Blakelaw and Cowgate Coordination Project evaluation

In 2003, the Blakelaw and Cowgate Coordination Project was established in response to a recognised need to coordinate local community services across two sites in North West Newcastle. The project contributes to Newcastle City Council’s Neighbourhood Strategy, which intends to address residents’ priorities for improvements to local neighbourhoods, strengthened communities and community participation. The Blakelaw and Cowgate Coordination Project supported the development of Montagu CFSS and Blakelaw Neighbourhood Centre. The intention of Montagu CFSS is to address the concerns of pupils, families and the wider community through the development and delivery of rapid response services provided by a multi-disciplinary team. A wide range of organisations deliver services from the school itself as well as Blakelaw Neighbourhood Centre, both of which are part of a management network of community based services. The Coordination Project aims to: Develop and implement support mechanisms, community capacity building measures, and effective partnerships in order to meet community aspirations regarding service delivery and activities. Build upon and apply a committed partnership approach at both area and neighbourhood levels. Enable and empower communities to develop through change in relation to service delivery style and approach, and to give input regarding activities delivered at neighbourhood level. The research team were commissioned to measure and assess the effectiveness of the Montagu CFSS and Blakelaw Neighbourhood Centre Coordination Project. In conducting this research, the findings will feedback to project beneficiaries (the local community), relevant policy makers and strategists, and funding bodies in terms of its impact and the development of a forward plan for the future of the project. This report outlines the findings of the evaluation, which was carried out by Sustainable Cities Research Institute at Northumbria University

Quality Improvement for the JeffMD Clinical Experience Program

Introduction: The JeffMD curriculum at Sidney Kimmel Medical College, which completed its inaugural year in the spring of 2018, aims to prepare future physicians to “thrive in the landscape of modern healthcare.” The curriculum is based upon the knowledge that human health exists interdependently with all aspects of life, including but not limited to social, health care system, behavioral, and biological factors. The JeffMD Clinical Experience Program (CE) is a mandatory, experiential, value-added component of the curriculum. Through the CE course, which spans the 21-month preclinical period, students work with a Community Health Worker to screen patients for social needs and connect them to community resources. Objective: The purpose of this Quality Improvement study was twofold. First, we sought to evaluate the extent to which the first year of the CE program (1) contributed to student learning, and (2) added value to the clinical sites. Second, we sought to implement site-specific improvements based upon our results. Methods: We followed the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) model. We measured the current performance of the CE program through electronic surveys administered to the 260 first-year medical students who participated. The surveys included free response and Likert scale questions. We also conducted small group interviews with key stakeholders from four of the clinical sites using a questionnaire adapted from Penn State. Results: Students valued the opportunity to interact with patients and learn about social determinants of health; however, they did not find the CE program to be an effective learning experience. Key themes from the clinical site interviews included lack of student initiative, physical space constraints, communication barriers, and the positive contribution of Community Health Workers. Conclusion: We performed cause analyses and implemented clinical site-specific changes based upon our results. We believe that the student experience will improve from year-to-year so long as we continue to incorporate feedback from students and other stakeholders

Support Services at Yale University for Teaching with Primary Sources: An Exploration of Instructor Rationales and Needs

Between October and December 2019, investigators participating in an Ithaka S+R study interviewed fifteen Yale instructors who teach with primary sources in humanities and humanities-leaning social science disciplines. The conversations focused on the interviewees’ background, training, and experience utilizing primary sources in their undergraduate teaching at Yale, as well as their pedagogical goals, strategies, successes and challenges, and perceived needs as practitioners of primary source-based instruction. Interviewees were eloquent in articulating the wide variety of pedagogical goals that motivate their work to incorporate primary sources in all formats into their syllabi and teaching practice. Very few cited any formal training or mentoring in teaching with primary sources, and most portrayed it as a solitary endeavor within their department or discipline. The instructors interviewed for this report expressed challenges relating to finding primary sources at Yale and facilitating that discovery for their students. One commonality expressed across the interviewees’ range of Yale-specific teaching experiences is their reliance on and appreciation for the collaborative support that they receive from staff in the repositories with which they most frequently work. Interviewees discussed the use of technology in teaching, but primarily in terms of presentations, either their own course content or students’ research results. The interviews took place a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic forced Yale to move 2020 classes online. As a result, this report does not reflect instructors’ experiences relying heavily on technology to deliver their classes

Flower Bouquet

When we started working with flower shapes, we realized we could work with Gestalt\u27s principles of closure, continuation, and proximity. Starting with the concept of a flower vase this demonstrates Gestalt\u27s principle of proximity. Starting with the concept of a flower vase this demonstrates Gestalt\u27s principle of proximity. People group things together when they are close to each other and a flower bouquet is the perfect example of this. The second principle you see in our work is continuation. Continuation is the way our minds sees segments of a line as a continuous line. This is most commonly demonstrated in plaid where we see the lines of a color as one line. In our project this is used on the various flowers such as a circle on the orange flower, and the black and white fabric on the golden flower.https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/theoryinaction_projects2020/1003/thumbnail.jp

First-Year Seminars Taxonomy

First-year seminars are designed to assist entering students as they form connections with the IUPUI community, including other students, faculty, and advisors in a prospective major. This First-Year Seminars High-Impact Practice Taxonomy seeks to clearly define the features of First-Year Seminars as a high-impact practice. The taxonomy describes four attributes of First-Year Seminars practice along three dimensions of impact—High-Impact, Higher-Impact, and Highest-Impact

Gill net catch composition and catch per unit effort in Flag Boshielo Dam, Limpopo Province, South Africa

Gill net surveys were conducted in 2013 to determine species composition and fisheries potential of Flag Boshielo Dam. Species contributing the most towards total biomass were Labeo rosae (40%), Oreochromis mossambicus (15%), Schilbe intermedius (10%) and Labeobarbus marequensis (9.8%). Catch per unit effort for gill nets set at night (4.4 ± 0.6 kg·100 m-net−1·hr−1) was significantly higher (P < 0.05) than for those set during the day (0.9 ± 0.1 kg·100 m-net−1·hr−1). Total fish biomass captured in 30, 50, 70, 90 and 110 mm mesh sized nets was 3.1, 31.5, 43.5, 23.5 and 16.1 kg, respectively. Catch in gillnets with mesh sizes ≥ 70 mm was dominated by L. rosae comprising 60% of the catch in the 70 mm mesh; L. rosae (40%) and O. mossambicus (36%) in the 90 mm mesh; and O. mossambicus (40%) and Clarias gariepinus (40%) in the 110 mm mesh. If a small-scale fishery were to be initiated, it is recommended that mesh sizes should exceed 70 mm and that further research on the biology and ecology of the main target species and of the current utilisation of the fishery be conducted to guide sustainable utilisation.Keywords: Arabie Dam, CPUE, fish composition, net selectivity, inland fisherie

The Creation and Expansion of the International Criminal Court: A Legal Explanation.

Abstract: International courts have proliferated in the international system in the past century, with one hundred judicial or quasi-judicial bodies currently in existence. While the supply of international courts has increased substantially, state level support for international courts varies across states, across courts, and over time. This paper focuses on the cross-sectional and temporal variation in state level support for a particular court, the International Criminal Court (ICC). The authors argue that domestic legal systems create different predispositions with respect to states' willingness to join adjudicatory bodies and the design of their commitments to international courts. Negotiators involved in the creation of the ICC pushed for rules and procedures that mimicked those of their domestic legal systems to help reduce uncertainty regarding the court's future behavior and decision-making processes. This interesting process of legal bargaining led to the creation of a sui generis court, one which represents a mixture of common law and civil law systems. The hybrid nature of the court's design enhanced the attractiveness of the court to civil and common law states, making them significantly more likely to sign and ratify the Rome Statute. Empirical models demonstrate that common and civil law states were fervent supporters of the ICC in preliminary negotiations and that they have shown higher levels of support for the Court since the ICC's inception in comparison to Islamic law or mixed law states

Analysis of Hypertension Control Rates Among Participants in the Georgia Hypertension Management and Outreach Program

Background: This study utilized health department electronic medical records retrospectively to evaluate hypertension control rates achieved by the Georgia Hypertension Management and Outreach Program (HMOP), an education, screening, and treatment control program that provides services, including blood pressure screening and assessment, referral to physicians, counseling, educational material, disease case management, and treatment. Methods: Hypertension control rates after at least 6 months of study participation were determined for patients participating in the program for at least 6 months between 2010 and 2014, and for African American and uninsured subgroups. Results: The overall hypertension control rate was 61.1%, above the 2012 national average of 51.8%. The control rates for African Americans and the uninsured were 58.9% and 62%, respectively, compared to 41.7% and 28.7% nationally. Conclusions: Although potential bias sources in the use of retrospectively obtained electronic medical records should be considered, this analysis suggests that the Georgia HMOP provides substantial improvements in hypertension control for a population of patients with otherwise poor control. Key words: hypertension, blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases, African Americans, medically uninsure