Anti-Creativity, Ambiguity and the Imposition of Order

Though there are many ways of describing markers of creativity, one of the most persuasive was one of the earliest we encountered: the ability to tolerate ambiguity. It is precisely that ambiguity, valued in the arts for its richness of interpretive possibility, that is perhaps most at risk in the current sector and institutional climate of imposed order. An insistence on a rigidly enforced language of learning outcomes seems to value tidiness and clarity over the excitement and engagement of open-ended exploration. An emerging pedagogical correctness (focusing on easily assessable and quantifiable outcomes) threatens invention and critical questioning as not only an aim for students but also for teachers as part of the task of developing engagement with the culture of a specific discipline. This paper will, first, explore the idea of tolerance of ambiguity through the history of its critical discussion and relation to notions of metaphor and imagination. It will then look at the history and experience of participants in one specific group exercise designed to address issues of ambiguity, categorization and organisation. This exercise, drawing on the recognition of and imaginative connection between properties of natural objects, has been used widely in a range of educational and developmental settings with sometimes startling and certainly memorable results. It may not always, however, be seen as conforming to current demands for rigid clarity of intentions and learning outcomes, and can raise issues of the legitimacy of questioning, surprise and hidden agendas as pedagogical strategies and prompts to imaginative leaps. Finally, it will contextualise this discussion by looking in a broader way at the tone of imposed order in pedagogical literature, its application in e-learning methodology, and the ways that it may tend to discourage rather than reinforce cultures of creativity in teaching practice

Correlation between amygdala BOLD activity and frontal EEG asymmetry during real-time fMRI neurofeedback training in patients with depression

Real-time fMRI neurofeedback (rtfMRI-nf) is an emerging approach for studies and novel treatments of major depressive disorder (MDD). EEG performed simultaneously with an rtfMRI-nf procedure allows an independent evaluation of rtfMRI-nf brain modulation effects. Frontal EEG asymmetry in the alpha band is a widely used measure of emotion and motivation that shows profound changes in depression. However, it has never been directly related to simultaneously acquired fMRI data. We report the first study investigating electrophysiological correlates of the rtfMRI-nf procedure, by combining rtfMRI-nf with simultaneous and passive EEG recordings. In this pilot study, MDD patients in the experimental group (n=13) learned to upregulate BOLD activity of the left amygdala using an rtfMRI-nf during a happy emotion induction task. MDD patients in the control group (n=11) were provided with a sham rtfMRI-nf. Correlations between frontal EEG asymmetry in the upper alpha band and BOLD activity across the brain were examined. Average individual changes in frontal EEG asymmetry during the rtfMRI-nf task for the experimental group showed a significant positive correlation with the MDD patients' depression severity ratings, consistent with an inverse correlation between the depression severity and frontal EEG asymmetry at rest. Temporal correlations between frontal EEG asymmetry and BOLD activity were significantly enhanced, during the rtfMRI-nf task, for the amygdala and many regions associated with emotion regulation. Our findings demonstrate an important link between amygdala BOLD activity and frontal EEG asymmetry. Our EEG asymmetry results suggest that the rtfMRI-nf training targeting the amygdala is beneficial to MDD patients, and that alpha-asymmetry EEG-nf would be compatible with the amygdala rtfMRI-nf. Combination of the two could enhance emotion regulation training and benefit MDD patients.Comment: 28 pages, 16 figures, to appear in NeuroImage: Clinica

Marketing in Higher Education: A Stage Model Concerning Where It\u27s Been and Where It\u27s Going

The ideas of Williford (1987) are used to propose a four-stage model describing the evolution of marketing in many colleges and universities. It elaborates on the thinking endemic to strategic marketing management and frameworks drawn from business marketing which will likely become more prominent in higher education. (Author/GLR

A stable and accurate control-volume technique based on integrated radial basis function networks for fluid-flow problems

Radial basis function networks (RBFNs) have been widely used in solving partial differential equations as they are able to provide fast convergence. Integrated RBFNs have the ability to avoid the problem of reduced convergence-rate caused by differentiation. This paper is concerned with the use of integrated RBFNs in the context of control-volume discretisations for the simulation of fluid-flow problems. Special attention is given to (i) the development of a stable high-order upwind scheme for the convection term and (ii) the development of a local high-order approximation scheme for the diffusion term. Benchmark problems including the lid-driven triangular-cavity flow are employed to validate the present technique. Accurate results at high values of the Reynolds number are obtained using relatively-coarse grids

Publications of the Space Physiology and Countermeasures Program, Cardiopulmonary Discipline: 1980-1990

A 10-year cumulative bibliography of publications resulting from research supported by the Cardiopulmonary Discipline of the Space Physiology and Countermeasures Program of NASA's Life Sciences Division is provided. Primary subjects included in this bibliography are Fluid Shifts, Cardiovascular Fitness, Cardiovascular Physiology, and Pulmonary Physiology. General physiology references are also included. Principal investigators whose research tasks resulted in publication are identified. Publications are identified by a record number corresponding with their entry in the Life Sciences Bibliographic Database, maintained at the George Washington University

Cellular distribution and amount of chromogranin A in bovine endocrine pancreas

We determined the cellular distribution and the amount of chromogranin A in endocrine cells of bovine pancreas using a polyclonal antibody against bovine adrenomedullary chromogranin A. The relative amounts of chromogranin A in the different cells of the endocrine pancreas were determined by computer-assisted analyses of the optical densities of the immunoreactivities in the stained sections. More than 80% of the immunoreactive chromogranin A was located in the pancreatic B-cells. In immunoblots of acid tissue extracts, only one chromogranin A band (MW 74 KD) was observed. Quantification of the immunoblots revealed that 3 micrograms of chromogranin A and 918 micrograms of insulin were present per gram pancreas (wet weight), equivalent to a molar ratio of 460 mumol chromogranin A per mol insulin

"Modal" 'that' as determiner and pronoun: the primacy of the cognitive-interactional dimension

International audienceIn this article, I examine the 'modal' or 'empathetic' (Lyons, 1977: 677) use of the distal (or "non-proximal") determiner/pronoun 'that': namely, where the intended referent may have just been evoked in the immediately prior discourse, but where the distal pronoun 'that', not the 'in-focus' 'it' or the 'activated',proximal 'this' is used. The rationale behind the choice of this particular type of indexical seems to be that the speaker is distancing him/herself from the referent, not wishing to ascribe actuality to it in the way that would be the case if either 'it' or 'this' were used instead. Examination of this particular value of that leads to the hypothesis that the principles underlying the choice of 'that' as opposed to 'this' or 'it' generally are not derived 'objectively', as it were, from their situational use in terms of degrees of proximity of a referent or demonstratum to the speaker or hearer, nor primarily in terms of attention focus. They are, rather, social and cognitive, and play an important interactional role in the construction of discourse