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The teaching and learning of anatomy has experienced a significant paradigm shift. The present study assessed the level of knowledge in anatomy in medical postgraduate students and explored the impact of interventions in the form of anatomical videos on knowledge obtained. An awareness of the importance of human anatomy for clinical skills was created to ensure a certain level of competence be achieved by the end of the anatomy course.

Postgraduate medical students were recruited from various specialties on voluntary basis. The first step was to conduct a preliminary screening exam to determine the level of anatomical knowledge. The students were then divided into two groups at random, one of which received no intervention (the control group), and the other of which watched the videos with content that was pertinent to the practical demonstrations (intervention). To assess the effects of the video intervention, a post-test was administered to all students.

Both spot tests (SPOTs) and short answer question (SAQ) components for scores of all the regions from the intervention groups were comparable to the scores obtained by the post-test control group, although the findings were not significant (p > 0.05). However, the intervention group from the abdomen (ABD) region did perform significantly better (p < 0.05) than the screening test score.

The results of the research study imply that interventions like anatomical videos can bridge the postgraduate trainee’s anatomy knowledge gap in a practical method which will immensely help in increasing their knowledge.

The objective of this study was to determine if exposure to a short-term ultrasound basic biology and anatomy course can promote interest in health careers and other science-related endeavors among DHH students.

This was a single-site, prospective observational study of DHH high school students at a Southern California high school. All participants took a pre-test survey prior to the course. Participants then took part in three teaching sessions which taught basic anatomy using point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS). Following instruction, a post-test survey was performed to determine if students had an increased interest in medicine, science and biology (p = 0.151).

28 students were enrolled in the study, with an equal distribution of boys and girls. Initially, subjects reported their interest in medicine at an average of 2.8 ± 1.10. The reported interest in science was 3.0 ± 1.13 and for biology was 3.0 ± 1.19. The change in participants' interest was not statistically significant for medicine (p = 0.791), science (p = 0.225) and biology.

While our data did not demonstrate a statistically significant difference in students' interest in STEM fields after the training course, there were several students who were interested in more hands-on shadow experience after the course. Regardless, this study demonstrates persistent barriers that exist for a person who is deaf or hard of hearing to engage in the STEM fields. Future studies are needed to determine the level of instructional activities that may impact the careers of these students.

Point of care ultrasound has been shown to be an effective teaching modality in medical education. However, to date, no studies have been done to assess the utility of ultrasound in teaching the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) population.

The purpose of this study is to describe the design and validation of a three-dimensional (3D)-printed phantom of a uterus to support the development of uterine balloon tamponade devices conceived to stop post-partum haemorrhages (PPHs).

The phantom 3D model is generated by analysing the main requirements for validating uterine balloon tamponade devices. A modular approach is implemented to guarantee that the phantom allows testing these devices under multiple working conditions. Once finalised the design, the phantom effectiveness is validated experimentally.

The modular phantom allows performing the required measurements for testing the performance of devices designed to stop PPH.

PPH is the leading obstetric cause of maternal death worldwide, mainly in low- and middle-income countries. The proposed phantom could speed up and optimise the design and validation of devices for PPH treatment, reducing the maternal mortality ratio.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the 3D-printed phantom represents the first example of a modular, flexible and transparent uterus model. It can be used to validate and perform usability tests of medical devices.

The focus of this paper is in Q-Lasso introduced in Alghamdi et al. (2013) which extended the Lasso by Tibshirani (1996). The closed convex subset Q belonging in a Euclidean m-space, for m∈IN, is the set of errors when linear measurements are taken to recover a signal/image via the Lasso. Based on a recent work by Wang (2013), we are interested in two new penalty methods for Q-Lasso relying on two types of difference of convex functions (DC for short) programming where the DC objective functions are the difference of l1 and lσq norms and the difference of l1 and lr norms with r>1. By means of a generalized q-term shrinkage operator upon the special structure of lσq norm, we design a proximal gradient algorithm for handling the DC l1−lσq model. Then, based on the majorization scheme, we develop a majorized penalty algorithm for the DC l1−lr model. The convergence results of our new algorithms are presented as well. We would like to emphasize that extensive simulation results in the case Q={b} show that these two new algorithms offer improved signal recovery performance and require reduced computational effort relative to state-of-the-art l1 and lp (p∈(0,1)) models, see Wang (2013). We also devise two DC Algorithms on the spirit of a paper where exact DC representation of the cardinality constraint is investigated and which also used the largest-q norm of lσq and presented numerical results that show the efficiency of our DC Algorithm in comparison with other methods using other penalty terms in the context of quadratic programing, see Jun-ya et al. (2017).

Crystallization is the process widely used for components separation and solids purification. The systems for crystallization process evaluation applied so far, involve numerous non-invasive tomographic measurement techniques which suffers from some reported problems. The purpose of this paper is to show the abilities of three-dimensional Electrical Capacitance Tomography (3D ECT) in the context of non-invasive and non-intrusive visualization of crystallization processes. Multiple aspects and problems of ECT imaging, as well as the computer model design to work with the high relative permittivity liquids, have been pointed out.

To design the most efficient (from a mechanical and electrical point of view) 3D ECT sensor structure, the high-precise impedance meter was applied. The three types of sensor were designed, built, and tested. To meet the new concept requirements, the dedicated ECT device has been constructed.

It has been shown that the ECT technique can be applied to the diagnosis of crystallization. The crystals distribution can be identified using this technique. The achieved measurement resolution allows detecting the localization of crystals. The usage of stabilized electrodes improves the sensitivity of the sensor and provides the images better suitable for further analysis.

The dedicated 3D ECT sensor construction has been proposed to increase its sensitivity in the border area, where the crystals grow. Regarding this feature, some new algorithms for the potential field distribution and the sensitivity matrix calculation have been developed. The adaptation of the iterative 3D image reconstruction process has also been described.

The future construction site will be pervasive, context aware and embedded with intelligence. The purpose of this paper is to explore and define the concept of the digital skin of the future smart construction site.

The paper provides a systematic and hierarchical classification of 114 articles from both industry and academia on the digital skin concept and evaluates them. The hierarchical classification is based on application areas relevant to construction, such as augmented reality, building information model-based visualisation, labour tracking, supply chain tracking, safety management, mobile equipment tracking and schedule and progress monitoring. Evaluations of the research papers were conducted based on three pillars: validation of technological feasibility, onsite application and user acceptance testing.

Technologies learned about in the literature review enabled the envisaging of the pervasive construction site of the future. The paper presents scenarios for the future context-aware construction site, including the construction worker, construction procurement management and future real-time safety management systems.

Based on the gaps identified by the review in the body of knowledge and on a broader analysis of technology diffusion, the paper highlights the research challenges to be overcome in the advent of digital skin. The paper recommends that researchers follow a coherent process for smart technology design, development and implementation in order to achieve this vision for the construction industry.

Buildings use approximately 40% of global energy and are responsible for almost a third of the worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. They also utilise about 60% of the world’s electricity. In the last decade, stringent building regulations have led to significant improvements in the quality of the thermal characteristics of many building envelopes. However, similar considerations have not been paid to the number and activities of occupants in a building, which play an increasingly important role in energy consumption, optimisation processes, and indoor air quality. More than 50% of the energy consumption could be saved in Demand Controlled Ventilation (DCV) if accurate information about the number of occupants is readily available (Mysen et al., 2005). But due to privacy concerns, designing a precise occupancy sensing/counting system is a highly challenging task. While several studies count the number of occupants in rooms/zones for the optimisation of energy consumption, insufficient information is available on the comparison, analysis and pros and cons of these occupancy estimation techniques. This paper provides a review of occupancy measurement techniques and also discusses research trends and challenges. Additionally, a novel privacy preserved occupancy monitoring solution is also proposed in this paper. Security analyses of the proposed scheme reveal that the new occupancy monitoring system is privacy preserved compared to other traditional schemes.

As an advanced manufacturing method, additive manufacturing (AM) technology provides new possibilities for efficient production and design of parts. However, with the continuous expansion of the application of AM materials, subtractive processing has become one of the necessary steps to improve the accuracy and performance of parts. In this paper, the processing process of AM materials is discussed in depth, and the surface integrity problem caused by it is discussed.

Firstly, we listed and analyzed the characterization parameters of metal surface integrity and its influence on the performance of parts and then introduced the application of integrated processing of metal adding and subtracting materials and the influence of different processing forms on the surface integrity of parts. The surface of the trial-cut material is detected and analyzed, and the surface of the integrated processing of adding and subtracting materials is compared with that of the pure processing of reducing materials, so that the corresponding conclusions are obtained.

In this process, we also found some surface integrity problems, such as knife marks, residual stress and thermal effects. These problems may have a potential negative impact on the performance of the final parts. In processing, we can try to use other integrated processing technologies of adding and subtracting materials, try to combine various integrated processing technologies of adding and subtracting materials, or consider exploring more efficient AM technology to improve processing efficiency. We can also consider adopting production process optimization measures to reduce the processing cost of adding and subtracting materials.

With the gradual improvement of the requirements for the surface quality of parts in the production process and the in-depth implementation of sustainable manufacturing, the demand for integrated processing of metal addition and subtraction materials is likely to continue to grow in the future. By deeply understanding and studying the problems of material reduction and surface integrity of AM materials, we can better meet the challenges in the manufacturing process and improve the quality and performance of parts. This research is very important for promoting the development of manufacturing technology and achieving success in practical application.

Factitious disorder, commonly called Munchhausen's syndrome, is a rare disorder that lacks evidence-based guidelines. Reporting clinical cases is important for sharing clinical experiences and treatment strategies. The symptoms and progression of the following case have not been previously reported in the literature. Here, we report a case involving a 41-year-old Caucasian with a suspected psychosomatic disorder. After intensive multi-professional diagnostics, we concluded that the patient had factitious disorder. The symptoms in this case changed rapidly during treatment, which posed a challenge. For factitious disorder, establishing interdisciplinary exchange is important. Symptoms that are normally treated by internists are most commonly described in the literature. This case demonstrates that psychiatrists are challenged by this diagnosis and should consider the possibility of factitious disorder when seeing patients diagnosed with somatoform disorders. The most important clinical conclusion was the importance of involving the patients' relatives in the treatment of patients with factitious disorder.