This paper examines the issues that arise in the broad area of competence assessment in surgical practice, with particular reference to the objective assessment of technical skill which has historically been the weakest aspect of assessment in surgical training. To facilitate a thorough appraisal of competence, a simple model of surgical practice is advanced, followed by a review of both curren...

Model-driven software development is a promising way to cope with the complexity of system integration in advanced robotics, as it already demonstrated its benefits in domains with comparably challenging system integration requirements. This paper reports on work in progress in this area which aims to improve the research and experimentation process in a collaborative research project developin...

Background  Both general and technique-specific assessments of technical skill have been validated in surgical education. The purpose of this study was to assess the correlation between the objective structured assessment of technical skills (OSATS) and the global operative assessment of laparoscopic skills (GOALS) rating scales using a high-fidelity porcine laparoscopic cholecystectomy model. ...

China experienced a sharp increase in wage inequality between unskilled and skilled workers in the late 1990s. Using a sample of 1,500 firms in five Chinese cities with available data for 1998 and 2000, we investigate the role of technology and foreign trade in determining China’s wage inequality. We find evidence that conditional on the technology deployed, trade reduces wage inequality in exp...

in order to identifying factors affecting milled rice breakage losses in guilan province, a research was conducted based on the descriptive survey with association of 75 rice mill owner in guilan province. factors affecting milled rice breakage losses were recognized with the delphi technique. in this regard, a descriptive questionnaire with an open-ended question was distributed among 5 rice m...

In high-risk industries such as aviation, the skills not related directly to technical expertise, but crucial for maintaining safety (e.g. teamwork), have been categorized as non-technical skills. Recently, research in anaesthesia has identified and developed a taxonomy of the non-technical skills requisite for safety in the operating theatre. Although many of the principles related to performa...

An interesting aspect of games is the relative extent to which a player can positively influence his results by making appropriate strategic choices. This question is closely related to the issue of how to distinguish between games of skill and games of chance. The distinction between these two types of games is definitely interesting from a juridical point of view. Borm and Van der Genugten (2...

Employers expect graduates and postgraduates to demonstrate their education through more than good grades. Learning activities that develop subject skills during formalized programmes of undergraduate and postgraduate study also develop employability skills, if the curriculum is suitably aligned, and developmental planning is supported. Only little extra provision is required, but all developme...

PURPOSE The effect of e-learning on practical skills in medicine has not yet been thoroughly investigated. Today's multimedia learning environment and access to e-books provide students with more knowledge than ever before. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of online demonstrations concerning the quality of orthodontic appliances manufactured by undergraduate dental students. MA...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The most remarkable behavioral asymmetry is handedness. The preferred hand often has better performance, motor strength, nonpreferred hand. However, whether these components are associated with skill learning is not clear. METHODS We evaluated healthy right-handers by setting a series of motor-performance tasks including skill learning, grip strength, and speed. RESUL...