Inner-group and inter-group relations in Seoul participatory planning: revisiting the concept of social capital

This paper explores the composition of social relations in Korean community-led regeneration planning. Power dynamics among participants are understood as an important factor in shaping decision-making planning processes. While the concept of social capital and the social network theory have received great attention, particularly in recent Asian planning cases, as tools to understand participatory processes, empirical studies on processes of building social capital among different social groups in participatory planning are still limited. This study examines the uneven formation of social capital and its operation to unpack participatory planning mechanisms that may unintentionally reproduce the relationships of domination/marginalisation in the decision-making consultation processes. The study focuses on a recently designated community-led regeneration project, the Garibong-dong urban regeneration project in Seoul, a neighborhood where a considerable number of Korean Chinese communities live

Imagining diversity in Seoul: Gender and immigrant identities

While immigrant studies focus on the role of local-level migration and integration policies to respond to the immigrant groups in their areas, the research on how urban policies mediate the social inequality which ethnic minorities face are still not sufficient, particularly in the context of the new immigrant-receiving countries. This article analyzes the construction of immigrant groups and the social oppression experienced by immigrant groups in Seoul. Specifically, this article focuses on multilayered social pressure experienced by low-income foreign-born workers and marriage migrants, who account for 36% and 7.9%, respectively, of the city’s foreign-born population. This article shows that diversity policies in Seoul ultimately reaffirm, rather than challenge, national definitions of the different ethnic groups by strengthening the categories and associated social oppressions of gender, ethnicity, and class. The study is based on a documentary analysis of policies on immigrants in Seoul and interviews with public officials and immigrants

The Dynamics of Collapsing Monopoles and Regular Black Holes

We study the formation and stability of regular black holes by employing a thin shell approximation to the dynamics of collapsing magnetic monopoles. The core deSitter region of the monopole is matched across the shell to a Reissner-Nordstrom exterior. We find static configurations which are nonsingular black holes and also oscillatory trajectories about these static points that share the same causal structure. In these spacetimes the shell is always hidden behind the black hole horizon. We also find shell trajectories that pass through the asymptotically flat region and model collapse of a monopole to form a regular black hole. In addition there are trajectories in which the deSitter core encompasses a deSitter horizon and hence undergoes topological inflation. However, these always yield singular black holes and never have the shell passing through the aymptotically flat region. Although the regular black hole spacetimes satisfy the strong energy condition, they avoid the singularity theorems by failing to satisfy the genericity condition on the Riemann tensor. The regular black holes undergo a change in spatial topology in accordance with a theorem of Borde's.Comment: 22 pages, 19 figures, harvmac (b), references change

Place Profiles: Localizing Understandings of Disadvantage

The everyday economy team at UCL have been investigating the perspective of civil society actors in England, and the longer-term project of economic resilience where the goal is to engage with local knowledge of places for co-produced policies. This working paper on place-profiles is an important iteration. It is a response to contested framings of some places as ‘left-behind,’ in light of the tendency towards ‘othering’ in inequality metrics. It seeks to review the construction of ideas of disadvantage and means to broaden approaches to economic strategy through co-production. The study presented here adds to a wider debate about how places are understood, and the value of co-produced approaches to profiles. It demonstrates the politics of knowledge of inequalities in economic development, and the complexity of establishing more place-sensitive policy responses. It explores the possibility of using local data on economic factors, as an opportunity for developing place-based understandings. The study focuses on ‘small area’ sets of data and means of interrogation. Using three localities in England that have contested narratives of changes in development, it demonstrates existing public data and stakeholder interpretations of prototype ‘place profiles.’ This ‘localization’ provides a point of deliberation about constructing policy narratives with local stakeholders. The analysis focuses on the challenges associated with localized quantitative metrics, and how data can co-shape understandings of potential socio-economic problems and solutions. Findings suggest that local concerns are not observable through the data, but that contestations of metrics can bring to light alternative stories of ‘change’ in development through discussion with local stakeholders. On the one hand, reducing the scale of quantitative data is not sufficient and co-production is needed to draw out local interpretations. On the other, the very act of localizing data is highly contentious, and may further alienate local stakeholders foreclosing co-production of knowledge for strategy-making. This reinforces the value of qualitative, embedded work by stakeholders and flexibility in strategy making processes

Calibrations and Fayyazuddin-Smith Spacetimes

We show that a class of spacetimes introduced by Fayyazuddin and Smith to describe intersecting M5-branes admit a generalized Kahler calibration. Equipped with this understanding, we are able to construct spacetimes corresponding to further classes of calibrated $p$-brane world-volume solitons. We note that these classes of spacetimes also describe the fields of $p$-branes wrapping certain supersymmetric cycles of Calabi-Yau manifolds.Comment: 14 pages, no figures, references added in v

Identification of doping suspicions through artificial intelligence-powered analysis on athlete’s performance passport in female weightlifting

IntroductionDoping remains a persistent concern in sports, compromising fair competition. The Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) has been a standard anti-doping measure, but confounding factors challenge its effectiveness. Our study introduces an artificial intelligence-driven approach for identifying potential doping suspicious, utilizing the Athlete’s Performance Passport (APP), which integrates both demographic profiles and performance data, among elite female weightlifters.MethodsAnalyzing publicly available performance data in female weightlifting from 1998 to 2020, along with demographic information, encompassing 17,058 entities, we categorized weightlifters by age, body weight (BW) class, and performance levels. Documented anti-doping rule violations (ADRVs) cases were also retained. We employed AI-powered algorithms, including XGBoost, Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), and an Ensemble model, which integrates XGBoost and MLP, to identify doping suspicions based on the dataset we obtained.ResultsOur findings suggest a potential doping inclination in female weightlifters in their mid-twenties, and the sanctioned prevalence was the highest in the top 1% performance level and then decreased thereafter. Performance profiles and sanction trends across age groups and BW classes reveal consistently superior performances in sanctioned cases. The Ensemble model showcased impressive predictive performance, achieving a 53.8% prediction rate among the weightlifters sanctioned in the 2008, 2012, and 2016 Olympics. This demonstrated the practical application of the Athlete’s Performance Passport (APP) in identifying potential doping suspicions.DiscussionOur study pioneers an AI-driven APP approach in anti-doping, offering a proactive and efficient methodology. The APP, coupled with advanced AI algorithms, holds promise in revolutionizing the efficiency and objectivity of doping tests, providing a novel avenue for enhancing anti-doping measures in elite female weightlifting and potentially extending to diverse sports. We also address the limitation of a constrained set of APPs, advocating for the development of a more accessible and enriched APP system for robust anti-doping practices

S6 kinase 1 plays a key role in mitochondrial morphology and cellular energy flow

Mitochondrial morphology, which is associated with changes in metabolism, cell cycle, cell development and cell death, is tightly regulated by the balance between fusion and fission. In this study, we found that S6 kinase 1 (S6K1) contributes to mitochondrial dynamics, homeostasis and function. Mouse embryo fibroblasts lacking S6K1 (S6K1 KO MEFs) exhibited more fragmented mitochondria and a higher level of Dynamin related protein 1 (Drp1) and active Drp1 (pS616) in both whole cell extracts and mitochondria' fraction. In addition, there was no evidence for autophagy and mitophagy induction in S6K1 depleted cells. Glycolysis and mitochondrial respiratory activity was higher in S6K1-KO MEFs, whereas OxPhos ATP production was not altered. However, inhibition of Drp1 by Mdivi1 (Drp1 inhibitor) resulted in higher OxPhos ATP production and lower mitochondrial membrane potential. Taken together the depletion of S6K1 increased Drpl-mediated fission, leading to the enhancement of glycolysis. The fission form of mitochondria resulted in lower yield for OxPhos ATP production as well as in higher mitochondrial membrane potential. Thus, these results have suggested a potential role of S6K1 in energy metabolism by modulating mitochondrial respiratory capacity and mitochondrial morphology.

Switchable tribology of ferroelectrics

Switchable tribological properties of ferroelectrics offer an alternative route to visualize and control ferroelectric domains. Here, we observe the switchable friction and wear behavior of ferroelectrics using a nanoscale scanning probe—down domains have lower friction coefficients and show slower wear rates than up domains and can be used as smart masks. This asymmetry is enabled by flexoelectrically coupled polarization in the up and down domains under a sufficiently high contact force. Moreover, we determine that this polarization-sensitive tribological asymmetry is widely applicable across various ferroelectrics with different chemical compositions and crystalline symmetry. Finally, using this switchable tribology and multi-pass patterning with a domain-based dynamic smart mask, we demonstrate three-dimensional nanostructuring exploiting the asymmetric wear rates of up and down domains, which can, furthermore, be scaled up to technologically relevant (mm–cm) size. These findings demonstrate that ferroelectrics are electrically tunable tribological materials at the nanoscale for versatile applications.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Clinical implications of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in advanced endometrial cancer: a multi-center retrospective cohort study

Background : The mainstay of endometrial cancer treatment is surgical resection of tumors and postoperative adjuvant treatment is recommended if necessary. However, there is no consensus on the management of unresectable metastatic endometrial cancer. This study aimed to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by interval debulking surgery (NAC-IDS) in unresectable, metastatic endometrial cancer. Methods : From the endometrial cancer cohorts of four institutions in Korea, we identified patients with International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stages IIIC–IVB endometrial cancer who received NAC-IDS between January 2008 and December 2020. Through a medical record review, we collected patients’ clinicopathological data. Progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), and the factors affecting survival outcomes were analyzed. Results : Overall, 32 patients were included with endometrioid (n = 18), serous (n = 5), carcinosarcoma (n = 6), and other histological types (n = 3). Among them, 28 (87.5%) patients had stage IVB disease. The most common neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) regimen was paclitaxel-carboplatin (n = 25, 78.1%), which was administered for a median of six cycles. While 26 (81.3%) patients showed an objective response, two (6.3%) progressed despite NAC. At the time of interval debulking surgery (IDS), 23 (71.9%) patients achieved complete cytoreduction. During 31.0 months of the median follow-up, there were 23 recurrences and 11 deaths, corresponding to a median PFS of 19.7 months and a 3-year OS rate of 69.7%. In multivariate analyses, non-endometrioid histology and residual tumor after IDS were identified as independent poor prognostic factors for PFS (adjusted hazard ratio [HR], 7.322; P < 0.001 and 5.934; P = 0.001, respectively). Multivariate analysis for OS could not be conducted because of the small number of events, although non-endometrioid histology was the only factor associated with worse OS in univariate analysis (adjusted HR, 4.523; P = 0.032). Conclusions : NAC-IDS may be a treatment option for unresectable metastatic endometrial cancer. Tumor histology and the possibility of complete cytoreduction are the primary considerations for NAC-IDS