Digital common(s): the role of digital gamification in participatory design for the planning of high-density housing estates

“Digital Commons” explores the intersection between participatory design, digital gamification, and community engagement, contextualised in the planning of high-density housing estates in Hong Kong. The research project investigates how digital gamified participatory design can be applied in decision-making processes for the planning of public facilities in high-density housing estates. Focusing on community engagement methods, the project has engaged with residents of a case study housing estate, Jat Min Chuen in the Shatin Wai area of Hong Kong, to facilitate collective planning discussions about the past, present, and future of community facilities. Using a digital community game approach, it has collected opinions and needs from public housing residents, promoted collaborative design thinking processes, and provided a platform for participants to increase their understanding of the complexity of planning problems through 3D visualisation tools. The experiences documented in this study demonstrate how 3D interactivity, real-time engagement, and bottom-up perspectives may enhance the potential of using immersive digital twins during collective decision-making. The gaming outcomes show a high similarity across all teams in close relationship to users’ daily life routines, demonstrating a new powerful role for urban designers as a coordinator of interactive and collaborative planning processes

P-Selectin and P-Selectin Glycoprotein Ligand 1 Are Major Determinants for Th1 Cell Recruitment to Nonlymphoid Effector Sites in the Intestinal Lamina Propria

The recruitment of activated T cell subsets to sites of effector immune responses is mediated by homing receptors induced upon activation in secondary lymphoid tissue. Using an adoptive transfer model, the intestinal recruitment of CD4+ T cells activated with intraperitoneal antigen in complete Freund's adjuvant was examined. The data demonstrate that activated CD4+ T cells recruited to intestinal Peyer's patches (PP) and lamina propria (LP) up-regulate functional P-selectin glycoprotein ligand 1 (PSGL-1). Blockade of IL-12 inhibited functional PSGL-1 expression and reduced PP and LP CD4+ T cell recruitment by >40%. P-Selectin blockade reduced LP recruitment of activated cells by 56% without affecting PP recruitment. Studies of mice examined 3 d after adoptive transfer of differentiated T cell subsets revealed that Th1 but not Th2 cells were recruited to small intestine PP and LP. Mucosal addressin cell adhesion molecule blockade reduced Th1 recruitment to PP by 90% and to LP by >72%, whereas P-selectin blockade reduced Th1 recruitment to PP by 18% and Th1 recruitment to LP by 84%. These data suggest that IL-12–induced functional PSGL-1 expression is a major determinant for the recruitment of Th1 effector cells to noninflamed as well as inflamed intestine

Hardware-algorithm collaborative computing with photonic spiking neuron chip based on integrated Fabry-P\'erot laser with saturable absorber

Photonic neuromorphic computing has emerged as a promising avenue toward building a low-latency and energy-efficient non-von-Neuman computing system. Photonic spiking neural network (PSNN) exploits brain-like spatiotemporal processing to realize high-performance neuromorphic computing. However, the nonlinear computation of PSNN remains a significant challenging. Here, we proposed and fabricated a photonic spiking neuron chip based on an integrated Fabry-P\'erot laser with a saturable absorber (FP-SA) for the first time. The nonlinear neuron-like dynamics including temporal integration, threshold and spike generation, refractory period, and cascadability were experimentally demonstrated, which offers an indispensable fundamental building block to construct the PSNN hardware. Furthermore, we proposed time-multiplexed spike encoding to realize functional PSNN far beyond the hardware integration scale limit. PSNNs with single/cascaded photonic spiking neurons were experimentally demonstrated to realize hardware-algorithm collaborative computing, showing capability in performing classification tasks with supervised learning algorithm, which paves the way for multi-layer PSNN for solving complex tasks.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure

Interpretation of the essence of mesenchymal stem cells with the “kidney-triple energizers” system

Kidney and triple energizers are inseparable in structure and function. Therefore, it is proposed that “kidney-triple energizers” might be the essence of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) system. As a cardinal, this article aims to interpret the theoretical connotation of the mesenchymal stem cell system from the perspective of “the kidney essence is the body and the triple energizers is the function”. It is reflected in the kidney-three energizers system, and guided by the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, the modern technology of MSCs has achieved good results in the application of refractory diseases such as COVID-19, and a preliminary exploration of the integration of Chinese and Western medicine research has been carried out

Overexpression CPT1A reduces lipid accumulation via PPARα/CD36 axis to suppress the cell proliferation in ccRCC

Clear cell renal carcinoma (ccRCC) is histologically defined by its cytoplasmic lipid deposits. Lipid metabolism disorder largely increases the risk of ccRCC. In this study, we aimed to investigate the biological functions and molecular mechanisms of carnitine palmitoyl transferase 1A (CPT1A) in ccRCC. Our results showed that CPT1A is decreased in ccRCC clinical samples and cell lines compared with that in normal samples. Lentivirus overexpressing CPT1A was used to investigate the neoplastic phenotypes of ccRCC, and the results showed that lipid accumulation and tumor growth are attenuated both in vitro and in vivo. In addition, CPT1A prevents cholesterol uptake and lipid accumulation by increasing the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α (PPARα) level through regulation of Class B scavenger receptor type 1 (SRB1) and cluster of differentiation 36 (CD36). Furthermore, PI3K/Akt signaling pathway promotes tumor cell proliferation in ccRCC, which is related to the enhanced expression of CD36. Functionally, weakened CPT1A expression is critical for lipid accumulation to promote ccRCC development. Collectively, our research unveiled a novel function of CPT1A in lipid metabolism via PPARα/CD36 axis, which provides a new theoretical explanation for the pathogenesis of ccRCC. Targeting CPT1A may be a potential therapeutic strategy to treat ccRCC

Multiple dissipative soliton Yb-doped fiber laser without an additional filter

A tunable triple dissipative solitons (DSs) mode-locked laser without a spectral filter in the all-normal dispersion (ANDi) system is reported and demonstrated. The nonlinear polarization evolution (NPE) acted as an artificial bandwidth filter for formatting the pulses with multiple DSs hysteresis phenomenon and adjusting the output wavelength with tuning. The spectral range can be adjusted from 1036.24 to 1043.44 nm, and the temporal distances between adjacent pulses are all equal to 33.9 ns. With the pump power of 560 mW, the highest output energy of the triple DSs is 48.8 nJ at a repetition rate of 2.541 MHz. Besides, the mode-locking states were stabilized during the wavelength tuning process

Palmitic Acid Promotes Lung Metastasis of Melanomas via the TLR4/TRIF-Peli1-pNF-κB Pathway

A high-fat diet plays an important role in aggravating cancers. Palmitic acid (PA) is one of the components of saturated fatty acids; it has been reported to promote tumor proliferation in melanomas, but the signal transduction pathway mediated by palmitic acid remains unclear. This study showed that palmitic acid can promote the lung metastasis of melanomas. Moreover, the interaction between palmitic acid and toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) was predicted by molecular docking. The experimental results proved that palmitic acid could promote the TLR4 and Toll/IL-1 receptor domain-containing adaptor-inducing IFN-β (TRIF) expression. The expression of Pellino1 (Peli1) and the phosphorylation of NF-kappa B (pNF-κB) were downregulated after the suppression of TLR4 and the silencing of Peli1 also inhibited the phosphorylation of NF-κB. Therefore, we concluded that palmitic acid promoted the lung metastasis of melanomas through the TLR4/TRIF-Peli1-pNF-κB pathway