Search

It Comes In Waves is a narrative-based Twine game prototype about being an essential worker during the ongoing pandemic. It takes as its focus the role social class plays in relation to COVID-19 protocols surrounding workplaces and the subsequent effects these have on everyday life. You play as Beattie, a low-paid caregiver at two different long-term care facilities during the first few months of the pandemic, navigating the challenges of trying to stay safe while doing her two jobs and maintaining social contact with her friends and family. There were two central design goals for the game: first to show how social class inflects our daily experiences, including our employment prospects, opportunities in life, living experiences, and hopes for the future; and second to avoid the trap of becoming either an “empathy machine” or a misery simulator.

BackgroundThe motivational interviewing (MI) approach has been shown to help move ambivalent smokers toward the decision to quit smoking. There have been several attempts to broaden access to MI through text-based chatbots. These typically use scripted responses to client statements, but such nonspecific responses have been shown to reduce effectiveness. Recent advances in natural language processing provide a new way to create responses that are specific to a client’s statements, using a generative language model. ObjectiveThis study aimed to design, evolve, and measure the effectiveness of a chatbot system that can guide ambivalent people who smoke toward the decision to quit smoking with MI-style generative reflections. MethodsOver time, 4 different MI chatbot versions were evolved, and each version was tested with a separate group of ambivalent smokers. A total of 349 smokers were recruited through a web-based recruitment platform. The first chatbot version only asked questions without reflections on the answers. The second version asked the questions and provided reflections with an initial version of the reflection generator. The third version used an improved reflection generator, and the fourth version added extended interaction on some of the questions. Participants’ readiness to quit was measured before the conversation and 1 week later using an 11-point scale that measured 3 attributes related to smoking cessation: readiness, confidence, and importance. The number of quit attempts made in the week before the conversation and the week after was surveyed; in addition, participants rated the perceived empathy of the chatbot. The main body of the conversation consists of 5 scripted questions, responses from participants, and (for 3 of the 4 versions) generated reflections. A pretrained transformer-based neural network was fine-tuned on examples of high-quality reflections to generate MI reflections. ResultsThe increase in average confidence using the nongenerative version was 1.0 (SD 2.0; P=.001), whereas for the 3 generative versions, the increases ranged from 1.2 to 1.3 (SD 2.0-2.3; P

Introduction: Children undergoing gastrostomy tube placement often have complex medical conditions that can increase caregiver burden and decrease caregiver health-related quality of life. Our goal was to identify changes in health-related quality of life over a 12-month period in the caregivers of these patients. Methods: We performed a prospective cohort study of pediatric patients undergoing gastrostomy tube placement. Using the PedsQL 2.0 Family Impact Module, we surveyed the caregivers of these patients at baseline (prior to gastrostomy tube placement) and 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months following gastrostomy tube placement. We administered the same survey, at baseline only, to a control group composed of caregivers of pediatric patients undergoing elective hernia repair. Results: We enrolled 130 patients undergoing gastrostomy tube placement and 35 patients undergoing hernia repair. At baseline, these caregivers had significantly lower total health-related quality of life compared to caregivers of children undergoing hernia repair (47.4 ± 16.1 vs 86.0 ± 15.6, P

This paper adopts a media archaeological perspective to excavate the social, technical, and ecological protocols embedded within videogames with the goal of imagining engaged users and alternative futures centred around photovoltaic technologies. We begin by dissecting the media lineages and infrastructures that are entwined with the development of mobile media. Then, we turn to the regime of planned obsolescence and address how eco-critical modding practices have flourished as a response. Using these theories as a provocation, we summarize the workshops and game jam we facilitated in the summer of 2022 as part of Concordia University's Solar Media Collective. Through these theoretical and practical explorations, we arrive at the clash between the optimism of solarpunk and the apathy of technological ambivalence. In our concluding discussion, we reflect on the realities of modding and DIY practices, closing with proposals for new (imaginary) research avenues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introducción: Las anomalías de la forma, en niños y niñas, son en gran medida frecuentes, por ello su estudio es importante para precisar diagnósticos, dado que pueden tener diferentes implicancias odontológicas. A la altura de la cúspide mesiopalatina de los segundos molares superiores temporarios, primeros molares superiores permanentes, y con menor frecuencia en los segundos molares superiores permanentes, es posible reconocer una cúspide accesoria o tubérculo denominada de Carabelli (TC).Objetivos: Determinar la prevalencia del TC en pacientes del Hospital de Odontología Infantil (HOI) “Don Benito Quinquela Martín” de Buenos Aires, Argentina. Asimismo, comprender, con respecto a su etiología, si existe alguna relación con el origen étnico de la familia. Para ello se incorporó la variable nacionalidad de los padres para examinar el posible vínculo entre la presencia del TC y la procedencia étnica del paciente.Materiales y Métodos: Se evaluó una muestra de 363 niños que ingresaron por primera vez al Servicio de Clínica y Orientación del HOI durante el período comprendido entre agosto 2019 y marzo 2020.Resultados: La prevalencia del TC observada fue del 34 %, por lo menos en alguna de las piezas dentarias, con una mayor tendencia en el sexo masculino en un 55%, y un 45% en el sexo femenino.Conclusiones: La hipótesis propuesta fue que la prevalencia del TC en los pacientes que acuden al del HOI es inferior al 50 % y fue validada debido a que el 34% de los pacientes presentan el TC.

Review: Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons, by Jon Peterson. 2021. The MIT Press. xii + 386 pp.

Class depictions in videogames are prevalent, yet understudied. In this article, we analyse how the working class – particularly working-class men – have been depicted in videogames over the past 30 years. In doing so, we bring together a class- and gender-based analysis to study how narratives, representations, gameplay, and game systems construct the “working-class hero” as a central protagonist. This is done by examining eight paired examples of videogames that feature working-class characters in central roles, including janitor, fire-fighter, taxi driver, and bartender. Our analysis finds that some roles are glorified (such as firefighters), positioning their protagonists in direct conflict with white-collar settings and antagonists. However, many other roles task players with “doing their job” in the face of repetitive (and sometimes outlandish) working conditions. Through these examples, we document the portrayal of working-class videogame heroes, noting how videogames can both reinforce and subvert common media tropes.

Background: In the aftermath of the Coronavirus pandemic and the resulting lockdown and social distancing policies, a new form of work, already existing in the past, has been further enlarged. Teleworking is "full- or part-time electronic work, on-line or off-line, performed at home by self-employed or office workers" and today represents an important lever for companies, including for sustainability, allowing employees to work flexibly, efficiently and remotely. The relationship between telework and sustainability in economic, social, and environmental aspects is also being questioned. The aim of this systematic review is to investigate the effects this has had on workers' mental health. Methods: PRISMA guidelines were followed. The research was performed on Pubmed and Scopus without restrictions on study type and time limits. The methodological quality of the studies included was assessed using AMSTAR-2, INSA and NOS scales. A meta-analysis of the main adverse effects found in observational studies was also carried out. Results: A total of 38 articles were included in the systematic review. A large proportion of the studies examined showed a correlation between teleworking and worsening mental health. The meta-analysis showed increased levels of mental ill-health (38.8%), stress (28.4%), isolation (6.3%), anxiety (23%), depression (22.6%), work–family conflicts (19.5%), poor sleep quality (56.4%), fatigue (16.1%) and irritability (39.6%). Conclusions: Although most of the works analyzed show a deterioration in the mental health of workers, positive effects were noted in some. There is the need for more studies to optimally investigate the cause–effect relationship between teleworking and mental health deterioration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calcified and resistant narrowing of arteries poses significant difficulty in performing percutaneous coronary interventions (PCIs), as they increase the risk of subpar outcomes leading to worse clinical outcomes. Despite the existence of dedicated technologies and devices, including various balloons and atherectomy systems, they often do not ensure sufficient plaque modification and ideal vessel preparation for optimal stent deployment. Intravascular lithotripsy (IVL), a technology originally developed for urological procedures, has recently been used to safely and selectively disrupt calcified depositions in both peripheral and coronary arteries by sonic waves that seamlessly transfer to nearby tissue, enhancing vessel compliance with minimal impact on soft tissues. In the coronary arteries, the use of IVL plays a role in the process of "vessel preparation" before the placement of stents, which is crucial for restoring blood flow in patients with severe coronary artery disease (CAD), and is considered a minimally invasive technique, reducing the need for open heart surgeries and associated risks and complications. Studies have shown that IVL can lead to improved procedural success rates and favorable long-term outcomes for patients with severely calcified coronary artery disease. With the advent of IVL, the disruption of severe calcification of coronary artery and stenotic lesions before stent implantations can be performed. Despite promising data for treating calcified lesions, IVL is significantly underutilized in clinical practice, long-term clinical data and extensive research are needed to validate its further safety and efficacy. In this article, we reviewed the literature discussing the use of IVL in the coronary arteries as an approach for addressing intravascular atherosclerotic plaques, particularly focusing on heavily calcified plaques that are resistant to standard initial PCI, while also evaluating its safety in comparison to alternative methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]