The Characteristics of Urban Forests as Restorative Environments with the use of the Perceived Restorativeness Scale: focusing on the Hongneung Experimental Forest, Seoul, South Korea

The aim of this empirical study of Hongneung Experimental Forest (HEF) was to determine how urban forests in residential areas are being used as restorative environments. A survey (n = 232) based on the Perceived Restorativeness Scale was conducted to analyse how each element of the scale differed based on the user’s characteristics and to identify the relationship between use patterns and psychological restorativeness. Analysis showed that HEF played a role as a restorative environment in a residential area. The extent of stay received the highest score (6.35), followed by being away (5.97), fascination (5.59), and compatibility (5.47), whereas legibility (4.81) received a relatively low score. The differences in psychological restorativeness based on sex, age, visit frequency, and duration of stay were statistically significant. In particular, the psychological restorativeness for housewives and the elderly was greater than that for men. The greater the frequency of regular visits (e.g., 1~2 times per year), the more likely the visitor will stay for approximately 3h. In the midst of social demand for the restorative environments of urban forests that are accessible and available in everyday life, this study is significant in that it examined the effectiveness of urban forests as restorative environments and presented empirical directions from the visitor’s perspective for the planning of urban therapeutic spaces. However, there is a limit to generalizing the psychological restorativeness of urban forests with just the HEF as an example; therefore, future research is warranted to comparatively analyse various spaces

Cytoprotective Self-assembled RGD Peptide Nanofilms for Surface Modification of Viable Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Intravenous administration of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) has served as a clinical intervention for inflammatory diseases. Once entered to blood circulation, MSCs are exposed to a harsh environment which sharply decreases cell viability due to the fact that injected cells, being susceptible to shear stress, are subjected to the high velocities of the bloodstream and lack of proper mechanical support that keeping them in an attachment-deprived state. Here, we coated the nanofilm onto viable MSCs by depositing poly-l-lysine and hyaluronic acid molecules along with arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (RGD peptide) as building blocks to protect cells from shear stress and stabilize them in a single cell, suspension state. In this article, we found that nanofilm-coated cells showed significantly increased cell survival <i>in vitro</i> and <i>in vivo</i>, which was also supported by the activation of survival-related protein, Akt. The coated nanofilm did not interfere with the stemness of MSCs which was determined based on the colony forming unit-fibroblast (CFU-F) assay and <i>in vitro</i> differentiation potential. Because of the characteristics of films showing light molecular deposition density, flexibility, and looseness, application of nanofilms did not block cell migration. When the cells were administrated intravenously, the nanofilm coated MSCs not only prolonged blood circulation lifetime but also showed increased stem cell recruitment to injured tissues in the muscle injury <i>in vivo</i> model, due to prolonged survival. Surface modification of MSCs using nanofilms successfully modulated cell activity enabling them to survive the anoikis-inducing state, and this can provide a valuable tool to potentiate the efficacy of MSCs for <i>in vivo</i> cell therapy