Expanding Data Imaginaries in Urban Planning:Foregrounding lived experience and community voices in studies of cities with participatory and digital visual methods

“Expanding Data Imaginaries in Urban Planning” synthesizes more than three years of industrial research conducted within Gehl and the Techno–Anthropology Lab at Aalborg University. Through practical experiments with social media images, digital photovoice, and participatory mapmaking, the project explores how visual materials created by citizens can be used within a digital and participatory methodology to reconfigure the empirical ground of data-driven urbanism. Drawing on a data feminist framework, the project uses visual research to elevate community voices and situate urban issues in lived experiences. As a Science and Technology Studies project, the PhD also utilizes its industrial position as an opportunity to study Gehl’s practices up close, unpacking collectively held narratives and visions that form a particular “data imaginary” and contribute to the production and perpetuation of the role of data in urban planning. The dissertation identifies seven epistemological commitments that shape the data imaginary at Gehl and act as discursive closures within their practice. To illustrate how planners might expand on these, the dissertation uses its own data experiments as speculative demonstrations of how to make alternative modes of knowing cities possible through participatory and digital visual methods

The origin and properties of pro-oncogenic fields in the intestinal epithelium

Abstract: The intestinal epithelium is maintained by intestinal stem cells that replace each other stochastically over time. Stem cells that are excluded from the stem cell pool will differentiate into the absorptive or secretory cell lineages. However, intestinal cell-fate specification is not always restrictive and early secretory progenitors can revert back to the stem cell pool. Human colon cancer develops by acquisition of oncogenic mutations in the colonic epithelium throughout life. As secretory progenitors have unexpectedly been shown to be a significant source of colonic stem cells, they could serve a cell of origin for tumorigenesis. Furthermore, it has been speculated that tumours could arise in fields that encode pro-oncogenic mutations prior to overt tumour development. Mutations in KRAS can be found in 10% of healthy human colons in fields of up to 100 crypts that may be the cause of a subset of colorectal tumours. The extent to which such fields are predisposed to colorectal cancer development is unknown. The aims of this PhD project were to characterise the cell of origin and stem cell behaviour of KrasG12D fields and to develop new tools to recapitulate sequential mutations in vivo. Cre mediated lineage tracing of Atoh1 expressing early secretory progenitors carrying KrasG12D mutations demonstrated that KrasG12D expression does not change cell fate choices in homeostasis but appears to increase Atoh1+ stem cell contribution in the small intestine after Lgr5 depletion. In addition, Atoh1 derived KrasG12D stem cells have a competitive bias and Atoh1 derived KrasG12D crypts can multiply over time to create fields and polyps in the colonic epithelium. In addition, a mouse model that utilises Flp and Cre to temporally separate intestinal KrasG12D recombination from lineage-tracing was developed to study stem cell behaviour in KrasG12D fields. Lineage tracing in this model shows that crypts in KrasG12D epithelium have a markedly higher monoclonal conversion rate and accumulate an increased mutation load over time compared to WT crypts. Furthermore, the faster monoclonal conversion rate is shown to be dependent on Mek signalling downstream of Kras. Thus, KrasG12D fields may fix secondary mutations at an accelerated rate and so represent pro-oncogenic areas. Lastly, in this thesis a Rosa26 DrePr mouse model, that allows for recombination independently of other recombinases, is developed and used to initiate lineage tracing in a sequential model of Cre activated intestinal tumorigenesis. Collectively, the data presented in this thesis allows in-dept investigation of the cell of origin and stem cell behaviour in pro-oncogenic KrasG12D fields and contributes to the understanding of how such fields might lead to colon cancer

Fysisk aktivitet i naturen for pasienter med depresjon

Sammendrag Bakgrunn: I psykiatrisk behandling viser pasientundersøkelser at kroppens fysiske helse fortsatt blir lite vektlagt, selv om fysisk aktivitet er ansett som en egnet metode for hjelp til selvhjelp ved psykiske lidelser, og har positiv effekt på symptomer ved depresjon (Danielsen, 2021, s.6; Martinsen, 2018, s.26). Hensikt: Tilegne oss mer kunnskap og få en dypere forståelse for hvordan man som sykepleier kan fremme psykisk helse hos pasienter med depresjon, ved å tilrettelegge for fysisk aktivitet i naturen. Metode: Vi har gjennomført en litteraturstudie basert på fire kvalitative studier. Vi har benyttet modell for analyse av Friberg, og sortert data i nye hoved- og underkategorier ut ifra vår problemstilling. Resultat:Vi kom frem til tre hovedkategorier og fem underkategorier. Hovedkategoriene individuelle faktorer, sosiale faktorer og fysisk aktivitet i naturen kom frem som viktige faktorer for at sykepleier skal kunne fremme den psykiske helsen hos pasienter med depresjon, ved å tilrettelegge for fysisk aktivitet i naturen. Konklusjon: Fysisk aktivitet i naturen ser ut til å ha en helsefremmende effekt for pasienter med depresjon. Å ta hensyn til depresjonens forløp, utfordringer knyttet til depresjonen og pasientenes preferanser, samt hjelpe pasienten å finne meningsfulle aktiviteter, kom frem som viktige faktorer for å tilrettelegge for fysisk aktivitet i naturen. Aktiviteter i naturen ser ut til å bidra til glede og tilstedeværelse for pasient og sykepleier. Rollene mellom pasient og sykepleier kan bli mer likeverdige i naturen, som trekkes frem som en viktig faktor i relasjonsbygging. Nøkkelord: Psykisk helse, depresjon, friluftsliv, natur og fysisk aktivitet, sykeplei

Quantifying microsatellite mutation rates from intestinal stem cell dynamics in Msh2-deficient murine epithelium

Microsatellite sequences have an enhanced susceptibility to mutation and can act as sentinels indicating elevated mutation rates and increased risk of cancer. The probability of mutant fixation within the intestinal epithelium is dictated by a combination of stem cell dynamics and mutation rate. Here we exploit this relationship to infer microsatellite mutation rates. First a sensitive, multiplexed and quantitative method for detecting somatic changes in microsatellite length was developed that allowed the parallel detection of mutant [CA]n sequences from hundreds of low-input tissue samples at up to 14 loci. The method was applied to colonic crypts in Mus musculus and enabled detection of mutant subclones down to 20% of the cellularity of the crypt (around 50 of 250 cells). By quantifying age-related increases in clone frequencies for multiple loci, microsatellite mutation rates in wild-type and Msh2- deficient epithelium were established. An average 388-fold increase in mutation per mitosis rate was observed in Msh2-deficient epithelium (2.4 x10-2) compared to wild- type epithelium (6.2 x10-5)

The Urban Belonging Photo App:A toolkit for studying place attachments with digital and participatory methods

This paper introduces the open-source Urban Belonging (UB) toolkit, designed to study place attachments through a combined digital, visual and participatory methodology that foregrounds lived experience. The core of the toolkit is the photovoice UB App, which prompts participants to document urban experiences as digital data by taking pictures of the city, annotating them, and reacting to others’ photos. The toolkit also includes an API interface and a set of scripts for converting data into visualizations and elicitation devices. The paper first describes how the app’s design specifications were co-created in a process that brought in voices from different research fields, planners from Gehl Architects, six marginalized communities, and citizen engagement professionals. Their inputs shaped decisions about what data collection the app makes possible, and how it mitigates issues of privacy and visual and spatial literacy to make the app as inclusive as possible. We document how design criteria were translated into app features, and we demonstrate how this opens new empirical opportunities for community engagement through examples of its use in the Urban Belonging project in Copenhagen. While the focus on photo capture animates participants to document experiences in a personal and situated way, metadata such as location and sentiment invites for quali-quantitative analysis of both macro trends and local contexts of people’s experiences. Further, the granularity of data makes both a demographic and post-demographic analysis possible, providing empirical ground for exploring what people have in common in what they photograph and where they walk. And, by inviting participants to react to others’ photos, the app offers a heterogeneous empirical ground, showing us how people see the city differently. We end the paper by discussing remaining challenges in the tool and provide a short guide for using it

The physical activity paradox revisited: a prospective study on compositional accelerometer data and long-term sickness absence

Background The 'physical activity paradox' advocates that leisure physical activity (PA) promotes health while high occupational PA impairs health. However, this paradox can be explained by methodological limitations of the previous studies-self-reported PA measures, insufficient adjustment for socioeconomic confounding or not addressing the compositional nature of PA. Therefore, this study investigated if we still observe the PA paradox in relation to long-term sick absence (LTSA) after adjusting for the abovementioned limitations. Methods Time spent on moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and remaining physical behaviors (sedentary behavior, standing, light PA and time in bed) at work and in leisure was measured for 929 workers using thigh accelerometry and expressed as isometric log-ratios (ilrs). LTSA was register-based first event of >= 6 consecutive weeks of sickness absence during 4-year follow-up. The association betweenilrsand LTSA was analyzed using a Cox proportional hazards model adjusted for remaining physical behaviors and potential confounders, then separately adjusting for and stratifying by education and type of work. Results During the follow-up, 21% of the workers experienced LTSA. In leisure, more relative MVPA time was negatively associated with LTSA (20% lower risk with 20 min more MVPA,p = 0.02). At work, more relative MVPA time was positively associated with LTSA (15% higher risk with 20 min more MVPA,p = 0.02). Results remained unchanged when further adjusted for or stratified by education and type of work. Conclusion These findings provide further support to the 'PA paradox'

Fixation and Spread of Somatic Mutations in Adult Human Colonic Epithelium.

We investigated the means and timing by which mutations become fixed in the human colonic epithelium by visualizing somatic clones and mathematical inference. Fixation requires two sequential steps. First, one of approximately seven active stem cells residing within each colonic crypt has to be mutated. Second, the mutated stem cell has to replace neighbors to populate the entire crypt in a process that takes several years. Subsequent clonal expansion due to crypt fission is infrequent for neutral mutations (around 0.7% of all crypts undergo fission in a single year). Pro-oncogenic mutations subvert both stem cell replacement to accelerate fixation and clonal expansion by crypt fission to achieve high mutant allele frequencies with age. The benchmarking of these behaviors allows the advantage associated with different gene-specific mutations to be compared irrespective of the cellular mechanisms by which they are conferred

Replica selection in Apache Cassandra : Reducing the tail latency for reads using the C3 algorithm

Keeping response times low is crucial in order to provide a good user experience. Especially the tail latency proves to be a challenge to keep low as size, complexity and overall use of services scale up. In this thesis we look at reducing the tail latency for reads in the Apache Cassandra database system by implementing the new replica selection algorithm called C3, recently developed by Lalith Suresh, Marco Canini, Stefan Schmid and Anja Feldmann. Through extensive benchmarks with several stress tools, we find that C3 indeed decreases the tail latencies of Cassandra on generated load. However, when evaluating C3 on production load, results does not show any particular improvement. We argue that this is mostly due to the variable size records in the data set and token awareness in the production client. We also present a client-side implementation of C3 in the DataStax Java driver in an attempt to remove the caveat of token aware clients. The client-side implementation did give positive results, but as the benchmark results showed a lot of variance we deem the results to be too inconclusive to confirm that the implementation works as intended. We conclude that the server-side C3 algorithm will work effectively for systems with homogeneous row sizes where the clients are not token aware.För att kunna erbjuda en bra användarupplevelse så är det av högsta vikt att hålla responstiden låg. Speciellt svanslatensen är en utmaning att hålla låg då dagens applikationer växer både i storlek, komplexitet och användning. I denna rapport undersöker vi svanslatensen vid läsning i databassystemet Apache Cassandra och huruvida den går att förbättra. Detta genom att implementera den nya selektionsalgoritmen för replikor, kallad C3, nyligen framtagen av Lalith Suresh, Marco Canini, Stefan Schmid och Anja Feldmann. Genom utförliga tester med flera olika stressverktyg så finner vi att C3 verkligen förbättrar Cassandras svanslatenser på genererad last. Dock så visade använding av C3 på produktionslast ingen större förbättring. Vi hävdar att detta framförallt beror på en variabel storlek på datasetet och att produktionsklienten är tokenmedveten. Vi presenterar också en klientimplementation av C3 i Java-drivrutinen från DataStax, i ett försök att åtgärda problemet med tokenmedventa klienter. Klientimplementationen av C3 gav positiva resultat, men då testresultaten uppvisade stor varians så anser vi att resultaten är för osäkra för att kunna bekräfta att implentationen fungerar så som den är avsedd. Vi drar slutsatsen att C3, implementerad på servern, fungerar effektivt på system med homogen storlek på datat och där klienter ej är tokenmedvetna