Othering Older People's Housing: Gaming Ageing to Support Future-Planning.

The 'othering' of ageing is linked to an integrated process of ageism and hinders planning for the future for both individuals and practitioners delivering housing and health services. This paper aims to explore how creative interventions can help personalise, exchange knowledge and lead to system changes that tackle the 'othering' of ageing. The Designing Homes for Healthy Cognitive Ageing (DesHCA) project offers new and creative insights through an innovative methodology utilising 'serious games' with a co-produced tool called 'Our House' that provides insights into how to deliver housing for older people for ageing well in place. In a series of playtests with over 128 people throughout the UK, the findings show that serious games allow interaction, integration and understanding of how ageing affects people professionally and personally. The empirical evidence highlights that the game mechanisms allowed for a more in-depth and nuanced consideration of ageing in a safe and creative environment. These interactions and discussions enable individuals to personalise and project insights to combat the 'othering' of ageing. However, the solutions are restrained as overcoming the consequences of ageism is a societal challenge with multilayered solutions. The paper concludes that serious gaming encourages people to think differently about the concept of healthy ageing-both physically and cognitively-with the consideration of scalable and creative solutions to prepare for ageing in place.

Chemical identification and optimization of the 4-aminophenol colorimetric test for the differentiation between hemp-type and marijuana-type cannabis plant samples.

The 4- Aminophenol (4-AP) colorimetric test is a fast, easy-to-use, and cost-effective presumptive assay of cannabis plant material producing different chromophores with THC-rich cannabis (blue color) and with CBD-rich cannabis (pink color). The main drawback of the 4-AP test is a brief observation window where the color rapidly changes to black, limiting the utility of the test. We now report for the first time, the identification of the product chromophores between 4-AP and CBD/THC as well as propose an explanation and a solution for the color degradation of the chromophores. The identification of the chromophores is provided by spectroscopic (UV-Vis), chromatography, and mass spectrometry (TLC and LC-QToF-MS). Oxidation of excess 4-AP (Reagent A) in the presence of NaOH (Reagent B) produces the black color observed for the previously reported 4-AP tests and reported in the literature. The adjustment of reactants concentrations and volumes of 4-AP:THC/CBD to a 1:1 ratio significantly reduces the black oxidation by-product and increases the observation window up to 2 h instead of the previously reported 5-10 min. For the first time, mass spectrometry and chromatography confirmed that the reaction of THC and CBD with 4-AP produced chromophores with m/z (M + H) = 420, consistent with proposed indophenol structures. The TLC method developed confirmed the separation between CBD and THC chromophores. The specificity of the test is also reported, showing false positive results for the presence of THC (blue color) for samples of thyme and oregano. LDA and SIMCA models showed that the optimized 4-AP procedure performs better than the previously reported 4-AP color test.