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At least 973 records · Page 54Linked to original sources
PubMed1996

Role of chaos in trial-and-error problem solving by an artificial neural network.

One role of chaotic neural activity is illustrated by means of computer simulations of an imaginary agent's goal-oriented behavior. The agent has a simplified neural network with seven neurons and three legs. The neuronal network consists of one photosensory neuron and three pairs of inter- and motor neurons. The three legs whose movements are governed by the three motor neurons allow the agent to walk in six concentric radial directions on a plane. It is intended that the neural network causes the agent to walk in a direction of greater brightness, to reach finally the most brightly lit place on the plane. The presence of only one sensory neuron has an important meaning. That is, no immediate information on directions of greater brightness is sensed by the agent. In other words, random walking in the manner of trial- and error problem solving must be involved in the agent's walking. Chaotic firing of the motor neurons is intended to play a crucial role in generating the random walking. Brief random walking and rapid straight walking in a direction of greater brightness were observed to occur alternately in the computer simulation. Controlled chaos in naturally occurring neural networks may play a similar role.

Animals↗
PubMed1981

Clinical problem-solving by medical students: a cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis.

The evolution of clinical reasoning in medical students was studied. A cross-sectional sample consisted of randomly-selected medical students from three classes. Additionally, twenty-two students were observed at yearly intervals from the preclerkship period to the first post-graduate year. Subjects were observed in a clinical examination of a simulated patient, and their thought processes were abstracted from a 'stimulated recall' of the videotaped encounter. The data were transcribed and coded for computer analysis, yielding several variables characterizing the clinical reasoning process, and four measures of outcome of the encounter. Analysis of variance of differences between students at various educational levels and a doctor criterion group indicated that the majority of the process variables were unrelated to educational level. By contrast, diagnostic and management outcomes were positively related to education. The single process variable which was related to both educational level and outcome was an 'hypothesis aggregate score', a measure of the content of the student's diagnostic hypotheses. The results of the study indicate that the problem-solving or clinical reasoning process remains relatively constant from medical school entry to practice. This observation has important implications for clinical teaching and evaluation.

Cross-Sectional Studies↗
PubMed1976

Reflective and impulsive children: strategies of information processing underlying differences in problem solving.

The hypothesis that impulsive children differ from reflective children in their preferred strategy of information processing, based on extent of stimulus analysis, was investigated. The experiments employed different age groups and a variety of tasks, including matching, grouping, recall, and concept attainment. Stimuli were presented both visually and auditorily and included both visually and aduitorily and included both verbal and pictorial matrials. The tasks required verbal and nonverbal responses and varied in the level of stimulus analysis necessary for successful performance. The subjects' strategy was assessed by the quality of their performance on tasks requiring detail versus global processing, and by the strategy they chose to adopt in tasks where either detail or global processing led to successful performance. While reflective children performed better on tasks requiring detail analysis than on tasks requiring global analysis, impulsive children showed the reverse trend. Furthermore, when successful solutions could be reached via either a global- or a detail-processing strategy, impulsive children who adopted the former were equally as successful as reflective children who adopted the latter strategy. It was concluded that, contrary to existing views, impulsive children are not inferior to reflective children in general potential or problem-solving ability. Rather, the inferior performance of impulsive children frequently reported in the literature may be due to incompatibility between their preferred global-processing strategy and the detail analysis typically required for successful performance.

Auditory Perception↗
PubMed1995

EPIZOO: software for veterinary epidemiology training and problem-solving.

Described is a computer software package, EPIZOO, which has been developed specifically for undergraduate and postgraduate education, self-training, problem-solving, and simulation studies in veterinary epidemiology. The program is based on action-oriented animal population health/disease analyses and programming. EPIZOO runs on IBM-compatible personal computers and can be used for any animal population diseases, including those transmissible to man. The software comprises an integral system of selected indicators contained in twelve modules, with about 200 widely applicable methods used in epizootiology. It is user-friendly and includes general methods related to the following: animal population characteristics of health/disease importance; analysis of animal population health and disease situations, structures, dynamics, diagnoses, and consequences; preparation, cost, and evaluation of animal population health programmes; and selected statistical techniques.

Animal Diseases↗
PubMed2006

Educational strategies associated with development of problem-solving, critical thinking, and self-directed learning.

This article was developed for the Commission on Change and Innovation in Dental Education (CCI), established by the American Dental Education Association. CCI was created because numerous organizations within organized dentistry and the educational community have initiated studies or proposed modifications to the process of dental education, often working to achieve positive and desirable goals but without coordination or communication. The fundamental mission of CCI is to serve as a focal meeting place where dental educators and administrators, representatives from organized dentistry, the dental licensure community, the Commission on Dental Accreditation, the ADA Council on Dental Education and Licensure, and the Joint Commission on National Dental Examinations can meet and coordinate efforts to improve dental education and the nation's oral health. One of the objectives of the CCI is to provide guidance to dental schools related to curriculum design. In pursuit of that objective, this article summarizes the evidence related to this question: What are educational best practices for helping dental students acquire the capacity to function as an entry-level general dentist or to be a better candidate to begin advanced studies? Three issues are addressed, with special emphasis on the third: 1) What constitutes expertise, and when does an individual become an expert? 2) What are the differences between novice and expert thinking? and 3) What educational best practices can help our students acquire mental capacities associated with expert function, including critical thinking and self-directed learning? The purpose of this review is to provide a benchmark that faculty and academic planners can use to assess the degree to which their curricula include learning experiences associated with development of problem-solving, critical thinking, self-directed learning, and other cognitive skills necessary for dental school graduates to ultimately become expert performers as they develop professionally in the years after graduation.

Clinical Competence↗
PubMed1997

Helping students learn to think like experts when solving clinical problems.

Analysis of problem-solving strategies reveals that although there is no universal, generic problem-solving process, there is a clinical reasoning process that is specific and highly tailored to the complexity of each clinical problem. Research reveals that successful problem solvers must possess comprehensive knowledge, but that the way they organize and understand their knowledge is even more critical. Moreover, using "schemes" for both learning and problem solving provides the advantage of combining the creation of a knowledge structure and a search-and-retrieval strategy into a single operation. (A "scheme" in this context is a mental categorization of knowledge that includes a particular organized way of understanding and responding to a complex situation.) The implication for medical education is that a comprehensive knowledge domain must be appropriately organized for knowledge mastery, which in turn is essential for clinical problem solving. Problem-solving strategies must be specific for each problem and not based on the assumption of a universal generic process. Consequently, a new taxonomy of medical problems is recommended, along with an altered problem-based learning (PBL) format. The "hypothetico-deductive" strategy traditionally used in PBL should be replaced by scheme-driven search strategies so that students develop a more organized and logical approach to problem solving.

Clinical Competence↗
PubMedDate not supplied

A possible way to solve problems in CT densitometry.

The common computed tomography (CT) densitometric scale expressed in Hounsfield units does not possess sufficient representativity. A standard scale is needed to solve problems in CT densitometry. A new scale based on a special phantom with different solutions of calcium chloride permits the elimination of shortcomings of the common scale. Indications for testing CT scanners with the help of the phantom are offered.

Densitometry↗
PubMed1983

Task complexity and problem-solving performance in younger and older adults.

In problems resembling the Twenty Questions game, older and younger adults were asked to discover the square or squares the experimenter had in mind from an array of squares. Complexity was varied in three conditions in which problems had 6, 8, or 12 bits of information. Task demands were increased in a fourth condition by imposing a 60-sec time limit. Contrary to a hypothesis drawn from prior results, no evidence was found that older adults select more efficient strategies as task complexity or demands increase. Both age groups maintained the same strategies; the less efficient strategies selected by the older persons were reduced in effectiveness as task complexity increased.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Diverse knowledges and competing interests: an essay on socio-technical problem-solving.

Solving complex socio-technical problems, this paper claims, involves diverse knowledges (cognitive diversity), competing interests (social diversity), and pragmatism. To explain this view, this paper first explores two different cases: Canadian pulp and paper mill pollution and siting nuclear reactors in systematically sensitive areas of California. Solving such socio-technically complex problems involves cognitive diversity as well as social diversity and pragmatism. Cognitive diversity requires one to not only recognize relevant knowledges but also to assess their validity. Finally, it is suggested, integrating the resultant set of diverse relevant and valid knowledges determines the parameters of the solution space for the problem.

California↗
PubMed2003

Transrectal ultrasonography for problem solving after transvaginal ultrasonography of the female internal reproductive tract.

OBJECTIVE: To report the value of transrectal ultrasonography of the female internal reproductive tract as a complementary problem-solving technique after transvaginal ultrasonography in selected patients. To date, transrectal ultrasonography of the female internal reproductive tract has been advocated in lieu of transvaginal ultrasonography for women in whom transvaginal ultrasonography cannot be performed for various reasons. METHODS: Ten illustrative cases are presented of women for whom transrectal ultrasonography performed after transvaginal ultrasonography provided additional clinically important information regarding the female internal reproductive tract. RESULTS: Transrectal ultrasonography was helpful in 2 scenarios: (1) women with a retroverted uterus in whom the endometrial stripe was virtually parallel to the ultrasound beam and thus could not be properly measured on transvaginal ultrasonography, and (2) women in whom normal or pathologic adnexal findings were distant from the vagina or obscured by intervening structures during transvaginal ultrasonography but were near the rectum or not obscured during transrectal ultrasonography. In 1 case, transrectal ultrasonography yielded a diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy that was missed prospectively on transvaginal ultrasonography because pain severely limited the examiner's ability to manipulate the transvaginal ultrasound transducer. CONCLUSIONS: Transrectal ultrasonography of the female internal reproductive tract can provide clinically useful information to complement transvaginal ultrasonography in selected patients.

Female↗
PubMed2002

Use of the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database as a problem solving tool.

The information in the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database (ICSD) can be used to determine the structures of new compounds by analogy; this database is thus a useful tool for practical problem solving. A model for the structure of (NH(4))Fe(CO(3))(OH)(2) [Cmcm, a = 6.6154 (6), b = 12.0639 (10), c = 6.0263 (5) A, Z = 4] was found by searching the ICSD for compounds with C-centered orthorhombic cells and containing C, H, N and O. [Al(H(2)O)(6)](2)[Al(H(2)O)(5)(SO(4))](2)-(H(3)O)(2)(SO(4))(5) [P1;, a = 12.5881 (5), b = 13.0726 (5), c = 7.3354 (2) A, alpha = 108.162 (2), beta = 70.536 (2), gamma = 112.658 (2) degrees, Z = 1] is isostructural to a Cr compound of the same stoichiometry, which was located by searching on the formula type ANX = A4B7X52. Suitable models for MgCl(2)(H(2)O)(4) [P2(1)/c, a = 5.9001 (9), b = 7.2709 (7), c = 8.4199 (7) A, beta = 111.007 (15) degrees, Z = 2], MgCl(2)(H(2)O)(2) [C2/m, a = 7.3886 (29), b = 8.5498 (24), c = 3.6488 (17) A, beta = 98.96 (3) degrees, Z = 2], and MgCl(2)(H(2)O) [Pnma, a = 8.899 (7), b = 3.6339 (20), c = 11.398 (8) A, Z = 4] were located by combining searches on chemistry and formula type. Quantum-chemical calculations were performed on all five structures to locate the H-atom positions and to obtain quantitative understanding of the hydrogen bonding important in all the structures.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1996

Clinical extracts of biomedical literature for patient-centered problem solving.

This paper reports on a four-part qualitative research project aimed at designing an online document surrogate tailored to the needs of physicians seeking biomedical literature for use in clinical problem solving. The clinical extract, designed in collaboration with three practicing physicians, combines traditional elements of the MEDLINE record (e.g., title, author, source, abstract) with new elements (e.g., table captions, text headings, case profiles) suggested by the physicians. Specifications for the prototype clinical extract were developed through a series of relevance-scoring exercises and semi-structured interviews. For six clinical questions, three physicians assessed the applicability of selected articles and their document surrogates, articulating relevance criteria and reasons for their judgments. A prototype clinical extract based on their suggestions was developed, tested, evaluated, and revised. The final version includes content and format aids to make the extract easy to use. The goals, methods, and outcomes of the research study are summarized, and a template of the final design is provided.

Abstracting and Indexing↗