The Child in Games: From the Meek, to the Mighty, to the Monstrous

Drawing across game studies, childhood studies, and children’s literature studies, this thesis catalogues and critiques the representation of children in contemporary video games. It poses two questions: 1) How are children represented in contemporary video games? 2) In what ways do the representations of children in video games affirm or challenge dominant Western beliefs about the figure of the child? To answer these questions, I combine a large-scale content analysis of over 500 games published between 2009 and 2019 with a series of autoethnographic close readings. My content analysis is designed to provide a quantitative snapshot of the representation of children in games. I use statistical analysis to assemble data points as meaningful constellations. I use the axes of race, gender, and age, as well as genre, age-rating, and publication year, to identify patterns in representation. I distil my findings as a set of seven archetypes: The Blithe Child, The Heroic Child, The Human Becoming, The Child Sacrifice, The Side Kid, The Waif, and The Little Monster. This typology is not intended to work against the granular detail of the information recorded in the dataset, but to draw attention to patterns of coherence and divergence that occur between particular examples, as well as to intersections with representational tropes about children identified in other media. I select four of these seven archetypes to structure my autoethnographic close readings. While content analysis is a useful tool for documenting the presence, absence, and dominant function of child-characters in games, close reading allows for a more intersectional approach that can attend to the nuances of representation across identity markers, creating opportunities to examine internal contradictions, ironies, and the polysemy generated through interpretive gaps. I develop my own close reading method building on the autoethnographic approaches of Carr (2019), Vossen (2020), McArthur (2018), and Jennings (2021), which I call critical ekphrasis. Chapter one argues that the Blithe Child triangulates ‘children’, ‘toys’, and ‘paidia’. It suggests that both childhood and play can be conceptualised as a ‘magic circle’, and that the immateriality of the Blithe Child implies childhood can be a mode of being unconnected to anatomical markers or chronological age. Chapter two explores how the Heroic Child challenges the apparent affinity between video games and traditional hero 2 narratives. It argues that the dependence of the childly protagonist undermines dualistic thinking and instead celebrates cooperation, compromise, and connection. Chapter three compares the Child Sacrifice to the woman-in-the-refrigerator trope, arguing that it functions to justify aggressive, hypermasculine, militarised violence. The final chapter compares the Little Monster and the Waif to examine how the uncanny child raises metareferential questions about autonomy in interactive media and agency in intergenerational relationships. My research project concludes by suggesting that virtual children in simulated worlds point to the active construction and delimitation of ‘the child’ in society and can reveal that much of what is assumed to be natural, obvious, and universal about the figure of ‘the child’ is in fact ideological. It hints at the possibility that just as virtual children are used as rhetorical figures to explain and justify the rules, mechanics, and moral systems of a digital game, so too is the figure of ‘the child’ used to routinise and vindicate the rules, workings, and moral systems of Euro-American culture.AHR

Mapping the Aurora using social media: new scientific data for nowcasting and forecasting space weather?

“How far south will the aurora borealis be seen?” is a common question asked when a geomagnetic storm forecast is issued. It is not a straightforward answer; and current projections based, for example, on Kp do not always match sighting reports received after a display. Citizen science – engaging the general public to aid scientific research - may be one way of tackling this issue. By using social media, such as Twitter, a new source of data can be mined for scientific analysis. We present a new interactive web application to gather relevant tweets about the aurora and display these on a map. This tool has been created in JavaScript using the Twitter API and a customised application template from ESRI. We use both active and passive means to gather data. We actively encourage users to tweet using a known hashtag (#BGSaurora) with their location in a prescribed format. This will geo-locate the tweet and place a marker on the map reporting the sighting. We can also passively search tweets for more general hashtags such as #aurora or #northernlights. If these are geo-tagged they again can be mapped. Other relevant data layers, such as cloud cover and geomagnetic activity levels, can also be displayed. We present the aurora sightings map and discuss the benefits of it both as an application to engage the general public, helping them to see when and where aurora are visible, and as a potential tool for gathering useful data for scientific analysis. If a better indicator of geomagnetic activity levels relevant for aurora viewing can be determined from these then this in turn will improve future predictions for aurora enthusiasts

The effects of chronic trans-resveratrol supplementation on aspects of cognitive function, mood, sleep, health and cerebral blood flow in healthy, young humans

Single doses of resveratrol have previously been shown to increase cerebral blood flow (CBF) with no clear effect on cognitive function or mood in healthy adults. Chronic resveratrol consumption may increase the poor bioavailability of resveratrol or otherwise potentiate its psychological effects. In this randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-groups study, a total of sixty adults aged between 18 and 30 years received either placebo or resveratrol for 28 d. On the 1st and 28th day of treatment, the performance of cognitively demanding tasks (serial subtractions, rapid visual information processing and 3-Back) (n 41 complete data sets) was assessed, alongside blood pressure (n 26) and acute (near-IR spectroscopy (NIRS)) and chronic (transcranial Doppler) measures of CBF (n 46). Subjective mood, sleep quality and health questionnaires were completed at weekly intervals (n 53/54). The results showed that the cognitive effects of resveratrol on day 1 were restricted to more accurate but slower serial subtraction task performance. The only cognitive finding on day 28 was a beneficial effect of resveratrol on the accuracy of the 3-Back task before treatment consumption. Subjective ratings of ‘fatigue’ were significantly lower across the entire 28 d in the resveratrol condition. Resveratrol also resulted in modulation of CBF parameters on day 1, as assessed by NIRS, and significantly increased diastolic blood pressure on day 28. Levels of resveratrol metabolites were significantly higher both before and after the day’s treatment on day 28, in comparison with day 1. These results confirm the acute CBF effects of resveratrol and the lack of interpretable cognitive effects

The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex

The cerebral cortex underlies our complex cognitive capabilities, yet little is known about the specific genetic loci that influence human cortical structure. To identify genetic variants that affect cortical structure, we conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis of brain magnetic resonance imaging data from 51,665 individuals. We analyzed the surface area and average thickness of the whole cortex and 34 regions with known functional specializations. We identified 199 significant loci and found significant enrichment for loci influencing total surface area within regulatory elements that are active during prenatal cortical development, supporting the radial unit hypothesis. Loci that affect regional surface area cluster near genes in Wnt signaling pathways, which influence progenitor expansion and areal identity. Variation in cortical structure is genetically correlated with cognitive function, Parkinson's disease, insomnia, depression, neuroticism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Increasing frailty is associated with higher prevalence and reduced recognition of delirium in older hospitalised inpatients: results of a multi-centre study

Purpose: Delirium is a neuropsychiatric disorder delineated by an acute change in cognition, attention, and consciousness. It is common, particularly in older adults, but poorly recognised. Frailty is the accumulation of deficits conferring an increased risk of adverse outcomes. We set out to determine how severity of frailty, as measured using the CFS, affected delirium rates, and recognition in hospitalised older people in the United Kingdom. Methods: Adults over 65 years were included in an observational multi-centre audit across UK hospitals, two prospective rounds, and one retrospective note review. Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS), delirium status, and 30-day outcomes were recorded. Results: The overall prevalence of delirium was 16.3% (483). Patients with delirium were more frail than patients without delirium (median CFS 6 vs 4). The risk of delirium was greater with increasing frailty [OR 2.9 (1.8–4.6) in CFS 4 vs 1–3; OR 12.4 (6.2–24.5) in CFS 8 vs 1–3]. Higher CFS was associated with reduced recognition of delirium (OR of 0.7 (0.3–1.9) in CFS 4 compared to 0.2 (0.1–0.7) in CFS 8). These risks were both independent of age and dementia. Conclusion: We have demonstrated an incremental increase in risk of delirium with increasing frailty. This has important clinical implications, suggesting that frailty may provide a more nuanced measure of vulnerability to delirium and poor outcomes. However, the most frail patients are least likely to have their delirium diagnosed and there is a significant lack of research into the underlying pathophysiology of both of these common geriatric syndromes

ECLAIRE: Effects of Climate Change on Air Pollution Impacts and Response Strategies for European Ecosystems. Project final report

The central goal of ECLAIRE is to assess how climate change will alter the extent to which air pollutants threaten terrestrial ecosystems. Particular attention has been given to nitrogen compounds, especially nitrogen oxides (NOx) and ammonia (NH3), as well as Biogenic Volatile Organic Compounds (BVOCs) in relation to tropospheric ozone (O3) formation, including their interactions with aerosol components. ECLAIRE has combined a broad program of field and laboratory experimentation and modelling of pollution fluxes and ecosystem impacts, advancing both mechanistic understanding and providing support to European policy makers. The central finding of ECLAIRE is that future climate change is expected to worsen the threat of air pollutants on Europe’s ecosystems. Firstly, climate warming is expected to increase the emissions of many trace gases, such as agricultural NH3, the soil component of NOx emissions and key BVOCs. Experimental data and numerical models show how these effects will tend to increase atmospheric N deposition in future. By contrast, the net effect on tropospheric O3 is less clear. This is because parallel increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations will offset the temperature-driven increase for some BVOCs, such as isoprene. By contrast, there is currently insufficient evidence to be confident that CO2 will offset anticipated climate increases in monoterpene emissions. Secondly, climate warming is found to be likely to increase the vulnerability of ecosystems towards air pollutant exposure or atmospheric deposition. Such effects may occur as a consequence of combined perturbation, as well as through specific interactions, such as between drought, O3, N and aerosol exposure. These combined effects of climate change are expected to offset part of the benefit of current emissions control policies. Unless decisive mitigation actions are taken, it is anticipated that ongoing climate warming will increase agricultural and other biogenic emissions, posing a challenge for national emissions ceilings and air quality objectives related to nitrogen and ozone pollution. The O3 effects will be further worsened if progress is not made to curb increases in methane (CH4) emissions in the northern hemisphere. Other key findings of ECLAIRE are that: 1) N deposition and O3 have adverse synergistic effects. Exposure to ambient O3 concentrations was shown to reduce the Nitrogen Use Efficiency of plants, both decreasing agricultural production and posing an increased risk of other forms of nitrogen pollution, such as nitrate leaching (NO3-) and the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O); 2) within-canopy dynamics for volatile aerosol can increase dry deposition and shorten atmospheric lifetimes; 3) ambient aerosol levels reduce the ability of plants to conserve water under drought conditions; 4) low-resolution mapping studies tend to underestimate the extent of local critical loads exceedance; 5) new dose-response functions can be used to improve the assessment of costs, including estimation of the value of damage due to air pollution effects on ecosystems, 6) scenarios can be constructed that combine technical mitigation measures with dietary change options (reducing livestock products in food down to recommended levels for health criteria), with the balance between the two strategies being a matter for future societal discussion. ECLAIRE has supported the revision process for the National Emissions Ceilings Directive and will continue to deliver scientific underpinning into the future for the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution