaluation of shear bond strength of a composite resin to white mineral trioxide aggregate with three different bonding systemsa: an in vitro analysis

Background: Mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA) is a biomaterial that has been investigated for endodontic applications. With the increased use of MTA in pulp capping, pulpotomy, perforation repair, apexification and obturation, the material that would be placed over MTA as a final restoration is an important matter. As composite resins are one of the most widely used final restorative materials, this study was conducted to evaluate the shear bond strength of a composite resin to white mineral trioxide aggregate (WMTA) using three different bonding systems namely the two-step etch and rinse adhesive, the self-etching primer and the All-in-one system. Material and Methods: Forty five specimens of white MTA (Angelus) were prepared and randomly divided into three groups of 15 specimens each depending on the bonding systems used respectively. In Group A, a Two-step etch and rinse adhesive or ‘total-etch adhesive’, Adper Single Bond 2 (3M/ESPE) and Filtek Z350 (3M ESPE, St Paul, MN) were placed over WMTA. In group B, a Two-step self-etching primer system, Clearfil SE Bond (Kuraray, Medical Inc) and Filtek Z350 were used. In Group C, an All-in-one system, G Bond (GC corporation, Tokyo, Japan) and Filtek Z350 were used. The shear bond strength was measured for all the specimens. The data obtained was subjected to One way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Scheffe’s post hoc test. Results: The results suggested that the Two-step etch and rinse adhesive when used to bond a composite resin to white MTA gave better bond strength values and the All-in-one exhibited the least bond strength values. Conclusions: The placement of composite used with a Two-step etch and rinse adhesive over WMTA as a final restoration may be appropriate

Effect of Atomic Coherence on Absorption in Four-level Systems: an Analytical study

Absorption profile of a four-level ladder atomic system interacting with three driving fields is studied perturbatively and analytical results are presented. Numerical results where the driving field strengths are treated upto all orders are presented. The absorption features is studied in two regimes, i) the weak middle transition coupling, i.e. $\Omega_2 << \Omega_{1,3}$ and ii) the strong middle transition coupling $\Omega_2 >>\Omega_{1,3}$. In case i), it is shown that the ground state absorption and the saturation characteristics of the population of level 2 reveal deviation due to the presence of upper level couplings. In particular, the saturation curve for the population of level 2 shows a dip for $\Omega_1 = \Omega_3$. While the populations of levels 3 and 4 show a maxima when this resonance condition is satisfied. Thus the resonance condition provides a criterion for maximally populating the upper levels. A second order perturbation calculation reveals the nature of this minima (maxima). In the second case, I report two important features: a) Filtering of the Aulter-Townes doublet in the three-peak absorption profile of the ground state, which is achieved by detuning only the upper most coupling field, and b) control of line-width by controlling the strength of the upper coupling fields. This filtering technique coupled with the control of linewidth could prove to be very useful for high resolution studies.Comment: 15 pages 12 figure

Buclizine- old wine in new bottle?

Buclizine is a first generation antihistaminic with some anticholinergic potential. This drug has specific pharmacological indications in allergy, morning sickness, migraine, motion sickness and insomnia with some or doubtful success. It is an obsolete drug of decline use due to better availability of second and third generation antihistamines.Buclizine, a forgotten drug used in past is now re-introduced as an appetite stimulant. Previously one of the counterpart “cyproheptadine” was used but currently banned from most part of the world due to untoward effects.The standard textbook of pediatrics has not mentioned buclizine as an appetizer. On the other side, no article published (Pub med search) in last few decades to favors this claim. This drug has no space in WHO essential medicine list probably due to doubtful safety.A scientific issue arises- Does children require appetite stimulant? Appetizers are never be a rational solution. They can be used as adjunct because of their placebo effect. Meanwhile placebo has limited role in children on behalf of other party (parents) involvement. Misperception about diet, feeding practice, dysfunctional ‘parent child interaction’ etc. needed proper counselling rather than prescribing an appetite stimulant.There may be risk, that buclizine to become “OTC” appetizer in future due to current promotional spurt by pharmaceutical. However, large scale multicentric clinical trials are needed before promotion of buclizine as pediatric appetite stimulant, with careful watch of pharmacovigilance perspective

What can the SNO Neutral Current Rate teach us about the Solar Neutrino Anomaly

We investigate how the anticipated neutral current rate from $SNO$ will sharpen our understanding of the solar neutrino anomaly. Quantitative analyses are performed with representative values of this rate in the expected range of $0.8 - 1.2$. This would provide a $5 - 10 \sigma$ signal for $\nu_e$ transition into a state containing an active neutrino component. Assuming this state to be purely active one can estimate both the $^8B$ neutrino flux and the $\nu_e$ survival probability to a much higher precision than currently possible. Finally the measured value of the $NC$ rate will have profound implications for the mass and mixing parameters of the solar neutrino oscillation solution.Comment: Brief discussion on the first NC result from SNO added; final version to be published in the MPL