Methods and Tools for Objective Assessment of Psychomotor Skills in Laparoscopic Surgery

Training and assessment paradigms for laparoscopic surgical skills are evolving from traditional mentor–trainee tutorship towards structured, more objective and safer programs. Accreditation of surgeons requires reaching a consensus on metrics and tasks used to assess surgeons’ psychomotor skills. Ongoing development of tracking systems and software solutions has allowed for the expansion of novel training and assessment means in laparoscopy. The current challenge is to adapt and include these systems within training programs, and to exploit their possibilities for evaluation purposes. This paper describes the state of the art in research on measuring and assessing psychomotor laparoscopic skills. It gives an overview on tracking systems as well as on metrics and advanced statistical and machine learning techniques employed for evaluation purposes. The later ones have a potential to be used as an aid in deciding on the surgical competence level, which is an important aspect when accreditation of the surgeons in particular, and patient safety in general, are considered. The prospective of these methods and tools make them complementary means for surgical assessment of motor skills, especially in the early stages of training. Successful examples such as the Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery should help drive a paradigm change to structured curricula based on objective parameters. These may improve the accreditation of new surgeons, as well as optimize their already overloaded training schedules.

Tools in Spanish Universities to facilitate the transmission from High School to University and their assessment.

Incoming students in the University have education deficiencies, so universities studies require a sound basis of scientific knowledge. In this project are analysed instruments to reinforcing knowledge in those areas related to the studies that students are about to embark on public Spanish universities. There are important differences among universities and, in each university there are great differences among titles. Initial courses (cursos cero) are widespread (in 50% of universities) that selfevaluation instruments (14 % of universities). It is necessary to improve diffusion of those instruments because it is not possible to evaluate them. So are proposed the next actuations: to make regular standard surveys for professors and students; to publish results of surveys; public universities should institutionalize their basic training offer and improve the dissemination of this offer especially through the web. This paper presents a questionnaire to assess student opinion about these tools. To analyze the effectiveness, and make an initial estimate of the evaluation of these tools, we conducted a pilot test of the questionnaire with 68 students at the University of Extremadura. The results of preliminary statistical analysis conducted on the pilot test indicate that the survey results are reliable. A global evaluation of both tools, with a scale of 1 to 5, gave an average score of 3.29 for initial courses and 3.41 for selfevaluation. The 72.9% of the students consider the "self assessment" more effective than the "initial course"

Assessment of irrigators’ preferences for different water supply risk management tools: option contract and insurance.

Irrigators face the risk of not having enough water to meet their crops’ demand. There are different mechanisms to cope with this risk, including water markets (option contracts) or insurance. A farmer will purchase them when the expected utility change derived from the tool is positive. This paper presents a theoretical assessment of the farmer’s expected utility under two different option contracts, a drought insurance and a combination of an option contract and the insurance. We analyze the conditions that determine farmer’s reference for one instrument or the other and perform a numerical application that is relevant for a Spanish region.

Lagrangian tools and the assessment of the predictive capacity of geophysical data sets

We examine, with recently developed Lagrangian tools, altimeter data and numerical simulations obtained from the HYCOM model in the Gulf of Mexico. Our data correspond to the months just after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the year 2010. Our Lagrangian analysis provides a skeleton that allows the interpretation of transport routes over the ocean surface. The transport routes are further verified by the simultaneous study of the evolution of several drifters launched during those months in the Gulf of Mexico. We find that there exist Lagrangian structures that justify the dynamics of the drifters, although the agreement depends on the quality of the data. We discuss the impact of the Lagrangian tools on the assessment of the predictive capacity of these data sets.

Peer Assessment and Self-assessment: Effective Learning Tools in Higher Education.

When used appropriately, self- and peer-assessment are very effective learning tools. In the present work, instructor formative assessment and feedback, self-assessment (SA), and peer-assessment (PA) have been compared. During the first part of a semester, the students followed a continuous formative assessment. Subsequently, they were divided into two subgroups based on similar performances. One subgroup performed SAs, and the other followedPAduring the last part of the course. The performances of the two groups in solving problems were compared. Results suggest that PA is a more effective learning tool than SA, and both are more effective than instructor formative assessment. However, a survey that was conducted at the end of the experiment showed higher student confidence in instructor assessment than in PA. The students recognized the usefulness of acting as peer assessors, but believed that SA helped them more than PA.

Consequences of different meteorological scenarios in the environmental impact assessment of tritium in air

The environmental impact of systems managing large (kg) tritium amount represents a public scrutiny issue for the next coming fusion facilities as ITER and DEMO. Furthermore, potentially new dose limits imposed by international regulations (ICRP) shall impact next coming devices designs and the overall costs of fusion technology deployment. Refined environmental tritium dose impact assessment schemes are then overwhelming. Detailed assessments can be procured from the knowledge of the real boundary conditions of the primary tritium discharge phase into atmosphere (low levels) and into soils. Lagrangian dispersion models using real-time meteorological and topographic data provide a strong refinement. Advance simulation tools are being developed in this sense. The tool integrates a numerical model output records from European Centre for Medium range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) with a lagrangian atmospheric dispersion model (FLEXPART). The composite model ECMWF/FLEXTRA results can be coupled with tritium dose secondary phase pathway assessment tools. Nominal tritium discharge operational reference and selected incidental ITER-like plant systems tritium form source terms have been assumed. The realtime daily data and mesh-refined records together with lagrangian dispersion model approach provide accurate results for doses to population by inhalation or ingestion in the secondary phase

A modelling language for the resilience assessment of networked systems of systems

Systems of Systems (SoS) present challenging features and existing tools result often inadequate for their analysis, especially for heteregeneous networked infrastructures. Most accident scenarios in networked systems cannot be addressed by a simplistic black or white (i.e. functioning or failed) approach. Slow deviations from nominal operation conditions may cause degraded behaviours that suddenly end up into unexpected malfunctioning, with large portions of the network affected. In this paper,we present a language for modelling networked SoS. The language makes it possible to represent interdependencies of various natures, e.g. technical, organizational and human. The representation of interdependencies is based on control relationships that exchange physical quantities and related information. The language also makes it possible the identification of accident scenarios, by representing the propagation of failure events throughout the network. The results can be used for assessing the effectiveness of those mechanisms and measures that contribute to the overall resilience, both in qualitative and quantitative terms. The presented modelling methodology is general enough to be applied in combination with already existing system analysis techniques, such as risk assessment, dependability and performance evaluation

Comparison and Assessment of Two Emission inventories for the Madrid Region

Emission inventories are databases that aim to describe the polluting activities that occur across a certain geographic domain. According to the spatial scale, the availability of information will vary as well as the applied assumptions, which will strongly influence its quality, accuracy and representativeness. This study compared and contrasted two emission inventories describing the Greater Madrid Region (GMR) under an air quality simulation approach. The chosen inventories were the National Emissions Inventory (NEI) and the Regional Emissions Inventory of the Greater Madrid Region (REI). Both of them were used to feed air quality simulations with the CMAQ modelling system, and the results were compared with observations from the air quality monitoring network in the modelled domain. Through the application of statistical tools, the analysis of emissions at cell level and cell – expansion procedures, it was observed that the National Inventory showed better results for describing on – road traffic activities and agriculture, SNAP07 and SNAP10. The accurate description of activities, the good characterization of the vehicle fleet and the correct use of traffic emission factors were the main causes of such a good correlation. On the other hand, the Regional Inventory showed better descriptions for non – industrial combustion (SNAP02) and industrial activities (SNAP03). It incorporated realistic emission factors, a reasonable fuel mix and it drew upon local information sources to describe these activities, while NEI relied on surrogation and national datasets which leaded to a poorer representation. Off – road transportation (SNAP08) was similarly described by both inventories, while the rest of the SNAP activities showed a marginal contribution to the overall emissions.

Methodology for automated generation of multiple choice questions in self assessment

Current trends in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) are moving towards the continuous evaluation of the students in substitution of the traditional evaluation based on a single test or exam. This fact and the increase in the number of students during last years in Engineering Schools, requires to modify evaluation procedures making them compatible with the educational and research activities. This work presents a methodology for the automatic generation of questions. These questions can be used as self assessment questions by the student and/or as queries by the teacher. The proposed approach is based on the utilization of parametric questions, formulated as multiple choice questions and generated and supported by the utilization of common programs of data sheets and word processors. Through this approach, every teacher can apply the proposed methodology without the use of programs or tools different from those normally used in his/her daily activity

Overview of international research in generic competence assessment

The competency assessment is a key issue for improving the quality of teaching and learning within the current European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The aim of this paper is to review the current research on assessment of generic competences, especially through online tools. It has conducted a search of the Web of Knowledge (Thomson Reuters) from keywords. It have been reviewed the abstracts and the results have been classified by time periods, countries and research area. It has selected a set of articles of the period 2010?2012, in which we have analyzed future trends. It is concluded that the research of assessment generic competences is been developing nowadays in educational area, although is still more important in the professional one. Additionally, it is surprising that appears most often used in preuniversity education levels. The academic context has increased research activities over the past five years, with different developments in the Anglo?Saxon countries over that those countries attached to the Bologna Process. The latest reports indicate that the learning competences must meet the individual reality of each person, so that the use of ICTs in their development and evaluation are essential given its immediacy and motivational ability. There is a clear trend towards an evaluation model that includes a 360º specific and generic competences analysis.

Environmental risk assessment in open pit blasting operations: compliance with ISO 31010:2010

All activities of an organization involve risks that should be managed. The risk management process aids decision making by taking account of uncertainty and the possibility of future events or circumstances (intended or unintended) and their effects on agreed objectives. With that idea, new ISO Standard has been drawn up. ISO 31010 has been recently issued which provides a structured process that identifies how objectives may be affected, and analyses the risk in term of consequences and their probabilities before deciding on whether further treatment is required. In this lecture, that ISO Standard has been adapted to Open Pit Blasting Operations, focusing in Environmental effects which can be managed properly. Technique used is Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), which is applied in all possible scenarios, providing to Blasting Professionals the tools to identify, analyze and manage environmental effects in blasting operations. Also this lecture can help to minimize each effect, studying each case. This paper also can be useful to Project Managers and Occupational Health and Safety Departments (OH&S) because blasting operations can be evaluated and compared one to each other to determine the risks that should be managed in different case studies. The environmental effects studied are: ground vibrations, flyrock and air overpressure (airblast). Sometimes, blasting operations are carried out near populated areas where environmental effects may impose several limitations on the use of explosives. In those cases, where these factors approach certain limits, National Standards and Regulations have to be applied.

Efficient algorithms for dynamic probabilistic safety assessment. An application to convex damage domain.

The design of nuclear power plant has to follow a number of regulations aimed at limiting the risks inherent in this type of installation. The goal is to prevent and to limit the consequences of any possible incident that might threaten the public or the environment. To verify that the safety requirements are met a safety assessment process is followed. Safety analysis is as key component of a safety assessment, which incorporates both probabilistic and deterministic approaches. The deterministic approach attempts to ensure that the various situations, and in particular accidents, that are considered to be plausible, have been taken into account, and that the monitoring systems and engineered safety and safeguard systems will be capable of ensuring the safety goals. On the other hand, probabilistic safety analysis tries to demonstrate that the safety requirements are met for potential accidents both within and beyond the design basis, thus identifying vulnerabilities not necessarily accessible through deterministic safety analysis alone. Probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) methodology is widely used in the nuclear industry and is especially effective in comprehensive assessment of the measures needed to prevent accidents with small probability but severe consequences. Still, the trend towards a risk informed regulation (RIR) demanded a more extended use of risk assessment techniques with a significant need to further extend PSA’s scope and quality. Here is where the theory of stimulated dynamics (TSD) intervenes, as it is the mathematical foundation of the integrated safety assessment (ISA) methodology developed by the CSN(Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear) branch of Modelling and Simulation (MOSI). Such methodology attempts to extend classical PSA including accident dynamic analysis, an assessment of the damage associated to the transients and a computation of the damage frequency. The application of this ISA methodology requires a computational framework called SCAIS (Simulation Code System for Integrated Safety Assessment). SCAIS provides accident dynamic analysis support through simulation of nuclear accident sequences and operating procedures. Furthermore, it includes probabilistic quantification of fault trees and sequences; and integration and statistic treatment of risk metrics. SCAIS comprehensively implies an intensive use of code coupling techniques to join typical thermal hydraulic analysis, severe accident and probability calculation codes. The integration of accident simulation in the risk assessment process and thus requiring the use of complex nuclear plant models is what makes it so powerful, yet at the cost of an enormous increase in complexity. As the complexity of the process is primarily focused on such accident simulation codes, the question of whether it is possible to reduce the number of required simulation arises, which will be the focus of the present work. This document presents the work done on the investigation of more efficient techniques applied to the process of risk assessment inside the mentioned ISA methodology. Therefore such techniques will have the primary goal of decreasing the number of simulation needed for an adequate estimation of the damage probability. As the methodology and tools are relatively recent, there is not much work done inside this line of investigation, making it a quite difficult but necessary task, and because of time limitations the scope of the work had to be reduced. Therefore, some assumptions were made to work in simplified scenarios best suited for an initial approximation to the problem. The following section tries to explain in detail the process followed to design and test the developed techniques. Then, the next section introduces the general concepts and formulae of the TSD theory which are at the core of the risk assessment process. Afterwards a description of the simulation framework requirements and design is given. Followed by an introduction to the developed techniques, giving full detail of its mathematical background and its procedures. Later, the test case used is described and result from the application of the techniques is shown. Finally the conclusions are presented and future lines of work are exposed.

Core physics and safety analysis of Generation-IV Sodium Fast Reactors using existing and newly developed computational tools

El futuro de la energía nuclear de fisión dependerá, entre otros factores, de la capacidad que las nuevas tecnologías demuestren para solventar los principales retos a largo plazo que se plantean. Los principales retos se pueden resumir en los siguientes aspectos: la capacidad de proporcionar una solución final, segura y fiable a los residuos radiactivos; así como dar solución a la limitación de recursos naturales necesarios para alimentar los reactores nucleares; y por último, una mejora robusta en la seguridad de las centrales que en definitiva evite cualquier daño potencial tanto en la población como en el medio ambiente como consecuencia de cualquier escenario imaginable o más allá de lo imaginable. Siguiendo estas motivaciones, la Generación IV de reactores nucleares surge con el compromiso de proporcionar electricidad de forma sostenible, segura, económica y evitando la proliferación de material fisible. Entre los sistemas conceptuales que se consideran para la Gen IV, los reactores rápidos destacan por su capacidad potencial de transmutar actínidos a la vez que permiten una utilización óptima de los recursos naturales. Entre los refrigerantes que se plantean, el sodio parece una de las soluciones más prometedoras. Como consecuencia, esta tesis surgió dentro del marco del proyecto europeo CP-ESFR con el principal objetivo de evaluar la física de núcleo y seguridad de los reactores rápidos refrigerados por sodio, al tiempo que se desarrollaron herramientas apropiadas para dichos análisis. Efectivamente, en una primera parte de la tesis, se abarca el estudio de la física del núcleo de un reactor rápido representativo, incluyendo el análisis detallado de la capacidad de transmutar actínidos minoritarios. Como resultado de dichos análisis, se publicó un artículo en la revista Annals of Nuclear Energy [96]. Por otra parte, a través de un análisis de un hipotético escenario nuclear español, se evalúo la disponibilidad de recursos naturales necesarios en el caso particular de España para alimentar una flota específica de reactores rápidos, siguiendo varios escenarios de demanda, y teniendo en cuenta la capacidad de reproducción de plutonio que tienen estos sistemas. Como resultado de este trabajo también surgió una publicación en otra revista científica de prestigio internacional como es Energy Conversion and Management [97]. Con objeto de realizar esos y otros análisis, se desarrollaron diversos modelos del núcleo del ESFR siguiendo varias configuraciones, y para diferentes códigos. Por otro lado, con objeto de poder realizar análisis de seguridad de reactores rápidos, son necesarias herramientas multidimensionales de alta fidelidad específicas para reactores rápidos. Dichas herramientas deben integrar fenómenos relacionados con la neutrónica y con la termo-hidráulica, entre otros, mediante una aproximación multi-física. Siguiendo este objetivo, se evalúo el código de difusión neutrónica ANDES para su aplicación a reactores rápidos. ANDES es un código de resolución nodal que se encuentra implementado dentro del sistema COBAYA3 y está basado en el método ACMFD. Por lo tanto, el método ACMFD fue sometido a una revisión en profundidad para evaluar su aptitud para la aplicación a reactores rápidos. Durante ese proceso, se identificaron determinadas limitaciones que se discutirán a lo largo de este trabajo, junto con los desarrollos que se han elaborado e implementado para la resolución de dichas dificultades. Por otra parte, se desarrolló satisfactoriamente el acomplamiento del código neutrónico ANDES con un código termo-hidráulico de subcanales llamado SUBCHANFLOW, desarrollado recientemente en el KIT. Como conclusión de esta parte, todos los desarrollos implementados son evaluados y verificados. En paralelo con esos desarrollos, se calcularon para el núcleo del ESFR las secciones eficaces en multigrupos homogeneizadas a nivel nodal, así como otros parámetros neutrónicos, mediante los códigos ERANOS, primero, y SERPENT, después. Dichos parámetros se utilizaron más adelante para realizar cálculos estacionarios con ANDES. Además, como consecuencia de la contribución de la UPM al paquete de seguridad del proyecto CP-ESFR, se calcularon mediante el código SERPENT los parámetros de cinética puntual que se necesitan introducir en los típicos códigos termo-hidráulicos de planta, para estudios de seguridad. En concreto, dichos parámetros sirvieron para el análisis del impacto que tienen los actínidos minoritarios en el comportamiento de transitorios. Concluyendo, la tesis presenta una aproximación sistemática y multidisciplinar aplicada al análisis de seguridad y comportamiento neutrónico de los reactores rápidos de sodio de la Gen-IV, usando herramientas de cálculo existentes y recién desarrolladas ad' hoc para tal aplicación. Se ha empleado una cantidad importante de tiempo en identificar limitaciones de los métodos nodales analíticos en su aplicación en multigrupos a reactores rápidos, y se proponen interesantes soluciones para abordarlas. ABSTRACT The future of nuclear reactors will depend, among other aspects, on the capability to solve the long-term challenges linked to this technology. These are the capability to provide a definite, safe and reliable solution to the nuclear wastes; the limitation of natural resources, needed to fuel the reactors; and last but not least, the improved safety, which would avoid any potential damage on the public and or environment as a consequence of any imaginable and beyond imaginable circumstance. Following these motivations, the IV Generation of nuclear reactors arises, with the aim to provide sustainable, safe, economic and proliferationresistant electricity. Among the systems considered for the Gen IV, fast reactors have a representative role thanks to their potential capacity to transmute actinides together with the optimal usage of natural resources, being the sodium fast reactors the most promising concept. As a consequence, this thesis was born in the framework of the CP-ESFR project with the generic aim of evaluating the core physics and safety of sodium fast reactors, as well as the development of the approppriated tools to perform such analyses. Indeed, in a first part of this thesis work, the main core physics of the representative sodium fast reactor are assessed, including a detailed analysis of the capability to transmute minor actinides. A part of the results obtained have been published in Annals of Nuclear Energy [96]. Moreover, by means of the analysis of a hypothetical Spanish nuclear scenario, the availability of natural resources required to deploy an specific fleet of fast reactor is assessed, taking into account the breeding properties of such systems. This work also led to a publication in Energy Conversion and Management [97]. In order to perform those and other analyses, several models of the ESFR core were created for different codes. On the other hand, in order to perform safety studies of sodium fast reactors, high fidelity multidimensional analysis tools for sodium fast reactors are required. Such tools should integrate neutronic and thermal-hydraulic phenomena in a multi-physics approach. Following this motivation, the neutron diffusion code ANDES is assessed for sodium fast reactor applications. ANDES is the nodal solver implemented inside the multigroup pin-by-pin diffusion COBAYA3 code, and is based on the analytical method ACMFD. Thus, the ACMFD was verified for SFR applications and while doing so, some limitations were encountered, which are discussed through this work. In order to solve those, some new developments are proposed and implemented in ANDES. Moreover, the code was satisfactorily coupled with the thermal-hydraulic code SUBCHANFLOW, recently developed at KIT. Finally, the different implementations are verified. In addition to those developments, the node homogenized multigroup cross sections and other neutron parameters were obtained for the ESFR core using ERANOS and SERPENT codes, and employed afterwards by ANDES to perform steady state calculations. Moreover, as a result of the UPM contribution to the safety package of the CP-ESFR project, the point kinetic parameters required by the typical plant thermal-hydraulic codes were computed for the ESFR core using SERPENT, which final aim was the assessment of the impact of minor actinides in transient behaviour. All in all, the thesis provides a systematic and multi-purpose approach applied to the assessment of safety and performance parameters of Generation-IV SFR, using existing and newly developed analytical tools. An important amount of time was employed in identifying the limitations that the analytical nodal diffusion methods present when applied to fast reactors following a multigroup approach, and interesting solutions are proposed in order to overcome them.

Guidance for the development of accessibility evaluation tools following the Unified Software Development Process

Automated and semi-automated accessibility evaluation tools are key to streamline the process of accessibility assessment, and ultimately ensure that software products, contents, and services meet accessibility requirements. Different evaluation tools may better fit different needs and concerns, accounting for a variety of corporate and external policies, content types, invocation methods, deployment contexts, exploitation models, intended audiences and goals; and the specific overall process where they are introduced. This has led to the proliferation of many evaluation tools tailored to specific contexts. However, tool creators, who may be not familiar with the realm of accessibility and may be part of a larger project, lack any systematic guidance when facing the implementation of accessibility evaluation functionalities. Herein we present a systematic approach to the development of accessibility evaluation tools, leveraging the different artifacts and activities of a standardized development process model (the Unified Software Development Process), and providing templates of these artifacts tailored to accessibility evaluation tools. The work presented specially considers the work in progress in this area by the W3C/WAI Evaluation and Report Working Group (ERT WG)

Using multimedia and peer assessment to promote collaborative e-learning

Collaborative e-learning is increasingly appealing as a pedagogical approach that can positively affect student learning. We propose a didactical model that integrates multimedia with collaborative tools and peer assessment to foster collaborative e-learning. In this paper, we explain it and present the results of its application to the “International Seminars on Materials Science” online course. The proposed didactical model consists of five educational activities. In the first three, students review the multimedia resources proposed by the teacher in collaboration with their classmates. Then, in the last two activities, they create their own multimedia resources and assess those created by their classmates. These activities foster communication and collaboration among students and their ability to use and create multimedia resources. Our purpose is to encourage the creativity, motivation, and dynamism of the learning process for both teachers and students.