The use of computer technology within zoos is becoming increasingly popular to help achieve high animal welfare standards. However, despite its various positive applications to wildlife in recent years, there has been little uptake of machine learning in zoo animal care. In this paper, we describe how a facial recognition system, developed using machine learning, was embedded within a cognitive enrichment device (a vertical, modular finger maze) for a troop of seven Western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) at Bristol Zoo Gardens, UK. We explored whether machine learning could automatically identify individual gorillas through facial recognition, and automate the collection of device-use data including the order, frequency and duration of use by the troop. Concurrent traditional video recording and behavioral coding by eye was undertaken for comparison. The facial recognition system was very effective at identifying individual gorillas (97% mean average precision) and could automate specific downstream tasks (for example, duration of engagement). However, its development was a heavy investment, requiring specialized hardware and interdisciplinary expertise. Therefore, we suggest a system like this is only appropriate for long-term projects. Additionally, researcher input was still required to visually identify which maze modules were being used by gorillas and how. This highlights the need for additional technology, such as infrared sensors, to fully automate cognitive enrichment evaluation. To end, we describe a future system that combines machine learning and sensor technology which could automate the collection of data in real-time for use by researchers and animal care staff.

Issue information for Research for All 5 (2).

Collaborations between human–computer interaction (HCI) researchers and arts practitioners frequently centre on the development of creative content using novel – often emergent – technologies. Concurrently, many of the techniques that HCI researchers use in evaluative participant-based research have their roots in the arts – such as sketching, writing, artefact prototyping and role play. In this reflective paper, we describe a recent collaboration between a group of HCI researchers and dramatists from the immersive theatre organization Kilter, who worked together to design a series of audience-based interventions to explore the ethics of virtual reality (VR) technology. Through a process of knowledge exchange, the collaboration provided the researchers with new techniques to explore, ideate and communicate their work, and provided the dramatists with a solid academic grounding in order to produce an accurate yet provocative piece of theatrically based design fiction. We describe the formation of this partnership between academia and creative industry, document our journey together, and share the lasting impact it has had upon both parties.

Zoos have been consistently popular with young visitors, helping educate children in animal conservation. However, zoos’ typical strategies employ interactive signs and videos, which children largely ignore. In pursuit of new engagement methods, children were invited to design for animals via ZooDesign, a gamified imaginative design approach centred on an educational card and role-playing game, ZooDesign assists children in envisaging how animals can use technologies, by exploring their welfare needs and humans’ involvement. Many children designed with the animals’ well-being in mind. Analysis of their creations and role-play interviews revealed that the method constitutes a good process but not all designs were appropriate for use with animals. Furthermore, few designs included the children themselves; most emphasised zookeeper and researcher roles instead. Building on child-computer interaction methods for zoo-based education contexts, the research raises key questions involved in educating children about animals.

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For 'looked-after' and adopted children, physical objects are often the only remaining link to their pasts; a portal to stories of former families, homes, and events. The act of reminiscence, known as 'life story work', can help children to process their pasts and overcome trauma. This paper describes the user-centred redesign of Trove, a digital and physical memory box for storing and curating stories about precious objects. We describe our redesign process, synthesising the insights from previous Trove evaluations with looked-after and adopted children, and three re-design workshops with 4 looked-after children at a therapeutic residential school. Our findings advocate for prioritisation of Trove's digital and physical security, the sustainability of its companionship, and the provision of multimedia storytelling to encourage the construction of identity narratives. Inspired by this, we present and discuss the redeveloped Trove, before analysing our participatory design approach with these complex and under-represented groups.

In this half-day workshop, we will explore the ethics of Virtual Reality (VR) through conversations framed around design fictions. Affordable head-mounted displays (HMDs) and accessible VR content are now within reach of large audiences, yet many of VR's most urgent challenges remain under-explored. In addition to the many known unknowns (e.g. how do we manage sensory conflicts and spatial limitations in VR?), there are many more unknown unknowns (e.g. what kinds of psychological, social and cultural impact will VR provoke?). By bringing together diverse scenarios from workshop participants, and bespoke design fictions created specifically to explore the ethics of VR, we will facilitate a rich discussion that will inform the development of three high-fidelity design fictions that will be used to explore the ethics of VR in future workshops, including one in Bristol, UK in November 2019, part of the Virtual Realities Immersive Documentary Encounters project.

Searchable abstracts of presentations at key conferences on calcified tissues ISSN 2052-1219 (online)

How can scholars critically engage premodern Indic traditions without falling prey to Hindu conservatism or Brahmanical-Hindu apologism? This question is pressing for Indic political theory and contemporary Indian democracy because of ethnically exclusivist, Hindu nationalist movements that have emerged in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This chapter argues that a positive answer to the question must begin by taking seriously the tremendous pluralism in India’s political and philosophical history, which requires systematically engaging with premodern source material and uncovering the internal pluralism within a longer and larger Brahmanical-Hindu tradition of political thought. The author explains how it is both possible and politically necessary to internally subvert Brahmanical-Hindu political thought, which can help diffuse essentialist and exclusivist arguments coming from the Hindu right. Locating such plurality and engaging in internal subversion can help challenge historical justifications for Indian nationalism and contribute to decolonization, thus contesting the Hindu right on its own conceptual and genealogical turf. To advance this argument, the author provides a critical reinterpretation of the infamous “Puruṣa Sūkta,” which is often viewed as the locus classicus of the modern caste system, providing a novel interpretation that challenges caste hierarchy and supplies new resources for democratic thought and practice in India.

For looked after and adopted children, physical objects are often the only remaining link to their past; a portal to stories of birth families, former homes, and significant people. Yet, often these stories can be littered with traumatic events preventing them from moving forward with their lives. Through reminiscence of these stories and attempting to develop narratives of past events, known as 'life story work', we can help children to emotionally process their past. This paper introduces, trove, a digital and physical memory box for storing and curating stories about precious objects. trove creates a safe space for keeping these objects in transient environments and constructing life story narratives.

Searchable abstracts of presentations at key conferences on calcified tissues ISSN 2052-1219 (online)

Enriching the lives of animals under human care is not a new concept but the methods of doing so are rapidly evolving in zoos. Zoo-based enrichment is traditionally low-tech, often failing to maintain animals' long-term interest. Meanwhile, evaluating the intricacies of enrichment device use remains difficult. 'Cognitive' enrichment aims to challenge animals' evolved cognitive skills and ACI shows promise in revolutionizing its practice. We present 'Gorilla Game Lab', a project designing, implementing and evaluating high-tech cognitive enrichment with seven zoo-housed Western lowland gorillas. We study the role of modular, tangible cognitive enrichment, assimilating motivational game design principles, in maintaining engaging, playful interactions. Taking an 'animal-centred' design approach, informed by the gorillas and the humans responsible for their welfare as design contributors, we introduce our rapid prototyping process. We also explore how integrating digital tracking, IoT and open source design, can contribute to creating a world-class method for enhancing zoo animal welfare.

AbstractWhile numerous methodological and interpretive challenges confront the study of cross-cultural political theory, this essay examines a particular premodern Indian tradition as an example of such difficulties and one way in which they can be overcome. Exploring the problematic ways in which people have interpreted and made use of India's ancient past, it critically examines arguments for the existence of secularism, free elections, and democratic assemblies in the Vedas. Defending what I call a “critical revivalist” position, it is argued that predominant approaches to premodern traditions in contemporary Indian political theory place significant constraints on cross-cultural intelligibility and theory building within the Indian context. To elaborate this point, I shift from a “political” to rājan-oriented categorical register in an effort to reposition current understandings of self-rule (swaraj) in India within a broader rajanical tradition. Finally, this essay explains how contemporary Indian political theory can draw insights from this native tradition without necessarily reverting to familiar Western idioms.