[Competency-based medical education: National Catalogue of Learning Objectives in surgery]. / Kompetenzorientierung in der medizinischen Ausbildung: Nationaler Lernzielkatalog Chirurgie.

Competency-based medical education is a prerequisite to prepare students for the medical profession. A mandatory professional qualification framework is a milestone towards this aim. The National Competency-based Catalogue of Learning Objectives for Undergraduate Medical Education (NKLM) of the German Medical Faculty Association (MFT) and the German Medical Association will constitute a basis for a core curriculum of undergraduate medical training. The Surgical Working Group on Medical Education (CAL) of the German Association of Surgeons (DGCH) aims at formulating a competency-based catalogue of learning objectives for surgical undergraduate training to bridge the gap between the NKLM and the learning objectives of individual medical faculties. This is intended to enhance the prominence and visibility of the surgical discipline in the context of medical education. On the basis of different faculty catalogues of learning objectives, the catalogue of learning objectives of the German Association of Orthopedics and Orthopedic Surgery and the Swiss Catalogue of Learning Objectives representatives of all German Surgical Associations cooperated towards a structured selection process of learning objectives and the definition of levels and areas of competencies. After completion the catalogue of learning objectives will be available online on the webpage of the DGCH.

Dynamic operating rules for water supply reservoirs in La Paz.

Dynamic operating rules have been applied to the drought-prone Andean water supply reservoirs near La Paz, Bolivia. The water supply reservoirs are not using conventional reservoir operating rule curves. Instead, dynamic operating rules opportunistically supply surplus water for soft demands, and proactively adjust the water supply before a drought causes a water shortage. The conventional approach of forcing water levels to follow a set rule curve is replaced with notions of tradeoffs between long-term reliability and short-term supply opportunities. Operators can customise the dynamic rules based on their tolerance of shortages, and can choose to operate more aggressively during wet periods. In this way, the dynamic rules offer a flexible tool for making short-term decisions while managing medium and long-term performance goals. In the case of La Paz, it is possible to utilise the water sources more efficiently in the short-term without significantly reducing the long-term water supply reliability. The dynamic rules will reduce the severity of future water shortages (if they occur) by 60%, and provide opportunities to increase the firm water supply by up to 8% without affecting the long-term reliability.

Do adolescent anorexia nervosa patients have deficits in emotional functioning?

Adult eating disorder patients have been characterised by alexithymia. We investigated whether adolescent eating disorder patients also show deficits in emotional functioning. To measure emotional functioning a questionnaire (the TAS) and an emotion recognition test were administered to 30 eating disorder (ED) adolescent girls and 31 healthy controls (HC), matched for age, education, and social status. Non-emotional, cognitive parallel tasks were administered on the same occasion to find out whether a possible deficit was emotion-specific or of a more general cognitive nature. The ED patients scored higher on the TAS and performed worse on the emotion recognition test, but no differences between the groups were found on the non-emotional cognitive instruments. It was concluded that adolescent eating disorder patients, just like adult eating disorder patients, are characterised by alexithymia and show specific deficits in emotional functioning. The implications of these findings are discussed.

A prototype expert system for fishway design.

The design of structures for fish passage in rivers and streams provides an opportunity to apply expert system concepts to a design problem. Fishways contribute to the sustainable development of water resources projects by providing a path that allows fish migrations to be maintained. A prototype expert system (FDES) has been developed to recommend the most suitable fishway type for given design conditions. A recommendation is provided on the basis of fishway hydraulics, fish passage performance, and cost requirements. Fishway design demands expertise in various scientific disciplines such as hydrology, hydraulics, and fish biology. Expert system technology may be used to reduce design time requirements and to serve as a teaching aid to inexperienced engineers by organizing and accessing the cumulative knowledge of the most experienced designers. The rule-based expert system development tool, VP-Expert, supplies the backward chaining control structure for accessing the knowledge within the prototype.