Demonstration Paper

Abstract

A novel approach, using wireless inertial sensors (the Orient specks), is presented for the automated assessment of surgical skills in a physical laparoscopic ('keyhole') surgery simulator. Performance metrics are applied to inertial data from subjects categorized by previous laparoscopic experience: novices (less than 2 months); intermediates (less than 2 years) and experts (6 to 10 years of active laparoscopic operating experience). These metrics are shown to distinguish between groups, demonstrating 'construct validity' of the system. The method is evaluated against an optical instrument tracking system and compares favourably, thus demonstrating 'concurrent validity' with an existing method. Our findings suggest that a combination of the proposed metrics can be used to generate a 'technical performance score' for a given laparoscopic simulated task. This has the potential to help guide surgical training and monitoring of surgical performance.

Influence of the Headgroup on the Interaction of Poly(ethylene oxide)-Poly(propylene oxide) Block Copolymers with Lipid Bilayers

“…Pure POPC liposomes were used as controls because phosphatidylcholine is one of the major components found in eukaryotic cell membranes and is widely used as the basic constituent in model membranes. [29][30][31][32] POPG, on the other hand, is a relatively minor component in eukaryotic cell membranes and is mostly found in bacterial cell membranes. 33 Nevertheless, given that POPG has the same phase transition temperature and almost the same chemical structure except for the headgroup as POPC, it can be considered as a simple model to study how the presence of net charge and hydroxyl groups affect membrane interactions with the copolymers.…”