Précis of The Psychology of Creative Performance and Expertise

The study of expertise has recently moved into an exciting phase. While previous research had a narrow focus on deliberate practice versus innate aptitude, recent multifactorial models of expertise development have breathed new life into contemporary research. Reflecting these opportunities, the Psychology of Creative Performance and Expertise explores our understanding of the wide range of factors contributing to greatness in creative domains. With the intention of expanding the conversation around expertise, the book transcends traditional fields such as chess, sports, and music, exploring the intersection of expertise with creativity and the performing arts. The applied chapters therefore cover more unfamiliar fields, including extreme-memory athletes, dance, creative writing, acting, art, and STEM, as well as the more conventional domains of mind games and music. Each applied chapter explores the psychological and opportunity factors that shape success within these domains, offering a close look at how creative experts develop, thrive, or falter. In other dedicated chapters, the book also examines the facilitators of creative performance, including aesthetic sensitivity, creativity, and mental imagery, as well as the obstacles to performance such as burnout, procrastination, and gender-related challenges. The exploration concludes by engaging with pressing issues facing expertise, including the effect of artificial intelligence (AI). Addressing a gap in the market for an approachable guide to the multidimensional complexities of expertise development, this book is suitable as a resource for final-year undergraduate and postgraduate students across a range of disciplines. However, given that the book uniquely synthesizes material from the creativity, gifted and talented, and expertise literatures in a number of unfamiliar domains, it should provide fresh insights for newcomers and seasoned scholars alike

Vitamin D supplements and effect on glycemic control and lipid profile in individuals living with diabetes: a retrospective study

Abstract OBJECTIVE: Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is a global concern with a high prevalence among the Saudi population. Uncontrolled diabetes is associated with serious medical complications and an increase in mortality and morbidity. Vitamin D deficiency may have the potential to decrease insulin sensitivity and alter lipid metabolism. This study aimed to assess the impact of vitamin D supplements on glycemic control and lipid profile among individuals living with diabetes in Saudia Arabia. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This retrospective study recruited 254 individuals with diabetes. The medical records were searched for age, gender, HbA1c, fasting blood glucose (FBG), Vitamin D and lipid profiles. The population records were extracted in two intervals: before taking vitamin D supplements and three months after receiving supplements. Paired t-test and confidence intervals were used to compare HbA1c, FBG, vitamin D, and other extracted variables between intervals. Vitamin D levels were compared between genders in each interval. RESULTS: The supplementation of vitamin D leads to improvement in vitamin D from a mean of 45.4 to 65 (normal reference range 50-150). Supplementation of vitamin D showed significant improvement in HbA1c, FBG, all parameters of lipid profile, renal and liver function and hemoglobin (p < 0.001) when t-test was used and confidence interval calculated. CONCLUSIONS: Vitamin D plays a potential role in insulin sensitivity and lipid metabolism. Therefore, maintaining optimal level of vitamin D through its supplements or sun exposure might help to improve heath and decrease complications especially in individuals with diabetes

Asylum and Historical Memory in Victorian Britain

Throughout the nineteenth century Britain famously provided refuge to exiles as diverse as Metternich, Marx and Malatesta, and obtained a reputation as an undiscriminating ‘asylum of nations’. Shaping Victorian Britain’s approach to asylum was not just, as Bernard Porter has observed, a lack of legal restrictions on foreign nationals, but also an increasingly salient awareness of the country’s long history of harbouring refugees. From the 1840s, a series of academic and popular histories, novels, songs, and artworks appeared that emphasised the centuries-long continuity of British asylum and the diversity of its refugee populations, ranging from sixteenth-century Protestants to famous Enlightenment thinkers and the counter-revolutionary émigrés of the 1790s. By the 1890s, historical enquiry on this subject had been regularized by bodies like the Huguenot Society and the Jewish Historical Society. Knowledge of this history fundamentally shaped how Britons reacted to refugee crises in their own times. As exiles arrived following the 1848 revolutions or the pogroms of 1881, supporters of generous asylum policies pointed to the economic and cultural contributions that earlier refugees had made to British society, while more restrictionist voices contended that recent refugees were less deserving of sympathy than those of past centuries. Exiles themselves utilized this awareness of British history to defend their physical refuge, and right to remain politically active, in Britain. This chapter will analyse the development of historical memory of asylum in Victorian Britain and demonstrate the uses to which British and exile actors put it from the 1840s to the 1890s

International Human Rights Obligations and the Influence of Economic Principles on Education Delivery in Nigeria as an E-9 Country

The application by states of economic principles in education has not produced good results in access to education in low-income and less-developed countries. This has prompted UNESCO to designate the countries with substantial problems of access to education and illiteracy as the E-9 countries, which include Nigeria. Nigeria’s status as an E-9 country indicates the existence of considerable problems in education, and where necessary, statistical evidence will be used to elucidate Nigeria’s E-9 status. This article argues that the nature of the laws and policy mechanisms that control education in Nigeria suggests that Nigeria seems to be responding to the contemporaneous demands of global programmes of action in education that are predicated on economic principles and driven by the tides of globalization instead of to the requirements of international human rights law (IHRL)

Intersections of the Right to Education and Human Dignity in International Human Rights Law: A Purpose-Based Analysis

The atrocities of World War II were pivotal to the launch of the human rights project, which became anchored on the recognition of the inherent dignity of all humans and formed a cornerstone justifying the ascription of rights. Indeed, it became essential to recognise education as a human right given the emergent need to promote the use of reason, having recognised humans as people imbued with inherent dignity. This paper explores the right to education in international human rights law (IHRL) from the perspective of its purpose, and uses IHRL as its starting point. It argues that the ascription of inherent dignity to everyone justifies access to education and investigates the nexus between dignity and education, arguing that access to education is a sine qua non to expanding the inherent dignity of all humans. Thus, it argues that the recognition of dignity requires that all children must be provided with equal access to education to stimulate the use of reason

Impact of clinical pharmacist video-based education on self-care and glycemic control in Sudanese adults with type 2 diabetes: A pre-post interventional study

Background: Diabetes affects various body systems, increasing the risk of complications. Objectives: This study assessed the impact of clinical pharmacist-associated education on diabetes self-care practices and glycemic control in Sudanese individuals with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). Design and methods: This quasi-experimental study with no control group recruited 110 adults with T2DM from a diabetes clinic over 12 months using simple random sampling. We collected data through interviews and calls. Participants received 12 educational videos covering diabetes management. The intervention was video-based and delivered over 5 months. We analyzed data using SPSS version 28. Results: The mean age of participants was 56.2 ± 10.3 years. Self-care practices significantly improved over time. Fasting blood glucose (FBG) levels decreased by 16.7 mg/dL at 6 months (p = 0.009) and 41.9 mg/dL at 12 months (p < 0.001). Two-hour postprandial glucose levels dropped by 18.7 mg/dL at 6 months (p = 0.006) and 61.8 mg/dL at 12 months (p < 0.001). HbA1c levels decreased by 1 % at6 months (p < 0.001) and 1.9 % at 12 months (p < 0.001). The effect size (Cohen’s d) was increased from 0.26 at 6 months to 0.74 at 12 months. Similarly, it was increased for 2hrsPPG from 0.2 at 6 months to 0.74 at 12 months. For HbA1c, it was increased from 0.62 at 6 months to 1.25 at 12 months, indicating clinically meaningful improvement in long-term glycemic control following the pharmacist intervention. LDL decreased by 9.2 mg/dL at 12 months (p < 0.001), and HDL increased by 5.5 mg/dL at 12 months (p = 0.002). Changes in BUN and serum creatinine were insignificant. Conclusion: Clinical pharmacist education improved diabetes self-care practices and metabolic outcomes, including glycemic control and lipid profiles, demonstrating its role in achieving therapeutic goals for patients with T2DM

The Transfer of Judges and Judicial Independence

This article sets the issue of transfer of judges within an international and constitutional framework of judicial independence. It has been more than 10 years since the Kyiv Recommendations on Judicial Independence (Kyiv Recommendations) were published by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), which seeks to help countries find an appropriate balance between independence and accountability, whilst protecting judges from broader external and internal pressures. The OSCE/ODIHR have seen practices develop in the region to avoid the recommendations in spirit. Transfer of judges has a legitimate place in court management and professional development, but has also been used to threaten judges who do not comply with political will in individual cases. There are mechanisms, if not properly regulated, that allow judges to be threatened, such as disciplinary transfers, denial of transfers when requested, court reorganization, and case management, amongst others. This article is adapted from an earlier draft thematic paper used to address the gap and revise the Kyiv Recommendations. It found that a number of practices involving transfer of judges were incompatible with the spirit and letter of the Kyiv Recommendations. It is set out in four main parts: The first section sets out the introduction, issues and the methodology of the original project, section two provides an overview of international norms and guidelines, providing a legal framework on the transfer of judges and the case law jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on the transfer of judges. In section three, I shall present the practical operation of how judges are transferred utilising some case studies as examples. The last section will discuss conclusions and recommendations. As such, this article will look at the international norms which allow for transfer of judges, and the procedural guarantees underlying those circumstances, the protection of judicial independence and conclude on how transfers of judges can, under certain circumstances, affect their independence and accountability

Mastermind and Expert Mind: A Qualitative Study of Elite Quizzers

Quizzing is an enduringly popular pastime, yet quiz has received little attention in the expertise literature. Some elite quizzers stand out even among their peers, leading us to ask how expert quizzers develop their prodigious knowledge. Quizzing takes many forms, including general knowledge quizzes, websites such as Sporcle, games like Trivial Pursuit, and broadcast quiz shows, suggesting that the cognitive and motivational drivers of quiz excellence may be multifaceted and vary according to challenge. We investigated this domain using the Grounded Expertise Components Approach (GECA), which starts by characterizing those active in a domain through a broad survey. In order to scope out the areas such a survey should cover, qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven expert quizzers, either winners of UK TV shows or professional quiz setters. Data were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. Seven themes were generated, six of which are discussed in this paper. “Levels of Expertise” provided support for a range of performance levels within quiz, with suggestions as to how to benchmark these levels, as well as discussing gender inequalities in the domain. “Thirst for Knowledge” related to an enthusiastic interest in facts, with a corresponding sponge-like ability to acquire incidental information driven by curiosity and engagement, and an appetite for cognitive challenge. By contrast, “Quiz Preparation” explored the use of deliberate (and/or purposeful) practice to plug gaps in knowledge. “Immersion” reflected the continued engagement in quiz which kept the quizzers at the top of their game. “Motivation” discussed the intrinsic and extrinsic motivational drivers for both starting quizzing and then maintaining a high level of involvement. Finally, “Characteristics” related to how individual differences in the patterns of cognitive and other traits may underlie quiz preferences. The findings informed the construction of a Stage 1 GECA survey of quizzers (results to be reported elsewhere), as well as signaling some of the most important underlying cognitive and motivational factors involved in the development of quiz expertise

When We Were Humans: Never Let Me Go and ALoning

Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go has been the subject of a range of interpretative approaches, from posthuman readings of the clones’ predicament to disabilities studies readings interested in the novel’s relevance to questions of eugenics. The novel, in much the same way as When We Were Orphans, The Buried Giant, and Klara and the Sun, has also prompted heated debate about Ishiguro’s use, or misuse, of genre conventions. Here, engaging with the critical reception of the novel, this article argues that Ishiguro is foremost interested in the function of narrative, and of language, and the ways in which subtly disseminated stories come to form, or more accurately deform, our worlds. Rumors abound in Never Let Me Go, but they acquire through repetition, andthrough desperation, a profound significance in the limited lives of the novel’s subjects