Ecological modeling and pest population management: a possible and necessary connection in a changing world

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Teaching in the community: Changing and implementing a new curriculum

The Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu is changing to, and implementing a new curriculum aimed at integrating teaching and learning in the community. Emphasis is on preparing the community settings for teaching, learning and providing health care. A particular task is staff development with emphasis on problem-based learning (PBL) and training medical and nursing students in the leadership to participate in this process. The new curriculum includes the gradual introduction of clinical practice during First Year, integration of the basic sciences with clinical sciences, through integrated modules studied in small groups, and maintenance of the two year clerkship. The undergraduates are introduced gradually to the community: 8% of the total curriculum during First Year, 10% during Second Year, 10% during Third Year, 20% during Fourth Year, 30% during Fifth and Sixth Years. The basic health units at primary care level, and the regional specialty outpatients and hospitals at the second level, are the main teaching sites. An Education Development Committee was established to discuss the strategies for supporting the changes and to structure the planning for promoting the gradual transformation of staff development. After 18 months of implementation of the curriculum, there followed discussions and monitoring of the objectives of changes in medical education at our school. Successful implementation of the new curriculum would fail, if the objectives were not absorbed by every member of the implementation Committee.

Limitations of trust management schemes in VANET and countermeasures

Vehicular networks ensure that the information received from any vehicle is promptly and correctly propagated to nearby vehicles, to prevent accidents. A crucial point is how to trust the information transmitted, when the neighboring vehicles are rapidly changing and moving in and out of range. Current trust management schemes for vehicular networks establish trust by voting on the decision received by several nodes, which might not be required for practical scenarios. It might just be enough to check the validity of incoming information. Due to the ephemeral nature of vehicular networks, reputation schemes for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) cannot be applied to vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET). We point out several limitations of trust management schemes for VANET. In particular, we identify the problem of information cascading and oversampling, which commonly arise in social networks. Oversampling is a situation in which a node observing two or more nodes, takes into consideration both their opinions equally without knowing that they might have influenced each other in decision making. We show that simple voting for decision making, leads to oversampling and gives incorrect results. We propose an algorithm to overcome this problem in VANET. This is the first paper which discusses the concept of cascading effect and oversampling effects to ad hoc networks. © 2011 IEEE.

Arthrocentesis procedure: Using this therapeutic maneuver for TMJ closed lock management

Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorder is a term that encompasses a number of overlapping conditions, such as closed lock. Closed lock of the TMJ is considered a consequence of a nonreducing deformed disc acting as an obstacle to the sliding condylar head that usually causes a decrease in the maximum mouth opening and acute pain. The management of the TMJ is still controversial. Thus, arthrocentesis of the TMJ is a valuable modification of the traditional method of arthroscopic lavage, which consists of washing the joint in order to remove chemical inflammatory mediators and intra-articular adhesions, changing intra-articular pressure. TMJ disorder has always presented as a therapeutic challenge to maxillofacial surgeons. Therefore, this paper aimed to describe a clinical report of a closed lock of the left TMJ in a 19-year-old female subject who was successfully treated by arthrocentesis procedure. © 2013 by Mutaz B. Habal, MD.