Aesthetic Experience and Comfort: Garment Design Integrated with Movement Qualities, Dynamic Bodily Expression, and Emotion

This research investigates comfort factors of users’ aesthetic experience, in particular emotional and aesthetic experiences that enhance wearability. The aim of the research is to develop concepts of movement-based interaction for inducing emotion, focusing on clothing as an interactive object. The more specific aim is to explore how to integrate movement qualities, bodily expression and emotion in garment design. The research utilizes the technique of scenarios to analyse the relationship between emotion and movement and garment. Garment has been developed for the participant as a prototype under the concept of shape change, ‘Transe-For-M-otion.’ The results indicate that, when wearing clothing in the context of comfort, the participant used her clothing to wrap or hold her body for the purpose of “protecting,” “hiding,” and “disguising” in insecure situations (feelings associated with relief and security), and conversely, for “self-expression” in secure situations (feelings associated with pleasure and enjoyment). In addition, the participant seemed to have her own ideas and gained great enjoyment by manipulating the garment in an interactive way with her body. The sense of movement, which refers to trace or the positional history of human motion, is closely related to space

Effects of heat stress on conception in Holstein and Jersey cattle and oocyte maturation in vitro

Korea, located in East Asia in the northern hemisphere, is experiencing severe climate changes. Specifically, the heat stress caused by global warming is negatively affecting the dairy sector, including milk production and reproductive performance, as the major dairy cattle Holstein-Friesian is particularly susceptible to heat stress. Here, we collected artificial insemination and pregnancy data of the Holstein and the Jersey cows from a dairy farm from 2014 to 2021 and analyzed the association between the conception rate and the temperature-humidity index, calculated using the data from the closest official weather station. As the temperature-humidity index threshold increased, the conception rate gradually decreased. However, this decrease was steeper in the Holstein breed than in the Jersey one at a temperature-humidity index threshold of 75. To evaluate the effects of heat stress on the oocyte quality, we examined the nuclear and cytoplasmic maturation of Holstein (n = 158, obtained from six animals) and Jersey oocytes (n = 123, obtained from six animals), obtained by ovum pick-up. There were no differences in the nuclear maturation between the different conditions (heat stress: 40.5°C, non- heat stress: 37.5°C) or breeds, although the Holstein oocytes seemed to have a lower metaphase II development (p = 0.0521) after in vitro maturation under heat stress conditions. However, we found that the Holstein metaphase II oocytes exposed to heat stress presented more reactive oxygen species and a peripheral distribution of the mitochondria, compared to those of the Jersey cattle. Here, we show that weather information from local meteorological stations can be used to calculate the temperature-humidity index threshold at which heat stress influences the conception rate, and that the Jersey cows are more tolerant to heat stress in terms of their conception rate at a temperature-humidity index over 75. The lower fertility of the Holstein cows is likely attributed to impaired cytoplasmic maturation induced by heat stress. Thus, the Jersey cows can be a good breed for the sustainability of dairy farms for addressing climate changes in South Korea, as they are more resistant to hyperthermia

Capicua suppresses hepatocellular carcinoma progression by controlling the ETV4–MMP1 axis

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is developed by multiple steps accompanying progressive alterations of gene expression, which leads to increased cell proliferation and malignancy. Although environmental factors and intracellular signaling pathways that are critical for HCC progression have been identified, gene expression changes and the related genetic factors contributing to HCC pathogenesis are still insufficiently understood. In this study, we identify a transcriptional repressor Capicua/CIC as a suppressor of HCC progression and a potential therapeutic target. Expression of CIC is posttranscriptionally reduced in HCC cells. CIC levels are correlated with survival rates in patients with HCC. CIC overexpression suppresses HCC cell proliferation and invasion, whereas loss of CIC exerts opposite effects in vivo as well as in vitro. The levels of PEA3 group genes, the best-known CIC target genes, are correlated with lethality in patients with HCC. Among the PEA3 group genes, ETV4 is the most significantly upregulated gene in CIC-deficient HCC cells, consequently promoting HCC progression. Furthermore, ETV4 induces expression of MMP1, the MMP gene highly relevant to HCC progression, in HCC cells, and knockdown of MMP1 completely blocks the CIC deficiency-induced HCC cell proliferation and invasion. CONCLUSION: Our study demonstrates that the CIC-ETV4-MMP1 axis is a novel regulatory module controlling HCC progression. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.113sciescopu

Impact of Climate Change and Heat Stress on Milk Production in Korean Holstein Cows: A Large-Scale Data Analysis

This study investigated the effects of heat stress on milk production in Korean Holstein cows using large-scale data. Heat stress was assessed using the temperature-humidity index (THI). Weather records (2016 to 2020) were collected from 70 regional weather stations using an installed automated surface observing system (ASOS). A dataset of 2,094,436 milk production records from 215,276 Holstein cows obtained from the Dairy Cattle Genetic Improvement Center was analyzed. Stepwise selection was used to select the input variables, including the daily maximum THI (THI_max). Least-squares means were calculated for milk yield, fat and protein corrected milk (FPCM), fat and protein yield, fat-to-protein ratio, solids not fat, and lactation persistency. Segmented linear regression analysis determined the break points (BPs) of the THI_max. Over the five years, heat stress exposure increased, particularly from May to September. This study identified BPs around THI_max of 80–82 for milk yield and FPCM. Similar patterns for other milk traits were observed, which significantly decreased beyond their respective BPs. These findings indicate that THI variations adversely affect milk yield and composition in dairy cows, highlighting the importance of appropriate feeding management strategies to ensure the optimal productivity of Holstein cows under varying climatic conditions

Development of prediction model for body weight and energy balance indicators from milk traits in lactating dairy cows based on deep neural networks

To develop a body weight (BW) prediction model using milk production traits and present a useful indicator for energy balance (EB) evaluation in dairy cows. Data were collected from 30 Holstein cows using an automatic milking system. BW prediction models were developed using multiple linear regression (MLR), local regression (LOESS), and deep neural networks (DNN). Milk production traits readily available on commercial dairy farms, such as energy-corrected milk (ECM), fat-to-protein ratio, days in milk (DIM), and parity, were used as input variables for BW prediction. The EB was evaluated as the difference between energy intake and energy demand. The DNN model showed the greatest predictive accuracy for BW compared with the LOESS and MLR models. The BW predicted using the DNN model was used to calculate the energy demand. Our results revealed that the day on which the EB status transitioned from negative to positive differed among cows. The cows were assigned to one of the three EB index groups. EB index 1 indicated that the day of EB transition was within DIM ≤ 70. The EB indexes 2 and 3 were 70 < DIM ≤ 140 and 140 < DIM ≤ 305, respectively. EB index 3 had the lowest EB, which is the slowest to transition from a negative to a positive energy balance compared with EB indexes 1 and 2. The highest ECM and feed efficiency were observed for EB index 3. The calving interval was the shortest for EB index 1. EB of individual cows during lactation can be estimated and monitored with moderately high accuracy using EB indexes

Movement-Related Sensorimotor High-Gamma Activity Mainly Represents Somatosensory Feedback

Somatosensation plays pivotal roles in the everyday motor control of humans. During active movement, there exists a prominent high-gamma (HG &gt;50 Hz) power increase in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1), and this provides an important feature in relation to the decoding of movement in a brain-machine interface (BMI). However, one concern of BMI researchers is the inflation of the decoding performance due to the activation of somatosensory feedback, which is not elicited in patients who have lost their sensorimotor function. In fact, it is unclear as to how much the HG component activated in S1 contributes to the overall sensorimotor HG power during voluntary movement. With regard to other functional roles of HG in S1, recent findings have reported that these HG power levels increase before the onset of actual movement, which implies neural activation for top-down movement preparation or sensorimotor interaction, i.e., an efference copy. These results are promising for BMI applications but remain inconclusive. Here, we found using electrocorticography (ECoG) from eight patients that HG activation in S1 is stronger and more informative than it is in the primary motor cortex (M1) regardless of the type of movement. We also demonstrate by means of electromyography (EMG) that the onset timing of the HG power in S1 is later (49 ms) than that of the actual movement. Interestingly, we show that the HG power fluctuations in S1 are closely related to subtle muscle contractions, even during the pre-movement period. These results suggest the following: (1) movement-related HG activity in S1 strongly affects the overall sensorimotor HG power, and (2) HG activity in S1 during voluntary movement mainly represents cortical neural processing for somatosensory feedback