Altering body perception and emotion in physically inactive people through movement sonification

Reino Unido. Cambridge (3-6 Septiembre 2019)Physical inactivity is an increasing problem. It has been linked to psychological and emotional barriers related to the perception of one's body, such as physical capabilities. It remains a challenge to design technologies to increase physical activity in inactive people. We propose the use of a sound interactive system where inputs from movement sensors integrated in shoes are transformed into sounds that evoke body sensations at a metaphorical level. Our user study investigates the effects of various gesture-sound mappings on the perception of one's body and its movement qualities (e.g. being flexible or agile), the related emotional state and movement patterns, when people performed two exercises, walking and thigh stretch. The results confirm the effect of the "metaphor" conditions vs. the control conditions in feelings of body weight; feeling less tired and more in control; or being more comfortable, motivated, and happier. These changes linked to changes in affective state and body movement. We discuss the results in terms of how acting upon body perception and affective states through sensory feedback may in turn enhance physical activity, and the opportunities opened by our findings for the design of wearable technologies and interventions in inactive populations.The work is supported by Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad of Spain Grants RYC-2014–15421 and PSI2016-79004-R (“MAGIC SHOES”; AEI/FEDER, UE) and doctoral training grant BES-2017-080471. FB was supported by the ELEMENT project (ANR-18-CE33-0002)

Effects of pitch and musical sounds on body-representations when moving with sound

The effects of music on bodily movement and feelings, such as when people are dancing or engaged in physical activity, are well-documented¿people may move in response to the sound cues, feel powerful, less tired. How sounds and bodily movements relate to create such effects? Here we deconstruct the problem and investigate how different auditory features affect people's body-representation and feelings even when paired with the same movement. In three experiments, participants executed a simple arm raise synchronised with changing pitch in simple tones (Experiment 1), rich musical sounds (Experiment 2) and within different frequency ranges (Experiment 3), while we recorded indirect and direct measures on their movement, body-representations and feelings. Changes in pitch influenced people's general emotional state as well as the various bodily dimensions investigated¿movement, proprioceptive awareness and feelings about one's body and movement. Adding harmonic content amplified the differences between ascending and descending sounds, while shifting the absolute frequency range had a general effect on movement amplitude, bodily feelings and emotional state. These results provide new insights in the role of auditory and musical features in dance and exercise, and have implications for the design of sound-based applications supporting movement expression, physical activity, or rehabilitation.We acknowledge funding by the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (PID2019-105579RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033) and the European Research Council Grant (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 101002711). JL is funded by the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitivity of Spain (doctoral training Grant BES-2017-080471). OD is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation (Co-Sense grant). FB is partially funded by the ELEMENT project (ANR-18-CE33-0002)

Heterologous expression of MlcE in<i> Saccharomyces cerevisiae</i> provides resistance to natural and semi-synthetic statins

Statins are inhibitors of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase, the key enzyme in cholesterol biosynthesis. Their extensive use in treatment and prevention of cardiovascular diseases placed statins among the best selling drugs. Construction of Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell factory for the production of high concentrations of natural statins will require establishment of a non-destructive self-resistance mechanism to overcome the undesirable growth inhibition effects of statins. To establish active export of statins from yeast, and thereby detoxification, we integrated a putative efflux pump-encoding gene mlcE from the mevastatin-producing Penicillium citrinum into the S. cerevisiae genome. The resulting strain showed increased resistance to both natural statins (mevastatin and lovastatin) and semi-synthetic statin (simvastatin) when compared to the wild type strain. Expression of RFP-tagged mlcE showed that MlcE is localized to the yeast plasma and vacuolar membranes. We provide a possible engineering strategy for improvement of future yeast based production of natural and semi-synthetic statins

Ecosistema lacustre: el caso laguna campestre: modelo valorativo simple para jerarquizar componentes morfológicos

Peer Reviewe

p38γ and p38δ modulate innate immune response by regulating MEF2D activation

Evidence implicating p38γ and p38δ (p38γ/p38δ) in inflammation are mainly based on experiments using Mapk12/Mapk13 deficient (p38γ/δKO) mice, which show low levels of TPL2, the kinase upstream of MKK1-ERK1/2 in myeloid cells. This could obscure p38γ/p38δ roles, since TPL2 is essential for regulating inflammation. Here we generated a Mapk12D171A/D171A/Mapk13-/- (p38γ/δKIKO) mouse, expressing kinase-inactive p38γ and lacking p38δ. This mouse exhibited normal TPL2 levels, making it an excellent tool to elucidate specific p38γ/p38δ functions. p38γ/δKIKO mice showed a reduced inflammatory response and less susceptibility to LPS-induced septic shock and Candida albicans infection than wild-type mice. Gene expression analyses in LPS-activated WT and p38γ/δKIKO macrophages revealed that p38γ/p38δ regulated numerous genes implicated in innate immune response. Additionally, phospho-proteomic analyses and in vitro kinase assays showed that the transcription factor myocyte enhancer factor-2D (MEF2D) was phosphorylated at Ser444 via p38γ/p38δ. Mutation of MEF2D Ser444 to the non-phosphorylatable residue Ala increased its transcriptional activity and the expression of Nos2 and Il1b mRNA. These results suggest that p38γ/p38δ govern innate immune responses by regulating MEF2D phosphorylation and transcriptional activity

Body x Materials: A workshop exploring the role of material-enabled body-based multisensory experiences

Over the last 15 years, HCI and Interaction Design have experienced a “material turn” characterized by a growing interest in the materiality of technology and computation, and in methods that support exploring, envisioning, and crafting with and through materials. The community has experienced a similar turn focused on the body, on how to best design for and from a first-person, lived experience, and the moving and sensual body. In this workshop, we focus on the intersection of these two turns. The emerging developments in multimodal interfaces open opportunities to bring in materiality to the digital world as well as to transform the materiality of objects and bodies in the real-world, including the materiality of our own body. The different sensory qualities of (touchable and untouchable, physical and digital) objects and bodies, including our own, can be brought into the design of digital technologies to enrich, augment, and transform embodied experiences. In this “materials revolution” [15], what are the current theories, approaches, methods, and tools that emphasize the critical role of materiality to body-based interactions with technology? To explore this, in this workshop we will focus on five related themes: material enabling expression, material as a catalyst for human action, material enabling reflection and awareness, material enabling transformation and material supporting the design process for the re-creation of the existing and the yet-to-exist. This workshop with technology presentations, panel sessions with experts, and multidisciplinary discussions will: (i) bring together researchers who work on (re)creating sensory properties of materials through technology with those who investigate experiential effects of materials and materialenabled interactions, (ii) discuss methods, opportunities, difficulties in designing materiality and material-enabled interactions, and (iii) form a multidisciplinary community to build synergies and collaborations

Co-Designing Sensory Feedback for Wearables to Support Physical Activity through Body Sensations

Many technologies for promoting physical activity (PA) give limited importance to critical variables for engagement in PA, such as negative body perceptions. Here, we aim to address this gap by incorporating barriers and experienced body sensations into the design process for wearables and body-based devices thus expanding the design space for such technologies. We first report four co-design workshops with physically inactive participants (n=9); in these workshops, we explored tangible tools (i) to sensitize people to body sensations experienced when facing barriers to PA and (ii) to ideate how haptic and auditory feedback could transform body sensations to increase body-awareness and engagement in PA; results show several interactive sensorial patterns with potential to inform the design of body transformation wearables. These were validated through a follow-up workshop (n=13 participants) and reflections based on insights from a literature review. Our findings are significant for the design of ubiquitous technology to support and initiate PA in everyday contexts through a novel approach of transforming body perceptions/ sensations related to PA barriers. We contribute design inspirations and cards for identifying barriers to PA and to empower designers and researchers to integrate them early in the design process

Membrane transporter dimerization driven by differential lipid solvation energetics of dissociated and associated states

Over two-thirds of integral membrane proteins of known structure assemble into oligomers. Yet, the forces that drive the association of these proteins remain to be delineated, as the lipid bilayer is a solvent environment that is both structurally and chemically complex. In this study, we reveal how the lipid solvent defines the dimerization equilibrium of the CLC-ec1 C