Innovation, Intention and Inequities: Addressing the Potential Social Impacts of Innovation Districts in Post-Industrial Waterfront Zones Upon Working Class and Minority Neighborhoods

This paper analyzes how the development of innovation districts in industrial waterfront zones affects the social vulnerabilities of working class, minority and immigrant neighborhoods towards gentrification. Research uses Sunset Park, Brooklyn as a neighborhood case study and incorporates a mixed-methodology design through archival research and qualitative interviews. This study first defines the pre-existing risks and relationship between industrial use zoning and neighborhood social vulnerabilities through archival research of neighborhood history and recent urban developments. Qualitative data is generated through interviews of neighborhood residents, community activist organizations and non-profits of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, tenants of Industry City, advocates of Innovation Districts, and urban planners to understand the potential, social impacts of innovation districts and their adaptive re-use schemes upon working class neighborhoods

Game of translations: virtual community doing English translations of Chinese online fiction

Fan translations are an important part of global fan subculture activity, intensified especially through the new media platforms which connect producers and consumers all around the globe. One recent trend within this category is that of English translations of Chinese online fictions. It is a newly emerging form of activity which takes place on blogs connected through a blogroll. Through these channels, fans comprising blog moderators, translators, and readers can engage in exchanges which add value to the appreciation of literature. Thus, it can be imagined as a ‘virtual settlement’ (Jones, 1997) after Anderson (1983)’s ‘imagined community’. Within this community, a further observation can be made about the mechanics of this practice. Like a game, the fans act as players where they negotiate rules regarding the production of translations. Given the community-centric nature of these websites, my paper outlines the formation of ‘illusio’, or “agreed rules of the game”, a concept introduced by Bourdieu. This is operationalised using Järvinen (2007)’s framework, locating the nine elements of a ‘gamified practice’ within the interactions of this community, known as Shusheng Bar. The findings suggest that members of Shusheng Bar possess a shared history and connected future. The significance of this observation assists in understanding the dynamics of online subcultures.&nbsp

The Particulate Methane Monooxygenase from Methylococcus capsulatus (Bath) Is a Novel Copper-containing Three-subunit Enzyme: isolation and charactization

The particulate methane monooxygenase (pMMO) is known to be very difficult to study mainly due to its unusual activity instability in vitro. By cultivating Methylococcus capsulatus (Bath) under methane stress conditions and high copper levels in the growth medium, membranes highly enriched in the pMMO with exceptionally stable activity can be isolated from these cells. Purified and active pMMO can be subsequently obtained from these membrane preparations using protocols in which an excess of reductants and anaerobic conditions were maintained during membrane solubilization by dodecyl beta-D-maltoside and purification by chromatography. The pMMO was found to be the major constituent in these membranes, constituting 60-80% of total membrane proteins. The dominant species of the pMMO was found to consist of three subunits, alpha, beta, and gamma, with an apparent molecular mass of 45, 26, and 23 kDa, respectively. A second species of the pMMO, a proteolytically processed version of the enzyme, was found to be composed of three subunits, alpha', beta, and gamma, with an apparent molecular mass of 35, 26, and 23 kDa, respectively. The alpha and alpha' subunits from these two forms of the pMMO contain identical N-terminal sequences. The gamma subunit, however, exhibits variation in its N-terminal sequence. The pMMO is a copper-containing protein only and shows a requirement for Cu(I) ions. Approximately 12-15 Cu ions per 94-kDa monomeric unit were observed. The pMMO is sensitive to dioxygen tension. On the basis of dioxygen sensitivity, three kinetically distinct forms of the enzyme can be distinguished. A slow but air-stable form, which is converted into a "pulsed" state upon direct exposure to atmospheric oxygen pressure, is considered as type I pMMO. This form was the subject of our pMMO isolation effort. Other forms (types II and III) are deactivated to various extents upon exposure to atmospheric dioxygen pressure. Under inactivating conditions, these unstable forms release protons to the buffer (~10 H+/94-kDa monomeric unit) and eventually become completely inactive

Softening the Impact of Adjustment to Reform: The China Experience

This paper examines the structural adjustments induced as China moved from a planned economy that subsidized capital-intensive industry at the expense of agriculture to a nationally integrated market economy more fitting with China's underlying resource endowments. We argue that there were few losers in the process because of 1) a gradual implementation process that maintained transfers to the favored groups under the planned economy, such as urban industrial workers, while the market economy developed benefiting the non-favored groups, such as farmers; 2) high growth rates allowed a large portion of the economy to benefit from the overall reform process and bolstered the government's commitment to further reform; and 3) labor, the most important resource that farm households hold in China, was much less institutionally constrained than land and capital during the reform period, allowing rural workers to participate in the fast growing nonagricultural sector.Agricultural and Food Policy, Political Economy,

Predictors of successful move-on to more independent accommodation amongst users of the community mental health rehabilitation team: A prospective cohort study in inner London

Purpose: In England, community mental health rehabilitation teams play a major role in supporting people with complex mental health needs to progress from inpatient to community settings and from more to less supported accommodation. We aimed to conduct the first study to investigate longitudinal outcomes for users of a community rehabilitation team and identify service user characteristics associated with successful progress along the rehabilitation pathway. / Methods: We used routinely collected clinical outcome data relating to all 193 users of a community rehabilitation team in inner London, transferred to the team between June 2013 and May 2018, with a cut-off data-collection date of 20th June 2019. We estimated the proportion who moved on to more independent accommodation successfully, with no breakdown in the placement. We conducted multivariable Cox proportional hazard regression to investigate associations between service user characteristics at transfer and successful move-on. / Results: Overall, 43/193 (23%) service users achieved successful move-on during a median follow-up of 51 months (IQR 32–63). This was more likely for those who were residing in more highly supported accommodation (HR 3.90; 95% CI 2.01–7.54) and those who had better functioning (HR 1.04, 95% CI 1.02–1.06) at transfer, while those with a serious physical health condition were less likely to achieve successful move-on (HR 0.44, 95% CI 0.21–0.95). / Conclusion: Most supported accommodation services aim to offer time-limited support, but most service users do not progress successfully to more independent accommodation within 4 years. Investment in interventions that improve functioning and physical health may facilitate successful move-on

A targeted gene panel that covers coding, non-coding and short tandem repeat regions improves the diagnosis of patients with neurodegenerative diseases

Genetic testing for neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) is highly challenging because of genetic heterogeneity and overlapping manifestations. Targeted-gene panels (TGPs), coupled with next-generation sequencing (NGS), can facilitate the profiling of a large repertoire of ND-related genes. Due to the technical limitations inherent in NGS and TGPs, short tandem repeat (STR) variations are often ignored. However, STR expansions are known to cause such NDs as Huntington\u27s disease and spinocerebellar ataxias type 3 (SCA3). Here, we studied the clinical utility of a custom-made TGP that targets 199 NDs and 311 ND-associated genes on 118 undiagnosed patients. At least one known or likely pathogenic variation was found in 54 patients; 27 patients demonstrated clinical profiles that matched the variants; and 16 patients whose original diagnosis were refined. A high concordance of variant calling were observed when comparing the results from TGP and whole-exome sequencing of four patients. Our in-house STR detection algorithm has reached a specificity of 0.88 and a sensitivity of 0.82 in our SCA3 cohort. This study also uncovered a trove of novel and recurrent variants that may enrich the repertoire of ND-related genetic markers. We propose that a combined comprehensive TGPs-bioinformatics pipeline can improve the clinical diagnosis of NDs

Oral cancer awareness among dentists and dental students in Hong Kong

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