Prediction of success at UK Specialty Board Examinations using the mandatory postgraduate UK surgical examination

Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge I. Targett from the Royal College of Surgeons of England and J. Wylie from the Joint Committee on Intercollegiate Examinations for their help with data collection, and both L. Smith and G. Ayre from the Intercollegiate Committee for Basic Surgical Examinations for their support during this project. This study was funded by the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of England, Ireland and Edinburgh, and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. Disclosure: The authors declare no conflict of interest..Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Does performance at the intercollegiate Membership of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons (MRCS) examination vary according to UK medical school and course type? A retrospective cohort study

Acknowledgments The authors would like to acknowledge Iain Targett at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, for his help with data collection and John Hines and Gregory Ayre from the Intercollegiate Committee for Basic Surgical Examinations for their support during this project. Our thanks to members of the UKMED Research Group who provided useful feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript, and whose comments helped refine the paper. The authors would also like to acknowledge Daniel Smith for his help with the UKMED database. Data source: UK Medical Education Database ('UKMED'). UKMEDP043 extract generated on 25/07/2018. We are grateful to UKMED for the use of these data. However, UKMED bears no responsibility for their analysis or interpretation the data includes information derived from that collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency Limited ('HESA') and provided to the GMC ('HESA Data'). Source: HESA Student Records 2002/2003 to 2015/2016. Copyright Higher Education Statistics Agency Limited. The Higher Education Statistics Agency Limited makes no warranty as to the accuracy of the HESA Data, cannot accept responsibility for any inferences or conclusions derived by third parties from data or other Information supplied by it.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Does performance at medical school predict success at the Intercollegiate Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS) examination? : A retrospective cohort study

Funding Information: Royal College of Surgeons of England, Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland and Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow (award/grant number is not applicable). Acknowledgements: The authors would like to acknowledge Iain Targett at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, for his help with data collection and Gregory Ayre from the Intercollegiate Committee for Basic Surgical Examinations for their support during this project. Our thanks to members of the UKMED Research Group who provided useful feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript, and whose comments helped refine the paper. The authors would also like to acknowledge Daniel Smith for his help with the UKMED database. Data Source: UK Medical Education Database (‘UKMED’). UKMEDP043 extract generated on 25 July 2018. We are grateful to UKMED for the use of these data. However, UKMED bears no responsibility for their analysis or interpretation. The data include information derived from that collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency Limited (‘HESA’) and provided to the GMC (‘HESA Data’). Source: HESA Student Records 2007/2008 to 2015/2016. Copyright Higher Education Statistics Agency. The Higher Education Statistics Agency makes no warranty as to the accuracy of the HESA Data, cannot accept responsibility for any inferences or conclusions derived by third parties from data or other information supplied by it.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Establishing the predictive validity of the intercollegiate membership of the Royal Colleges of surgeons written examination : MRCS part B

Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge Iain Target at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and Gregory Ayre from the Intercollegiate Committee for Basic Surgical Examinations for their support during this project. Funding Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, Royal College of Surgeons of England and Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (Award/Grant number is not applicable).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Establishing the predictive validity of the intercollegiate membership of the Royal Colleges of surgeons written examination : MRCS Part A

Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge Iain Targett at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and Gregory Ayre from the Intercollegiate Committee for Basic Surgical Examinations for their support during this project. Funding Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, Royal College of Surgeons of England and Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (Award/Grant number is not applicable).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Impact of performance in a mandatory postgraduate surgical examination on selection into specialty training

Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge I. Targett from the Royal College of Surgeons of England for his help with data collection, and both L. Smith and G. Ayre from the Intercollegiate Committee for Basic Surgical Examinations for their support during this project. This study was funded by the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of England, Ireland and Edinburgh, and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Three-dimensional observations of an aperiodic oscillatory gliding behavior in Myxococcus xanthus using confocal interference reflection microscopy

The deltaproteobacterium Myxococcus xanthus is a model for bacterial motility and has provided unprecedented insights into bacterial swarming behaviors. Fluorescence microscopy techniques have been invaluable in defining the mechanisms that are involved in gliding motility, but these have almost entirely been limited to two-dimensional (2D) studies, and there is currently no understanding of gliding motility in a three-dimensional (3D) context. We present here the first use of confocal interference reflection microscopy (IRM) to study gliding bacteria, revealing aperiodic oscillatory behavior with changes in the position of the basal membrane relative to the substrate on the order of 90 nm in vitro. First, we use a model planoconvex lens specimen to show how topological information can be obtained from the wavelength-dependent interference pattern in IRM. We then use IRM to observe gliding M. xanthus bacteria and show that cells undergo previously unobserved changes in their adhesion profile as they glide. We compare the wild type with mutants that have reduced motility, which also exhibit the same changes in the adhesion profile during gliding. We find that the general gliding behavior is independent of the proton motive force-generating complex AglRQS and suggest that the novel behavior that we present here may be a result of recoil and force transmission along the length of the cell body following firing of the type IV pili. IMPORTANCE 3D imaging of live bacteria with optical microscopy techniques is a challenge due to the small size of bacterial cells, meaning that previous studies have been limited to observing motility behavior in 2D. We introduce the application of confocal multiwavelength interference reflection microscopy to bacteria, which enables visualization of 3D motility behaviors in a single 2D image. Using the model organism Myxococcus xanthus, we identified novel motility behaviors that are not explained by current motility models, where gliding bacteria exhibit aperiodic changes in their adhesion to an underlying solid surface. We concluded that the 3D behavior was not linked to canonical motility mechanisms and that IRM could be applied to study a range of microbiological specimens with minimal adaptation to a commercial microscope

Unified analysis of terminal-time control in classical and quantum systems

Many phenomena in physics, chemistry, and biology involve seeking an optimal control to maximize an objective for a classical or quantum system which is open and interacting with its environment. The complexity of finding an optimal control for maximizing an objective is strongly affected by the possible existence of sub-optimal maxima. Within a unified framework under specified conditions, control objectives for maximizing at a terminal time physical observables of open classical and quantum systems are shown to be inherently free of sub-optimal maxima. This attractive feature is of central importance for enabling the discovery of controls in a seamless fashion in a wide range of phenomena transcending the quantum and classical regimes.Comment: 10 page