The effect of magnetic stimulation on potential rhythm of cerebral cortex

An approach using magnetic stimulation to modulate the electromagnetic potential rhythm of the cerebral cortex to induce sleep is proposed. Animal experiments were designed and carried out to examine this approach. The results showed that, in comparison with a control group, magnetic stimulation can influence and modulate the activities of brain potentials, and consequently promote the efficiency of the sleep process (p<0.01).published_or_final_versio

Studying ICT supported pedagogical practices

During the past decade there has been an exponential growth in the use of information and communication technology (ICT) and this has made pervasive impacts both on the society and on our daily lives. It is thus not surprising to find increasing interest, attention and investment put into the use of ICT in education all around the world. In addition to efforts to make use of ICT to improve learning, the emergence of the knowledge economy has also brought about in recent years a much greater emphasis on education and a number of masterplans in ICT in education has been produced in many countries. Such masterplans detailed not only strategies for implementation but more importantly embedded the plans within a broader framework of education reform that aimed to develop students’ capacities for self-learning, problem-solving, information seeking and analysis, critical thinking and the ability to communicate, collaborate and learn via the internet, abilities that figured much less importantly in the school curricula before. In this context, a new term, “emerging pedagogical practice”, was used in SITES (the Second International Information Technology in Education Study, conducted under the auspices of the IEA) (Pelgrum, 1999) to highlight the changing pedagogical goals and practices that has resulted from the use of ICT in education, as opposed to those uses that just aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of “traditionally important pedagogical practices”. However, the concept of “emerging pedagogical practice” as depicted in the SITES Module 1 (M1) report is still rather vague. When schools have access to computers and the Internet to support teaching and learning, how would teachers and students make use of them? What impact has ICT made on classroom practices? What changes, if any, has ICT made on the roles of teachers and students and the interactions between them? Has the introduction of ICT in schools brought about the desired education reforms envisaged in the ICT in education masterplans or are these wishful optimisms? Are there more effective models of ICT implementation in schools, and if so what are their characteristics? In conjunction with the SITES M1 Hong Kong study, we have conducted a study of good practices in the use of ICT for teaching and learning using the case studies approach. The main goal of this extension study was to explore the above questions in the context of good practices as commonly recognized by members of the education community, and to develop ways of disseminating such good practices. This paper describes the conceptual framework and methodology used in this study and reports briefly on some key findings from the study. The research methodology used in this Study is based on a model of pedagogical practice that is couched within a broad curriculum framework where the pedagogical practice is the implemented curriculum. There are two parts to the research. The first part is to investigate and to build models of pedagogical practices involving use of ICT. Here the assumption (substantiated by observations) is that the way ICT is incorporated into classrooms is very much dictated by the teachers’ general beliefs and approaches to education. The second component of the methodology deals with the models (strategies) of educational change used in different schools in introducing ICT across the curriculum and to explore if particular models of pedagogical practice is linked with specific school implementation strategies.published_or_final_versio

Low-dose versus high-dose fish oil for pain reduction and function improvement in patients with knee osteoarthritis

postprin

A deformation transformer for real-time cloth animation

Achieving interactive performance in cloth animation has significant implications in computer games and other interactive graphics applications. Although much progress has been made, it is still much desired to have real-time high-quality results that well preserve dynamic folds and wrinkles. In this paper, we introduce a hybrid method for real-time cloth animation. It relies on datadriven models to capture the relationship between cloth deformations at two resolutions. Such data-driven models are responsible for transforming low-quality simulated deformations at the low resolution into high-resolution cloth deformations with dynamically introduced fine details. Our data-driven transformation is trained using rotation invariant quantities extracted from the cloth models, and is independent of the simulation technique chosen for the lower resolution model. We have also developed a fast collision detection and handling scheme based on dynamically transformed bounding volumes. All the components in our algorithm can be efficiently implemented on programmable graphics hardware to achieve an overall real-time performance on high-resolution cloth models. © 2010 ACM.postprin

Lumbar intervertebral disc allograft transplantation: long-term mobility and impact on the adjacent segments

Purpose: Fresh-frozen intervertebral disc (IVD) allograft transplantation has been successfully performed in the human cervical spine. Whether this non-fusion technology could truly decrease adjacent segment disease is still unknown. This study evaluated the long-term mobility of the IVD-transplanted segment and the impact on the adjacent spinal segments in a goat model. Methods: Twelve goats were used. IVD allograft transplantation was performed at lumbar L4/L5 in 5 goats; the other 7 goats were used as the untreated control (5) and for the supply of allografts (2). Post-operation lateral radiographs of the lumbar spine in the neutral, full-flexion and full-extension positions were taken at 1, 3, 6, 9 and 12 months. Disc height (DH) of the allograft and the adjacent levels was calculated and range of motion (ROM) was measured using the Cobb’s method. The anatomy of the adjacent discs was observed histologically. Results: DH of the transplanted segment was decreased significantly after 3 months but no further reduction was recorded until the final follow-up. No obvious alteration was seen in the ROM of the transplanted segment at different time points with the ROM at 12 months being comparable to that of the untreated control. The DH and ROM in the adjacent segments were well maintained during the whole observation period. At post-operative 12 months, the ROM of the adjacent levels was similar to that of the untreated control and the anatomical morphology was well preserved. Conclusions: Lumbar IVD allograft transplantation in goats could restore the segmental mobility and did not negatively affect the adjacent segments after 12 months.postprin

Strontium incorporated coralline hydroxyapatite for engineering bone

Goniopora was hydrothermally converted to coralline hydroxyapatite (CHA) and incorporated with Sr (Sr-CHA). The pore size of Goniopora was in the range of 40–300 μm with a porosity of about 68%. Surface morphologies of the coral were modified to flake-like hydroxyapatite structures on CHA and the addition of Sr detected on Sr-CHA as confirmed by SEM and EDX. As the first report of incorporating Sr into coral, about 6%–14% Sr was detected on Sr-CHA. The compressive strengths of CHA and Sr-CHA were not compromised due to the hydrothermal treatments. Sr-CHA was studied in vitro using MC3T3-E1 cells and in vivo with an ovariectomized rat model. The proliferation of MC3T3-E1 cells was significantly promoted by Sr-CHA as compared to CHA. Moreover, higher scaffold volume retention (+40%) was reported on the micro-CT analysis of the Sr-CHA scaffold. The results suggest that the incorporation of Sr in CHA can further enhance the osteoconductivity and osteoinductivity of corals. Strontium has been suggested to stimulate bone growth and inhibit bone resorption. In this study, we have successfully incorporated Sr into CHA with the natural porous structure remained and explored the idea of Sr-CHA as a potential scaffolding material for bone regeneration.published_or_final_versio

Fast and Accurate Camera Covariance Computation for Large 3D Reconstruction

Estimating uncertainty of camera parameters computed in Structure from Motion (SfM) is an important tool for evaluating the quality of the reconstruction and guiding the reconstruction process. Yet, the quality of the estimated parameters of large reconstructions has been rarely evaluated due to the computational challenges. We present a new algorithm which employs the sparsity of the uncertainty propagation and speeds the computation up about ten times \wrt previous approaches. Our computation is accurate and does not use any approximations. We can compute uncertainties of thousands of cameras in tens of seconds on a standard PC. We also demonstrate that our approach can be effectively used for reconstructions of any size by applying it to smaller sub-reconstructions.Comment: ECCV 201

Knowledge Author: Facilitating user-driven, Domain content development to support clinical information extraction

Background: Clinical Natural Language Processing (NLP) systems require a semantic schema comprised of domain-specific concepts, their lexical variants, and associated modifiers to accurately extract information from clinical texts. An NLP system leverages this schema to structure concepts and extract meaning from the free texts. In the clinical domain, creating a semantic schema typically requires input from both a domain expert, such as a clinician, and an NLP expert who will represent clinical concepts created from the clinician's domain expertise into a computable format usable by an NLP system. The goal of this work is to develop a web-based tool, Knowledge Author, that bridges the gap between the clinical domain expert and the NLP system development by facilitating the development of domain content represented in a semantic schema for extracting information from clinical free-text. Results: Knowledge Author is a web-based, recommendation system that supports users in developing domain content necessary for clinical NLP applications. Knowledge Author's schematic model leverages a set of semantic types derived from the Secondary Use Clinical Element Models and the Common Type System to allow the user to quickly create and modify domain-related concepts. Features such as collaborative development and providing domain content suggestions through the mapping of concepts to the Unified Medical Language System Metathesaurus database further supports the domain content creation process. Two proof of concept studies were performed to evaluate the system's performance. The first study evaluated Knowledge Author's flexibility to create a broad range of concepts. A dataset of 115 concepts was created of which 87 (76%) were able to be created using Knowledge Author. The second study evaluated the effectiveness of Knowledge Author's output in an NLP system by extracting concepts and associated modifiers representing a clinical element, carotid stenosis, from 34 clinical free-text radiology reports using Knowledge Author and an NLP system, pyConText. Knowledge Author's domain content produced high recall for concepts (targeted findings: 86%) and varied recall for modifiers (certainty: 91% sidedness: 80%, neurovascular anatomy: 46%). Conclusion: Knowledge Author can support clinical domain content development for information extraction by supporting semantic schema creation by domain experts

《學習2.0》：一個支援新高中通識教育及專題研究的學習及評估平臺

Liberal Studies as a mandatory subject in the New Secondary School curriculum will be implemented starting from September 2009. This subject adopts an inquiry-based approach and the content is structured around a range of important contemporary issues. Teachers face new challenges in teaching and assessing this subject: how to guide students to read critically, find useful information from the internet, formulate inquiry questions and to undertake evidence-based inquiry; how to support student collaboration and at the same time be able to assess the efforts and achievements of individual students; and how to provide adequate feedback to students at various stages of inquiry such that assessment can be both formative and summative. In addition, facilitating students to work autonomously online generally brings heavy workload on teachers. This paper introduces the Learning 2.0 project which comprises the development of an open-source online learning and assessment platform using Web 2.0 technology to provide support for the learning and teaching in the NSS Liberal Studies Curriculum.published_or_final_versio