Where are all the climate change games? Locating digital games' response to climate change

The burgeoning genre of climate fiction, or ‘cli-fi’, in literature and the arts has begun to attract both scholarly and popular attention. It hasbeen described as ‘potentially [having] crucial contributions to make toward full understanding of the multiple, accelerating environmental challenges facing the world today.’ (Buell, 2014) Implicitly, these works confront the current orthodoxy about where exactly the issue of climate change sits in domains of knowledge. As Jordan (2014) notes: ‘climate change as ‘nature’ not culture is still largely perceived as a problem for the sciences alongside planning, policy, and geography.’ In this paper we ask where is, or alternatively what does or could climate fiction within the field of digital games look like? Even a passing familiarity with the cultural output of the mainstream game industry reveals the startling omission of the subject–with scant few games telling stories that engage with climate change and the unfolding ecological crisis. (Abraham, 2015) Finding a relative dearth of explicit engagement, this paper offers an alternative engagement with climate change in games by focussing on the underlying ideas, conceptions and narratives of human-environment relationships that have been a part of games since their earliest incarnations. We argue that it is possible to read games for particular conceptualisations of human relationships to nature, and offer a description of four highly prevalent ‘modes’ of human-environment engagement. We describe and analyse these relationships for their participation in or challenge to the same issues and problems that undergird the current ecological crisis, such as enlightenment narratives of human mastery and dominion over the earth

Environmental designs:a typology towards an expanded field

In this paper we offer a provisional typology of the primary categories of environmental or ecological relationships depicted, represented or simulated in games. We explore four main approaches to environments in games: environment as backdrop, as resource, as antagonist, and as text. These four provisional types are not clearly delineated, or equally common amongst all games and game genres, nor are they mutually exclusive within particular games. We argue that consideration of ecological notions in gaming reveals their frequent subordination to higher level game design decisions, and that analysis through this typology can reveal the shifting relationships between technologies of simulation and videogame strategies of representation – as well as orient game design towards the possibility for more expansive thinking about environmental relations (and hence, the most significant political issues of our time) as seen in the work of scholars such as Timothy Morton

Early structure formation from cosmic string loops

We examine the effects of cosmic strings on structure formation and on the ionization history of the universe. While Gaussian perturbations from inflation are known to provide the dominant contribution to the large scale structure of the universe, density perturbations due to strings are highly non-Gaussian and can produce nonlinear structures at very early times. This could lead to early star formation and reionization of the universe. We improve on earlier studies of these effects by accounting for high loop velocities and for the filamentary shape of the resulting halos. We find that for string energy scales G\mu > 10^{-7} the effect of strings on the CMB temperature and polarization power spectra can be significant and is likely to be detectable by the Planck satellite. We mention shortcomings of the standard cosmological model of galaxy formation which may be remedied with the addition of cosmic strings, and comment on other possible observational implications of early structure formation by strings.Comment: 22 pages, 10 figures. References adde

A Model Connecting Galaxy Masses, Star Formation Rates, and Dust Temperatures Across Cosmic Time

We investigate the evolution of dust content in galaxies from redshifts z=0 to z=9.5. Using empirically motivated prescriptions, we model galactic-scale properties -- including halo mass, stellar mass, star formation rate, gas mass, and metallicity -- to make predictions for the galactic evolution of dust mass and dust temperature in main sequence galaxies. Our simple analytic model, which predicts that galaxies in the early Universe had greater quantities of dust than their low-redshift counterparts, does a good job at reproducing observed trends between galaxy dust and stellar mass out to z~6. We find that for fixed galaxy stellar mass, the dust temperature increases from z=0 to z=6. Our model forecasts a population of low-mass, high-redshift galaxies with interstellar dust as hot as, or hotter than, their more massive counterparts; but this prediction needs to be constrained by observations. Finally, we make predictions for observing 1.1-mm flux density arising from interstellar dust emission with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap

Lagrangian submanifolds in affine symplectic geometry

We uncover the lowest order differential invariants of Lagrangian submanifolds under affine symplectic maps, and find out what happens when they are constant.Comment: 23 pages, no figure

Disadvantaged students' academic performance: analysing the zone of proximal development

The aim of the study is to investigate the practical application of Vygotsky's construct of the Zone of Proximal Development to the selection of disadvantaged students in higher education. There is a need in post-apartheid South Africa, with its legacy of inequality in educational experiences, to find accurate and fair predictors of academic performance that would act as alternatives to matriculation marks and static tests. The study relates the students' response to mediation to their academic performance and analyses the role that non-cognitive factors such as motivation, approaches to learning and learning strategies play in cognitive performance. The investigation was done in the form of different studies using over 400 first year students at the Peninsula Technikon as subjects. The first study focused on the effectiveness of the mediated lessons that form part of the two dynamic tests using a Solomon Four Group and a Two Group design. The second study made a comparison between the predictive validity of past academic achievement conventional static tests, several non-cognitive variables as well as the two dynamic tests. In the third study the students' response to a period of mediation was analysed. The fourth study focused on comparing different groups of students according to the following classification: schooling, gender, language, type of course and assessment and level of course to see whether any of the variables would have a moderator effect Finally a differention was made between the profiles of more successful as opposed to less successful students. The weight of evidence of the study indicates that it is possible to find alternatives to matriculation marks and static tests in selecting disadvantaged students by making use of the concept of the Zone of Proximal Development The results further showed that disadvantaged students are not a homogeneous group. Although the matriculation marks seemed to be the best single predictor of academic performance for the total group of students, alternative predictors were identified when looking at different subgroups. Modifiability (students' response to mediation) had a moderator effect on the predictive power of various variables. For the less modifiable group of students, the matriculation marks and, to a certain extent, static tests were good predictors, while for the more modifiable group of students a dynamic test proved to be a significant predictor of academic performance. The implications of the findings for the selection and academic development of disadvantaged students are discussed

A Redevelopment Plan for Santa Rosa Plaza

The purpose of this document is to hypothesize a successful and innovative plan for the redevelopment of the Santa Rosa Plaza Mall (Downtown Mall) in Santa Rosa, California. This project proposal seeks to address the Plaza Mall’s challenges and provide an alternative solution to develop a unique character that promotes a sense of place, foster vibrant civic spaces, and meets the City’s housing and job needs. Shopping malls in the United States are dying and are becoming less popular among the new generation, which means malls must adapt to fulfill the role of “third place” that many people need. This issue needs to be dealt with firstly by revising the existing land use policies and zoning regulations, adapting them to allow a mix of complementary uses such as residential, offices, civic spaces, entertainment, and amenities that offer residents, employees, and visitors, a wider range of opportunities that will enhance the quality of life in the area

Human hair follicle biomagnetism: potential biochemical correlates

Background: The S100 protein family is linked to energy transfer in cells of vertebrates at a molecular level. This process involves the electron transfer chain and therefore, as inferred from Faraday’s Law, electron movement will induce electromagnetic fields (EMFs). Biological entities emit photoelectrons that can be tracked and visualized by small paramagnetic nano-sized iron particles. Methods: We have developed an optical microscopic approach for imaging electromagnetic activity of hair follicles utilizing nano-sized iron particles (mean diameter 2000nm) in Prussian Blue Stain solution (PBS Fe 2000). Results: We found that the human hair follicle emits electromagnetic fields (EMFs) based on metabolic activity within the follicle, which is associated with the activity of selective S-100 proteins. Conclusions: Our results link the molecular biochemical energy associated with the S100 family of proteins and biomagnetism of human hair follicles

Numerical simulations of electron tunneling currents in water

This paper presents results of numerical simulations of electron tunneling through water that extend our previous calculations on such systems in several ways. First, a tip-substrate configuration is used; second, calculations are carried in the presence of an external potential bias; third, the image potential that reflects the interaction of the electron with the mobile metal electrons is taken into account in the static image approximation. Finally, all-to-all transmission probability calculations are performed in order to get an order-of-magnitude estimate of the current-voltage characteristics of this junction model. The computed currents are within the range of the few available experimental observations on scanning tunneling microscope (STM) currents in water, indicating that our calculation may have taken into account all the important physical attributes of such systems. In addition we examine the effect of the water medium on the spatial distribution of the tunneling flux. We find that while different water configurations scatter the tunneling electron in different ways, on the average the water affected loss of resolution is rather small in the deep tunneling regime but can be substantial in energy regimes where the tunneling is strongly affected by water-supported resonance structures.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures. J. Phys. Chem., in pres