The broad field of environmental ethics, animal welfare, animal liberation, and animal rights literature indicate that all encounters between humans and animals are ethically charged. In this article, I shall examine how environmental ethics or animal welfare/rights/liberation literature translate into public media. The case study will delve into the representation of animals in the Dutch newspapers, using content analysis to provide an empirical basis for monitoring public opinion. Assuming that attitudes to animals are influenced by media coverage, the results of this case study will be brought to bear upon the discussion of the representation of animals beyond a specific national context. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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This article explores how concern about animal welfare and animal rights relates to ecological citizenship by discussing student assignments written about the Dutch Party for Animals or PvdD. ‘Animal welfare’, ‘animal rights’, and ‘ecological citizenship’ perspectives offer insights into strategic choices of eco-representatives and animal rights/welfare advocates as well as educators. The assignments balance animal issues with socio-economic ones, explore the relationship between sustainability and ethics, and attribute responsibility for unsustainable or unethical practices. Analysis of student assignments reveals nuanced positions on the anthropocentrism-ecocentrism continuum, showing students’ ability to critically rethink their place within larger environmental systems. Some students demonstrated compassion for nonhumans, indicating that biophilia is evenly distributed among different groups of students. This article finds that fostering pro-environmentalism and animal welfare or rights requires the deepening of the debate contesting but also connecting key issues in sustainability and ethics. This analysis can be valuable for political parties representing nonhumans, or for education practitioners in getting students to think about the challenges in human-environment relationships and for advancing support for ecodemocracy. https://ro.uow.edu.au/asj/vol8/iss1/10/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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This paper describes a project to explore the possibilities of virtual worlds in educating Green IT. In the project a virtual world has been created with various assignments which are meant to create awareness on sustainability aspects of IT. The world (and the assignments) will be incorporated in a course for first-year IT students. In order to measure the effects of the course, a questionnaire has been developed which can be used before and after the course to measure the attitude towards green IT.
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Socially aware persuasive games that use immersive technologies often appeal to empathy, prompting users to feel and understand the struggles of another. However, the often sought-after standing in another's shoes' experience, in which users virtually inhabit another in distress, may complicate other-oriented empathy. Following a Research through Design approach, we designed for other-oriented empathy - focusing on a partaker-perspective and diegetic reflection - which resulted in Permanent; a virtual reality game designed to foster empathy towards evacuees from the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. We deployed Permanent 'in the wild' and carried out a qualitative study with 78 participants in the Netherlands and Japan to capture user experiences. Content Analysis of the data showed a predominance of other-oriented empathy across countries, and in our Thematic Analysis, we identified the themes of 'Spatial, Other, and Self -Awareness', 'Personal Accounts', 'Ambivalence', and 'Transdiegetic Items', resulting in design insights for fostering other-oriented empathy through virtual reality.
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Abstract Background Visuospatial neglect (VSN) is a cognitive disorder after stroke in which patients fail to consciously process and interact with contralesional stimuli. Visual Scanning Training (VST) is the recommended treatment in clinical guidelines. At the moment, several mixed reality versions of Visual Scanning Training (VST) are being developed. The aim of this study was to explore the opinions of end-users (i.e., therapists) on the use of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) in VSN treatment. Methods Therapists played one VR and two AR Serious Games, and subsequently flled out a questionnaire on User Experience, Usability, and Implementation. Results Sixteen therapists (psychologists, occupational, speech, and physiotherapists) played the games, thirteen of them evaluated the games. Therapists saw great potential in all three games, yet there was room for improvement on the level of usability, especially for tailoring the games to the patient’s needs. Therapists’ opinions were comparable between VR and AR Serious Games. For implementation, therapists stressed the urgency of clear guidelines and instructions. Discussion Even though VR/AR technology is promising for VSN treatment, there is no one-size-fts-all applicability. It may thus be crucial to move towards a plethora of training environments rather than a single standardized mixed reality neglect treatment. Conclusion As therapists see the potential value of mixed reality, it remains important to investigate the efcacy of AR and VR training tools.
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Virtual care centres (VCCs) are novel wards of hospitals and facilitate the provision of remote monitoring and home-based patient care by virtual care nurses. Whereas since the COVID-19 pandemic VCCs have rapidly emerged, there is a lack of insight in virtual care nurses’ work and the associated work load. Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify the nursing activities performed in Virtual Care Centers (VCCs) and assess nurses’ perceived workload associated with these activities. A multicentre descriptive, observational cross-sectional study was performed.
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The World Hunt: An Environmental History of the Commodification of Animals is written by John F. Richards, a ‘pioneer in environmental history’ as J. R. McNeill calls him in his introduction to the volume. This introduction explains how this unique yet not always easily accessible text exploring the environmental and socio-economic dimensions of commercial exploitation of non-humans came into being, and how it can be seen in the contexts of the history of human relationships to the environment and of contemporary ethics. The World Hunt is an unusual volume in that it blends environmental history, the dispassionate narrative of facts, with a voice that is at times full of hurt, as it expresses genuine concern for the voiceless victims of hunters’ increasingly global pursuits. The volume is essentially an extract from the meticulously researched and finely detailed history of hunting, fishing and whaling presented in Richards’ exhaustive The Unending Frontier. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2014.09.025 https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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Inaugural lecture as Lector Precision Livestock Farming at HAS University of Applied Sciences on October 14, 2016. PLF, Precision Livestock Farming, uses technologies to continuously monitor animal behaviour, animal health, production and environmental impact.
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