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Upon its premiere in 1992, Midway's Mortal Kombat spawned an enormously influential series of fighting games, notorious for their violent "fatality" moves performed by photorealistic characters. Targeted by lawmakers and moral reformers, the series directly inspired the creation of an industrywide rating system for video games and became a referendum on the wide popularity of 16-bit home consoles. Along the way, it became one of the world's most iconic fighting games, and formed a transmedia franchise that continues to this day.

This book traces Mortal Kombat's history as an American product inspired by both Japanese video games and Chinese martial-arts cinema, its successes and struggles in adapting to new market trends, and the ongoing influence of its secret-strewn narrative world. After outlining the specific elements of gameplay that differentiated Mortal Kombat from its competitors in the coin-op market, David Church examines the various martial-arts films that inspired its Orientalist imagery, helping explain its stereotypical uses of race and gender. He also posits the games as a cultural landmark from a moment when public policy attempted to intervene in both the remediation of cinematic aesthetics within interactive digital games and in the transition of public gaming spaces into the domestic sphere. Finally, the book explores how the franchise attempted to conquer other forms of media in the 1990s, lost ground to a new generation of 3D games in the 2000s, and has successfully rebooted itself in the 2010s to reclaim its legacy.

BackgroundEnhancing longitudinal cohort studies by linking routine external data to them is increasingly used to evaluate how local environments impact participants' outcomes (e.g. crime on adolescents' perception of security and victimisation).
ObjectiveTo describe the geographical linkage between the UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) and street-level crime incidents reported to the Police in England and Wales, and to estimate crime count and rates around MCS participants' residences.
MethodsEight years of monthly street-level police data were linked to the residential postcodes of MCS participants living in England and Wales in surveys 5, 6 and 7 to create individual-level variables of neighbourhood crime counts and rates (28,724 surveys and 11,365 individuals). Radial buffers around participants' residences were created at ages 11, 14 and 17. Crime counts and rates were created prior to the month of interview (at 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months prior). A homogenisation of crime categories reported in the police data was conducted to evaluate changes over time and areas. Multivariate models were used to study the association between MCS participants' demographic characteristics and derived measures of neighbourhood crime.
ResultsWhile total crime rates and counts around MCS participants remain stable over the period, they hide heterogeneous upward and downward trends in specific sub-categories, with violence and sexual offences showing a larger increase. We observe a negative socioeconomic gradient between household income deciles, recorded at age 11, and subsequent exposure to neighbourhood crime.
ConclusionLinking routine crime data to longitudinal studies, such as the MCS, which follow children and their families through a critical period of development, can provide a new resource to understand how local crime impacts child and adolescent outcomes.

Military personnel may be exposed to circumstances (e.g., large energy deficits, sleep deprivation, cognitive demands, and environmental extremes) of external stressors during training and combat operations (i.e., operational stressors) that combine to degrade muscle protein. The loss of muscle protein is further exacerbated by frequent periods of severe energy deficit. Exposure to these factors results in a hypogonadal state that may contribute to observed decrements in muscle mass. In this review, lessons learned from studying severe clinical stressed states and the interventions designed to mitigate the loss of muscle protein are discussed in the context of military operational stress. For example, restoration of the anabolic hormonal status (e.g., testosterone, insulin, and growth hormone) in stressed physiological states may be necessary to restore the anabolic influence derived from dietary protein on muscle. Based on our clinical experiences, restoration of the normal testosterone status during sustained periods of operational stress may be advantageous. We demonstrated that in severe burn patients, pharmacologic normalization of the anabolic hormonal status restores the anabolic stimulatory effect of nutrition on muscle by improving the protein synthetic efficiency and limiting amino acid loss from skeletal muscle. Furthermore, an optimal protein intake, and in particular essential amino acid delivery, may be an integral ingredient in a restored anabolic response during the stress state. Interventions which improve the muscle net protein balance may positively impact soldier performance in trying conditions.