The Hankie Probe: A Materialistic Approach to Mobile UX Research

Mobile user experience (UX) research can benefit from unexplored opportunities from theory and practice. Contemporary sociology has developed sophisticated understandings of mobilities that can expand the scope of mobile HCI research. At the same time, we need to extend the scope of mobile experience beyond its current main foci on the portable device and moments of experience. We report the interim results of exploratory pilot studies of a fabric based probe that has been developed to extend the scope of mobile experience research both theoretically and in the range of insights that can be collected in mobile user studies. We report our initial experiences with a 'hankie' (handkerchief) probe that aims to gather rich usage and experience insights for early stages of design

Role of myostatin in regulating chondrocyte and musculoskeletal function in aging mice

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston UniversityMyostatin (mstn) belongs to the TGF-β family and is best known as a negative regulator of muscle growth. Hypermuscularity in mstn knockout mice has been widely recognized and numerous mstn inhibitors are in development to treat sarcopenia associated with aging and muscle wasting associated with chronic illness. To determine the health impact of long term mstn deficiency on physical performance, myostatin null (mstn-/-) mice were studied at three aging time points (5, 15, 22 months). Long term complete inhibition of myostatin was hypothesized to prevent the decline in physical performance expected with aging. The data disproves this hypothesis. While increased muscle was observed in the mstn-/- and the mice demonstrated an expected grip strength advantage at 5 months, by 15 and 22 months the overall grip strength was reduced with no significant difference compared to controls. Horizontal and vertical ambulatory activity at each aging time point showed a significantly decreased or a decreased trend when compared with age-matched wild type controls. Furthermore, the mstn-/- mice treadmill endurance was significantly less at 5 and 22 months and demonstrated a decreased trend at 15 months when compared to age-matched controls. Overall, long term myostatin deletion does not aid in the maintenance of overall physical performance as the animal ages. Since prior studies had also shown that myostatin affected both bone mass, cartilage development and skeletal tissue repair the effects of myostatin deletion were next examined relative to skeletal tissue structure and function. Micro Computerized Tomography (MicroCT) analysis showed increased size and ossification of the meniscus surrounding the knee, ectopic ossification surrounding the tarsal bones and extra ossification in joints between manus carpal bones in the myostatin null mice. These studies showed that this ectopic calcification increased with aging. Corresponding histology of 22 month old mstn-/- mice demonstrated increased fibrocartilage proliferation of the meniscus and loss of the tibial articular cartilage. Our current data suggests long term complete deletion of myostatin increases proliferation and differentiation of fibrocartilage and reduces articular cartilage maintenance leading to impaired joint function and an overall reduction in physical performance

Diversity of Limestone Orchids in Central and Northern Padawan, Kuching, Sarawak

Sarawak is situated in the north-west of Borneo, which is the largest state in Malaysia. Limestone hills and mountains are a natural landmark in parts of Sarawak and Padawan Formation is the largest outcrop in Sarawak. Padawan area is located at the south-west part of Kuching District and limestone hills are mostly of the wet type. The favourable climate and various forms of microhabitat strongly enhance the richness and diversity in the composition of limestone orchids in Padawan, especially rare and endemic species. Nonetheless, the Padawan orchid is poorly known due to the very few specific literature made and most of the documentations in field have not been published. This study is an attempt to document the orchid diversity in limestone areas not covered in the previous study by Phoon (2004). From this study, a total of 94 taxa in 36 genera from 4 subfamilies of orchids on 14 limestone hills and one riverbank from northern to central part of Padawan Limestone Area were recorded and botanized. A total of 25 taxa and one genus are new records for Padawan Formation. Out of these, eight taxa are new records for Sarawak and one taxon is a new record for Malaysia. Bulbophyllum reticulatum and Paphiopedilum stonei are endemic to Sarawak; whilst, B. longiflorum, B. reticulatum, Cleisostoma discolor, C. nieuwenhuisii, Dossinia marmorata, P. stonei, Phalaenopsis cochlearis, Trichoglottis winkleri var. minor and Vanda scandens are limestone endemic species. Discussions were based upon two main aspects: (i) floristic diversity significance, for analyzing species diversity and morphological diversity of Padawan orchids; and (ii) the geographical significance, for conferring the diversity patterns of Padawan limestone orchids distributed in different places and endemism. The Orchidaceae of Padawan principally comprised the Bornean element at the generic and species level given its geographical, geological, climatic and floristic proximity. Gunung Bekap, Gunung Mentawa and Gunung Timurang covered the most diverse amount of orchid species together with those rare and endangered species. Therefore, they have to be conserved broadly by implementing in situ conservation techniques

A regulatory code for neurogenic gene expression in the Drosophila embryo

Bioinformatics methods have identified enhancers that mediate restricted expression in the Drosophila embryo. However, only a small fraction of the predicted enhancers actually work when tested in vivo. In the present study, co-regulated neurogenic enhancers that are activated by intermediate levels of the Dorsal regulatory gradient are shown to contain several shared sequence motifs. These motifs permitted the identification of new neurogenic enhancers with high precision: five out of seven predicted enhancers direct restricted expression within ventral regions of the neurogenic ectoderm. Mutations in some of the shared motifs disrupt enhancer function, and evidence is presented that the Twist and Su(H) regulatory proteins are essential for the specification of the ventral neurogenic ectoderm prior to gastrulation. The regulatory model of neurogenic gene expression defined in this study permitted the identification of a neurogenic enhancer in the distant Anopheles genome. We discuss the prospects for deciphering regulatory codes that link primary DNA sequence information with predicted patterns of gene expression

Does Okun’s law still hold today?

Arthur Okun claimed that when a country’s unemployment rate fell, the GDP expanded. This paper investigates the claim of Arthur Okun and the effect of unemployment rates and GDP of a country on each other. Data from three countries, namely, USA, Japan, and France, were tested to see if there was a causal link between the two variables. It was found that the proposed law of Arthur Okun did not hold. In the USA, there was a two way causality link but different directions of effect. France and Japan did not have a causal link between the two variables