Digit Length Displays A Significant Fraction In Stature Estimation – A Study From Coastal Region of South India.

Relationship that exists between different part of the body and height had been of great interest to anthropologists, forensic and medical scientists for many years. This is because of the increase in the number of catastrophic events causing mass deaths from natural or manmade errors. Such disasters like flooding, tsunamis, earthquakes, plane crashes, train crashes , terrorist attacks usually requires the identification of victims from fragmentary and dismembered human remains. In present paper, study on stature estimation from digit length has been reported. In the present study, 200individuals (96 males and 104 females) belonging to age group of 18 to 25years having no disease or deformity were examined anthropometrically in respect to their height and digit lengths (2D, 3D, 4D, 5D) have been measured. The regression equations have been drawn from the data collected. It has been observed that stature can be estimated from the digit lengths

Pre and post-lecture test scores for assessment of short term effectiveness of didactic lectures in anatomy and as a predictor for performance in summative evaluation.

Introduction: Didactic lectures play an important role as a method of student instruction in anatomy in India. The aims of the present study were to quantify whether students' derived any short term benefit from didactic lectures and to assess whether their performance in tests based on the lecture was a good indicator of their performance at the end of the year university examinations. Method: A total of eight theory classes, four each on embryology and gross anatomy, for sixty first year undergraduate medical students were conducted. At the beginning of each class, the students were administered a pre-lecture test. The post-lecture test was administered after the lecture. Subsequently, the marks obtained by the students in the theory component of the end of the year university examination in anatomy were noted and used for further correlation analysis using Spearman’s correlation coefficient. Paired and unpaired t tests (2 tailed) were performed to check for significant differences in the pre and post-lecture test scores for each class. The mean scores in the pre and post-lecture test scores for each student over the eight classes were used in correlation analysis. Results: In all eight classes, the mean post-lecture test scores were significantly greater than the mean pre-lecture test scores. There was a significant positive correlation between mean post-lecture test scores and university exam scores. Conclusion: Tests incorporated into didactic lectures may be a useful method not only to improve students' benefit from lectures, but also to predict their performance in the theory component of the university examination.