Framing Forces: Models of Cinema Expressed by Films that Frame Painting

This essay looks at ways in which a number of films have employed painting in order to substantiate the aesthetics of cinema that they envisage. The focus of the essay specifically concerns the differences between centrifugal and centripetal forces at the edges of paintings and the limits of the film frame. Beginning with examples from narrative cinema, the essay turns to look at crossovers between the aesthetics of painting and cinema in the context of experimental film, from early exponents of abstract cinema in the 1920s through to more recent examples

Increasing creative self-efficacy:Developing the confidence of biochemistry undergraduates to innovate

Biochemistry graduates need to be creative, however assessing creativity requires the production of novelty, judged by or against that of peers. A related phenomenon is ‘creative self‐efficacy’ (CSE) – one's self‐belief in producing creative outcomes. CSE is a contributor to creativity, but is more easily assessed, and thus more amenable for targeting pedagogically. To investigate interactions between student CSE and the learning environment, a biochemistry laboratory exercise was deployed within a ‘creative’ module, wherein students created their own experimental protocols. Students completed questionnaires at the beginning and end of the module. Compared to ‘control’ modules lacking overtly creative activities, the creative module significantly increased students' perceptions of their own creativity and whether their studies had increased their creativity. Students' confidence in meeting degree learning outcomes (for instance the ability to work productively in a laboratory), and motivation to study, were also significantly increased. Marks attained from the creative exercise correlated with students' CSE, but surprisingly, students' expected marks correlated negatively with their CSE, implying they had a poor understanding of the relationship between creativity and success. Our results suggest that the learning environment can positively affect students' CSE, promoting academic attainment of learning outcomes, motivation, and their confidence as biochemists

Davidson, interpretation and values

The broad aim of this research is to outline, assess and elaborate on Davidson’s work on radical interpretation and its connections to his understanding of values, and particularly on his understanding of the nature of ethical judgments and concepts. The central idea that I consider is that the principle of charity must play much the same role in the attribution of values to a speaker as it does in the attribution of beliefs. This is taken to show that certain general claims about the content of propositional attitudes, which Davidson thinks follow from the consideration of radical interpretation, can be applied to values as well as beliefs

Improving Care and Service Coordination for Vulnerable Populations Through Collaboratives: One Funder’s Approach, Impact, and Implications for the Field

· Improvement collaboratives are short-term learning systems that bring together teams from multiple organizations to seek improvement on a focused topic within the organizations. Most commonly applied in clinical settings, improvement collaboratives are less frequently applied in social-service settings or across agencies to support coordination of care and services for vulnerable populations. · This article describes findings from four collaboratives conceived and funded by the Health Foundation for Western & Central New York. It examines the foundation’s collaborative structure (a modified Breakthrough Series model in which health and social-service organizations work together in multi-agency teams to implement best practices and improve coordination of services for vulnerable populations), along with the impact of each collaborative on learning, communication, participating organizations, and target populations. · Reports from 91 participating organizations, representing 50 teams, in four collaboratives revealed strong team achievement, learning and communication, and sustained improvements. Impacts on target populations and spread of best practices were also reported. A key influence on achievement was the use of multi-agency teams representing two or more organizations working together to implement new processes and improvements to support patient handoffs across health and social service settings. · Findings suggest that the foundation’s collaborative model – an adaptation of the intra-organizational Breakthrough Series model for use in amulti-organizational setting – can be effective in fostering improvement within organizations and promote coordination across agencies to improve health and social services for vulnerable populations. Collaborative structure and process recommendations for funders interested in this model are highlighted