'It was the worst possible timing': the response of UK Longitudinal Integrated Clerkships to Covid-19.

Covid-19 has altered medical education worldwide. Given recent events, UK Longitudinal Integrated Clerkships (LICs), which are relatively new innovations, may have changed in structure and delivery, or may have demonstrated resilience. Collating the responses and experiences of UK institutions may yield transferrable recommendations for institutions wishing to develop sustainable LICs. A mixed-methods survey concerning LIC prevalence, variety, and experiences of responses to Covid-19 was circulated to all 33 UK medical schools through academic networks. 25 survey responses were received, representing 20 institutions. 12 faculty completed follow up semi-structured interviews. 13 LICs were reported: 1 wasn't running during 2020, 5 were running unchanged, and 7 with alterations. 2 additional LICs were planned. Thematic analysis of free-text survey and interview responses revealed that relationships between faculty and institutions were central in facilitating recent adaptations to UK LICs. Given model flexibility, an increased drive to develop LICs was also evident. Barriers to adapting programmes included uncertainty regarding progression of Covid-19 restrictions and issues with secondary care access. Investing in faculty development and support networks could increase LIC sustainability. By highlighting the relative resilience of UK LIC placements during Covid-19, these findings offer important insight for the future delivery of sustainable LICs within, and beyond, the UK.

A Survey of Spoofer Detection Techniques via Radio Frequency Fingerprinting with Focus on the GNSS Pre-Correlation Sampled Data.

Radio frequency fingerprinting (RFF) methods are becoming more and more popular in the context of identifying genuine transmitters and distinguishing them from malicious or non-authorized transmitters, such as spoofers and jammers. RFF approaches have been studied to a moderate-to-great extent in the context of non-GNSS transmitters, such as WiFi, IoT, or cellular transmitters, but they have not yet been addressed much in the context of GNSS transmitters. In addition, the few RFF-related works in GNSS context are based on post-correlation or navigation data and no author has yet addressed the RFF problem in GNSS with pre-correlation data. Moreover, RFF methods in any of the three domains (pre-correlation, post-correlation, or navigation) are still hard to be found in the context of GNSS. The goal of this paper was two-fold: first, to provide a comprehensive survey of the RFF methods applicable in the GNSS context; and secondly, to propose a novel RFF methodology for spoofing detection, with a focus on GNSS pre-correlation data, but also applicable in a wider context. In order to support our proposed methodology, we qualitatively investigated the capability of different methods to be used in the context of pre-correlation sampled GNSS data, and we present a simulation-based example, under ideal noise conditions, of how the feature down selection can be done. We are also pointing out which of the transmitter features are likely to play the biggest roles in the RFF in GNSS, and which features are likely to fail in helping RFF-based spoofing detection.

Longitudinal integrated clerkships in the community.

Longitudinal Integrated Clerkships (LICs) are beginning to replace traditional short undergraduate rotations in general practice. LIC's differ from traditional rotations in that they are longer, they involve sustained relationships between students, patients and health professionals; and they integrate various strands of medical education. From early development in the US and Australia, LICs are now a fast-growing phenomenon across the world. We present three papers that seek to explain what LICs are, the evidence for their effectiveness and the practicalities of establishing or delivering a longitudinal integrated clerkship.