Preparing educators for problem-based and community-based curricula: a student''s experiences

Doing a liver test before the use of OCs is advisable for women who face risks, those with previous history of liver disease and familial benign hyperbilirubinemia. For those women who have a negative anamnesis with regard to each of these risk factors, it is not necessary to carry out a liver test before prescribing OCs. The risk of worsening latent chronic hepatitis is very small, and the occurrence of subsequent liver lesions is extremely rare. It is sufficient to carry out the test in women at risk after 3 months and after 1 year of OC use. This applies to patients with intensified cholestatic reactions, which have been asymptomatic, as well as to patients with latent chronic liver disease. The liver test needs to be repeated at regular intervals only when the following clinical symptoms are present: dyspepsia, pruritus, and icterus. Benign and malignant liver tumors cannot be confirmed by liver tests; therefore, there is no justification for this. On the other hand, it is believed that the very low incidence of liver tumors in a small group of women who continue to use OCs for more than 8 years would meet the indication for liver examination. Absolute contraindications for the use of OCs with regard to liver function are considered only for liver disease with prolonged higher liver test values, cholestatic jaundice in pregnancy, and liver tumor.     

Answer Justification in Diagnostic Expert Systems?Part I: Abductive Inference and Its Justification

Answer justification refers to the ability of an expert system to explain how or why it arrived at certain conclusions (such as a patient's differential diagnosis or treatment recommendations). In this paper, we describe an "abductive" inference method suitable for use in medical expert systems. We then demonstrate how this method can support a clinically plausible form of answer justification in functioning expert systems. A companion paper (Part II) provides the technical details of how the answer justification method described in this paper is implemented, and compares it to previous answer justification methods developed during the last several years.     

Queries and Concept Learning

We consider the problem of using queries to learn an unknown concept. Several types of queries are described and studied: membership, equivalence, subset, superset, disjointness, and exhaustiveness queries. Examples are given of efficient learning methods using various subsets of these queries for formal domains, including the regular languages, restricted classes of context-free languages, the pattern languages, and restricted types of propositional formulas. Some general lower bound techniques are given. Equivalence queries are compared with Valiant's criterion of probably approximately correct identification under random sampling.     

Macroconceptual analysis of psychological literature: Online computer search systems.

Describes a macroconceptual approach to psychological literature that offers distinct advantages over manual search procedures. An online computer search permits component parts of a literature to be located, indicates changes over time in frequency and content of citations, and is able to characterize and organize an entire body of literature. The present article describes the PsycINFO database and other databases, provides a bibliography of 40 references on online searching, indicates the utility of cross-database searching, and suggests the feasibility of online document retrieval. The size, scope, and frequency of updates of relevant databases are examined, and the number of references retrieved in a sample search on anorexia nervosa is compared across sources. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Extracting alternative machining features: An algorithmic approach

Automated recognition of features from CAD models has been attempted for a wide range of application domains. In this article we address the problem of representing and recognizing a complete class of features in alternative interpretation for a given design.We present a methodology for recognizing a class of machinable features and addressing the computational problems posed by the existence of feature-based alternatives. Our approach addresses a class of volumetric features that describe material removal volumes made by operations on three-axis vertical machining centers, including drilling, pocket-milling, slot-milling, face-milling, chamfering, filleting, and blended surfaces.This approach recognizes intersecting features and is complete over all features in our class; i.e., for any given part, the algorithm produces a set containing all features in our class that correspond to possible operations for machining that part. This property is of particular significance in applications where consideration of different manufacturing alternatives is crucial.This approach employs a class of machinable features expressible as MRSEVs (a STEP-based library of machining features). An example of this methodology has been implemented using the ACIS solid modeler and the National Institute's of Health C++ class library.     

Conditioned emotional distress in women receiving chemotherapy for breast cancer.

This study investigated whether women undergoing outpatient chemotherapy for breast cancer can develop classically conditioned emotional distress. Women scheduled to begin chemotherapy were randomly assigned either to an experimental group (exposed to a distinctive stimulus before each chemotherapy infusion) or a control group. After repeated infusions of chemotherapy, patients' responses to the distinctive stimulus were assessed in a location not associated with chemotherapy administration. At the test trial, experimental group patients showed evidence of increased emotional distress (self-reported on a visual analog scale) after the presentation of the distinctive stimulus, whereas control group patients did not. Post hoc analyses indicated that these increases in distress were not secondary to other conditioned responses (e.g., nausea, taste aversion). Thus, results supported the hypothesis that the pairing of a distinctive stimulus with chemotherapy would result in the development of a conditioned emotional response. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Culturally diverse groups and MMPI interpretation.

In this article I suggest that culturally determined thought processes, including ethnocentrism, world view, and etic preoccupation predispose interpretation of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) to unintentional bias as a result of minimization of consistent group differences in item responding. Group personality as evidenced by group consciousness has been described by identity measures for Afro-Americans and acculturation indices for Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans. Instruments for world view measurement have been developed from several perspectives. Research on the potential cultural content of differences in MMPI item responding by Afro-Americans and other cultural groups continues to be necessary, although a more systematic approach to interpretation that includes identity and world view measures is now feasible. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Imagery in human classical conditioning.

Many clinical strategies use patients' imagery to explore and treat phobic and posttrauma reactions, however little attention has been paid to the underlying assumption that imagery of relevant stimuli may help maintain conditioned behavior. In this article, the authors examine the premise that mental images can potentiate and substitute for physical stimuli in human classical conditioning. The authors review empirical evidence to detail the role of images of conditioned stimuli (CS) and unconditioned stimuli (US) during pre-exposure to stimuli, the actual pairing of the CS and US, and extinction when the CS is presented alone. The evidence suggests that mental imagery can facilitate or diminish the outcome of classical conditioning in humans and, more tentatively, that mental images can substitute for actual US and CS in autonomic conditioning. They argue that researchers should explore the role of mental imagery in conditioning through the use of advances in the measurement of imagery. Finally, they analyze anxiety and trauma reactions as examples of how applied areas can be used to explore and benefit from developments in this area. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)