Conceptualising Smart Cities in the Japanese Planning Culture

Smart cities have been a field of action in spatial development for quite some time. Building on the societal trend toward digitalization, the nexus of digitalization and spatial development has been planned and researched since the turn of the millennium (Hollands 2008). In the highly competitive segment of smart cities, platform solutions from large IT and consulting companies are often applied (Hollands 2015). In addition, an international discourse emerged in research that critically reflects on the smart city concept itself (Grossi and Pianezzi 2017). Today, all over the world many cities are applying smart solutions, and position themselves as smart cities, but how are smart cities conceptualized in different planning cultures? The Japanese planning culture is charcterized by strong centralization with the central government being the main actor in development (Pallagst et al. 2018; Martinez-Fernandez et al. 2016). In addition, the Japanese society is highly challenged by demographic change and ageing. Consequently, the aspect of ageing plays a role in all Japanese policies, also in the context of smart cities (interview with staff at the German Instiute for Japanese Studies, Tokyo, July 2023). Yet how are smart cities conceptualized in the Japanese planning culture, what are the main drivers and goals, who are the main actors, and which policies are at hand? And – given the societal context of demographic change and ageing in Japan – how is the aspect of ageing taken into consideration in the concept of smart cites in Japan? This paper will shed light on conceptualizing smart cities in the Japanese planning culture. Starting with a brief introduction to the concept of planning cultures with a special emphasis on Japan, it will present two cases of smart cities in Japan, trying to answer the questons outlined above. The research presented here is part of the project ‘Ageing Smart’ carried out by a consortium at RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau funded by the Carl-Zeiss-Foundation. This particular part of the project aims at scrutinizing the application of smart cities in different planning cultures, among others Japan – discussing their potentials and detecting possible best practice examples

Cannabinoid Type 2 Receptors Mediate a Cell Type-Specific Plasticity in the Hippocampus

Endocannabinoids (eCBs) exert major control over neuronal activity by activating cannabinoid receptors (CBRs). The functionality of the eCB system is primarily ascribed to the well-documented retrograde activation of presynaptic CB1Rs. We find that action potential-driven eCB release leads to a long-lasting membrane potential hyperpolarization in hippocampal principal cells that is independent of CB1Rs. The hyperpolarization, which is specific to CA3 and CA2 pyramidal cells (PCs), depends on the activation of neuronal CB2Rs, as shown by a combined pharmacogenetic and immunohistochemical approach. Upon activation, they modulate the activity of the sodium-bicarbonate co-transporter, leading to a hyperpolarization of the neuron. CB2R activation occurred in a purely self-regulatory manner, robustly altered the input/output function of CA3 PCs, and modulated gamma oscillations in vivo. To conclude, we describe a cell type-specific plasticity mechanism in the hippocampus that provides evidence for the neuronal expression of CB2Rs and emphasizes their importance in basic neuronal transmission

Critical transition in critical zone of intensively managed landscapes

Expansion and intensification of managed landscapes for agriculture have resulted in severe unintended global impacts, including degradation of arable land and eutrophication of receiving water bodies. Modern agricultural practices rely on significant direct and indirect human energy inputs through farm machinery and chemical use, respectively, which have created imbalances between increased rates of biogeochemical processes related to production and background rates of natural processes. We articulate how these imbalances have cascaded through the deep inter-dependencies between carbon, soil, water, nutrient and ecological processes, resulting in a critical transition of the critical zone and creating emergent inter-dependencies and co-evolutionary trajectories. Understanding of these novel organizations and function of the critical zone is vital for developing sustainable agricultural practices and environmental stewardship

The Intensively Managed Landscape Critical Zone Observatory: A Scientific Testbed for Understanding Critical Zone Processes in Agroecosystems

In intensively managed landscapes, interactions between surface (tillage) and subsurface (tile drainage) management with prevailing climate/weather alter landscape characteristics, transport pathways, and transformation rates of surface/subsurface water, soil/sediment, and particulate/dissolved nutrients. To capture the high spatial and temporal variability of constituent transport and residence times in the critical zone (between the bedrock and canopy) of these altered landscapes, both storm event and continuous measurements are needed. The Intensively Managed Landscapes Critical Zone Observatory (IML-CZO) is comprised of three highly characterized, well instrumented, and representative watersheds (i.e., Clear Creek, Iowa; Upper Sangamon River, Illinois; and Minnesota River, Minnesota). It is organized to quantify the heterogeneity in structure and dynamic response of critical zone processes to human activities in the context of the glacial and management (anthropogenic) legacies. Observations of water, sediment, and nutrients are made at nested points of the landscape in the vertical and lateral directions during and between storm events (i.e., continuously). The measurements and corresponding observational strategy are organized as follows. First, reference measurements from surface soil and deep core extractions, geophysical surveys, lidar, and hyperspectral data, which are common across all Critical Zone Observatories, are available. The reference measurements include continuous quantification of energy, water, solutes, and sediment fluxes. The reference measurements are complemented with event-based measurements unique to IML-CZO. These measurements include water table fluctuations, enrichment ratios, and roughness as well as bank erosion, hysteresis, sediment sources, and lake/floodplain sedimentation. The coupling of reference and event-based measurements support testing of the central hypothesis (i.e., system shifts from transformer to transporter in IML-CZO due to the interplay between management and weather/climate). Data collected since 2014 are available through a data repository and through the Geodashboard interface, which can be used for process-based model simulations.This article is published as Wilson, Christopher G., Benjamin Abban, Laura L. Keefer, Kenneth Wacha, Dimitrios Dermisis, Christos Giannopoulos, Shengnan Zhou et al. "The intensively managed landscape critical zone observatory: a scientific testbed for understanding critical zone processes in agroecosystems." Vadose Zone Journal 17, no. 1 (2018): 1-21. doi:10.2136/vzj2018.04.0088. Posted with permission of INRC. Works produced by employees of the U.S. Government as part of their official duties are not copyrighted within the U.S. The content of this document is not copyrighted

The Intensively Managed Landscape Critical Zone Observatory: A Scientific Testbed for Understanding Critical Zone Processes in Agroecosystems

In intensively managed landscapes, interactions between surface (tillage) and subsurface (tile drainage) management with prevailing climate/weather alter landscape characteristics, transport pathways, and transformation rates of surface/subsurface water, soil/sediment, and particulate/dissolved nutrients. To capture the high spatial and temporal variability of constituent transport and residence times in the critical zone (between the bedrock and canopy) of these altered landscapes, both storm event and continuous measurements are needed. The Intensively Managed Landscapes Critical Zone Observatory (IML-CZO) is comprised of three highly characterized, well instrumented, and representative watersheds (i.e., Clear Creek, Iowa; Upper Sangamon River, Illinois; and Minnesota River, Minnesota). It is organized to quantify the heterogeneity in structure and dynamic response of critical zone processes to human activities in the context of the glacial and management (anthropogenic) legacies. Observations of water, sediment, and nutrients are made at nested points of the landscape in the vertical and lateral directions during and between storm events (i.e., continuously). The measurements and corresponding observational strategy are organized as follows. First, reference measurements from surface soil and deep core extractions, geophysical surveys, lidar, and hyperspectral data, which are common across all Critical Zone Observatories, are available. The reference measurements include continuous quantification of energy, water, solutes, and sediment fluxes. The reference measurements are complemented with event-based measurements unique to IML-CZO. These measurements include water table fluctuations, enrichment ratios, and roughness as well as bank erosion, hysteresis, sediment sources, and lake/floodplain sedimentation. The coupling of reference and event-based measurements support testing of the central hypothesis (i.e., system shifts from transformer to transporter in IML-CZO due to the interplay between management and weather/climate). Data collected since 2014 are available through a data repository and through the Geodashboard interface, which can be used for process-based model simulations

Meta-Analysis of Hepatitis C Virus Vaccine Efficacy in Chimpanzees Indicates an Importance for Structural Proteins

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Studies in patients and chimpanzees that spontaneously cleared hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections demonstrated that natural immunity to the virus is induced during primary infections and that this immunity can be cross protective. These discoveries led to optimism about prophylactic HCV vaccines and several studies were performed in chimpanzees, although most included fewer than 6 animals. To draw meaningful conclusions about the efficacy of HCV vaccines in chimpanzees, we performed statistical analyses of data from previously published studies from different groups. METHODS: We performed a meta-analysis that compared parameters among naïve (n=63), vaccinated (n=53), and rechallenged (n=36) animals, including peak RNA titer post-challenge, timepoints of peak RNA titer, duration of viremia, and proportion of persistent infections. RESULTS: Each vaccination study induced immune responses that were effective in rapidly controlling HCV replication. Levels of induced T-cell responses did not indicate vaccine success. There was no reduction in the rate of HCV persistence in vaccinated animals, compared with naïve animals, when non-structural proteins were included in the vaccine. Vaccines that contained only structural proteins had clearance rates that were significantly higher than vaccines that contained non-structural components (P=0.015). CONCLUSIONS: The inclusion of non-structural proteins in HCV vaccines might be detrimental to protective immune responses and/or structural proteins might activate T-cell responses that mediate viral clearance

Systems biology approaches to finding novel pain mediators.

Chronic pain represents a major health burden; this maladaptive pain state occurs as a consequence of hypersensitivity within the peripheral and central components of the somatosensory system. High throughput technologies (genomics, transciptomics, lipidomics, and proteomics) are now being applied to tissue derived from pain patients as well as experimental pain models to discover novel pain mediators. The use of clustering, meta-analysis and other techniques can help refine potential candidates. Of particular importance are systems biology methods, such as co-expression network generating algorithms, which infer potential associations/interactions between molecules and build networks based on these interactions. Protein-protein interaction networks allow the lists of potential targets generated by these different platforms to be analyzed in their biological context. Outputs from these different methods must also be related to the clinical pain phenotype. The improved and standardized phenotyping of pain symptoms and sensory signs enables much better subject stratification. Our hope is that, in the future, the use of computational approaches to integrate datasets including sensory phenotype as well as the outputs of high throughput technologies will help define novel pain mediators and provide insights into the pathogenesis of chronic pain

Precision Electroweak Measurements on the Z resonance.

We report on the final electroweak measurements performed with data taken at the Z resonance by the experiments operating at the electron–positron colliders SLC and LEP. The data consist of 17 million Z decays accumulated by the ALEPH, DELPHI, L3 and OPAL experiments at LEP, and 600 thousand Z decays by the SLD experiment using a polarised beam at SLC. The measurements include cross-sections, forward–backward asymmetries and polarised asymmetries. The mass and width of the Z boson, mZ and ΓZ, and its couplings to fermions, for example the ρ parameter and the effective electroweak mixing angle for leptons, are precisely measured: The number of light neutrino species is determined to be 2.9840±0.0082, in agreement with the three observed generations of fundamental fermions. The results are compared to the predictions of the Standard Model (SM). At the Z-pole, electroweak radiative corrections beyond the running of the QED and QCD coupling constants are observed with a significance of five standard deviations, and in agreement with the Standard Model. Of the many Z-pole measurements, the forward–backward asymmetry in b-quark production shows the largest difference with respect to its SM expectation, at the level of 2.8 standard deviations. Through radiative corrections evaluated in the framework of the Standard Model, the Z-pole data are also used to predict the mass of the top quark, , and the mass of the W boson, . These indirect constraints are compared to the direct measurements, providing a stringent test of the SM. Using in addition the direct measurements of mt and mW, the mass of the as yet unobserved SM Higgs boson is predicted with a relative uncertainty of about 50% and found to be less than at 95% confidence level