Comparing the supply of pediatric subspecialists and child neurologists

OBJECTIVE: To examine physician workforce characteristics and workforce projections of one vulnerable pediatric subspecialty, child neurology, and compare this subspecialty with other pediatric subspecialties, general pediatrics, and adult neurology. STUDY DESIGN: National survey of child neurologists compared with other pediatric specialties in the Community Tracking Study Physician Survey (CTS) and the American Medical Association (AMA) Masterfile, and input-output workforce projections. RESULTS: Child neurologists are more likely than other specialists to report that the complexity or severity of patients' conditions at the time of referral is less than it should be and that the number of patients being referred to them has increased. Projections of the future workforce reveal that by 2022 the number of pediatric subspecialists and pediatricians will increase substantially, to almost 180% and 150% of the current workforce, respectively. Among child neurologists and adult neurologists, practicing physicians will be only 109% and 105% of the current workforce by 2022. CONCLUSIONS: Child neurologists are more likely to face future workforce shortages than other pediatric subspecialists. To reduce future shortages, recruitment efforts need to be concentrated on the at-risk subspecialties such as child neurology. In the short-term, addressing the high prevalence of inappropriate low-acuity referrals to child neurologists may ease the gap between supply and demand.     

The usefulness of a temporal correlation technique in the assessment of human motor performance on a tracking device

The usefulness of quantifying a human subject's tracking performance by means of a temporal correlation technique has been investigated using a pursuit tracking device. Three tracking tasks of varying degrees of difficulty were employed in order to test the technique over a range of performances. A crosspower spectral-density analysis of the results has aided in checking the validity of this method of performance assessment. Ten subjects of various ages were investigated over a period of several months. From the results it was felt that this technique provided an ibjective assessment of motor performance that was both meaningful and reproducible.     

江西省关于预包装食品国家标准的跟踪评价报告

目的了解江西省监督部门、检验机构、食品生产企业、食品专家对强制性食品安全国家标准《预包装食品标签通则》(GB7718-2011)和《预包装食品营养标签通则》(GB28050-2011)的执行、理解能力和依从性,为将来修订标准储备资料[1]。方法采用横断面调查法,于2013年7~9月间,通过调查员培训、邮寄、电子邮件、现场发放问卷及现场采样等形式展开调查。调查点采用多阶段分层随机抽样的方法抽取江西省6个设区市(南昌、宜春、吉安、上饶、九江、赣州)及其所属的2个县,调查对象为18个调查点的所有食品监督部门、检验机构、食品生产企业。调查内容有:基本情况、对标准条款的理解和执行情况及遇到的主要问题、修改意见和建议。现场调查结果显示:94.6%的预包装食品标签符合GB7718的要求,78.2%符合GB28050的要求。结论跟踪评价结果表明:标准的整体合理性较高、可操作性较好,但部分条款应根据跟踪评价的结果及时更新和修订。     

色差分析法测定治偏痛微丸圆整度的计算方法研究

在以色差分析边缘跟踪方法的基础上,针对所采集的小丸图像的特点,将小丸边缘检测和边缘点连接结合为一体,提出一种基于标准圆形状知识指导下的色差分析自适应边缘跟踪方法,实现了小丸图像边缘特征点的全自动定位。实验表明,该方法快速而有效。     

Pursuing motion illusions: a realistic oculomotor framework for Bayesian inference

Accuracy in estimating an object’s global motion over time is not only affected by the noise in visual motion information but also by the spatial limitation of the local motion analyzers (aperture problem). Perceptual and oculomotor data demonstrate that during the initial stages of the motion information processing, 1D motion cues related to the object’s edges have a dominating influence over the estimate of the object’s global motion. However, during the later stages, 2D motion cues related to terminators (edge-endings) progressively take over, leading to a final correct estimate of the object’s global motion. Here, we propose a recursive extension to the Bayesian framework for motion processing (Weiss, Simoncelli, & Adelson, 2002) cascaded with a model oculomotor plant to describe the dynamic integration of 1D and 2D motion information in the context of smooth pursuit eye movements. In the recurrent Bayesian framework, the prior defined in the velocity space is combined with the two independent measurement likelihood functions, representing edge-related and terminator-related information, respectively to obtain the posterior. The prior is updated with the posterior at the end of each iteration step. The maximum-a posteriori (MAP) of the posterior distribution at every time step is fed into the oculomotor plant to produce eye velocity responses that are compared to the human smooth pursuit data. The recurrent model was tuned with the variance of pursuit responses to either “pure” 1D or “pure” 2D motion. The oculomotor plant was tuned with an independent set of oculomotor data, including the effects of line length (i.e. stimulus energy) and directional anisotropies in the smooth pursuit responses. The model not only provides an accurate qualitative account of dynamic motion integration but also a quantitative account that is close to the smooth pursuit response across several conditions (three contrasts and three speeds) for two human subjects.     

城市创建无鼠害考核方法的研究

本文报道采用鼠夹法、粉迹法及拖食法,对上海城市鼠密度进行了调查分析。结果观察到,在以黄胸鼠为主的地区,粉迹法测定鼠密度较稳定,拖食法次之,鼠夹法变化大。在以小家鼠为主的地区,粉迹法与鼠夹法的差别不明显。因此,测定城市室内鼠密度使用的监测与考核方法,应考虑鼠种及鼠的行为特点。     

Calibration for Position Tracking of Swept Motor 3-D Ultrasound

Tracking the position and orientation of a 3-D ultrasound transducer has many clinical applications. Tracking requires calibration to find the transformation between the tracking sensor and the ultrasound coordinates. Typically the set of image slice data are scan converted to a Cartesian volume using assumed motor geometry and a single transformation to the sensor. We propose, instead, the calibration of individual slices using a 2-D calibration technique. A best fit to a subset of slices is performed to decrease data collection time compared with that for calibration of all slices, and to reduce the influence of random errors in individual calibrations. We compare our technique with four scan conversion-based techniques: 2-D N-wire on the center slice, N-wire using a 3-D volume, N-wire using a 3-D volume including the edge points and a new closed-form planar method using a 3-D volume. The proposed multi-slice technique produced the smallest point reconstruction error (0.82 mm using a tracked stylus).