Experience from an optional dissection course in a clinically‐orientated concept to complement system‐based anatomy in a reformed curriculum

Profound anatomical knowledge is the basis for modern demands in medicine and surgery, but many countries worldwide including Australia and New Zealand have discontinued offering dissection courses to medical and dental students during the past decades. This educational project done in Australia aimed at enhancing basic and advanced anatomy teaching by engaging a sub-group of second-year undergraduate students of a compulsory prosection- and model-based anatomy course (n = 54/170) in an optional multimodal course, which should easily articulate with a vertical curriculum. With topographical cadaver dissections as core, peer student-teams prepared and peer-assessed anatomy lectures based on clinical topics, which were rated highly by the peers and teachers. Anatomical knowledge was tested by quizzes and a multiple-choice examination. Individual dissection skills were self- and teacher-assessed. A final course grade was assigned based on these assessments. The grades in the system-based compulsory course achieved by the attendees of the paralleling dissection course were compared with their peers attending other optional courses. After beginning of the semester, the students in the dissection course performed similar, significantly (P < 0.005) improved during the semester (78.5% vs. 69.9%, 70.1% vs. 64.1%), but in the integrated (including anatomy, biochemistry, physiology) final examination at the end of the year only tended to higher scores. As assessed through interviews and a voluntary questionnaire, all students of the optional dissection course liked these activities, which enhanced their learning experience. Thus, this concept elegantly integrates anatomical dissection with modern teaching demands and is feasible for implementation in modernized curricula

A need for logical and consistent anatomical nomenclature for cutaneous nerves of the limbs

The system of anatomical nomenclature needs to be logical and consistent. However, variations in translation to English of the Latin and Greek terminology used in Nomina Anatomica and Terminologia Anatomica have led to some inconsistency in the nomenclature of cutaneous nerves in the limbs. An historical review of cutaneous nerve nomenclature reveals that there are two general naming conventions: one primarily American and one primarily British. The American convention presents cutaneous nerves of the limbs in the format “medial brachial cutaneous nerve,” while the British convention presents the same nerve as “medial cutaneous nerve of the arm,” thereby translating “brachii” to “of the arm.” If logically and consistently applied throughout the body, the British convention would rename the sural nerve to the “nerve of the calf,” the brachial artery would become the “artery of the arm,” the femoral nerve would be “nerve of the thigh,” and femur would be “bone of the thigh” or “thigh bone.” The British convention leads to many other nomenclatural inconsistencies, which would seem to make learning anatomy more difficult for the beginning student. In this era of contracting anatomy curricula, every effort should be made to keep anatomical nomenclature simple, logical, and consistent. Anat Sci Ed 2:126–134, 2009. © 2009 American Association of Anatomists.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/63079/1/90_ftp.pd

Approximation of Contact Geometry in the Dynamical Simulation of Wheel-Rail Systems

Models for the geometrical contact of wheel and rail are a basic component of multibody system (MBS) models for wheel-rail systems. Approximations are used to get sufficiently differentiable contact conditions that can be evaluated efficiently. We discuss an approximation that is essentially based on polynomial 2D-tensorproduct splines and minimizes a functional that combines a weighted least squares approximation of a rigid contact model with a smoothing term. An efficient algorithm to compute the tensorproduct spline is developed, the parallelization on a cluster of workstations is discussed. We report on results of both the sequential and the parallel algorithm and give simulation results for a rigid wheelset on a straight track. Key words: dynamical simulation, multibody systems, PVM, tensorproduct spline, wheel-rail contact Subject classification (AMS): 65C20, 65D07, 65Y05 1 INTRODUCTION Dynamical simulation is a more and more essential part in the design and analysis process of..

The approximation of contact geometry in the dynamical simulation of wheel-rail systems

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The Approximation of Contact Conditions in the Dynamical Simulation of Wheel-Rail Systems

Models for the geometrical contact of wheel and rail are a basic component of multibody system (MBS) models for wheel-rail systems. Approximations are used to get sufficiently differentiable contact conditions that can be evaluated efficiently. We discuss an approximation that is essentially based on polynomial 2D-tensorproduct splines and minimizes a functional that combines a weighted least squares approximation of a rigid contact model with a smoothing term. An efficient algorithm to compute the tensorproduct spline is developed, the parallelization on a cluster of workstations is discussed. We report on results of both the sequential and the parallel algorithm and give simulation results for a rigid wheelset on a straight track. 1 Introduction Dynamical simulation is a more and more essential part in the design and analysis processes of advanced railway vehicles. Within simulation packages the dynamical behaviour of wheelrail systems has to be analysed for large sets of parameters..

Wear Profiles and the Dynamical Simulation of Wheel-Rail Systems

Recently, a quasi-elastic model for the contact between two rigid bodies was introduced, that is tailored to the contact between a wheel with wear profile and a rail ([1]). This new approach to the geometrical description of wheel-rail contact is used successfully in the dynamical simulation of wheelrail systems that have wheels with wear profiles. In the present paper we discuss the application of the quasi-elastic contact model in the dynamical simulation and the efficient numerical solution of the model equations. 1 Introduction Simulation tools get more and more important in the design and analysis process of modern advanced railway vehicle developments. Typical applications are parameter studies of the system behaviour in time or frequency domain to get an idea of the sensitivity of the design w. r. t. system parameters. In this field the multibody system (MBS) approach is well established, i. e. the wheel-rail system is modelled as system of rigid or elastic bodies which are con..

Wear profiles and the dynamical simulation of wheel-rail systems

Oberpfaffenhofen 970814