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"Wilson, Bruce"
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New soundings in postcolonial writing : critical and creative contours : essays in honour of Bruce King
\"New Soundings in Postcolonial Writing' is a collection of critical and creative writing in honour of the postcolonial critic, editor and anthologist Bruce King. There are essays on topics relating to Caribbean authors (Derek Walcott, Simone and Andre Schwarz-Bart); diaspora writers in England (Zadie Smith, Andrea Levy, Michael Ondaatje), South East Asian writing in English (Arun Kolatkar, recent Pakistani fiction, Anita Desai) and New Zealand, Canadian and Pacific writers (Albert Wendt, Patricia Grace, Bill Manhire, Joseph Boyden, Greg O'Brien). The creative writing section features new work by David Dabydeen, Fred D'Aguiar, Arvind Mehrotra, Jeet Thayil, Meena Alexander, Keki Daruwalla, Adil Jussawalla, Tabish Khair, Susan Visvanathan and others, reflecting King's pioneering work on Indian poetry in English, and his many friendships\"--Page 4 of cover.
Book
Gridded daily weather data for North America with comprehensive uncertainty quantification
Access to daily high-resolution gridded surface weather data based on direct observations and over long time periods is essential for many studies and applications including vegetation, wildlife, soil health, hydrological modelling, and as driver data in Earth system models. We present Daymet V4, a 40-year daily meteorological dataset on a 1 km grid for North America, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, providing temperature, precipitation, shortwave radiation, vapor pressure, snow water equivalent, and day length. The dataset includes an objective quantification of uncertainty based on strict cross-validation analysis for temperature and precipitation results. The dataset represents several improvements from a previous version, and this data descriptor provides complete documentation for updated methods. Improvements include: reductions in the timing bias of input reporting weather station measurements; improvement to the three-dimensional regression model techniques in the core algorithm; and a novel approach to handling high elevation temperature measurement biases. We show cross-validation analyses with the underlying weather station data to demonstrate the technical validity of new dataset generation methods, and to quantify improved accuracy.
Measurement(s)
temperature of air • precipitation • shortwave radiation • vapor pressure of air • snowpack
Technology Type(s)
digital curation
Factor Type(s)
elevation • geographic location
Sample Characteristic - Environment
land surface
Sample Characteristic - Location
North America
Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data:
https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.14538075
Journal Article
A new imperative : regions and higher education in difficult times
This text analyses co-operation between universities and regional authorities.
Book
New imperative
At a time in history when global challenges are becoming more intractable and threatening, it makes sense to draw on the specialist expertise of our universities. Much of government interest in doing so has typically focused on the major research institutions with their records of new discovery and invention. However, there is extensive evidence that the greatest opportunities are at regional level. Despite globalisation, regions are becoming more and more important as sites of identity and policy intervention. Regions can take their futures into their own hands, and their local universities are a crucial resource of expertise to support these initiatives. However, there have been significant barriers to effective cooperation between universities and their regional authorities. This book provides an analysis of these circumstances and draws on an international research project to point academics, policy makers and practitioners in the right direction. It provides extensive evidence from this project to support its argument.
eBook
Overcoming the Limits of Legal Opportunity Structures
Costa Rica and Colombia, two of the earliest Latin American countries to protect many LGBT rights, attempted to amplify those rights and litigate same-sex marriage (SSM) in mid-2000s; however, these attempts sparked a major anti-LGBT backlash by religious and conservative organizations. Yet a decade later, Colombia legalized SSM while Costa Rica still lacks the right to SSM. Using a most-similar systems comparative case study, this study engages the judicial politics literature to explain this divergent outcome. It details how courts, while staying receptive to many individual LGBT rights claims, deferred SSM legalization to popularly elected branches. In spite of the lack of legislative success in both countries, in Colombia a new litigation strategy harnessed that deference to craft a litigated route to legalized SSM. In Costa Rica, the courts’ lack of conditions or deadlines has left SSM foundering in the congress.
Journal Article
Fiat flux : the writings of Wilson R. Bachelor, nineteenth-century country doctor and philosopher
Wilson R. Bachelor was a Tennessee native who moved with his family to Franklin County, Arkansas, in 1870. A country doctor and natural philosopher, Bachelor was impelled to chronicle his life from 1870 to 1902, documenting the family's move to Arkansas, their settling a farm in Franklin County, and Bachelor's medical practice. Bachelor was an avid reader with wide-ranging interests in literature, science, nature, politics, and religion, and he became a self-professed freethinker in the 1870s. He was driven by a concept he called \"fiat flux,\" an awareness of the \"rapid flight of time\" that motivated him to treat the people around him and the world itself as precious and fleeting.
Book
Co‐creation Design of Virtual Agents for Reminiscence Therapy in Dementia Care: the case of AMPER ‐ Agent‐based Memory Prosthesis to Encourage Reminiscence
Background Reminiscence therapy can improve emotional and cognitive engagement in individuals with dementia, thus restoring their sense of self‐worth, self‐esteem, and quality of life (Macleod et al., 2021). Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs) offer a novel way to facilitate this therapy by providing consistent, personalised, and engaging interactions (Aylett et al., 2024 a&b). Reminiscence technologies should emerge from co‐design methodologies, which emphasise collaboration with users and caregivers to create theory‐driven and user‐led systems that are intuitive, engaging, and impactful. Here, we report on the co‐creation design approach of AMPER. Methods The co‐design process incorporated user‐centred design (UCD) and participatory design (PD) methodologies. Workshops and interviews were conducted with caregivers, clinicians, and other stakeholders to define key design requirements. Prototypes were developed iteratively, integrating feedback to refine visual design, interaction flow, and narrative content. ECAs prototypes were tested for their suitability, using scales to measure the reliability of traits (trustworthiness, friendliness, kindness, knowledgeability, amicability, and non‐stereotypical appearance) and engagement. Natural language processing and multimedia prompts were used to enhance personalisation and contextual relevance. Results Out of 17 ECAs, 8 were shortlisted by 6 raters. The resulting female (n = 4) and male (n = 4) ECAs attracted high ratings on trustworthiness (87.6/130), friendliness (87.3/130), kindness (87.9/130), knowledgeability (86.4/130), amicability (89.6/130), and non‐stereotypical (82.9/130) from cognitively unimpaired older adults (n = 26 for female ECA and n = 28 for male ECA, age range 59‐87). Trustworthiness showed correlations (Spearman's rho 0.3−0.4) with the other traits but non‐stereotypical. Intra‐class Correlation Coefficient (ICC) was 0.88 (p < .001, 95% CI=0.73‐0.97), suggesting high inter‐rater agreement. Participants reported increased emotional engagement, citing the value of personalised ECAs, narratives, and multimedia integration. Conclusions The AMPER co‐creation design approach proved effective in creating tailored ECAs for reminiscence therapy (Aylett et al., 2024b). We provide guidelines for future evaluation of intelligent ECAS in a co‐design context (Aylett et al., 2024a). This research contributes to the growing field of trustworthy autonomous systems for healthcare applications, emphasising interdisciplinarity, user trust, and engagement as critical factors for success.
Journal Article
Co‐creation Design of Virtual Agents for Reminiscence Therapy in Dementia Care: the case of AMPER ‐ Agent‐based Memory Prosthesis to Encourage Reminiscence
Background Reminiscence therapy can improve emotional and cognitive engagement in individuals with dementia, thus restoring their sense of self‐worth, self‐esteem, and quality of life (Macleod et al., 2021). Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs) offer a novel way to facilitate this therapy by providing consistent, personalised, and engaging interactions (Aylett et al., 2024 a&b). Reminiscence technologies should emerge from co‐design methodologies, which emphasise collaboration with users and caregivers to create theory‐driven and user‐led systems that are intuitive, engaging, and impactful. Here, we report on the co‐creation design approach of AMPER. Methods The co‐design process incorporated user‐centred design (UCD) and participatory design (PD) methodologies. Workshops and interviews were conducted with caregivers, clinicians, and other stakeholders to define key design requirements. Prototypes were developed iteratively, integrating feedback to refine visual design, interaction flow, and narrative content. ECAs prototypes were tested for their suitability, using scales to measure the reliability of traits (trustworthiness, friendliness, kindness, knowledgeability, amicability, and non‐stereotypical appearance) and engagement. Natural language processing and multimedia prompts were used to enhance personalisation and contextual relevance. Results Out of 17 ECAs, 8 were shortlisted by 6 raters. The resulting female (n = 4) and male (n = 4) ECAs attracted high ratings on trustworthiness (87.6/130), friendliness (87.3/130), kindness (87.9/130), knowledgeability (86.4/130), amicability (89.6/130), and non‐stereotypical (82.9/130) from cognitively unimpaired older adults (n = 26 for female ECA and n = 28 for male ECA, age range 59‐87). Trustworthiness showed correlations (Spearman's rho 0.3−0.4) with the other traits but non‐stereotypical. Intra‐class Correlation Coefficient (ICC) was 0.88 (p <.001, 95% CI=0.73‐0.97), suggesting high inter‐rater agreement. Participants reported increased emotional engagement, citing the value of personalised ECAs, narratives, and multimedia integration. Conclusions The AMPER co‐creation design approach proved effective in creating tailored ECAs for reminiscence therapy (Aylett et al., 2024b). We provide guidelines for future evaluation of intelligent ECAS in a co‐design context (Aylett et al., 2024a). This research contributes to the growing field of trustworthy autonomous systems for healthcare applications, emphasising interdisciplinarity, user trust, and engagement as critical factors for success.
Journal Article