Does incremental training improve motor learning?

In recent years, there has been a multitude of research on motor learning. However, little research has been done to examine the possibility of altering the rate of learning and performance by modification of the task. In this study, we were interested in investigating the effects of learning a complex task with a gradual increase in difficulty. Subjects performed a mirror drawing task with a robotic manipulandum. Subjects were randomly placed into one of four groups. [Complete] group subjects received the most difficult form of the task from the beginning and trained and tested on the same shape (a 5-pointed star). [Gradual] group subjects gradually progressed through `levels\u27 that increased in difficulty before reaching the [Complete] group star. [Gradual-Rotated] group subjects received a similar paradigm to [Gradual] group subjects, only their training levels were rotated 30 degrees. [Complete-Rotated] group subjects trained on a rotated version of the [Complete] group star. [Complete] group subjects demonstrated significantly better initial performance on the star shape when compared to the [Gradual] and [Gradual-Rotated] groups. [Gradual], [Gradual-Rotated], and [Complete-Rotated] groups initially performed at lower errors on their respective tasks when compared to the [Complete] group. We demonstrate that the novel paradigm that we introduce to subjects successfully lowered initial performance error. However, in this specific task, immediate introduction of the final shape proved to result in better early performance. All subjects performed at equal levels at the end of training. We are interested in the application of this training paradigm to various other tasks

Two-dimensional echocardiographic diagnosis of pulmonary artery sling in infancy

The vascular anomaly in which the left pulmonary artery arises from the right pulmonary artery and passes posteriorly and leftward between the trachea and the esophagus is termed a pulmonary artery sling. Two-dimensional echocardiograms were performed in five infants with this anomaly and successfully identified it in four, including one patient with truncus arteriosus communis.The subxiphoid long-axis sweep was useful in identifying the origin and initial course of the left pulmonary artery, and short-axis subxiphoid views showed both its origin from the right pulmonary artery and its initial posterior course. Angulation toward the cardiac apex displayed the right pulmonary artery in cross section anteriorly and the left pulmonary artery in cross section posteriorly. A transducer orientation midway between the subxiphoid long- and short-axis positions was helpful in distinguishing a large right upper lobe branch of the right pulmonary artery from a pulmonary artery sling. The precordial short-axis plane displayed the origin and initial posterior and leftward course of the left pulmonary artery, while the bifurcation of the main pulmonary artery, usually easily seen in this view, could not be demonstrated.Two-dimensional echocardiography offers a rapid, noninvasive diagnosis of pulmonary artery sling in infants

Intégrer la formation, la pratique et la réflexion dans un nouveau modèle d’évaluation de la compétence des diplômés en médecine au Canada : un document conceptuel à l’intention du Conseil médical du Canada

In 2020 the Medical Council of Canada created a task force to make recommendations on the modernization of its practices for granting licensure to medical trainees. This task force solicited papers on this topic from subject matter experts. As outlined within this Concept Paper, our proposal would shift licensure away from the traditional focus on high-stakes summative exams in a way that integrates training, clinical practice, and reflection. Specifically, we propose a model of graduated licensure that would have three stages including: a trainee license for trainees that have demonstrated adequate medical knowledge to begin training as a closely supervised resident, a transition to practice license for trainees that have compiled a reflective educational portfolio demonstrating the clinical competence required to begin independent practice with limitations and support, and a fully independent license for unsupervised practice for attendings that have demonstrated competence through a reflective portfolio of clinical analytics. This proposal was reviewed by a diverse group of 30 trainees, practitioners, and administrators in medical education. Their feedback was analyzed and summarized to provide an overview of the likely reception that this proposal would receive from the medical education community.En 2020, le Conseil médical du Canada a créé un groupe de travail chargé de formuler des recommandations sur la modernisation de ses pratiques d’octroi du titre de licencié aux stagiaires en médecine. À cette fin, le groupe de travail a sollicité la contribution d’experts en la matière. Dans le présent document conceptuel, nous proposons de réorienter l’approche traditionnelle axée sur l’évaluation sommative par des examens à enjeux élevés vers l’intégration de la formation, la pratique clinique et la réflexion. Plus précisément, nous proposons un modèle d’octroi progressif du titre de compétence en trois étapes : un titre pour les stagiaires qui ont démontré qu’ils possèdent les connaissances nécessaires pour commencer leur formation en tant que résident étroitement supervisé, un titre de transition pour les stagiaires ayant un portfolio d’apprentissage réflexif qui démontre la compétence clinique requise pour entamer une pratique indépendante avec du soutien et certaines limites, et un titre permettant la pratique pleinement indépendante et non supervisée pour ceux dont le portfolio réflexif démontre une compétence en analyse clinique. Cette proposition a été examinée par un groupe diversifié de 30 stagiaires, praticiens et gestionnaires en éducation médicale. Leurs commentaires ont été analysés et résumés pour donner une idée de l’accueil que la proposition serait susceptible de recevoir de la part du milieu de l’éducation médicale

Satellite Workshop On Language, Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science for Natural Language Processing Applications (LAICS-NLP): Discovery of Meaning from Text

This paper proposes a novel method to disambiguate important words from a collection of documents. The hypothesis that underlies this approach is that there is a minimal set of senses that are significant in characterizing a context. We extend Yarowsky’s one sense per discourse [13] further to a collection of related documents rather than a single document. We perform distributed clustering on a set of features representing each of the top ten categories of documents in the Reuters-21578 dataset. Groups of terms that have a similar term distributional pattern across documents were identified. WordNet-based similarity measurement was then computed for terms within each cluster. An aggregation of the associations in WordNet that was employed to ascertain term similarity within clusters has provided a means of identifying clusters’ root senses

Accuracy of prospective two-dimensional/Doppler echocardiography in the assessment of reparative surgery

Between January 1987 and January 1989, all 129 patients (aged 11 days to 25 years, median 39 months) undergoing both an echocardiographic examination and cardiac catheterization after reparative surgery were prospectively included in a study to assess the accuracy of combined two-dimensional and Doppler color flow imaging. The patient diagnoses were transposition of the great arteries (n = 20), tetralogy of Fallot (n = 38), coarctation of the aorta (n = 24), complete atrioventricular (AV) canal (n = 15), atrial septal defect (n = 8), ventricular septal defects (n = 3), pulmonary stenosis (n = 4), aortic stenosis (n = 8) and subaortic stenosis (n = 9).In arterial tract stenosis, there was high correlation between Doppler estimates and catheterization-derived measurements of residual right ventricular outflow tract obstruction in patients after the arterial switch operation for transposition of the great arteries (r = 0.95) as well as in patients after corrective repair of tetralogy of Fallot (r = 0.84).In semilunar/AV valve regurgitation, graded as none, mild, moderate or severe, echocardiographic estimates correlated exactly with angiographic grading in 84% and differed by one angiographic grade in the other 16%.In residual left to right shunting, no hemodynamically significant shunt was missed by echocardiography. For residual shunts at the ventricular level (n = 32), addition of Doppler color flow imaging improved the sensitivity (from 63% to 94%) and the negative predictive value (from 88% to 98%).In elevated right ventricular pressure, Doppler-derived right ventricular-right atrial pressure estimates in 24 patients correlated well with catheterization measurements (r = 0.93).Combined two-dimensional and Doppler color flow echocardiography was highly accurate in the prospective evaluation of these four types of postoperative residua

Using Hadoop To Implement a Semantic Method Of Assessing The Quality Of Research Medical Datasets

In this paper a system for storing and querying medical RDF data using Hadoop is developed. This approach enables us to create an inherently parallel framework that will scale the workload across a cluster. Unlike existing solutions, our framework uses highly optimised joining strategies to enable the completion of eight separate SPAQL queries, comprised of over eighty distinct joins, in only two Map/Reduce iterations. Results are presented comparing an optimised version of our solution against Jena TDB, demonstrating the superior performance of our system and its viability for assessing the quality of medical data