Space-time hybridized discontinuous Galerkin methods for shallow water equations

The non-linear shallow water equations model the dynamics of a shallow layer of an incompressible fluid; they are obtained by asymptotic analysis and depth-averaging of the Navier-Stokes equations. They are utilized in a wide range of applications, from simulation of geophysical phenomena such as river/oceanic flows and avalanches to the study of hurricane simulation, storm surge modeling, and oil spills. As a hyperbolic system of equations, shocks may develop in finite time and therefore an appropriate numerical discretization of these equations needs to be developed. The purpose of this dissertation is to develop and implement a state of the art numerical method to accurately model these equations. Therefore, a well-balanced space-time hybridized discontinuous Galerkin method was developed for our purpose. The method was implemented and tested for several benchmark problems and very promising results were obtained. An a priori error estimate for the developed method was also obtained with an optimal rate of convergence in an appropriate norm. The estimate obtained is an extension of the existing a priori error estimates in the literature, first to the case of a system of shallow water equations, second to a hybridized mixed DG method, and third to an arbitrary degree of polynomial in time.Computational Science, Engineering, and Mathematic

An innovative method to assess clinical reasoning skills: Clinical reasoning tests in the second national medical science Olympiad in Iran

BACKGROUND: Clinical reasoning plays a major role in the ability of doctors to make a diagnosis and reach treatment decisions. This paper describes the use of four clinical reasoning tests in the second National Medical Science Olympiad in Iran: key features (KF), script concordance (SCT), clinical reasoning problems (CRP) and comprehensive integrative puzzles (CIP). The purpose of the study was to design a multi instrument for multiple roles approach in clinical reasoning field based on the theoretical framework, KF was used to measure data gathering, CRP was used to measure hypothesis formation, SCT and CIP were used to measure hypothesis evaluation and investigating the combined use of these tests in the Olympiad. A bank of clinical reasoning test items was developed for emergency medicine by a scientific expert committee representing all the medical schools in the country. These items were pretested by a reference group and the results were analyzed to select items that could be omitted. Then 135 top-ranked medical students from 45 medical universities in Iran participated in the clinical domain of the Olympiad. The reliability of each test was calculated by Cronbach's alpha. Item difficulty and the correlation between each item and the total score were measured. The correlation between the students' final grade and each of the clinical reasoning tests was calculated, as was the correlation between final grades and another measure of knowledge, i.e., the students' grade point average. RESULTS: The combined reliability for all four clinical reasoning tests was 0.91. Of the four clinical reasoning tests we compared, reliability was highest for CIP (0.91). The reliability was 0.83 for KF, 0.78 for SCT and 0.71 for CRP. Most of the tests had an acceptable item difficulty level between 0.2 and 0.8. The correlation between the score for each item and the total test score for each of the four tests was positive. The correlations between scores for each test and total score were highest for KF and CIP. The correlation between scores for each test and grade point average was low to intermediate for all four of the tests. CONCLUSION: The combination of these four clinical reasoning tests is a reliable evaluation tool that can be implemented to assess clinical reasoning skills in talented undergraduate medical students, however these data may not generalizable to whole medical students population. The CIP and KF tests showed the greatest potential to measure clinical reasoning skills. Grade point averages did not necessarily predict performance in the clinical domain of the national competitive examination for medical school students

Using TOSCE (Team Objective Structured Clinical Examination) in the second national medical sciences olympiad in Iran

Introduction: Second National Medical Sciences Olympiad was done in Shiraz in August 2010 with aim of indentifying scientifically talented individuals, motivating students and orienting extracurricular activities. This Olympiad was done in 3 areas, basic sciences, clinical sciences and management. In clinical sciences, we used TOSCE (Team Objective Structured Clinical Examination). In this article we report the details of this exam and participants′ satisfaction. Materials and Methods: This Olympiad in Clinical Medical Sciences was held in 2 levels: Individual and team. In the team stage, 9 teams from 9 universities participated. We used TOSCE for measuring clinical competency of teams. Each team consisted of 3 students. We designed 12 stations based on emergency medicine in medical and surgical fields. The time considered for each station was 15 min, after doing this exam the view of students was measured using a valid and reliable questionnaire. Results: Most of the students believed that TOSCE was a useful examination for measuring competency. More than 50% of students reported that success in this exam needs clinical competency, team work and problem solving ability. Nearly, half (48.1%) of students believed that 15 min is not enough for each station and they need more time. Conclusion: The results of this study showed that this kind of exam is useful for measuring clinical competency from students′ viewpoint