Implementation of prehospital point-of-care ultrasound using a novel continuous feedback approach in a UK helicopter emergency medical service.

Background: There has been increased use of prehospital point-of-care ultrasound (PoCUS) by helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) in recent years. Lack of governance structure and evidence of benefit have been described as major barriers to its implementation. This paper describes a novel approach to implementation of prehospital PoCUS and clinical governance framework in a UK HEMS.

Balancing Academic Rigor and Creative Thinking: A Transformational Approach to Teaching Senior Design.

Innovation arises from creativity. "Thinking outside the box" has long been seen as a necessary precursor to innovation and invention in engineering. However, creativity is rarely part of traditional engineering curricula.

Trends in Texas high school student enrollment in mathematics, science, and CTE-STEM courses.

Background: In the context of Texas of the USA, House Bill 5 signifies a major policy shift requiring entering high school students starting in fall 2014 to choose an endorsement, like science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) being one of them, to provide students with earlier exposure to a coherent course sequence. As we barely understand students' choices before the endorsement requirement, this study explored 6 years of data (2008-2013) on high school student enrollment rates in mathematics, science, and career and technical education (CTE)-STEM courses to set out the baseline of the trends in STEM course enrollment in Texas.

Results: The enrollment rates of the STEM-related courses had wide variations by types of courses, gender, and race/ethnicity.

Computerized dynamic posturography: the influence of platform stability on postural control.

Objective: Postural stability can be quantified using posturography systems, which allow different foot platform stability settings to be selected. It is unclear, however, how platform stability and postural control are mathematically correlated.

Design: Twenty subjects performed tests on the Biodex Stability System at all 13 stability levels.

Effects of low-dose alcohol consumption on postural control with a particular focus on the role of the visual system.

There is clear evidence that vision contributes to stabilizing posture and that large quantities of alcohol affect balance. It has, however, not yet been investigated whether and how the consumption of low doses of ethanol affects postural control and the visual system. The purpose of this study was therefore to assess the influence of low-dose alcohol intake on balance.

The role and interaction of visual and auditory afferents in postural stability.

Background: Maintaining balance requires the integration of vestibular, proprioceptive and visual information and the translation of this input into appropriate motor responses. Although the role of the visual system has been widely investigated, there are no studies addressing the influence of non-specific distracting auditory inputs on postural stability.

Objective: To analyze the role of the visual and auditory systems in the maintenance of postural stability and to assess potential interaction between the two sensory systems.