Communication in Immersive Social Virtual Reality: A Systematic Review of 10 Years' Studies

As virtual reality (VR) technologies have improved in the past decade, more research has investigated how they could support more effective communication in various contexts to improve collaboration and social connectedness. However, there was no literature to summarize the uniqueness VR provided and put forward guidance for designing social VR applications for better communication. To understand how VR has been designed and used to facilitate communication in different contexts, we conducted a systematic review of the studies investigating communication in social VR in the past ten years by following the PRISMA guidelines. We highlight current practices and challenges and identify research opportunities to improve the design of social VR to better support communication and make social VR more accessible.Comment: Chinese CHI '22: The Tenth International Symposium of Chinese CHI (Chinese CHI 2022

Synapse: Interactive Guidance by Demonstration with Trial-and-Error Support for Older Adults to Use Smartphone Apps

As smartphones are widely adopted, mobile applications (apps) are emerging to provide critical services such as food delivery and telemedicine. While bring convenience to everyday life, this trend may create barriers for older adults who tend to be less tech-savvy than young people. In-person or screen sharing support is helpful but limited by the help-givers' availability. Video tutorials can be useful but require users to switch contexts between watching the tutorial and performing the corresponding actions in the app, which is cumbersome to do on a mobile phone. Although interactive tutorials have been shown to be promising, none was designed for older adults. Furthermore, the trial-and-error approach has been shown to be beneficial for older adults, but they often lack support to use the approach. Inspired by both interactive tutorials and trial-and-error approach, we designed an app-independent mobile service, \textit{Synapse}, for help-givers to create a multimodal interactive tutorial on a smartphone and for help-receivers (e.g., older adults) to receive interactive guidance with trial-and-error support when they work on the same task. We conducted a user study with 18 older adults who were 60 and over. Our quantitative and qualitative results show that Synapse provided better support than the traditional video approach and enabled participants to feel more confident and motivated. Lastly, we present further design considerations to better support older adults with trial-and-error on smartphones

Dietary intervention reprograms bone marrow cellular signaling in obese mice

ObjectivesThe current study aimed to investigate the pathogenesis of obesity-induced impaired bone mass accrual and the impact of dietary intervention on bone density in the mouse model of obesity.MethodsMice were fed with chow diet (CD) for 10 months, high-fat-diet (HFD) for 10 months, or HFD for 6 months then transferred to chow diet for 4 months (HFDt).ResultsWeight loss and decreased intrahepatic lipid accumulation were observed in mice following dietary intervention. Additionally, HFD feeding induced bone mass accrual, while diet intervention restrained trabecular bone density. These changes were further reflected by increased osteogenesis and decreased adipogenesis in HFDt mice compared to HFD mice. Furthermore, HFD feeding decreased the activity of the Wingless-related integration site (Wnt)-β-Catenin signaling pathway, while the Wnt signaling was augmented by diet intervention in the HFDt group.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that a HFD inhibits bone formation and that dietary intervention reverses this inhibition. Furthermore, the dietary intervention was able to compensate for the suppressed increase in bone mass to a level comparable to that in the CD group. Our study suggests that targeting the Wnt signaling pathway may be a potential approach to treat obesity-induced impaired bone mass accrual

Age-related decline in hippocampal tyrosine phosphatase PTPRO is a mechanistic factor in chemotherapy-related cognitive impairment.

Chemotherapy-related cognitive impairment (CRCI) or chemo brain is a devastating neurotoxic sequela of cancer-related treatments, especially for the elderly individuals. Here we show that PTPRO, a tyrosine phosphatase, is highly enriched in the hippocampus, and its level is tightly associated with neurocognitive function but declined significantly during aging. To understand the protective role of PTPRO in CRCI, a mouse model was generated by treating Ptpro-/- female mice with doxorubicin (DOX) because Ptpro-/- female mice are more vulnerable to DOX, showing cognitive impairments and neurodegeneration. By analyzing PTPRO substrates that are neurocognition-associated tyrosine kinases, we found that SRC and EPHA4 are highly phosphorylated/activated in the hippocampi of Ptpro-/- female mice, with increased sensitivity to DOX-induced CRCI. On the other hand, restoration of PTPRO in the hippocampal CA3 region significantly ameliorate CRCI in Ptpro-/- female mice. In addition, we found that the plant alkaloid berberine (BBR) is capable of ameliorating CRCI in aged female mice by upregulating hippocampal PTPRO. Mechanistically, BBR upregulates PTPRO by downregulating miR-25-3p, which directly targeted PTPRO. These findings collectively demonstrate the protective role of hippocampal PTPRO against CRCI

Investigation of 3D Chromatin Modularity in Mouse Development

Chromatin structure plays a crucial role in various genomic processes in eukaryotic cells, including genome replication, transcriptional silencing, and gene regulation. Extensive studies have focused on the three-dimensional organization of the genome, revealing the presence of topologically associating domains (TADs) and compartments, which are defined by spatial contacts identified through techniques such as Hi-C. However, understanding the direct role of histone modification in shaping the three-dimensional genome structure remains an ongoing challenge.This thesis investigates changing patterns of regulation-associated modules (RAMs) in mouse development to understand the organization and function of RAMs and their boundaries. RAMs, proposed in previous studies using human samples, offer insights into genome organization and regulation. However, comprehensive explanations for RAM formation, functions, and boundary factors are lacking. Using the "findRAM" tool, we have identified RAM regions and boundaries from a dataset of 72 mouse embryonic samples. Pairwise comparisons between tissues at specific time points and between subsequent times within the same tissue have revealed changes in RAMs. Through genome enrichment analysis of these regions, we have identified functional pathways, including cation binding, metal ion binding, and transcription-related pathways. Additionally, consensus RAM (cRAM) regions have been determined for each time point and tissue, highlighting regions that exhibit consistent patterns of RAMs and boundaries. Gene enrichment analysis has provided further support for some of the findings from pairwise comparisons, and these findings align with the potential mechanism of RAM boundary formation proposed in previous research on RAMs. In conclusion, this thesis investigates 3D chromatin modularity through RAM analysis in mouse development data. We have identified pathways and genes potentially involved in RAM boundary formation through computational prediction and discussed improvements for the RAM identification model. These findings contribute to our understanding of the formation and functions of RAMs and boundaries, which are determined by histone modification marks. Ultimately, these findings highlight the connection between the structural and functional modularity of the 3D genome