Formulation Of The FIRIS-P Professional Core-Competency Framework For Flexible Academic Curricula: The Biomedical Engineering Program

Introduction – How to formulate the goals of an academic educational program in such a way that they reflect the identity of the profession, but at the same time allow the flexibility required for self-responsible and self-directed individual study paths that can initiate lifelong learning and successful interdisciplinary collaboration after graduation? Here, we present a novel competency framework that (1) reflects the identity and academic level of the interdisciplinary Biomedical Engineering (BME) profession, (2) permits the alignment of program intended learning outcomes that accommodate the content of the different specialisation tracks of the BME program and (3) guides students and staff by improved curriculum mapping and optimization. Methods – We collected input from teaching staff members who are actively practicing their BME profession in the interdisciplinary ecosystem around our university. Using their feedback, we iteratively formulated a set of core competencies that characterize the work and role of the BME professional. We obtained preliminary face-validity by performing curriculum mappings from several courses from BME-tracks and by asking feedback from students. Results – The iterations resulted in the FIRIS-P competency framework including five successive core professional competencies of which specified subcompetencies carry the BME identity: (1) Fundamental competencies, (2) Instrumental competencies, (3) Reasoning competencies, (4) Interventional competencies, and (5) Societal competencies. These core professional competencies are completed and supported by transferable Personal competencies. Discussion: Preliminary validation indicates that the FIRIS-P framework carries all three characteristics mentioned above, warranting future evaluation of its merits for education of lifelong learning BME professionals

A dynamic neural model of localization of brief successive stimuli in saltation

Somatosensory saltation is an illusion robustly generated using short tactile stimuli [1,2]. There is a perceived displacement of a first stimulus if followed by a subsequent nearby stimulus with a short stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). Experimental reports suggest that this illusion results from spatiotemporal integration in early processing stages, but the exact neural mechanism is unknown. The neuronal mechanism involved is probably quite generic as similar phenomena occur in other modalities, audition for example [3]

Subjective localization of electrocutaneous stimuli

Studying the perception of spatiotemporal stimulus patterns in various modalities may yield important information on the way in which humans process sensory information. The perception of tactile and nociceptive cutaneous stimulus patterns have been studied by Stolle et al. [1] and Trojan et al. [2][4] respectively. Among other things, both authors studied subjective localization of single stimuli. In Trojan et al. [4], two types of mislocalization patterns were observed for nociceptive single stimuli when comparing the localization reports with the stimulus locations: (1) overall proximal or distal displacement and (2) expansion or contraction of the stimulus area.\ud It is unknown whether tactile and nociceptive stimuli at the same skin site are perceived as being at the same site. Therefore, comparing the spatial perception of tactile and nociceptive cutaneous stimuli may provide new insights into their processing. This comparison can only be successfully made by applying nociceptive and tactile stimuli at the same skin site in the same experiment. This can be done by using a device which has recently been developed at our institute and which we refer to as the bimodal stimulation electrode [3]. \ud Recording the perceived locations of stimuli can be done by letting subjects report these on a scale. The most intuitive scale for this is the stimulated arm itself. However, this would bias the perception of stimulus location by providing visual information of the electrode locations. The goal of the present research was to (1) create and (2) test a setup which allows subjects to report perceived stimulus locations on their own arm without seeing the electrode positions. This was achieved by building a setup consisting of a touch screen (Provision Visboard) which presents a digital image of the subject’s own arm (without electrodes) and which is positioned over this arm after the electrodes have been attached. Subjects can report the localizations by pointing at the screen using a pointer

Observation of time-dependent psychophysical functions and accounting for threshold drifts

Methods to obtain estimates of psychophysical functions are used in numerous fields, such as audiology, vision, and pain. Neurophysiological and psychological processes underlying this function are assumed to remain stationary throughout a psychophysical experiment. However, violation of this assumption (e.g., due to habituation or changing decisional factors) likely affects the estimates of psychophysical parameters. We used computer simulations to study how non-stationary processes, resulting in a time-dependent psychophysical function, affect threshold and slope estimates. Moreover, we propose methods to improve the estimation quality when stationarity is violated. A psychophysical detection experiment was modeled as a stochastic process ruled by a logistic psychophysical function. The threshold was modeled to drift over time and was defined as either a linear or nonlinear function. Threshold and slope estimates were obtained by using three estimation procedures: a static procedure assuming stationarity, a relaxed procedure accounting for linear effects of time, and a threshold tracking paradigm. For illustrative purposes, data acquired from two human subjects were used to estimate their thresholds and slopes using all estimation procedures. Threshold estimates obtained by all estimations procedures were similar to the mean true threshold. However, due to threshold drift, the slope was underestimated by the static procedure. The relaxed procedure only underestimated the slope when the threshold drifted nonlinearly over time. The tracking paradigm performed best and therefore, we recommend using the tracking paradigm in human psychophysical detection experiments to obtain estimates of the threshold and slope and to identify the mode of non-stationarit

Multiple threshold tracking methods for improved observation of nociceptive function

Estimating momentary perception thresholds cannot reveal dynamic properties of underlying mechanisms. However, continuously estimating multiple thresholds can. This talk focussed on the possibility of tracking multiple thresholds over time. A cold pressor model was used to activate descending nociceptive pathways, and a capsaicin defunctionalization model was used to induce nociceptive peripheral changes

Identification of the nociceptive forward pathway using amplitude-response pairs

Malfunctioning of the nociceptive forward pathway plays a key role in the development of chronic pain, which reduces the quality of lives of the patients. To quantitatively characterize the nociceptive forward pathway, four neurophysiological parameters can be estimated by integrating computational models and multiple perception thresholds. This model-based approach could reveal the state of the nociceptive malfunctioning for understanding the development of pain, e.g. central sensitization. With suitable psychophysical procedures, one can obtain amplitude-response pairs around a perception threshold. Combining these techniques, one can first perform logistic regression to obtain a threshold from amplitude-response pairs and use that for parameter estimation. In this work, we directly estimate parameters using the amplitude-response pairs without intermediate transformations. We study how the number of trials included influences the estimation and compare with the earlier approach. Furthermore, considering the clinical aspect, whether the pairs using fewer combinations of the temporal settings can still enough to estimate the parameters will be addressed. This work will only consider the simulated dataset to estimate the parameters, which is an essential step to further investigations with real datasets. The estimate of the system parameters using amplitude-response pairs directly converges faster than the estimate based on the perception threshold. Such improvement of estimation could provide more reliable information for further interpretations of the state of the nociceptive system