The Right to the Sustainable Smart City

Environmental concerns have driven an interest in sustainable smart cities, through the monitoring and optimisation of networked infrastructures. At the same time, there are concerns about who these interventions and services are for, and who benefits. HCI researchers and designers interested in civic life have started to call for the democratisation of urban space through resistance and political action to challenge state and corporate claims. This paper contributes to an emerging body of work that seeks to involve citizens in the design of sustainable smart cities, particularly in the context of marginalised and culturally diverse urban communities. We present a study involving co- designing Internet of Things with urban agricultural communities and discuss three ways in which design can participate in the right to the sustainable smart city through designing for the commons, care, and biocultural diversity

The eventization of leisure and the strange death of alternative Leeds

The communicative potential of city spaces as leisure spaces is a central assumption of political activism and the creation of alternative, counter-cultural and subcultural scenes. However, such potential for city spaces is limited by the gentrification, privatization and eventization of city centres in the wake of wider societal and cultural struggles over leisure, work and identity formation. In this paper, we present research on alternative scenes in the city of Leeds to argue that the eventization of the city centre has led to a marginalization and of alternative scenes on the fringes of the city. Such marginalization has not caused the death of alternative Leeds or political activism associated with those scenes—but it has changed the leisure spaces (physical, political and social) in which alternative scenes contest the mainstream

Utilizing interview-based data to measure interactions of artisanal fishing communities and cetacean populations in Kuching Bay, Sarawak, East Malaysia

Kuching Bay is a significant area for artisanal fishing activities as well as an Important Marine Mammal Area (IMMA) for coastal cetaceans. A total of 286 fishers from eight fishing communities were interviewed between 2011 and 2019 to determine the nature and extent of cetacean-fishery interactions in the area. The main types of fishing gears recorded were gillnets, trammel nets, trawl nets, longlines, handlines and crab traps, with the use of gears varying by season and target species. Depredation, net damage, and entanglements in fishing gear were the most frequently reported negative interactions with cetaceans. Thirty-six percent of fishers reported having experienced a cetacean entanglement in their fishing gear at least once. More than half (58.1%) of the respondents who experienced bycatch were able to disentangle and release the animals alive. The more conservative calculated bycatch rate of 0.36 cetaceans per fisher over a fishing career indicates that a minimum estimated average of 19 cetaceans are involved in bycatch annually in Kuching Bay, with as many as nine of these incidents likely resulting in mortality. However, a less conservative method yields a bycatch rate of 0.57 per fisher, and estimated an average of 30 bycaught cetaceans per year. Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris) were reported to be at the highest risk (72.9% of reported incidents), with an estimated minimum of seven individuals caught and killed per year. Despite the negative interactions, 77.2% of respondents reported a generally positive attitude toward cetaceans based on their value for tourism and as indicators of fish presence and a healthy ecosystem. Mutualistic relationships between fishers and cetaceans were documented, with 53% of respondents reporting that they feed discarded fish to cetaceans. The results of this study can be used to guide effective mitigation measures, which should focus on training fishers in safe handling and release of entangled cetaceans, and, more importantly, methods to prevent interactions with gillnets

Records of Postmortem Attentive Behavior on an Irrawaddy Dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris) Calf and Implications for Conservation in Kuching Bay, Sarawak, East Malaysia

Postmortem Attentive Behaviors (PABs), also known as epimeletic behaviors, have been observed in terrestrial mammalian species, such as primates, giraffes, and elephants (Nakamichi etal., 1996; Douglas-Hamilton etal., 2006; Li etal., 2012; Strauss & Muller, 2013), as well as in aquatic mammals (Reggente etal., 2016; Bearzi & Reggente, 2017; Bearzi etal., 2017). In cetaceans, epimeletic behavior is described as one or more adults attending to an injured, distressed, dying, or deceased animal by keeping it afloat if sinking, pushing it down if buoyant, performing “resuscitation” attempts, and/or carrying it on the dorsum, head, rostrum, or in the mouth (Reggente etal., 2016; Bearzi & Reggente, 2017). Most records of cetacean PAB involved Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins (Sousa chinensis), common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), and Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) (e.g., Porter, 2002; Kuczaj etal., 2015; Bearzi etal., 2017, 2018; Cheng etal., 2018; Reggente etal., 2018; Pedrazzi etal., 2022). Until now, only one case of this behavior has been documented in Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris) from Balikpapan Bay, Indonesia (Kreb etal., 2020). Herein, we describe a rare event of PAB towards an Irrawaddy dolphin calf in Kuching Bay, Sarawak, East Malaysia, and its implications for conservation

Structural, Stability, Dynamic and Binding Properties of the ALS-Causing T46I Mutant of the hVAPB MSP Domain as Revealed by NMR and MD Simulations

T46I is the second mutation on the hVAPB MSP domain which was recently identified from non-Brazilian kindred to cause a familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Here using CD, NMR and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, we characterized the structure, stability, dynamics and binding capacity of the T46I-MSP domain. The results reveal: 1) unlike P56S which we previously showed to completely eliminate the native MSP structure, T46I leads to no significant disruption of the native secondary and tertiary structures, as evidenced from its far-UV CD spectrum, as well as Cα and Cβ NMR chemical shifts. 2) Nevertheless, T46I does result in a reduced thermodynamic stability and loss of the cooperative urea-unfolding transition. As such, the T46I-MSP domain is more prone to aggregation than WT at high protein concentrations and temperatures in vitro, which may become more severe in the crowded cellular environments. 3) T46I only causes a 3-fold affinity reduction to the Nir2 peptide, but a significant elimination of its binding to EphA4. 4) EphA4 and Nir2 peptide appear to have overlapped binding interfaces on the MSP domain, which strongly implies that two signaling networks may have a functional interplay in vivo. 5) As explored by both H/D exchange and MD simulations, the MSP domain is very dynamic, with most loop residues and many residues on secondary structures highly fluctuated or/and exposed to bulk solvent. Although T46I does not alter overall dynamics, it does trigger increased dynamics of several local regions of the MSP domain which are implicated in binding to EphA4 and Nir2 peptide. Our study provides the structural and dynamic understanding of the T46I-causing ALS; and strongly highlights the possibility that the interplay of two signaling networks mediated by the FFAT-containing proteins and Eph receptors may play a key role in ALS pathogenesis

Prognostic indicators and outcomes of hospitalised COVID-19 patients with neurological disease: An individual patient data meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Neurological COVID-19 disease has been reported widely, but published studies often lack information on neurological outcomes and prognostic risk factors. We aimed to describe the spectrum of neurological disease in hospitalised COVID-19 patients; characterise clinical outcomes; and investigate factors associated with a poor outcome. METHODS: We conducted an individual patient data (IPD) meta-analysis of hospitalised patients with neurological COVID-19 disease, using standard case definitions. We invited authors of studies from the first pandemic wave, plus clinicians in the Global COVID-Neuro Network with unpublished data, to contribute. We analysed features associated with poor outcome (moderate to severe disability or death, 3 to 6 on the modified Rankin Scale) using multivariable models. RESULTS: We included 83 studies (31 unpublished) providing IPD for 1979 patients with COVID-19 and acute new-onset neurological disease. Encephalopathy (978 [49%] patients) and cerebrovascular events (506 [26%]) were the most common diagnoses. Respiratory and systemic symptoms preceded neurological features in 93% of patients; one third developed neurological disease after hospital admission. A poor outcome was more common in patients with cerebrovascular events (76% [95% CI 67-82]), than encephalopathy (54% [42-65]). Intensive care use was high (38% [35-41]) overall, and also greater in the cerebrovascular patients. In the cerebrovascular, but not encephalopathic patients, risk factors for poor outcome included breathlessness on admission and elevated D-dimer. Overall, 30-day mortality was 30% [27-32]. The hazard of death was comparatively lower for patients in the WHO European region. INTERPRETATION: Neurological COVID-19 disease poses a considerable burden in terms of disease outcomes and use of hospital resources from prolonged intensive care and inpatient admission; preliminary data suggest these may differ according to WHO regions and country income levels. The different risk factors for encephalopathy and stroke suggest different disease mechanisms which may be amenable to intervention, especially in those who develop neurological symptoms after hospital admission