Schopenhauer on Aesthetic Experience

Arthur Schopenhauer defends the view that aesthetic experience is disinterested and objective. Traditionally, this view is taken to mean that aesthetic experience involves the suspension of all affective states and a passive attitude toward the object of contemplation. However, A. E. Denham argues that Schopenhauer’s view is more complex than traditionally thought. In particular, she claims that he sees aesthetic experience as involving passionate and active engagement with the object of contemplation. In this paper, I argue that a close reading of Schopenhauer’s texts reveals that the traditional view is better supported than Denham’s. In addition, I consider some objections to Schopenhauerian disinterestedness and objectivity that highlight the extremity of his view in a way that Denham’s interpretation fails to appreciate

Alien Registration- Mckinley, Robert M. (Union, Knox County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/12977/thumbnail.jp

Improving the quality of written feedback using written feedback

Background: Educational feedback is amongst the most powerful of all learning interventions. Research questions: (1) Can we measure the quality of written educational feedback with acceptable metrics? (2) Based on such a measure, does a quality improvement (QI) intervention improve the quality of feedback? Study design: We developed a QI instrument to measure the quality of written feedback and applied it to written feedback provided to medical students following workplace assessments. We evaluated the measurement characteristics of the QI score using generalisability theory. In an uncontrolled intervention, QI profiles were fed back to GP tutors and pre and post intervention scores compared. Study results: A single assessor scoring 6 feedback summaries can discriminate between practices with a reliability of 0.82.The quality of feedback rose for two years after the introduction of the QI instrument and stabilised in the third year. The estimated annual cost to provide this feedback is £12 per practice. Interpretation and recommendations: It is relatively straightforward and inexpensive to measure the quality of written feedback with good reliability. The QI process appears to improve the quality of written feedback. We recommend routine use of a QI process to improve the quality of educational feedback

Spontaneous wettability patterning via creasing instability

Surfaces with patterned wettability contrast are important in industrial applications such as heat transfer, water collection, and particle separation. Traditional methods of fabricating such surfaces rely on microfabrication technologies, which are only applicable to certain substrates and are difficult to scale up and implement on curved surfaces. By taking advantage of a mechanical instability on a polyurethane elastomer film, we show that wettability patterns on both flat and curved surfaces can be generated spontaneously via a simple dip coating process. Variations in dipping time, sample prestress, and chemical treatment enable independent control of domain size (from about 100 to 500 μm), morphology, and wettability contrast, respectively. We characterize the wettability contrast using local surface energy measurements via the sessile droplet technique and tensiometry.United States. Army Research Office (Contract W911NF-13-D-0001

Teaching and learning clinical reasoning: tutors' perceptions of change in their own clinical practice

BACKGROUND: Clinical reasoning is an important skill for all clinicians and historically has rarely been formally taught either at undergraduate or postgraduate level. Clinical reasoning is taught as a formal course in the fourth year of the undergraduate programme at Keele School of Medicine by tutors who are all practicing general practitioners. AIM: We aimed to explore the tutors' perceptions about how teaching on the course has impacted on their own consultation skills. DESIGN AND SETTING: All 11 course tutors who had taught on the course for at least one full academic year were invited to take part in recorded individual semi-structured interviews with an experienced, non-clinical, qualitative researcher. The data were analysed using qualitative methods. RESULTS: Eleven tutors participated, with a range of 7 to 32 years of clinical experience. They reported better decision-making, greater use of metacognition, more self-awareness, more reflective practice, more confidence and greater job satisfaction. They also reported positive impacts on their own knowledge and learning, and assumed concomitant benefits for their patients. CONCLUSION: All clinicians in this group perceived benefits on their consultation skills as a result of teaching clinical reasoning. There is a need to provide education, training and continuing professional development in cognitive consultation skills to students, trainees and established practitioners

Microstructural Rearrangements and their Rheological Implications in a Model Thixotropic Elastoviscoplastic Fluid

We identify the sequence of microstructural changes that characterize the evolution of an attractive particulate gel under flow and discuss their implications on macroscopic rheology. Dissipative particle dynamics is used to monitor shear-driven evolution of a fabric tensor constructed from the ensemble spatial configuration of individual attractive constituents within the gel. By decomposing this tensor into isotropic and nonisotropic components we show that the average coordination number correlates directly with the flow curve of the shear stress versus shear rate, consistent with theoretical predictions for attractive systems. We show that the evolution in nonisotropic local particle rearrangements are primarily responsible for stress overshoots (strain-hardening) at the inception of steady shear flow and also lead, at larger times and longer scales, to microstructural localization phenomena such as shear banding flow-induced structure formation in the vorticity direction

Conceptualising and Teaching Biomedical Uncertainty to Medical Students: an Exploratory Qualitative Study

Introduction Certainty/uncertainty in medicine is a topic of popular debate. This study aims to understand how biomedical uncertainty is conceptualised by academic medical educators and how it is taught in a medical school in the UK. Methods This is an exploratory qualitative study grounded in ethnographic principles. This study is based on 10 observations of teaching sessions and seven semi-structured qualitative interviews with medical educators from various biomedical disciplines in a UK medical school. The data set was analysed via a thematic analysis. Results Four main themes were identified after analysis: (1) ubiquity of biomedical uncertainty, (2) constraints to teaching biomedical uncertainty, (3) the ‘medic filter’ and (4) fluid distinction: core versus additional knowledge. While medical educators had differing understandings of how biomedical uncertainty is articulated in their disciplines, its presence was ubiquitous. This ubiquity did not translate into teaching due to time constraints and assessment strategies. The ‘medic filter’ emerged as a strategy that educators employed to decide what to include in their teaching. They made distinctions between core and additional knowledge which were defined in varied ways across disciplines. Additional knowledge often encapsulated biomedical uncertainty. Discussion Even though the perspective that knowledge is socially constructed is not novel in medical education, it is neither universally valued nor universally applied. Moving beyond situativity theories and into broader debates in social sciences provides new opportunities to discuss the nature of scientific knowledge in medical education. We invite a move away from situated learning to situated knowledge

Time-Rate-Transformation framework for targeted assembly of short-range attractive colloidal suspensions

The aggregation of attractive colloids has been extensively studied from both theoretical and experimental perspectives as the fraction of solid particles is changed, and the range, type and strength of attractive or repulsive forces between particles varies. The resulting gels consisting of disordered assemblies of attractive colloidal particles, have also been investigated with regards to percolation, phase separation, and the mechanical characteristics of the resulting fractal networks. Despite tremendous progress in our understanding of the gelation process, and the exploration of different routes for arresting the dynamics of attractive colloids, the complex interplay between convective transport processes and many-body effects in such systems has limited our ability to drive the system towards a specific configuration. Here we study a model attractive colloidal system over a wide range of particle characteristics and flow conditions undergoing aggregation far from equilibrium. The complex multiscale dynamics of the system can be understood using a Time-Rate-Transformation diagram adapted from understanding of materials processing in block copolymers, supercooled liquids and much stiffer glassy metals to direct targeted assembly of attractive colloidal particles

Chronic venous leg ulcer care – are we missing a vital piece of the jigsaw?

This project explored the lived experiences of patients with leg ulcers to ascertain impact on their quality of life. The aim was to develop a new Leg Ulcer Consultation Template (LUCT). Unstructured interviews were undertaken. Themes raised as significant were incorporated into a checklist and used to assess the extent and depth of exploration during the consultations. Several key themes were identified, including the dominance of pain. Observations revealed that issues emphasised as important by participants were not raised during consultations. A new consultation template was developed. The results of this study reveal that participants have concerns far beyond their actual wound care. Application of the new consultation template may go some way to redress the balance of the consultation

A rural undergraduate campus in England:virtue from opportunity and necessity

The implementation of new curriculum at Keele University Medical School, UK has made heavy use of general practice as a locus for learning. This has necessitated a substantial expansion in the School's teaching network. The School's hinterland includes a large rural area with a number of excellent general practices and associated community hospitals that, to date, have been unable to teach undergraduates because of their inaccessibility. This article describes how the School and its partners articulated a vision to establish a rural campus with an associated rural accommodation hub, and the challenges involved in establishing and sustaining the campus