Harry Potter and metaphysical hospitality

Continuing the series of investigations of hospitality practices in different locations, Kevin O'Gorman and David Brooks explore what muggles can learn from the hospitality experienced in the world of wizardry. These epic fantasies have some mind-expanding messages for those who will listen

Electronically Assisting Communication for Health Professionals

New information and computing technologies offer cost efficient and effective learning opportunities for health care professionals. The Assisted Electronic Communication project is prototyping, administering and evaluating a digital discourse system for health care professionals within an acute Hospital. Health care staff participating in the study are able to access and contribute to threaded, asynchronous discussions and themed information in the context of critical work documents. Early indications are that the system is viewed very positively, and seen as a way of critically engaging with new material that is getting closer to an idealized learning in the workplace

Writing instruction in western Canadian universities: a history of nation-building and professionalism

Writing instruction in western Canadian universities between 1908 and 1957 was seen as a necessary technology of nation-building and the proper jurisdiction of English departments. After 1957, specialization in western Canadian universities enabled English departments to claim literature as the proper disciplinary object of their field and exclude writing instruction from their jurisdiction. Only recently has writing instruction returned to western Canadian university curriculums, but not in any systematic fashion;This study challenges the standard account of writing instruction in Canada: that the traditional first-year literature and composition class favored literature at the expense or even exclusion of composition. This study also challenges the idea that higher education and English departments in western Canada were primarily influenced by the University of Toronto, rather than American universities and English departments. American influences on western Canadian education were prevalent during the first half of this century;The contemporary difference in the practice of writing instruction in the two countries can be traced to a Canadian rejection of American values and practices during the Cold War. The Canada Council (1957) was particularly effective in solidifying the professional role of English departments as protectors and disseminators of high culture. While literary studies in the US also benefited from Cold War funding of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the growth of composition as a legitimate academic field was a far more significant development of this era;The past does not offer us something better to return to, but knowing that English studies in North America throughout this century has largely been tied to the work of nation-building, we must now assess the work of English studies and writing instruction in an era in which the role of the nation-state is changing radically and the function of higher education is up for grabs

The Current State of Practice of Building Information Modeling

Building Information Modeling (BIM) has become extremely prominent in the construction industry in the past twenty years. It serves as a digital repository that can, when used to its fullest potential, combine all aspects of designing, building, and managing a structure in one place, alongside all the data produced in those processes. The construction industry has to date struggled to increase productivity alongside similar fields, such as the manufacturing industry, though the construction industry generally has far more stakeholders on one project than the manufacturing industry. Further, building designs are becoming more complex while project schedules are becoming tighter. As states look to better manage and develop their infrastructure in the most efficient manner possible, it is critical that all options to improve both project results and efficiency are considered. Organizations such as the International Standards Organization (ISO) and British Standards Institute (BSI) have created standards such as ISO19650 and PAS1192 to provide guidance for how to best implement BIM. This study begins with an extensive literature review to determine the current state of practice of BIM from an academic standpoint. Semi-structured interviews with industry experts on BIM from those working as academics, architects, contractors, clients, software vendors, and engineers are used to inform a two-round Delphi study. The Delphi study seeks to elaborate on the potentials and barriers of BIM, and to determine the consensus or lack thereof within the overall building industry with respect to BIM. The various industry sectors are found to have poor agreement on the potentials and barriers of BIM, but the potentials are found to outweigh the barriers, aligning with the industry’s increasing adoption of BIM since its creation 20 years ago

Gifts of the Muse: Reframing the Debate About the Benefits of the Arts

Offers an alternative view of how arts benefits society based on understanding individual, intrinsic benefits as the gateway to more public benefits. Argues that efforts to sustain the supply of the arts should be balanced with a focus on building demand

Bridging the rural productivity gap in Nicaragua

By providing the option of working in town, bridges allow villagers to generate income even when times are bad, thereby freeing up resources to be spent on productive farm activities, write Wyatt Brooks (Arizona State University) and Kevin Donovan (Yale University). One of the fundamental features of lower-income countries is the low productivity of isolated, rural areas. In Nicaragua, as ... Continue

Translating Health Care: Stories from Refugees, Providers, and Friends

Drawing on interviews and participatory observation, this article weaves stories of translating healthcare told from the perspectives of refugees, health care providers, and friends. The research finds that while literal translations of documents and information are important to the health care process for refugees of New Americans, cultural translations of concepts like health care and preventive care are perhaps even more important. That translation, however, is not simple or literal either; refugees and New Americans may resist, or remain suspicious of, these concepts even once understood. Friends of refugees can provide an important role in helping with cultural and institutional translations, and their role should be consider as part of a culturally-centered approach to healthcare, as outlined by Dutta (2008). Note: all participant and researcher names have been changed in order to protect human subjects

Relating Leaf Temperature on Malosma Laurina to Leaf Proximity From Soil

The Santa Monica Mountains are home to countless vegetation and plant species, many of which have been forced to adapt to southern California’s stressful environment. With recent droughts and a steady change in climate, an increase in leaf temperature within some species in the Santa Monica Mountains has been observed. One prominent plant found within the mountain range is the malosma laurina, or laurel sumac, the only species of the malosma genus. Malosma laurina is a perfect example of a specie adapting to its stressful environment. Constant brush and shrub fires within the chaparral area where it commonly grows have enabled it to grow new leaves year round, even during the summer dry season. Initially, we planned on measuring the malosma laurina leaf temperatures and comparing them to temperatures in past years, believing we could find correlation between global climate change and an increase in leaf temperatures over the years. While measuring leaf temperatures, however, we noticed something curious. Different leaves of different canopies within the m. laurina plants reported different temperatures; it seemed the temperature of a leaf could be determined based on its distance from the soil. Interested in this discovery, we decided to experiment on whether the leaves on the malosma laurina varied in temperature based on which canopy they grew in, and perhaps why the temperatures were the way they were. Using a radiometer to test light levels and an infrared thermometer to measure individual leaf temperatures, we discovered that higher canopy leaves had consistently higher temperatures than lower canopy leaves, which contested our initial prediction that lower canopy leaves would have cooler temperatures

Technofixing the Future: Ethical Side Effects of Using AI and Big Data to meet the SDGs

While the use of smart information systems (the combination of AI and Big Data) offer great potential for meeting many of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), they also raise a number of ethical challenges in their implementation. Through the use of six empirical case studies, this paper will examine potential ethical issues relating to use of SIS to meet the challenges in six of the SDGs (2, 3, 7, 8, 11, and 12). The paper will show that often a simple “technofix”, such as through the use of SIS, is not sufficient and may exacerbate, or create new, issues for the development community using SIS