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In Darwin’s Garden
Get PDF“In Darwin’s Garden” is a video installation that has been developed from digital images produced during a series of visits made to Down House, the former home of Charles Darwin, during 2010-2012. This work is centred on a set of time-lapse sequences and digital photographs of the ancient mulberry tree that grows close to the rear elevation of the house.
This tree and its location can be seen to be representative of the relationship between the domestic life of the Darwin Family, the garden as a site for the careful and systematic observation of natural processes and the slow but inevitable change in the cycle of life and the seasons. This venerable tree was alive and growing both before and during the time that Charles Darwin and his family inhabited the house and although it is still alive at this time, the tree is now in the final phase of its life. An aspect of this project centres on having a dynamic digital experience of the tree after its death. This tree provides a special link across time back to Charles Darwin, his theories, work and ideas and his fascination with the forces of nature.
Four time-lapse cameras were sited in positions around the tree to record its growth and associated human activity over a period of twelve months. The resulting images have been combined with additional conventional digital photographs to produce a sequential and spatial experience of the tree and its immediate environment.
The installation developed from this visual material presents a complex multiple image and time-lapse view of the mulberry tree as it grows and changes throughout the year and through the seasons. Situated within a full-size replica of the framework of the man-made structures that now support the slowly dying tree, the work produces a view of the tree in both physical and virtual space that can be explored and engaged using augmented reality technologies.The artwork In Darwin’s Garden was exhibited in the exhibition Carbon Meets Silicon II at the Oriel Sycharth Gallery, Wrexham, curated by Dr Susan Liggett. The exhibition was associated to the ITA(17), the 7th International Conference on Internet Technologies and Applications, held at Glyndwr University, Wrexham
The Limits of Anglo-American Cooperation in Cuba, 1945–1959
No full textBefore the 1959 Cuban Revolution, British governments and diplomats in Havana sought to protect their interests in Cuba, always sensitive to reactions from Washington – a vital transatlantic ally with a significant political and economic stake in the Caribbean island. After the Second World War, the allies continued their wartime cooperation over sugar supplies, with Cuba’s mainstay export still important to Britain’s refining industry and ongoing food rationing. Following two democratically-elected but highly corrupt Cuban governments, both the US State Department and the British Foreign Office came to recognise the benefits of strongman Fulgencio Batista’s abrupt return to Cuba’s political scene in 1952. Everything changed, however, when the Fidel Castro-led anti-Batista insurgency gained strength between late 1956 and 1958, and London and Washington became increasingly concerned about a political upheaval beyond US control. The issue of arms sales to Cuba became a touchstone not only of US and British policy toward Batista’s regime, but also of Anglo-American cooperation. When it came, Castro’s revolutionary triumph questioned the strength of US hegemony in its hemisphere
Walking with Shadows: Index, Inscription and Event in Malcolm Lowry's In Ballast to the White Sea
No full textThe project is part of a larger body of work and collection of photographs and writing, which responds to the landmarks and sites cited or alluded to in Malcolm Lowry's novel In Ballast to the White Sea. A methodology which is rooted in autoethnographic artist practices and journey retraces the footsteps of Malcolm Lowry over the Wirral to Liverpool, across the Irish Sea to the Isle of Man, to Vancouver and elsewhere. The events and encounters are recorded in a practice, which traverses the same terrain or one which stands in for the same as well as encompassing the potential for a detour which leads to new experience and what in psychogepgraphic terms is referred to as a dérive.
From the Liverpool University Press website: An Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and the OAPEN library.
‘Who ever thought they would one day be able to read Malcolm Lowry’s fabled novel of the 1930s and 40s, In Ballast to the White Sea? Lord knows, I didn’t’ – Michael Hofmann, TLS
This book breaks new ground in studies of the British novelist Malcolm Lowry (1909–57), as the first collection of new essays produced in response to the publication in 2014 of a scholarly edition of Lowry’s ‘lost’ novel, In Ballast to the White Sea. In their introduction, editors Helen Tookey and Bryan Biggs show how the publication of In Ballast sheds new light on Lowry as both a highly political writer and one deeply influenced by his native Merseyside, as his protagonist Sigbjørn Hansen-Tarnmoor walks the streets of Liverpool, wrestling with his own conscience and with pressing questions of class, identity and social reform. In the chapters that follow, renowned Lowry scholars and newer voices explore key aspects of the novel and its relation to the wider contexts of Lowry’s work. These include his complex relation to socialism and communism, the symbolic value of Norway, and the significance of tropes of loss, hauntings and doublings. The book draws on the unexpected opportunity offered by the rediscovery of In Ballast to look afresh at Lowry’s oeuvre, to ‘remake the voyage’.
‘Remaking the Voyage makes a major contribution to Lowry studies, perhaps unsurprisingly given the strength of the academic contributors. It genuinely advances humanistic knowledge of Lowry’s In Ballast, additionally offering an intriguing identity politics argument or interpretive nexus, comprising cultural and geographical location, class and political awareness/affiliation.’
- Professor Richard J. Lane, Vancouver Island University
Author Information
Helen Tookey teaches creative writing at Liverpool John Moores University. She has published two poetry collections with Carcanet Press: Missel-Child (2014, shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Prize 2015) and City of Departures (2019, shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2019). She is the author of Anaïs Nin, Fictionality and Femininity (Oxford University Press, 2003) and co-editor, with Bryan Biggs, of Malcolm Lowry: From the Mersey to the World (Liverpool University Press, 2009). Bryan Biggs has worked at Bluecoat, Liverpool’s contemporary arts centre, for over four decades, curating numerous exhibitions, and live art programmes. In 2017 he directed Bluecoat’s tercentenary year. He writes on contemporary culture and is co-editor, with Julie Sheldon of Art in a City Revisited (Liverpool University Press, 2009) and, with John Belchem, of Liverpool City of Radicals (Liverpool University Press, 2011).A series of 15 black and white photographs and writing authored in response to the publication of a scholarly edition of Malcolm Lowry’s lost novel In Ballast to the White Sea. The photographs are integrated in an essay entitled ‘Walking with Shadows’ – a photo-text – indebted to W.G. Sebald’s use of photographs in The Rings of Saturn (1995). A method adopted which fuses ‘fiction, travelogue, history and biography’ where the images offset or displace the narrative, rather than illustrate it, as the psychic and physical journey unfolds from page to page. The text also references Denis Hollier’s essay ‘Surrealist Precipitates: Shadows Don’t Cast Shadows’, in which the position of the artist /author and the role of the reader highlights the significance of André Breton’s novel and use of photographs in Nadja (1928).
The correlation of these sources includes Michel de Certeau’s ‘Walking in the City’ in The Practice of Everyday Life (1984) and Paul Auster’s novella ‘City of Glass’ in New York Trilogy (1987) where the notion of the author / protagonist are posited as interchangeable positions, as they reveal the significance of a method, in which autobiography, fact and fiction coalesce. The photographs which are imbricated within the text function as a series of staging points and motifs, which index the journey undertaken by the novel’s key protagonist. In Lowry’s novel these are uncovered in a series of surreal, psychogeographic encounters across the urban terrain and landscape, and the sonic hum, which imbues his writing. The events and locations which define the novel were rediscovered, or otherwise substituted, as they are re-inscribed in text and image. The project also integrated archive and vernacular images, which include Edward Chambré Hardman’s photographs of Liverpool and the North West as the setting which provides the point of departure for Lowry’s novel and the terrain, which was revisited for this project
Les journaux de confinement de Leïla Slimani et de Marie Darrieussecq – Histoire d’un malentendu
Get PDFImmediately after French President Macron declared the lockdown of the country, French writers Marie Darrieussecq and Leïla Slimani have published their lockdown journals, Slimani in Le Monde, Darrieussecq in Le Point. However the reception was indeed problematic, in that most critics insisted on their class privilege, romanisation of an unbearable experience for normal citizens, to mention a few. Our text explores the reasons for this problematic reception: we show that the lockdown has brought to the surface a whole set of traumata closely linked to the German Occupation. What is more, we explore the changing role of the author in French society. The author is not the nearly sacred institution Roland Barthes describes in his Ecrivain en vacances, he has become a celebrity like any other. The diary (journal intime) has strong female connotations, thus allowing for misogynistic stereotypes to flourish. Finally, we argue that Annie Ernaux's Journal du dehors is a more appropriate literary approach to the urgency of sanitary, economic and social crisis
Evidence-based practice and evidence-informed practice competencies in undergraduate pre-registration nursing curricula: a document analysis at a University in England
Get PDFEvidence-based practice and evidence-informed practice competencies in undergraduate pre-registration nursing curricula: a document analysis at a University in England
Abstract
Background
In response to the heightened emphasis on incorporating the best available evidence into healthcare decision-making, healthcare training institutions have been actively incorporating Evidence-Based Practice (EBP), and/or Evidence-Informed Practice (EIP) competencies into undergraduate healthcare curricula. However, there is a gap in the scientific knowledge about the actual contents, as well as the extent of integration of EBP and EIP in undergraduate pre-registration nursing programmes.
Method
A document analysis utilising Rohwer et al.’s (2014) framework was conducted to review and analyse the content of EBP and EIP competencies in the 2018/2019 curriculum of the undergraduate pre-registration nursing programme of a University located in England, United Kingdom.
Results
Competencies relevant to EBP were included in four nursing modules. However, EIP competencies were not included in the curriculum.
Conclusion
There is an urgent need for a more structured and holistic way of teaching and assessing EBP competencies through the integration of the principles of EIP, in order to enhance the effective application of evidence into clinical nursing practice
Report of Stockport self-directed pilot in mental health
Get PDFIn recent years personalisation and the individualisation of health and social care have become key drivers of change. The process was initiated by the previous Labour government, and the new Coalition government has sought to accelerate the shift through policy documents, continued consultation and practical guides [1-7]. Personalisation in learning and physical disability services is becoming well established, however mental health services have been slow to take up the agenda and offer Personal Budgets to service users. Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council (SMBC), together with Pennine Health Care NHS Trust, are working to address this and implemented a pilot study to explore the possibilities for self directed support and Personal Budgets within Stockport mental health services
The United Kingdom Ministry of Defence and the European Union's electrical and electronic equipment directives
No full textThe growth of the generation of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE), and the use of hazardous substances in the production of these items, has required legislation to minimise the harm to the environment that their existing use, ultimate disposal and continued growth of the sector may pose. The European Union (EU) started to tackle this problem with the passing of two Directives in 2002, which focused on restricting the use of hazardous substances (RoHS - 2002/95/EC) and organising the recycling or disposal of discarded electronic and electrical equipment (WEEE - 2002/96/EC). These Directives have been recently recast and their scope widened; however, one exception to them remains items specifically designed for defence and military purposes. This paper looks at how and why these European Directives were passed, the impact they have had on defence in the United Kingdom (UK) up to the present moment, what impact the further extension of those directives might have on UK defence policy and how the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) has begun to prepare for any extension, including the use of alternative products from the commercial market, and substituting less harmful materials. The paper reviews the information available to carry out future decision making and what level of decision making it can support. Where the data is insufficient, it makes recommendations on actions to take for improvement
Clinical, humanistic, and economic burden of severe hemophilia B in the United States: Results from the CHESS US and CHESS US+ population surveys
Get PDFHemophilia B is a rare congenital bleeding disorder that has a significant negative impact on patients’ functionality and health-related quality of life. The standard of care for severe hemophilia B in the United States is prophylactic factor IX replacement therapy, which incurs substantial costs for this lifelong condition. Accurate estimates of the burden of hemophilia B are important for population health management and policy decisions, but have only recently accounted for current management strategies. The ‘Cost of Severe Hemophilia across the US: a Socioeconomic Survey’ (CHESS US) is a cross-sectional database of medical record abstractions and physician-reported information, completed by hematologists and care providers. CHESS US+ is a complementary database of completed questionnaires from patients with hemophilia. Together, CHESS US and CHESS US+ provide contemporary, comprehensive information on the burden of severe hemophilia from the provider and patient perspectives. We used the CHESS US and CHESS US+ data to analyze the clinical, humanistic, and economic burden of hemophilia B for patients treated with factor IX prophylaxis between 2017 and 2019 in the US. Results: We conducted analysis to assess clinical burden and direct medical costs from 44 patient records in CHESS US, and of direct non-medical costs, indirect costs, and humanistic burden (using the EQ-5D-5L) from 57 patients in CHESS US+. The mean annual bleed rate was 1.73 (standard deviation, 1.39); approximately 9% of patients experienced a bleed-related hospitalization during the 12-month study period. Nearly all patients (85%) reported chronic pain, and the mean EQ-5D-5L utility value was 0.76 (0.24). The mean annual direct medical cost was 611,971). Subgroup analyses showed mean annual costs of 788,491 for standard and extended half-life factor IX treatment, respectively. The mean annual non-medical direct costs and indirect costs of hemophilia B were 6,931. Conclusions: This analysis of patient records and patient-reported outcomes from CHESS US and CHESS US+ provides updated information on the considerable clinical, humanistic, and economic burden of hemophilia B in the US. Substantial unmet needs remain to improve patient care with sustainable population health strategies.Funder: uniQure In
Social Network Analysis of small social groups: application of a hurdle GLMM approach in the Alpine marmot (Marmota marmota)
Get PDFThis is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Panaccio, M., Ferrari, C., Bassano, B., Stanley, C.R. & von Hardenberg, A. (2021). Social Network Analysis of small social groups: application of a hurdle GLMM approach in the Alpine marmot (Marmota marmota). Ethology, 127(6), 453-464, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/eth.13151. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-ArchivingSocial Network Analysis (SNA) has recently emerged as a fundamental tool to study animal behavior. While many studies have analyzed the relationship between environmental factors and behavior across large, complex animal populations, few have focused on species living in small groups due to limitations of the statistical methods currently employed. Some of the difficulties are often in comparing social structure across different sized groups and accounting for zero-inflation generated by analyzing small social units. Here we use a case study to highlight how Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMMs) and hurdle models can overcome the issues inherent to study of social network metrics of groups that are small and variable in size. We applied this approach to study aggressive behavior in the Alpine marmot (Marmota marmota) using an eight-year long dataset of behavioral interactions across 17 small family groups (7.4 ± 3.3 individuals). We analyzed the effect of individual and group-level factors on aggression, including predictors frequently inferred in species with larger groups, as the closely related yellow-bellied marmot (Marmota flaviventris). Our approach included the use of hurdle GLMMs to analyze the zero-inflated metrics that are typical of aggressive networks of small social groups. Additionally, our results confirmed previously reported effects of dominance and social status on aggression levels, thus supporting the efficacy of our approach. We found differences between males and females in terms of levels of aggression and on the roles occupied by each in agonistic networks that were not predicted in a socially monogamous species. Finally, we provide some perspectives on social network analysis as applied to small social groups to inform subsequent studies
High order algorithms for numerical solution of fractional differential equations
Get PDFThis document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a published work that appeared in final form in [Advances in Difference Equations]. To access the final edited and published work see http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13662-021-03273-4.In this paper, two novel high order numerical algorithms are proposed for solving fractional differential equations where the fractional derivative is considered in the Caputo sense. The total domain is discretized into a set of small subdomains and then
the unknown functions are approximated using the piecewise Lagrange interpolation polynomial of degree three and degree four. The detailed error analysis is presented, and it is analytically proven that the proposed algorithms are of orders 4 and 5. The stability of the algorithms is rigorously established and the stability region is also achieved. Numerical examples are provided to check the theoretical results and illustrate the efficiency and applicability of the novel algorithms
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