A lived hermetic of people and place: Phenomenology and space syntax

This paper examines ways in which a phenomenological approach might contribute to space syntax research, drawing on three themes that mark the heart of phenomenological investigation: (1) understanding grounded in real-world experience; (2) human immersion in world; and (3) describing the lifeworld—a person or group’s everyday world of taken-for-grantedness of which the person or group is typically unaware. A major phenomenological question is how space syntax concepts, particularly the spatial configuration of the “deformed grid,” point toward a particular kind of place structure in which the spatial-temporal regularity of individual participants potentially coalesces into a larger environmental dynamic—what is termed “place ballet”—that both sustains and is sustained by an attachment to and a sense of place

Thinking, Longing, and Nearness: In Memoriam Bernd Jager (1931-2015)

Citation: Seamon, D. (2016). Thinking, Longing, and Nearness: In Memoriam Bernd Jager (1931-2015). Phenomenology & Practice, 10(1), 47-58. Retrieved from ://WOS:000379143500004Phenomenological psychologist Bernd Jager died in Montreal on March 30, 2015, at the age of 83. For many readers of Phenomenology & Practice, Jager was a greatly admired scholar who regularly attended and presented at the annual nternational Human Science Research conferences. His home institution, the Department of Psychology at the University of Quebec at Montreal, hosted the 2012 conference in which Jager played an instrumental role in organizing and hosting that event

Understanding place holistically: Cities, synergistic relationality, and space syntax

Citation: Seamon, D. (2015). Understanding place holistically: Cities, synergistic relationality, and space syntax. The Journal of Space Syntax,6(1), 19-33. http://joss.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/journal/index.php/joss/article/view/246This article discusses two contrasting conceptual understandings of place. The approach of analytic relationality interprets places as sets of interconnected parts and their relationships. In contrast, synergistic relationality interprets places as integrated, generative fields, the parts of which are only parts as they both sustain and are sustained by the constitution and dynamism of the particular place as a whole. This article presents one interpretation of place as synergistic relationality by describing six interrelated, generative processes: place interaction, place identity, place release, place realization, place creation, and place intensification. The article considers how concepts and principles relating to space syntax contribute to understanding places as synergistic relationality broadly; and to understanding the six place processes specifically

Toward a Phenomenology of Place and Place-Making: Interpreting Landscape, Lifeworld and Aesthetics

Places and place-making are two significant notions in current environmental and architectural literature. Phenomenological research, which is concerned with the essential nature of human experience and consciousness, indicates that the notion of place crystallizes and focuses one essential aspect of human existence - the inescapable requirement to always be somewhere..

Lifeworld, Place, and Phenomenology: Holistic and Dialectical Perspectives

In this article, I clarify the phenomenological concept of lifeworld by drawing on the geographical themes of place, place experience, and place meaning. Most simply, lifeworld refers to a person or group’s day-to-day, taken-for-granted experience that typically goes unnoticed. One aim of phenomenological research is to examine the lifeworld as a means to identify and clarify the tacit, unnoticed aspects of human life so that they can be accounted for theoretically and practically. Here, I discuss some key phenomenological principles and then draw on phenomenological renditions of place as one means to clarify some of the lifeworld’s social, environmental, spatial, and geographical aspects. To concretize my discussion, I draw descriptive evidence from British writer Penelope Lively’s Spiderweb, a 1990s novel describing one outsider’s efforts to come to inhabit a place—a fictitious present-day village in the southwestern British county of Somerset

Response to a COVID-19 Outbreak on a University Campus — Indiana, August 2020

Institutions of higher education adopted different approaches for the fall semester 2020 in response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Approximately 45% of colleges and universities implemented online instruction, more than one fourth (27%) provided in-person instruction, and 21% used a hybrid model (1). Although CDC has published COVID-19 guidance for institutions of higher education (2–4), little has been published regarding the response to COVID-19 outbreaks on college and university campuses (5). In August 2020, an Indiana university with approximately 12,000 students (including 8,000 undergraduate students, 85% of whom lived on campus) implemented various public health measures to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Despite these measures, the university experienced an outbreak involving 371 cases during the first few weeks of the fall semester. The majority of cases occurred among undergraduate students living off campus, and several large off-campus gatherings were identified as common sources of exposure. Rather than sending students home, the university switched from in-person to online instruction for undergraduate students and instituted a series of campus restrictions for 2 weeks, during which testing, contact tracing, and isolation and quarantine programs were substantially enhanced, along with educational efforts highlighting the need for strict adherence to the mitigation measures. After 2 weeks, the university implemented a phased return to in-person instruction (with 85% of classes offered in person) and resumption of student life activities. This report describes the outbreak and the data-driven, targeted interventions and rapid escalation of testing, tracing, and isolation measures that enabled the medium-sized university to resume in-person instruction and campus activities. These strategies might prove useful to other colleges and universities responding to campus outbreaks

The Effects of Cholera Toxin on Cellular Energy Metabolism

Multianalyte microphysiometry, a real-time instrument for simultaneous measurement of metabolic analytes in a microfluidic environment, was used to explore the effects of cholera toxin (CTx). Upon exposure of CTx to PC-12 cells, anaerobic respiration was triggered, measured as increases in acid and lactate production and a decrease in the oxygen uptake. We believe the responses observed are due to a CTx-induced activation of adenylate cyclase, increasing cAMP production and resulting in a switch to anaerobic respiration. Inhibitors (H-89, brefeldin A) and stimulators (forskolin) of cAMP were employed to modulate the CTx-induced cAMP responses. The results of this study show the utility of multianalyte microphysiometry to quantitatively determine the dynamic metabolic effects of toxins and affected pathways

Renal Survival in Children with Glomerulonephritis with Crescents: A Pediatric Nephrology Research Consortium Cohort Study

There is no evidence-based definition for diagnosing crescentic glomerulonephritis. The prognostic implications of crescentic lesions on kidney biopsy have not been quantified. Our objective was to determine risk factors for end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) in patients with glomerulonephritis and crescents on kidney biopsy. A query of the Pediatric Nephrology Research Consortium’s Pediatric Glomerulonephritis with Crescents registry identified 305 patients from 15 centers. A retrospective cohort study was performed with ESKD as the primary outcome. Median age at biopsy was 11 years (range 1–21). The percentage of crescents was 3–100% (median 20%). Etiologies included IgA nephropathy (23%), lupus (21%), IgA vasculitis (19%) and ANCA-associated GN (13%), post-infectious GN (5%), and anti-glomerular basement membrane disease (3%). The prevalence of ESKD was 12% at one year and 16% at last follow-up (median = 3 years, range 1–11). Median time to ESKD was 100 days. Risk factors for ESKD included %crescents, presence of fibrous crescents, estimated GFR, and hypertension at biopsy. For each 1% increase in %crescents, there was a 3% decrease in log odds of 1-year renal survival (p = 0.003) and a 2% decrease in log odds of renal survival at last follow-up (p \u3c 0.001). These findings provide an evidence base for enrollment criteria for crescentic glomerulonephritis in future clinical trials

Ancestral TSH mechanism signals summer in a photoperiodic mammal

SummaryIn mammals, day-length-sensitive (photoperiodic) seasonal breeding cycles depend on the pineal hormone melatonin, which modulates secretion of reproductive hormones by the anterior pituitary gland [1]. It is thought that melatonin acts in the hypothalamus to control reproduction through the release of neurosecretory signals into the pituitary portal blood supply, where they act on pituitary endocrine cells [2]. Contrastingly, we show here that during the reproductive response of Soay sheep exposed to summer day lengths, the reverse applies: Melatonin acts directly on anterior-pituitary cells, and these then relay the photoperiodic message back into the hypothalamus to control neuroendocrine output. The switch to long days causes melatonin-responsive cells in the pars tuberalis (PT) of the anterior pituitary to increase production of thyrotrophin (TSH). This acts locally on TSH-receptor-expressing cells in the adjacent mediobasal hypothalamus, leading to increased expression of type II thyroid hormone deiodinase (DIO2). DIO2 initiates the summer response by increasing hypothalamic tri-iodothyronine (T3) levels. These data and recent findings in quail [3] indicate that the TSH-expressing cells of the PT play an ancestral role in seasonal reproductive control in vertebrates. In mammals this provides the missing link between the pineal melatonin signal and thyroid-dependent seasonal biology