<Symposium Overview: Presentations' outlines>Capturing from Human Activities: the Multiscale Dynamisms of Dwelt Environment

Focusing on South Asian colonial cities as frontiers of hybridization of modern elements and local elements, the author has made a study on historical transformation of their dwelt environment for getting a better understanding on contemporary dwelt environment. Colombo, Sri Lanka's major city and at the same time the Indian Ocean's hub city, has been the major target of the study since 2004. In recent years, the author has participated as an architect in a project to find a local tutoring school in the historic area of Colombo to regenerate its local dwelt environment. A chat with a local dweller and the author at a teashop on the street during a field study spans off the project. Establishment of an effective method for local dwelt environment consists of three phases as 1. Understanding of the present local dwelt environment and its development path through dwelt environment formation history, 2. Abstraction of possibility and problem of concrete and micro local dwelt environment based on the understanding of dwelt environment formation history, and 3. Co-design and co-creation of a new dwelt environment which copes with the possibilities and problems of local dweller, is the final objective of this study. This paper especially has relation to the phase 3 of the above mentioned three phases. Based on the experience on practices of local tutoring school foundation project in Colombo, this paper janalyzes dwelt environment as a complex system consisting of places, network of places and "縁 En" with attention to human activities, kconsiders transition process of dwelt environment through design activities, and lfinally presents an idea on Dwelt Environment Model as a tool for management of transition process of dwelt environment

Identifying the patterns of co-presence and social interactions in the dwellings of contemporary Sri Lankan suburbs through the virtual fieldworks

Co-presence is the idea that the presence of other actors shapes the individual behavior and creates the base for social interactions leading to a harmonious society. This paper discusses the structure of the observational means for the fieldwork of a research which clarifies the relationship between co-presence and social interactions while identifying patterns of co-presence in the dwellings of the contemporary Sri Lankan suburbs. Sri Lanka is a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural nation. To identify the lifestyle, patterns of co-presence and social interactions of Sinhala Lower middleclass, which occupies the majority of the population and has the highest influence in the social dynamics of Sri Lankan society, this research has mainly focused on domestic places, in which a major part of their life is spent. Due to COVID19 travel restrictions, onsite fieldwork was difficult. Hence two online field methodologies were developed as alternative fieldwork systems in this research, to clarify the patterns of co-presence and feelings related to them in creation of social interactions. The findings clarify that there are four main types of co-presence patterns which are related to functionality and frequency of co-activities of the co-presence occurrences. It was observed that among these types, co-presence occurrences with functional co-activities have less flexibility leading to limited social interactions while co-presence occurrences with non-functional co-activities have more flexibility leading to higher possibilities of social interactions

Identification of hepta-histidine as a candidate drug for Huntington's disease by in silico-in vitro- in vivo-integrated screens of chemical libraries.

We identified drug seeds for treating Huntington's disease (HD) by combining in vitro single molecule fluorescence spectroscopy, in silico molecular docking simulations, and in vivo fly and mouse HD models to screen for inhibitors of abnormal interactions between mutant Htt and physiological Ku70, an essential DNA damage repair protein in neurons whose function is known to be impaired by mutant Htt. From 19,468 and 3,010,321 chemicals in actual and virtual libraries, fifty-six chemicals were selected from combined in vitro-in silico screens; six of these were further confirmed to have an in vivo effect on lifespan in a fly HD model, and two chemicals exerted an in vivo effect on the lifespan, body weight and motor function in a mouse HD model. Two oligopeptides, hepta-histidine (7H) and Angiotensin III, rescued the morphological abnormalities of primary neurons differentiated from iPS cells of human HD patients. For these selected drug seeds, we proposed a possible common structure. Unexpectedly, the selected chemicals enhanced rather than inhibited Htt aggregation, as indicated by dynamic light scattering analysis. Taken together, these integrated screens revealed a new pathway for the molecular targeted therapy of HD

Hydrogen in Drinking Water Reduces Dopaminergic Neuronal Loss in the 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine Mouse Model of Parkinson's Disease

It has been shown that molecular hydrogen (H2) acts as a therapeutic antioxidant and suppresses brain injury by buffering the effects of oxidative stress. Chronic oxidative stress causes neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease (PD). Here, we show that drinking H2-containing water significantly reduced the loss of dopaminergic neurons in PD model mice using both acute and chronic administration of 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP). The concentration-dependency of H2 showed that H2 as low as 0.08 ppm had almost the same effect as saturated H2 water (1.5 ppm). MPTP-induced accumulation of cellular 8-oxoguanine (8-oxoG), a marker of DNA damage, and 4-hydroxynonenal (4-HNE), a marker of lipid peroxidation were significantly decreased in the nigro-striatal dopaminergic pathway in mice drinking H2-containing water, whereas production of superoxide (O2•−) detected by intravascular injection of dihydroethidium (DHE) was not reduced significantly. Our results indicated that low concentration of H2 in drinking water can reduce oxidative stress in the brain. Thus, drinking H2-containing water may be useful in daily life to prevent or minimize the risk of life style-related oxidative stress and neurodegeneration