‘Aging in place’ or ‘stuck in place’? The aging in place experiences of older adults in a gentrifying neighborhood in Hong Kong

Urbanization and population aging are two of the most critical global trends in the 21st century. In particular, the aging experiences of older adults living in gentrified urban areas has raised the attention of scholars from various disciplines. Urban aging concerns how and why some older adults can thrive in urban life while others are struggling to adapt. Hong Kong is experiencing ‘double aging’ —an aging population and a large scale of aging buildings, which make it particularly challenging to strike a balance between urban renewal and preservation of the community for older adults to age in place. The challenges caused by double aging has raised a question of whether older adults are aging in place or being ‘stuck in place’. In the existing literature, however, there is little attention paid to the potential impacts of gentrification on older adults who would like to age in place in Asian regions, especially Hong Kong. In light of this, this research aims to examine the aging in place experiences of older adults in Kwun Tong—a neighborhood that is undergoing rapid social and urban changes due to urban renewal and gentrification. It seeks to understand the dynamic and changing constitution of places where older people are living in and how these conditions affect the aging in place experiences of older residents. Methodologically, I conducted in-depth interviews with 30 senior residents in Kwun Tong, who are aged 65 or above, to collect information about their aging in place experiences and perception of the urban renewal project in Kwun Tong. The in-depth interview data was also supplemented with 100 hours of ethnographical observation, which captured the changes of the Kwun Tong neighborhood and the daily life experiences of older people after urban redevelopment. The ethnographic data helps obtain additional and valuable grounded knowledge about the older residents’ daily routines in the changing neighborhood and how their lives have been affected by urban renewal and gentrification. This study makes several contributions to the literature on urban studies, aging studies and environmental gerontological studies. First, it demonstrates the diversity of aging in place experiences of older adults living in a gentrifying district due to various factors including diverse experiences of places, formal and informal support within social networks, and personal characteristics. Contrary to previous overseas studies that mostly portrayed the aging in place experiences in gentrifying neighborhoods as either negative or positive, my research findings show that older people in Kwun Tong generally have ambivalent and mixed feelings toward the neighborhood that is undergoing gentrification and urban renewal. Secondly, this research reveals the agency of older people by examining the different responses and strategies they adopted to address the changes and challenges of gentrification that they face during urban renewal, which is an area that is so far under-studied in the literature. The findings demonstrate that older adults have utilized various resources to develop their skills and attitudes to cope with the challenges brought by gentrification. Finally, this research examines the patterns of participation of older people in the urban renewal process. Given the generally low level of participation of older people, it is suggested that age-inclusive measures need to be incorporated into future urban planning and redevelopment so that participation of older people can be increased, and their needs and voices be heard

Perceived Attributes of Music Teaching Effectiveness Among Kindergarten Teachers: Role of Personality

: Musical activity has been found to be beneficial to young children’s all-round development in kindergartens. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between kindergarten teachers’ perceived attributes of music teaching effectiveness and personality. Eighty-eight in-service kindergarten teachers rated themselves using a set of Attributes of Music Teaching Effectiveness (AMTE) and the sensing-intuitive dimension of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. Results showed that 75% (66 of 88) and 25% (22 of 88) of the teachers were sensing types and intuitive types, respectively. The former prefers a directive approach in music teaching to children, whereas the latter prefers a non-directive approach. While teachers’ personalities and work experience significantly predicted music teaching effectiveness, intuitive teachers rated themselves higher than did sensing teachers on the AMTE. Furthermore, the teachers of both personality types varied in their ratings of the importance of most effective attributes. Implications of these findings in relation to job allocation and professional development in effective music teaching for kindergarten teachers are discussed

The protection of Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong : an analysis of civic engagement strategies

published_or_final_versionPolitics and Public AdministrationMasterMaster of Public Administratio

Age composition and survival of public housing stock in Hong Kong

Emerging notably in more developed regions, building stock ageing which is characterised by shrinking new completions and falling “mortality” has been posing challenges to various stakeholders in built environment. To find way out of this transition, we need to know how long buildings will last these days and the factors leading to their “mortality”. By using data from 1950s till to date, a comprehensive investigation is conducted to analyse the age composition and life expectancy of public housing stock in Hong Kong. What comes after are survival analysis and empirical analysis of those demolished to identify the key factors leading to demolition. Presented in this paper are the preliminary findings as well as the research agenda on the theme to model age composition and survival of both private and public building stocks in Hong Kong and other similar cities in Asia Pacific Rim such as Adelaide and Singapore, together with research activities to formulate policies for sustainable urban management

Cigarette Smoking Accelerated Brain Aging and Induced Pre-Alzheimer-Like Neuropathology in Rats

Cigarette smoking has been proposed as a major risk factor for aging-related pathological changes and Alzheimer's disease (AD). To date, little is known for how smoking can predispose our brains to dementia or cognitive impairment. This study aimed to investigate the cigarette smoke-induced pathological changes in brains. Male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were exposed to either sham air or 4% cigarette smoke 1 hour per day for 8 weeks in a ventilated smoking chamber to mimic the situation of chronic passive smoking. We found that the levels of oxidative stress were significantly increased in the hippocampus of the smoking group. Smoking also affected the synapse through reducing the expression of pre-synaptic proteins including synaptophysin and synapsin-1, while there were no changes in the expression of postsynaptic protein PSD95. Decreased levels of acetylated-tubulin and increased levels of phosphorylated-tau at 231, 205 and 404 epitopes were also observed in the hippocampus of the smoking rats. These results suggested that axonal transport machinery might be impaired, and the stability of cytoskeleton might be affected by smoking. Moreover, smoking affected amyloid precursor protein (APP) processing by increasing the production of sAPPβ and accumulation of β–amyloid peptide in the CA3 and dentate gyrus region. In summary, our data suggested that chronic cigarette smoking could induce synaptic changes and other neuropathological alterations. These changes might serve as evidence of early phases of neurodegeneration and may explain why smoking can predispose brains to AD and dementia

Responsiveness of the EuroQoL 5-Dimension (EQ-5D) questionnaire in patients with spondyloarthritis.

BACKGROUND: Spondyloarthritis (SpA) has a significant impact on patients' quality of life due to functional impairments. Generic health instruments like the EuroQoL 5-dimension (EQ-5D) is important for cost-utility analysis of health care interventions and calculation of quality-adjusted life-years. It has been validated in patients with SpA. However, its responsiveness property is unclear. Hence, the aim of study is to test the responsiveness properties of the EQ-5D health measure for Chinese patients with SpA. METHODS: Prospective and consecutive recruitment of 151 Chinese patients with SpA was conducted with follow-up assessments 6 months later. Demographic data including smoking and drinking habits, education level, income and occupation was collected. Disease-associated data including disease duration, presence of back pain, peripheral arthritis, dactylitis, enthesitis, uveitis, psoriasis, and inflammatory bowel disease was also recorded. Questionnaires regarding disease activity and functional disability (BASDAI, BASFI, BASGI, BASMI, ASDAS), mental health (HADS) and the EQ-5D scores were recorded. Responsiveness was tested against the global rating of change scale (GRC) and changes in disease activity using BASDAI and ASDAS-CRP. RESULTS: A total of 113 (74.8%) patients completed the follow-up assessments. Most patients (61.6%) had low disease activity level with BASDAI <4 and 39.7% of patients had inactive disease by ASDAS-CRP. EQ-5D scores was well discriminated along with BASDAI and BASFI scores. EQ-5D scores also correlated well with HADS. The GRC was not able to discriminate adequately. No significant ceiling or floor effect was observed. CONCLUSIONS: EQ-5D demonstrates satisfactory responsiveness property for assessment of changes in SpA disease activity. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: II

The photometric observation of the quasi-simultaneous mutual eclipse and occultation between Europa and Ganymede on 22 August 2021

Mutual events (MEs) are eclipses and occultations among planetary natural satellites. Most of the time, eclipses and occultations occur separately. However, the same satellite pair will exhibit an eclipse and an occultation quasi-simultaneously under particular orbital configurations. This kind of rare event is termed as a quasi-simultaneous mutual event (QSME). During the 2021 campaign of mutual events of jovian satellites, we observed a QSME between Europa and Ganymede. The present study aims to describe and study the event in detail. We observed the QSME with a CCD camera attached to a 300-mm telescope at the Hong Kong Space Museum Sai Kung iObservatory. We obtained the combined flux of Europa and Ganymede from aperture photometry. A geometric model was developed to explain the light curve observed. Our results are compared with theoretical predictions (O-C). We found that our simple geometric model can explain the QSME fairly accurately, and the QSME light curve is a superposition of the light curves of an eclipse and an occultation. Notably, the observed flux drops are within 2.6% of the theoretical predictions. The size of the event central time O-Cs ranges from -14.4 to 43.2 s. Both O-Cs of flux drop and timing are comparable to other studies adopting more complicated models. Given the event rarity, model simplicity and accuracy, we encourage more observations and analysis on QSMEs to improve Solar System ephemerides.Comment: 23 pages, 5 appendixes, 16 figures, 7 table

Fluoroquinolone and Other Antimicrobial Resistance in Invasive Pneumococci, Hong Kong, 1995–2001

Fluoroquinolone resistance among invasive pneumococci in Hong Kong was high and a result of clonal expansion and spread

TRPC5 channels participate in pressure-sensing in aortic baroreceptors

published_or_final_versio

Antibody stabilization for thermally accelerated deep immunostaining

Antibodies have diverse applications due to their high reaction specificities but are sensitive to denaturation when a higher working temperature is required. We have developed a simple, highly scalable and generalizable chemical approach for stabilizing off-the-shelf antibodies against thermal and chemical denaturation. We demonstrate that the stabilized antibodies (termed SPEARs) can withstand up to 4 weeks of continuous heating at 55 °C and harsh denaturants, and apply our method to 33 tested antibodies. SPEARs enable flexible applications of thermocycling and denaturants to dynamically modulate their binding kinetics, reaction equilibrium, macromolecular diffusivity and aggregation propensity. In particular, we show that SPEARs permit the use of a thermally facilitated three-dimensional immunolabeling strategy (termed ThICK staining), achieving whole mouse brain immunolabeling within 72 h, as well as nearly fourfold deeper penetration with threefold less antibodies in human brain tissue. With faster deep-tissue immunolabeling and broad compatibility with tissue processing and clearing methods without the need for any specialized equipment, we anticipate the wide applicability of ThICK staining with SPEARs for deep immunostaining