The 9th annual INDUS-EM 2013 Emergency Medicine Summit, “Principles,Practices, and Patients,” a level one international meeting,Kerala University of Health Sciences and Jubilee Mission Medical College and Research Institute,Thrissur, Kerala,India, October 23–27, 2013

INDUS-EM is India’s only level one conference imparting and exchanging quality knowledge in acute care. Specifically, in general and specialized emergency care and training in trauma, burns, cardiac, stroke, environmental and disaster medicine. It provides a series of exchanges regarding academic development and implementation of training tools related to developing future academic faculty and residents in Emergency Medicine in India. The INDUS-EM leadership and board of directors invited scholars from multiple institutions to participate in this advanced educational symposium that was held in Thrissur, Kerala in October 2013.     

How much could we boost scholastic achievement and IQ scores? A direct answer from a French adoption study

We observed 32 subjects whose biological parents were both unskilled workers. Abandoned at birth, the subjects had been placed at approximately 4 months of age into families spanning the top 13% of the socio-professional scale. The effects of this change in social class were estimated by comparisons with groups of children of unskilled workers observed in two large scale studies. An internal control group was also available for 20 of the 32 subjects: the biological half-siblings who had been reared in their ‘natural’ environment. The effects observed are an increase of 14 IQ points in the mean IQ score estimated with 2 tests and a reduction by a factor of 4 in the probability of repeating a grade. These are significant despite the small number of subjects; we have shown that the bulk of these effects cannot be attributed to methodological biases. Our observations thus provide a direct quantitative answer to the question posed by Jensen in 1969.     

Synergies and Motor Equivalence in Voluntary Sway Tasks: The Effects of Visual and Mechanical Constraints

The authors used two analyses developed within the framework of the uncontrolled manifold hypothesis to quantify multimuscle synergies during voluntary body sway: analysis of intertrial variance and analysis of motor equivalence with respect to the center of pressure (COP) trajectory. Participants performed voluntary sway tasks in the anteroposterior direction at 0.33 and 0.66 Hz. Muscle groups were identified in the space of muscle activations and used as elemental variables in the synergy analyses. Changing mechanical and vision feedback–based constraints led to significant changes in indices of sway performance such as COP deviations in the uninstructed, mediolateral direction and indices of spontaneous postural sway. In contrast, there were no significant effects on synergy indices. These findings show that the neural control of performance and of its stability may involve different control variables and neurophysiological structures. There were strong correlations between the indices of motor equivalence and those computed using the intercycle variance analysis. This result is potentially important for studies of patients with movement disorders who may be unable to perform multiple trials (cycles) at any given task, making analysis of motor equivalence of single trials a viable alternative to explore changes in stability of actions.     

Internal Forces During Static Prehension: Effects of Age and Grasp Configuration

The authors studied effects of healthy aging on 3 components of the internal force vector during static prehensile tasks. Young and older subjects held an instrumented handle using a 5-digit prismatic grasp under different digit configurations and external torques. Across digit configurations, older subjects showed larger internal normal (grip) and tangential (load-resisting) digit force components and larger internal moment of force. In contrast to earlier reports, safety margin values were not higher in the older subjects. The results show that the increased grip force in older persons is a specific example of a more general age-related problem reflected in the generation of large internal force vectors in prehensile tasks. It is possible that the higher internal forces increase the apparent stiffness of the hand+handle system and, hence, contribute to its stability. This strategy, however, may be maladaptive, energetically wasteful, and inefficient in ensuring safety of hand-held objects.     

Gray-scale graphics using dot matrix printers

Gray-scale graphics can be printed on conventional dot matrix printers by varying the dot density, rather than the dot intensity. The technique described here takes advantage of the high-contrast print possible with these printers and the increased resolution available using compressed character sets. The reflectance of individual characters and symbols was measured with a photometer, and a character set was selected that increased from dark to light in equal logarithmic steps of reflectance. Various criteria for choosing dot patterns are discussed, and the technique is applied to two-dimensional visual field maps.     

Technical variation in a sample of high level judo players

Technical actions performed by two groups of judokas who won medals at World Championships and Olympic Games during the period 1995-2001 were analyzed. In the Super Elite group (n = 17) were the best athletes in each weight category. The Elite group (n = 16) were medal winners who were not champions and did not win more than three medals. Super Elite judokas used a greater number of throwing techniques which resulted in scores, even when expressed relative to the total number of matches performed, and these techniques were applied in more directions than those of Elite judokas. Further, the number of different throwing techniques and the variability of directions in which techniques were applied were significantly correlated with number of wins and the number of points and ippon scored. Thus, a greater number of throwing techniques and use of directions for attack seem to be important in increasing unpredictability during judo matches.