25 research outputs found
Teaching information literacy and evidence-based practice in an undergraduate speech-language pathology program: A student reflection
Purpose: This study assessed teaching information literacy and evidence-based practice skills using an active-learning library workshop in an under- graduate speech-language pathology capstone course. Method: Students’ responses regarding teaching in- formation literacy skills and evidence-based practice using a workshop, which was collaboratively de- signed and taught by a health sciences librarian and a speech-language pathology faculty member, were measured using the one-minute paper (OMP; Angelo & Cross, 1993). Fifty-one OMPs were collected over a 2-year period. Students were asked 2 questions on the OMP: “What information did you learn today that you think will be most useful to you in your speech- language pathology and audiology course work?” and “What question(s) do you still have?” Student reflections were analyzed using qualitative methods. Results: Responses to the first question revealed 6 themes that students found helpful; the most common concept was search strategies. Student feedback on the second question generated 10 themes. The most common theme was not having any questions. Students asked about evidence appraisal and why the material was not introduced earlier. Conclusion: The benefits of a librarian and faculty member collaboratively teaching undergraduate students information literacy skills for finding evidence- based information are highlighted. Results indicate that students learned effective strategies for finding evidence-based information and support integrating information literacy into the speech-language pathology curriculum early and often
Bringing in the Experts: Library Research Guide Usability Testing in a Computer Science Class
Objective – We sought to develop best practices for creating online research guides in an academic library.Methods – We performed usability tests of particular library research guides in order to determine how to improve them. Students in a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) class (n=20) participated in the studies both as subjects of the tests and as evaluators of the results. The students were each interviewed and then asked to review the interviews recorded of four other classmates. Based on their own experience with the guides and their viewing of their classmates using the guides, the students worked with librarians to develop best practices.Results – Students were generally unfamiliar with the library\u27s research guides prior to the study. They identified bibliographic databases as the most important links on the guides and felt that these should be prominently placed. Opinions about many specific features (e.g., images, length of guide, annotations) varied widely, but students felt strongly that there should be some organizational consistency among the guides.Conclusions – The importance that students placed on consistency led the library to adopt guidelines dictating the inclusion of a table of contents and short list of major databases at the top of each guide, as well as uniform placement of certain other elements
Ultrasound Matrix Imaging. I. The focused reflection matrix and the F-factor
This is the first article in a series of two dealing with a matrix approach
\alex{for} aberration quantification and correction in ultrasound imaging.
Advanced synthetic beamforming relies on a double focusing operation at
transmission and reception on each point of the medium. Ultrasound matrix
imaging (UMI) consists in decoupling the location of these transmitted and
received focal spots. The response between those virtual transducers form the
so-called focused reflection matrix that actually contains much more
information than a raw ultrasound image. In this paper, a time-frequency
analysis of this matrix is performed, which highlights the single and multiple
scattering contributions as well as the impact of aberrations in the
monochromatic and broadband regimes. Interestingly, this analysis enables the
measurement of the incoherent input-output point spread function at any pixel
of this image. A focusing criterion can then be built, and its evolution used
to quantify the amount of aberration throughout the ultrasound image. In
contrast to the standard coherence factor used in the literature, this new
indicator is robust to multiple scattering and electronic noise, thereby
providing a highly contrasted map of the focusing quality. As a
proof-of-concept, UMI is applied here to the in-vivo study of a human calf, but
it can be extended to any kind of ultrasound diagnosis or non-destructive
evaluation.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure
Recurrent scattering and memory effect at the Anderson localization transition
We report on ultrasonic measurements of the propagation operator in a
strongly scattering mesoglass. The backscattered field is shown to display a
deterministic spatial coherence due to a remarkably large memory effect induced
by long recurrent trajectories. Investigation of the recurrent scattering
contribution directly yields the probability for a wave to come back close to
its starting spot. The decay of this quantity with time is shown to change
dramatically near the Anderson localization transition. The singular value
decomposition of the propagation operator reveals the dominance of very intense
recurrent scattering paths near the mobility edge.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Ultrasound Matrix Imaging. II. The distortion matrix for aberration correction over multiple isoplanatic patches
This is the second article in a series of two which report on a matrix
approach for ultrasound imaging in heterogeneous media. This article describes
the quantification and correction of aberration, i.e. the distortion of an
image caused by spatial variations in the medium speed-of-sound. Adaptive
focusing can compensate for aberration, but is only effective over a restricted
area called the isoplanatic patch. Here, we use an experimentally-recorded
matrix of reflected acoustic signals to synthesize a set of virtual
transducers. We then examine wave propagation between these virtual transducers
and an arbitrary correction plane. Such wave-fronts consist of two components:
(i) An ideal geometric wave-front linked to diffraction and the input focusing
point, and; (ii) Phase distortions induced by the speed-of-sound variations.
These distortions are stored in a so-called distortion matrix, the singular
value decomposition of which gives access to an optimized focusing law at any
point. We show that, by decoupling the aberrations undergone by the outgoing
and incoming waves and applying an iterative strategy, compensation for even
high-order and spatially-distributed aberrations can be achieved. As a
proof-of-concept, ultrasound matrix imaging (UMI) is applied to the in-vivo
imaging of a human calf. A map of isoplanatic patches is retrieved and is shown
to be strongly correlated with the arrangement of tissues constituting the
medium. The corresponding focusing laws yield an ultrasound image with an
optimal contrast and a transverse resolution close to the ideal value predicted
by diffraction theory. UMI thus provides a flexible and powerful route towards
computational ultrasound.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figure
Reflection matrix approach for quantitative imaging of scattering media
We present a physically intuitive matrix approach for wave imaging and
characterization in scattering media. The experimental proof-of-concept is
performed with ultrasonic waves, but this approach can be applied to any field
of wave physics for which multi-element technology is available. The concept is
that focused beamforming enables the synthesis, in transmit and receive, of an
array of virtual transducers which map the entire medium to be imaged. The
inter-element responses of this virtual array form a focused reflection matrix
from which spatial maps of various characteristics of the propagating wave can
be retrieved. Here we demonstrate: (i) a local focusing criterion that enables
the image quality and the wave velocity to be evaluated everywhere inside the
medium, including in random speckle, and (ii) an highly resolved spatial
mapping of the prevalence of multiple scattering, which constitutes a new and
unique contrast for ultrasonic imaging. The approach is demonstrated for a
controllable phantom system, and for in vivo imaging of the human abdomen. More
generally, this matrix approach opens an original and powerful route for
quantitative imaging in wave physics.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figure
Reference management software: A comparative analysis of four products
Reference management (RM) software is widely used by researchers in the health and natural sciences. Librarians are often called upon to provide support for these products. The present study compares four prominent RMs: CiteULike, RefWorks, Mendeley, and Zotero, in terms of features offered and the accuracy of the bibliographies that they generate. To test importing and data management features, fourteen references from seven bibliographic databases were imported into each RM, using automated features whenever possible. To test citation accuracy, bibliographies of these references were generated in five different styles. The authors found that RefWorks generated the most accurate citations. The other RMs offered contrasting strengths: CiteULike in simplicity and social networking, Zotero in ease of automated importing, and Mendeley in PDF management. Ultimately, the choice of an RM should reflect the user\u27s needs and work habits. © 2011, Ron Gilmour and Laura Cobus-Kuo. Used with permission
Bringing in the experts: Library research guide usability testing in a computer science class
Objective: We sought to develop best practices for creating online research guides in an academic library. Methods: We performed usability tests of particular library research guides in order to determine how to improve them. Students in a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) class (n=20) participated in the studies both as subjects of the tests and as evaluators of the results. The students were each interviewed and then asked to review the interviews recorded of four other classmates. Based on their own experience with the guides and their viewing of their classmates using the guides, the students worked with librarians to develop best practices. Results: Students were generally unfamiliar with the library\u27s research guides prior to the study. They identified bibliographic databases as the most important links on the guides and felt that these should be prominently placed. Opinions about many specific features (e.g., images, length of guide, annotations) varied widely, but students felt strongly that there should be some organizational consistency among the guides. Conclusions: The importance that students placed on consistency led the library to adopt guidelines dictating the inclusion of a table of contents and short list of major databases at the top of each guide, as well as uniform placement of certain other elements.© 2013 Cobus-Kuo, Gilmour, and Dickson