Kaahailua idyllissä

Tutkin artikkelissani lähipeluun menetelmin, miten kotimainen digitaalinen peli My Summer Car (Suomi 2016) esittää 1990-luvun lama-ajan Suomen maaseutua ja miesten joutilaisuutta. My Summer Car on yhden ihmisen, Johannes Rojolan, projekti, ja siten se kuvaa tekijänsä näkemyksiä esittämästään aikakaudesta. Pelin vertailukohtana käytetään maaseutua ja joutilaisuutta käsitteleviä humoristisia elokuvia sekä televisiosarjoja. Kysyn, miten peli eroaa niistä.Esitän, että My Summer Car luo lama-ajan Suomesta omannäköisensä tulkinnan, jossa pelien omaleimaisuus vaikuttaa joutilaisuuden kokemiseen. Selviytymispeligenre pakottaa pelaajan aktiiviseksi toimijaksi, jolloin pelaajan positio suhteessa muihin pelin joutilaisiin hahmoihin muuttuu. Tällöin joutilaisuuden ja aktiivisen toimijuuden raja hämärtyy, ja peli pakottaa pelaajan näkemään joutilaisuuden monipuolisemmin. Joutilaisuus–aktiivisuus-asetelma on My Summer Carissa erilainen verrattuna kotimaisiin elokuviin ja televisiosarjoihin. My Summer Carissa maaseudun pelillistäminen on tarkoittanut sitä, että poikakulttuuriin olennaisesti kuuluva homososiaalisuus on poissa, sillä pelistä puuttuu käytännössä nuorten miesten yhteisöllisyys. Jäljelle jää vain rappioromantiikan ideaali, jota toistetaan.Avainsanat: joutilaisuus, rappioromantiikka, maaseutu, nostalgisointi, digitaaliset pelitSpeeding in the Idyll. The Representation of 90s Recession Era Finnish Countryside and Idleness in My Summer CarIn this article I explore through close playing method how the Finnish digital game My Summer Car (2016) depicts the fictional Finnish countryside during the 90s recession and the idleness of men. My Summer Car is a project of one person, Johannes Rojola, and thus describes the author’s views on the era he presents. The game’s representation is compared with other humorous films and television series situated in the countryside. The research focuses on the idleness represented in My Summer Car and asks how the game differs from these other Finnish audiovisual products.I claim that My Summer Car creates a unique interpretation of the recession in Finland, in which the uniqueness of digital games affects the experience of idleness. The survival game genre forces the player to become an active player, changing the player’s position in relation to other idle characters in the game. In this case, the line between idleness and active action is blurred and the game forces the player to see idleness in a more versatile way. The idleness–activity setting in My Summer Car is different from other Finnish movies and TV series. Gamification of My Summer Car’s countryside causes homosociality, an integral part of boy culture, to vanish, as there is no sense of community among young men in the game. All that remains is the repeated ideal of romanticized decadence.Keywords: idleness, romanticized decadence, countryside, nostalgization, digital games

New Insights to the Crosstalk between Vascular and Bone Tissue in Chronic Kidney Disease–Mineral and Bone Disorder

Vasculature plays a key role in bone development and the maintenance of bone tissue throughout life. The two organ systems are not only linked in normal physiology, but also in pathophysiological conditions. The chronic kidney disease–mineral and bone disorder (CKD-MBD) is still the most serious complication to CKD, resulting in increased morbidity and mortality. Current treatment therapies aimed at the phosphate retention and parathyroid hormone disturbances fail to reduce the high cardiovascular mortality in CKD patients, underlining the importance of other factors in the complex syndrome. This review will focus on vascular disease and its interplay with bone disorders in CKD. It will present the very late data showing a direct effect of vascular calcification on bone metabolism, indicating a vascular-bone tissue crosstalk in CKD. The calcified vasculature not only suffers from the systemic effects of CKD but seems to be an active player in the CKD-MBD syndrome impairing bone metabolism and might be a novel target for treatment and prevention.

To Play and To Be Played: Exploring the Design of Urban Machines for Playful Placemaking

Within the paradigm of the smart and playable city, the urban landscape and street furniture have provided a fertile platform for pragmatic and hedonic goals of urban liveability through technology augmentation. Smart street furniture has grown from being a novelty to become a common sight in metropolitan cities, co-opted for improving the efficiency of services. However, as we consider technologies that are increasingly smarter, with human-like intelligence, we navigate towards uncharted waters when discussing the consequences of their integration with the urban landscape. The implications of a new genre of street furniture embedded with artificial intelligence, where the machine has autonomy and is an active player itself, are yet to be fully understood. In this article, we analyse the evolving design of public benches along the axes of smartness and disruption to understand their qualities as playful, urban machines in public spaces. We present a concept-driven speculative design case study, as an exploration of a smart, sensing, and disruptive urban machine for playful placemaking. With the emergence of artificial intelligence, we expand on the potential of urban machines to partake an increasingly active role as co-creators of play and playful placemaking in the cities of tomorrow.

Face-to-face meetings

Chapter 3 questions how necessary it was for a senator to be present at Rome if he wanted to be an active player in this world of conversation and meetings (spoiler: very necessary). Senators had to work hard to stay well informed about the senatorial agenda, the issues that were present and the opinions of their most influential peers. All this demanded lots of time: visiting people was crucial, a social protocol that had its own rules. They reproduced such patterns when they stayed in their villae. Despite all the letters that have arrived to us, the chapter argues that if they could, senators and their entourages preferred to meet face-to-face than to establish contact through writing. This chapter also analyses the so-called ‘conference of Luca’ within this wider perspective. I argue that the notion that hundreds of senators travelled to the city while Pompey, Caesar and Crassus met is a historiographical myth.

Constructing co-presence through shared VR gameplay

This study analyzes how participants playing VR games construct co-presence and shared gameplay. The analysis focuses on in­stances of play where one person is wearing the VR equipment, and other participants are located nearby without the ability to directly interact with the game. We first show how the active player using the VR equipment draws on talk and embodied activity to signal their presence in the shared physical environment, while simul­taneously conducting actions in the virtual space, and thus creates spaces for the other participants to take part in gameplay. Second, we describe how other participants draw on the contextual config­urations of the moment in displaying co-presence and position themselves as active and consequential co-players. The analysis demonstrates how gameplay can be communicatively con­structed even in situations where the participants have differential rights and possibilities to act and influence the game.

[Knowledge and behaviour of individuals towards sandflies’ vectors of leishmaniasis in Morocco]

Background: Sandflies are active vectors of several diseases, including leishmaniasis, which Morocco hopes to eliminate by 2030. Despite efforts to limit their spread, they still remain a public health problem in the country, as the behaviour of individuals in relation to sandflies plays an important role in the sustainability of the epidemiological cycle. Aims: To explore and determine the knowledge and behaviours related to sandfly diseases. Methods: A quantitative method was adopted using a questionnaire assisted by a personal interview. Based on the epidemiological situation of leishmaniasis cases reported in recent years in Al-Hajeb province, we conducted a field survey among 281 persons in April and May 2019 residing in the communities where the cases of the disease are registered. Results: 61.6% of Moroccans know sandflies by the name “Chniwla”; 44.1% thought that sandflies do not transmit diseases; 41.3% thought they multiplied in contaminated water; 52.7% thought sandfly bites could not be avoided; and 6.4% recognized the role of individuals in the fight against vectors. Conclusions: The need to raise public awareness of the risks of sandflies, using the popular concepts obtained to simplify scientific terms and formulate targeted health education strategies that make the individual an active player in vector control.

The role of the patient: from spectator to active player in the path of personal prevention and healthcare

The scientific, technological, cultural, and social transformations occurred during the last two decades have pushed the role of patients beyond a paternalistic relationship with the doctor. With the explosion of digital and new information tools available to all, and a growing consumerist view of healthcare service delivery, patients have developed a new vision of themselves in their care pathways. Expertise is increasingly shared and care models are shifting the patient to the centre, allowing a two-way information flow where both patient experience and scientific or medical information have the same value to reach the final outcome. The creation of "expert patient" positions and the involvement of patient interest groups into scientific research and large-scale real-world-evidence projects are further consolidating the involvement of patients into the healthcare paradigm. In this scenario, rethinking and designing interdisciplinary clinical and operational work will be crucial for a well-coordinated management in which patients and their caregivers are an active part of the process.

Human Rights and Empowerment in Aged Care: Restraint, Consent and Dying with Dignity

The aged care system in Australia is in crisis and people living with dementia are especially vulnerable to breaches of human rights to autonomy, dignity, respect, and equitable access to the highest quality of health care including meeting needs on account of disability. To be powerful advocates for themselves and others, people with dementia and the wider community with vested interests in quality aged care must be informed about their rights and what should be expected from the system. Prior to the Australian Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, the Empowered Project was established to empower and raise awareness amongst people with dementia and their families about changed behaviours, chemical restraint, consent, end of life care, and security of tenure. A primary care-embedded health media campaign and national seminar tour were undertaken to meet the project aims of awareness-raising and empowerment, based on 10 Essential Facts about changed behaviours and rights for people with dementia, established as part of the project. Knowledge translation was assessed to examine the need and potential benefit of such seminars. We demonstrated that this brief educational engagement improved community knowledge of these issues and provided attendees with the information and confidence to question the nature and quality of care provision. With the completion of the Royal Commission and corresponding recommendations with government, we believe the community is ready to be an active player in reframing Australia’s aged care system with a human rights approach.