Thinking in Circles: A Systems Theory Approach to Public Participation in Planning

In the field of planning, there is widespread consensus that the mechanisms in which most planners use to engage with the public are ineffective and exclusive. Although there has been much work done on the techniques planners can adopt to reach out to underrepresented segments of the community, few municipalities have adopted them. This thesis seeks to advance the conversation on public participation beyond the mechanisms and into a discussion of why only certain communities are implementing these more progressive, efficient, effective, and equitable measures. By depicting how public participation functions as a system of interconnected paths and feedback loops, the author identifies twelve places in the system (i.e. leverage points) that could make participation more inclusive. The author tested the applicability of the leverage points by applying this Systems Theory framework to two inclusive participation initiatives in Amherst, Massachusetts and Vallejo, California. Through interviews and documentary research, the author found the framework to be effective in conceptualizing how communities become more inclusive and how participatory mechanisms can help shift the roles citizens, public managers, and planners have in the planning process

Forging Ahead: Towards an Arts Center in North Quabbin

This report is a feasibility study to assess the potential adaptive reuse of mill buildings in the North Quabbin region as a site for an arts education center that would specialize in large-scale sculpture fabrication. This report relies on interviews with experts and conducting case studies on similar instances of creative economy revitalization

Routes To the Renaissance for Pittsfield, MA

The goal of the Master of Regional Planning Studio is to develop a student’s techniques for collecting, analyzing, and synthesizing spatial and non-spatial data and then presenting that collective data in a manner (i.e., report, video, presentation, and charettes) that is understandable to academics, professionals, and the public. Planning Studio allows students to integrate knowledge from coursework and research, and apply such knowledge to resolving representative planning problems. At UMASS Amherst, these problems are found in neighborhood, rural, urban, and/or regional settings. In the fall of 2015, the City of Pittsfield contracted the MRP Studio to create a vision plan to connect the goal’s of its Master Plan in 2009 to current development regulations that encourage development and redevelopment of an appropriate size, scale and design that meets the short term and long term vision of the community. The vision plan encompasses the following: Spatial and Physical Boundaries of Major Gateway Corridors: Analyze the major gateways and develop tools to make them more welcoming. Permitted Use Table and Definitions: Review, clarify, and consolidate the land-uses listed in the table to assess deficiencies and unclear definitions. Design Guidelines: Create a manual to guide architectural aesthetic standards for new retail developments. Sign Ordinance: Implement a streamlined regulation that improves sign quality. Site Plan Review: Develop thresholds to create clearer processes for review of development projects. Resolution for Split Parcels: Identify all properties that fall within two zoning districts and develop a mitigation tool. Pro Forma and Multi-Family Housing: Develop a financial model that will estimate the construction and maintenance cost of multi-family housing units and make projections for new development’s financial return

The chicken left right organizer has nonmotile cilia which are lost in a stage-dependent manner in the talpid3 ciliopathy

Motile cilia are an essential component of the mouse, zebrafish, and Xenopus laevis Left Right Organizers, generating nodal flow and allowing the reception and transduction of mechanosensory signals. Nonmotile primary cilia are also an important component of the Left Right Organizer's chemosensory mechanism. It has been proposed in the chicken that signaling in Hensen's node, the Left Right Organizer of the chicken, is independent of cilia, based on a lack of evidence of motile cilia or nodal flow. It is speculated that the talpid(3) chicken mutant, which has normal left–right patterning despite lacking cilia at many stages of development, is proof of this hypothesis. Here, we examine the evidence for cilia in Hensen's node and find that although cilia are present; they are likely to be immotile and incapable of generating nodal flow. Furthermore, we find that early planar cell polarity patterning and ciliogenesis is normal in early talpid(3) chicken embryos. We conclude that patterning and development of the early talpid(3) chicken is normal, but not necessarily independent of cilia. Although it appears that Hensen's node does not require motile cilia or the generation of motile flow, there may remain a requirement for cilia in the transduction of SHH signaling. RESULTS: FOXJ1 is expressed at low levels in the chicken node incompatible with motile cilia generation. Short cilia are present in the mesodermal cells of the chicken node. Talpid(3) chicken embryos have normal VANGL2 localization early in development. Talpid(3) chicken embryos have primary cilia early in development

The Changing Landscape for Stroke\ua0Prevention in AF: Findings From the GLORIA-AF Registry Phase 2

Background GLORIA-AF (Global Registry on Long-Term Oral Antithrombotic Treatment in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation) is a prospective, global registry program describing antithrombotic treatment patterns in patients with newly diagnosed nonvalvular atrial fibrillation at risk of stroke. Phase 2 began when dabigatran, the first non\u2013vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulant (NOAC), became available. Objectives This study sought to describe phase 2 baseline data and compare these with the pre-NOAC era collected during phase 1. Methods During phase 2, 15,641 consenting patients were enrolled (November 2011 to December 2014); 15,092 were eligible. This pre-specified cross-sectional analysis describes eligible patients\u2019 baseline characteristics. Atrial fibrillation disease characteristics, medical outcomes, and concomitant diseases and medications were collected. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results Of the total patients, 45.5% were female; median age was 71 (interquartile range: 64, 78) years. Patients were from Europe (47.1%), North America (22.5%), Asia (20.3%), Latin America (6.0%), and the Middle East/Africa (4.0%). Most had high stroke risk (CHA2DS2-VASc [Congestive heart failure, Hypertension, Age  6575 years, Diabetes mellitus, previous Stroke, Vascular disease, Age 65 to 74 years, Sex category] score  652; 86.1%); 13.9% had moderate risk (CHA2DS2-VASc = 1). Overall, 79.9% received oral anticoagulants, of whom 47.6% received NOAC and 32.3% vitamin K antagonists (VKA); 12.1% received antiplatelet agents; 7.8% received no antithrombotic treatment. For comparison, the proportion of phase 1 patients (of N = 1,063 all eligible) prescribed VKA was 32.8%, acetylsalicylic acid 41.7%, and no therapy 20.2%. In Europe in phase 2, treatment with NOAC was more common than VKA (52.3% and 37.8%, respectively); 6.0% of patients received antiplatelet treatment; and 3.8% received no antithrombotic treatment. In North America, 52.1%, 26.2%, and 14.0% of patients received NOAC, VKA, and antiplatelet drugs, respectively; 7.5% received no antithrombotic treatment. NOAC use was less common in Asia (27.7%), where 27.5% of patients received VKA, 25.0% antiplatelet drugs, and 19.8% no antithrombotic treatment. Conclusions The baseline data from GLORIA-AF phase 2 demonstrate that in newly diagnosed nonvalvular atrial fibrillation patients, NOAC have been highly adopted into practice, becoming more frequently prescribed than VKA in Europe and North America. Worldwide, however, a large proportion of patients remain undertreated, particularly in Asia and North America. (Global Registry on Long-Term Oral Antithrombotic Treatment in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation [GLORIA-AF]; NCT01468701

Deep-Learning-Based Digitization of Protein-Self-Assembly to Print Biodegradable Physically Unclonable Labels for Device Security

The increasingly pervasive problem of counterfeiting affects both individuals and industry. In particular, public health and medical fields face threats to device authenticity and patient privacy, especially in the post-pandemic era. Physical unclonable functions (PUFs) present a modern solution using counterfeit-proof security labels to securely authenticate and identify physical objects. PUFs harness innately entropic information generators to create a unique fingerprint for an authentication protocol. This paper proposes a facile protein self-assembly process as an entropy generator for a unique biological PUF. The posited image digitization process applies a deep learning model to extract a feature vector from the self-assembly image. This is then binarized and debiased to produce a cryptographic key. The NIST SP 800-22 Statistical Test Suite was used to evaluate the randomness of the generated keys, which proved sufficiently stochastic. To facilitate deployment on physical objects, the PUF images were printed on flexible silk-fibroin-based biodegradable labels using functional protein bioinks. Images from the labels were captured using a cellphone camera and referenced against the source image for error rate comparison. The deep-learning-based biological PUF has potential as a low-cost, scalable, highly randomized strategy for anti-counterfeiting technology