Bringing Politics Into It: Organizing at the Intersection of Videogames and Academia

This dissertation explores the structural and ideological roots of GamerGate and the Alt-Right within the game industry and academia. The analysis draws on the author’s personal experiences engaging in feminist community organizing, an examination of online materials associated with GamerGate, as well as various strands of critical theory, to interrogate the material reproduction of liberal ideology and meritocracy within neoliberal capitalism. Using the recent “culture wars” in videogames and academia as an example, the author argues that liberal capitalist institutions pave the way, both materially and ideologically, for the rise of fascist movements during periods of capitalist crisis, creating a social context that is oriented towards scapegoating oppressed people and reinforcing existing hierarchies. While the specific targets, symbols, and strategies used by fascist movements may change to reflect the changing circumstances, there are also many similarities that can be found between early 20th-century fascism, and contemporary neo-fascist movements like the Alt-Right. The problems marginalized people encounter in both games and academia are a product of capitalism and its historical development, including the international division of labour created by imperialism and patriarchy. Whether we’re talking about targeted harassment, the emergence of reactionary movements like GamerGate, institutionalized discrimination, exclusionary and constrained definitions of play and games, or the culture of overwork, capitalism and the drive for profit lies at the root. Previous attempts to address these issues through corporate diversity initiatives, indie game entrepreneurialism, consumer activism, and merit-based selection processes are limited by the fact that they do not directly challenge capitalist social relations. In order to both expose those limits and move past them, feminist organizers need an anti-capitalist political strategy that leverages the latent power of the international working class to challenge imperialism, colonialism, and patriarchy

Computational Sociolinguistics: A Survey

Language is a social phenomenon and variation is inherent to its social nature. Recently, there has been a surge of interest within the computational linguistics (CL) community in the social dimension of language. In this article we present a survey of the emerging field of "Computational Sociolinguistics" that reflects this increased interest. We aim to provide a comprehensive overview of CL research on sociolinguistic themes, featuring topics such as the relation between language and social identity, language use in social interaction and multilingual communication. Moreover, we demonstrate the potential for synergy between the research communities involved, by showing how the large-scale data-driven methods that are widely used in CL can complement existing sociolinguistic studies, and how sociolinguistics can inform and challenge the methods and assumptions employed in CL studies. We hope to convey the possible benefits of a closer collaboration between the two communities and conclude with a discussion of open challenges.Comment: To appear in Computational Linguistics. Accepted for publication: 18th February, 201

The Selfish Selfless Hero: Questing in Dragon Age: Origins

Dragon Age: Origins (DAO) is a highly successful single-player digital role- playing game. The player’s intervention in this world is structured around a series of quests, which describe and delimit the range of actions that must be undertaken in order to succeed in the game. Through her own subjective experiences of play, the author describes the various ways in which the narrative and ludic structures that make up the quest system in DAO both enable and constrain certain actions, identities, and roles. This thesis provides an in-depth account of how in-game choices, coupled with levelling mechanics, narrative events, and the affective responses of the player, can reflect and potentially reinforce or disrupt dominant ideologies and political beliefs. Drawing on work from the fields of game studies, political theory, feminist theory, literary criticism, and medieval studies, the author describes how her experiences of DAO, including the actions she elected to take within the game, were shaped by an implicit willingness to adopt or accept neoliberal, market-based modes of assessment, ethical binaries, and the domination of the self over the Other. The first two chapters outline previous research on quests, videogames, and the role of subjectivity. The third chapter discusses side quests and levelling systems, while the fourth investigates main quests and the overarching master quest. After examining the neomedieval setting of DAO in the fifth chapter, the author concludes with a discussion of how her own private practices of play are implicated in the process of socialization, resulting in inconsistencies and contradictions

Intracellular mGluR5 can mediate synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus

Metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 (mGluR5) is widely expressed throughout the CNS and participates in regulating neuronal function and synaptic transmission. Recent work in the striatum led to the groundbreaking discovery that intracellular mGluR5 activation drives unique signaling pathways, including upregulation of ERK1/2, Elk-1 (Jong et al., 2009) and Arc (Kumar et al., 2012). To determine whether mGluR5 signals from intracellular membranes of other cell types, such as excitatory pyramidal neurons in the hippocampus, we used dissociated rat CA1 hippocampal cultures and slice preparations to localize and characterize endogenous receptors. As in the striatum, CA1 neurons exhibited an abundance of mGluR5 both on the cell surface and intracellular membranes, including the endoplasmic reticulum and the nucleus where it colocalized with the sodium-dependent excitatory amino acid transporter, EAAT3. Inhibition of EAAT3 or sodium-free buffer conditions prevented accumulations of radiolabeled agonist. Using a pharmacological approach to isolate different pools of mGluR5, both intracellular and cell surface receptors induced oscillatory Ca(2+) responses in dissociated CA1 neurons; however, only intracellular mGluR5 activation triggered sustained high amplitude Ca(2+) rises in dendrites. Consistent with the notion that mGluR5 can signal from intracellular membranes, uncaging glutamate on a CA1 dendrite led to a local Ca(2+) rise, even in the presence of ionotropic and cell surface metabotropic receptor inhibitors. Finally, activation of intracellular mGluR5 alone mediated both electrically induced and chemically induced long-term depression, but not long-term potentiation, in acute hippocampal slices. These data suggest a physiologically relevant and important role for intracellular mGluR5 in hippocampal synaptic plasticity

Innovative approaches to investigator-initiated, multicentre paediatric clinical trials in Canada

Data from clinical trials are needed to guide the safe and effective use of medicines in children. Clinical trials are challenging to design and implement in all populations, and children present additional considerations. Several regions including the UK, USA and Europe have established clinical trial infrastructure to capitalise on expertise and promote clinical trials enrolling children. Our objective is to describe the partnerships and operational considerations for the development of paediatric clinical trials infrastructure in Canada. We describe the design and conduct of four emergency room paediatric trials, with four separate sponsors, across four provinces in parallel. Operations discussed include multisite contract development, centralised risk-based data monitoring, ethical review and patient engagement. We conclude with lessons learnt, additional challenges and potential solutions to facilitate drug development for children in Canada

Exposures to Air Pollutants during Pregnancy and Preterm Delivery

The association between preterm delivery (PTD) and exposure to air pollutants has recently become a major concern. We investigated this relationship in Incheon, Republic of Korea, using spatial and temporal modeling to better infer individual exposures. The birth cohort consisted of 52,113 singleton births in 2001–2002, and data included residential address, gestational age, sex, birth date and order, and parental age and education. We used a geographic information system and kriging methods to construct spatial and temporal exposure models. Associations between exposure and PTD were evaluated using univariate and multivariate log-binomial regressions. Given the gestational age, birth date, and the mother’s residential address, we estimated each mother’s potential exposure to air pollutants during critical periods of the pregnancy. The adjusted risk ratios for PTD in the highest quartiles of the first trimester exposure were 1.26 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.11–1.44] for carbon monoxide, 1.27 (95% CI, 1.04–1.56) for particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter ≤ 10 μm, 1.24 (95% CI, 1.09–1.41) for nitrogen dioxide, and 1.21 (95% CI, 1.04–1.42) for sulfur dioxide. The relationships between PTD and exposures to CO, NO(2), and SO(2) were dose dependent (p < 0.001, p < 0.02, p < 0.02, respectively). In addition, the results of our study indicated a significant association between air pollution and PTD during the third trimester of pregnancy. In conclusion, our study showed that relatively low concentrations of air pollution under current air quality standards during pregnancy may contribute to an increased risk of PTD. A biologic mechanism through increased prostaglandin levels that are triggered by inflammatory mediators during exposure periods is discussed

RETRACTED: DNA-PKcs-PIDDosome: A Nuclear Caspase-2-Activating Complex with Role in G2/M Checkpoint Maintenance

This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy).This article has been retracted at the request of the Authors.Our paper reported the identification of a nuclear protein complex comprising DNA-PKcs, PIDD, and caspase-2 and characterization of its role in G2/M checkpoint maintenance, thereby providing insight into the functional significance of nuclear caspase-2. We recently identified errors affecting several figure panels where original data were processed inappropriately such that the figure panels do not accurately report the original data. We believe that the most responsible course of action is to retract the paper. We sincerely apologize to the scientific community for any inconvenience this might cause

Spectral Cube Visualisation and Explorer Tool from the Herschel Interactive Processing Environment (HIPE)

We present the interactive tool for visualizing and exploring spectral cubes of the Herschel Interactive Processing Environment (HIPE). With this GUI tool, one can easily plot the spectra within the cube, compare several cubes from the same region of the sky, and run a number of analysis tasks on them (such as computing velocity/dispersion maps or position-velocity diagrams). The tool is integrated within the Spectral Explorer from HIPE, which offers additional functionality such as an interface to the spectral fitter tool. All the actions with HIPE tools produce Python code, which can later be reused in scripts for automation. Various results can be saved as FITS files and loaded into other astronomical analysis tools

Release of Intracellular Calcium Stores Facilitates Coxsackievirus Entry into Polarized Endothelial Cells

Group B coxsackieviruses (CVB) are associated with viral-induced heart disease and are among the leading causes of aseptic meningitis worldwide. Here we show that CVB entry into polarized brain microvasculature and aortic endothelial cells triggers a depletion of intracellular calcium stores initiated through viral attachment to the apical attachment factor decay-accelerating factor. Calcium release was dependent upon a signaling cascade that required the activity of the Src family of tyrosine kinases, phospholipase C, and the inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor isoform 3. CVB-mediated calcium release was required for the activation of calpain-2, a calcium-dependent cysteine protease, which controlled the vesicular trafficking of internalized CVB particles. These data point to a specific role for calcium signaling in CVB entry into polarized endothelial monolayers and highlight the unique signaling mechanisms used by these viruses to cross endothelial barriers