Thinking Allowed

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showing posts for '25'

Critique of UK's AI policy

"AI use cases are not nearly valuable enough to justify the epic expense of training and maintaining the models. Student essays, boilerplate code and SEO pap are not going to cut it. Either specialist models must be trained or generic models must be retrained with codified expertise if they are to...

Medical Education predictions for 2025

blog post image Some predictions for educational technology in healthcare in 2025. Mixed Reality (MR) The hardware for mixed / augmented / virtual reality is becoming more accessible and with it the opportunity for applications. There are many examples of educational technology businesses in this space - Osso...

Markov blankets: can they help explain learning from a systems perspective?

blog post image Every now and then you find something, described a long time ago (in this case 1988), that could have helped you if only you'd known about it. In supporting pharma companies I have used several approaches to explaining why learning is complex, non-linear, and how we should look at it from a systems perspective....

Predicting students’ academic progress and related attributes in first-year medical students: an analysis with artificial

"Background Dropout and poor academic performance are persistent problems in medical schools in emerging economies. Identifying at-risk students early and knowing the factors that contribute to their success would be useful for designing educational interventions. Educational Data Mining (EDM) methods...
Source: biomedcentral.com

AI will be deeply disruptive to Higher Education

blog post image Paul LeBlanc and George Siemens are teaming up to explore how AI is going to change higher education. "LeBlanc transformed SNHU from 2500 students in 2003 to over 200,000 students in 20 years by using technology to switch delivery online." Siemens is one of the proposers of connectivism - a theory...

Coding excursions

blog post image Anonymity with encryption At Outcomes Engine we are working on techniques to gather data from learners, analyse the data, and share the data whilst maintaining anonymity. I was involved in some work in my previous company (pharmaceutical) with the security of personal data - in our case it was data...

Development and validation of Simulation Scenario Quality Instrument (SSQI)

A validated scale for measuring quality of simulation scenarios in medical education. "Background Due to the unmet need for valid instruments that evaluate critical components of simulation scenarios, this research aimed to develop and validate an instrument that measures the quality of healthcare...
Source: biomedcentral.com

High Pay Centre analysis of FTSE 350 pay ratios • High Pay Centre

Pay inequalities at UK's largest companies remain constant, despite ‘cost of living’ crisis. "The companies with lowest-paid UK employees (based on pay at the 25th percentile) were retailer JD Sports, where the lower quartile threshold was £11,240, pub chain Mitchells & Butlers (£15,161) and...
Source: highpaycentre.org

Cornwall: Nearly £5m awarded to tackle health inequalities

The aim of the work is to enable "more research on issues that affect people in Cornwall".
Source: bbc.com

Landmark EU General Court Google Android decision signals tougher antitrust enforcement

Google's biggest legal loss to date with a fine of € 4.125 billion - for how it exclusively bundled Google Search and other advertising into Android phones. Encouraging competition and innovation in markets requires determined work by regulators. "On 14 September, the General Court of the European...
Source: hausfeld.com

AP exposes the Tuskegee Syphilis Study: The 50th Anniversary

WASHINGTON (AP) — EDITOR’S NOTE — On July 25, 1972, Jean Heller, a reporter on The Associated Press investigative team, then called the Special Assignment Team, broke news that rocked the nation. Based on documents leaked by Peter Buxtun, a whistleblower at the U.S.
Source: apnews.com

Quantum microphone works even better than a regular one

By detecting tiny movements of particles of light, a quantum microphone has recorded human speech that is easier to understand than if it is captured by an equivalent classical version
Source: newscientist.com

Britishvolt: Electric car battery plant gets government funding

Britishvolt says the money (£100m) unlocks huge private investment for a protect that will create thousands of jobs. See also Britishvolt.com The figure seems to be half of the proposed Government investment which was anticipated to be £200m - £250m in December.
Source: bbc.com

Fatalism - the stalemate of us vs. COVID-19

Stephen Casper - medical historian at Clarkson University - offers a worrying prediction for COVID for the end of 2022. The analogy for COVID-19 won't be influenza but 'tuberculosis before the discovery of antibiotics'. A new hospital specialty might even exist - looking after COVID patients - and they...
Source: twitter.com

A vision for medical affairs in 2025

Four core areas of medical affairs combine to maximize patient experiences and outcomes.
Source: mckinsey.com

New WHO Global Air Quality Guidelines aim to save millions of lives from air pollution

"Air pollution is one of the biggest environmental threats to human health, alongside climate change. New guidelines provide clear evidence of the damage air pollution inflicts on human health, at even lower concentrations than previously understood." "Global assessments of ambient air pollution alone...
Source: who.int

Development and validation of teacher and student questionnaires measuring inhibitors of curriculum viability - BMC Medical

Background Curriculum viability is determined by the degree to which quality standards have or have not been met, and by the inhibitors that affect attainment of those standards. The literature reports many ways to evaluate whether a curriculum reaches its quality standards, but less attention is paid...
Source: biomedcentral.com

Council policies 'inconsistent' with climate goals

A third of English councils support policies that could increase emissions, BBC research suggests.
Source: bbc.com

New WHO toolkit promotes inclusion of people with dementia in society

“Towards a dementia-inclusive society: WHO toolkit for dementia-friendly initiatives”, launched today, is WHO’s latest response for establishing and scaling-up dementia-friendly initiatives globally. The toolkit helps countries raise public awareness and understanding of dementia to support people...
Source: who.int

Clinically contextualised ECG interpretation: the impact of prior clinical exposure and case vignettes on ECG diagnostic

Does teaching ECGs with a clinical vignette improve training? Not greatly ... but having seen a condition previously (and presumably the ECG that went with it) is probably best. The researchers concluded that "ECG training should therefore not rely on experiential learning alone, but instead be supplemented...
Source: biomedcentral.com