Japan-ness + Suchness:: Seeking to Seize an Understanding of an Ethereal Elusive Ethos

Japan is in many ways a mysterious society with a rich history and complex culture. Informed by longstanding traditions and deeply-rooted values, contemporary Japan struggles to chart paths forward while retaining strong threads binding yesterday to tomorrow. Modern planning, architecture and design in Japan, and perhaps most notably in its capital city of Tokyo, in many ways illuminates the tensions that exist between the authority of the past and the promise of the future. Inspired in part by pervasive spiritual paths, fundamentally Shintoism and Buddhism, design embraces notions of ephemerality, impermanence and non-attachment. It also characterizes the pursuit and acceptance of perfection through imperfection. Wabi-Sabi and similar approaches highlight a high degree of comfort with the uncertain, the flawed and the incomplete. That said, remarkable advances in high-technology and an aggressive uptake of digital media counter this acceptance of the indeterminate, both in social and physical spheres. People are increasingly connected and informed, yet ironically disconnected and unaware. While society writ-large is shaped by intense formal and informal expectations to conform (the nail the stands out gets hammered down), it also permits ample latitude for the proliferation of subcultures and the acceptance of the extraordinary. Metabolist Architecture, for example, demonstrated an unbridled openness to utopian vision, bold departures and iconic gestures. The present research, through meta-analysis of the literature, case studies and logical argumentation, critically examines the notions of ‘Japan-ness' and ‘suchness' in light of current turbulence and transformations. The author, an architect and psychologist with extensive first-hand experience of Japan, considers a spectrum of dimensions that serve to distinguish and define the country and culture. Viewed through scholarly lenses that include architecture, education, spirituality and homelessness, the paper delineates and interprets the many qualities of Japan that continue to uphold its interwoven veils of mystery, sensuality, advancement and atmosphere. The paper seeks to demonstrate how architecture and urbanism in Japan embodies historic, spiritual and cultural values & practices. Using Tokyo as one window into such aspects, the author explores a variety of facets of the metropolis that illustrate those qualities that contribute to ‘Japan-ness'. Discussion includes implications/impacts to an annual study abroad program in architecture and planning whereby graduate students search for contextual understanding and cultural meaning prior to embarking on dramatic and diverse urban design projects. Designing, in a studio setting, in such a complicated and charged milieu demands a willingness to know and a commitment to connect. The deliverables of the research include the portrayal of a series of features of Japan-ness woven into an approach for understanding the conditions, complexities and characteristics of this leading nation and its incomparable culture. The systems- oriented multi-pronged tactic, and its underpinning information, proves valuable for researchers, educators, students and visitors examining, discovering and engaging Japan

Perturbations of nuclear C*-algebras

Kadison and Kastler introduced a natural metric on the collection of all C*-subalgebras of the bounded operators on a separable Hilbert space. They conjectured that sufficiently close algebras are unitarily conjugate. We establish this conjecture when one algebra is separable and nuclear. We also consider one-sided versions of these notions, and we obtain embeddings from certain near inclusions involving separable nuclear C*-algebras. At the end of the paper we demonstrate how our methods lead to improved characterisations of some of the types of algebras that are of current interest in the classification programme.Comment: 45 page

Wisdom of Persian Architecture: Exploring the Design of the M.T.O. Sufi Centres in Search for the ‘Spirit of Place’

[EN] The field of architecture and design has changed and been impacted by advanced technology over the past few decades. Our world, which was already experiencing drastic change, has recently encountered accelerated upheaval due to the global pandemic. Enamored by virtual reality (VR), 3D printing, global positioning, and the proliferation of robots, we are arguably too often surrounded by resultant superficial, meaningless, and soulless spaces to which we can neither relate nor connect. The sense of delight, serenity, poetry, and beauty that we inherently desire and yearn for, is becoming increasingly rare -- and at times even lost -- in today’s architecture. It can be argued that contemporary architecture risks becoming more a tool and product than a work of art that mirrors society and self. As architects, we are responsible to humanity through our quest to design spaces that reunite us with our inner selves and foster a sense of being. Considering recent challenges, crises, and catastrophes, designers are continuously researching the well-known traditional and aged architecture of the past for novel approaches that can enlighten future works. Architects are beginning to more assertively seek factors that propel transcendental experience in space. The present paper considers the case of Persian architecture - one of the richest and most eminent architectural styles in the world. Most buildings of this genre were designed by individuals who were most notably spiritual masters, mystics, astronomers, mathematicians, philosophers, and then architects. This paper interrogates architecture to critically delineate Persian architecture’s role in enhancing contemplation and provoking reflection while highlighting spaces that poetically respond to and nurture our soul. Deploying a literature review and analysis of recently built Sufi Centers in the United States, the research then builds an argument for linking the wisdom of Persian architecture with the spirit of place focusing on the encounter of transcendental moments in space. All these Sufi centers are affiliated with the Maktab Tarighat Oveysi (M.T.O.) Shahamaghsoudi School of Islamic Sufism. Analysis of case studies culls out qualities of space that give rise to sacred (non-religious) experiences including connection with self, balance/ harmony, and most important of all, unity, and oneness internally and externally. Persian architecture, as one of history’s most celebrated building traditions, considers the intense relationship between the sacred and profane, between mortal and immortal, and between the physical and the non-physical. The analysis of these exceptional case studies serves as the foundation for an anticipated and thought-provoking guide to ‘transcendental design,’ introducing a novel approach for designers that encourages advancing beyond the physical form to pursue and optimize the vital intersection of wisdom, space, place, and self.Esmaeili, N.; Sinclair, DB. (2023). Wisdom of Persian Architecture: Exploring the Design of the M.T.O. Sufi Centres in Search for the ‘Spirit of Place’. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 344-358. https://doi.org/10.4995/VIBRArch2022.2022.1523934435

Fault-tolerant aggregation: Flow-Updating meets Mass-Distribution

Flow-Updating (FU) is a fault-tolerant technique that has proved to be efficient in practice for the distributed computation of aggregate functions in communication networks where individual processors do not have access to global information. Previous distributed aggregation protocols, based on repeated sharing of input values (or mass) among processors, sometimes called Mass-Distribution (MD) protocols, are not resilient to communication failures (or message loss) because such failures yield a loss of mass. In this paper, we present a protocol which we call Mass-Distribution with Flow-Updating (MDFU). We obtain MDFU by applying FU techniques to classic MD. We analyze the convergence time of MDFU showing that stochastic message loss produces low overhead. This is the first convergence proof of an FU-based algorithm. We evaluate MDFU experimentally, comparing it with previous MD and FU protocols, and verifying the behavior predicted by the analysis. Finally, given that MDFU incurs a fixed deviation proportional to the message-loss rate, we adjust the accuracy of MDFU heuristically in a new protocol called MDFU with Linear Prediction (MDFU-LP). The evaluation shows that both MDFU and MDFU-LP behave very well in practice, even under high rates of message loss and even changing the input values dynamically.- A preliminary version of this work appeared in [2]. This work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation (CNS-1408782, IIS-1247750); the National Institutes of Health (CA198952-01); EMC, Inc.; Pace University Seidenberg School of CSIS; and by Project "Coral - Sustainable Ocean Exploitation: Tools and Sensors/NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000036" financed by the North Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, and through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The cytotoxic T cell proteome and its shaping by the kinase mTOR

High-resolution mass spectrometry maps the cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) proteome and the impact of mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) on CTLs. The CTL proteome was dominated by metabolic regulators and granzymes and mTORC1 selectively repressed and promoted expression of subset of CTL proteins (~10%). These included key CTL effector molecules, signaling proteins and a subset of metabolic enzymes. Proteomic data highlighted the potential for mTORC1 negative control of phosphatidylinositol (3,4,5)-trisphosphate (PtdIns(3,4,5)P(3)) production in CTL. mTORC1 was shown to repress PtdIns(3,4,5)P(3) production and to determine the mTORC2 requirement for activation of the kinase Akt. Unbiased proteomic analysis thus provides a comprehensive understanding of CTL identity and mTORC1 control of CTL function

Characteristics of older unpaid carers in England: A study of social patterning from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

\ua9 2024 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society.Background: A growing number of older people provide unpaid care, but contemporary research evidence on this group is limited. Aim: This study aims to describe the characteristics of older people who provide unpaid care and how these vary by socioeconomic position. Methods: Using recent information from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA wave 9, 2019), we analysed cross-sectional data on 1,282 unpaid carers aged ≥50. Data on sociodemographics, health, social wellbeing, care intensity and caregiver-recipient relationships were extracted. Total net non-pension wealth quintiles were used as a relative measure of socioeconomic position. Differences between the poorest and richest wealth quintiles were examined through logistic regression. Findings: Most older carers in ELSA were female and looking after another older person. Poor mental and physical health and social isolation were common, and socially patterned. Compared with carers in the middle wealth group, the poorest group were more likely to be living with the person they cared for (odds ratio (OR) 1.56 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.03-2.36]) and more likely to experience loneliness (OR 2.29 [95% CI 1.42-3.69]), dependency (i.e.The need for help with activities of daily living) (OR 1.62 [95% CI 1.05-2.51]), chronic pain (OR 1.81 [95% CI 1.23-2.67]), a higher number of diseases (OR 1.75 [95% CI 1.15-2.65]) and fair/poor self-rated health (OR 2.59 [95% CI 1.79-3.76]). The poorest carers were also less likely to have a high quality of life (OR 0.51 [95% CI 0.33-0.80]) or be in work (OR 0.33 [95% CI 0.19-0.59]). Conclusion: Our findings suggest that financially disadvantaged unpaid carers (and their households) may have the greatest needs for intervention and support. Focussing resources on this group has potential to address social inequalities

Measurements of neutrino oscillation in appearance and disappearance channels by the T2K experiment with 6.6 x 10(20) protons on target

111 pages, 45 figures, submitted to Physical Review D. Minor revisions to text following referee comments111 pages, 45 figures, submitted to Physical Review D. Minor revisions to text following referee comments111 pages, 45 figures, submitted to Physical Review D. Minor revisions to text following referee commentsWe thank the J-PARC staff for superb accelerator performance and the CERN NA61/SHINE Collaboration for providing valuable particle production data. We acknowledge the support of MEXT, Japan; NSERC, NRC, and CFI, Canada; CEA and CNRS/IN2P3, France; DFG, Germany; INFN, Italy; National Science Centre (NCN), Poland; RSF, RFBR and MES, Russia; MINECO and ERDF funds, Spain; SNSF and SER, Switzerland; STFC, UK; and the U. S. Deparment of Energy, USA. We also thank CERN for the UA1/NOMAD magnet, DESY for the HERA-B magnet mover system, NII for SINET4, the WestGrid and SciNet consortia in Compute Canada, GridPP, UK, and the Emerald High Performance Computing facility in the Centre for Innovation, UK. In addition, participation of individual researchers and institutions has been further supported by funds from ERC (FP7), EU; JSPS, Japan; Royal Society, UK; and DOE Early Career program, USA

Using molecular data for epidemiological inference: assessing the prevalence of Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense in Tsetse in Serengeti, Tanzania

Background: Measuring the prevalence of transmissible Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense in tsetse populations is essential for understanding transmission dynamics, assessing human disease risk and monitoring spatio-temporal trends and the impact of control interventions. Although an important epidemiological variable, identifying flies which carry transmissible infections is difficult, with challenges including low prevalence, presence of other trypanosome species in the same fly, and concurrent detection of immature non-transmissible infections. Diagnostic tests to measure the prevalence of T. b. rhodesiense in tsetse are applied and interpreted inconsistently, and discrepancies between studies suggest this value is not consistently estimated even to within an order of magnitude. Methodology/Principal Findings: Three approaches were used to estimate the prevalence of transmissible Trypanosoma brucei s.l. and T. b. rhodesiense in Glossina swynnertoni and G. pallidipes in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania: (i) dissection/microscopy; (ii) PCR on infected tsetse midguts; and (iii) inference from a mathematical model. Using dissection/microscopy the prevalence of transmissible T. brucei s.l. was 0% (95% CI 0–0.085) for G. swynnertoni and 0% (0–0.18) G. pallidipes; using PCR the prevalence of transmissible T. b. rhodesiense was 0.010% (0–0.054) and 0.0089% (0–0.059) respectively, and by model inference 0.0064% and 0.00085% respectively. Conclusions/Significance: The zero prevalence result by dissection/microscopy (likely really greater than zero given the results of other approaches) is not unusual by this technique, often ascribed to poor sensitivity. The application of additional techniques confirmed the very low prevalence of T. brucei suggesting the zero prevalence result was attributable to insufficient sample size (despite examination of 6000 tsetse). Given the prohibitively high sample sizes required to obtain meaningful results by dissection/microscopy, PCR-based approaches offer the current best option for assessing trypanosome prevalence in tsetse but inconsistencies in relating PCR results to transmissibility highlight the need for a consensus approach to generate meaningful and comparable data

Frailty-free life expectancy and its association with socio-economic characteristics: an analysis of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing cohort study

\ua9 The Author(s) 2025.Background: Frailty is more prevalent in socio-economically disadvantaged groups; however, little is known about how this translates to differences in the number of years people live with and without frailty. We investigate differences in frailty-free and frail life expectancies among population groups stratified by wealth, area deprivation, education and marital status. Methods: The English Longitudinal Study of Ageing cohort study was used to follow the frailty trajectories of 15,003 individuals over 18 years. A multi-state model assessed the risk of transitioning between frailty states and death based on socio-economic characteristics. These risks were translated into state-specific life expectancies. Results: Wealth had the strongest association with frailty-free and frail life expectancies. Increased wealth, reduced deprivation, higher educational attainment and marriage all correlate with increased frailty-free life expectancies and reduced frail life expectancies. At age 50, the wealthiest population quintile can expect to live 11.1 [10.1–12.1] years (women) and 9.8 [8.8–10.8] years (men) longer frailty-free than the poorest population quintile. The wealthiest quintile live less than half the number of years with frailty than the poorest quintile. There is no difference in frailty-free life expectancy between the poorest men and women; however, the wealthiest women have longer frailty-free life expectancies than the wealthiest men. Conclusions: Large inequalities in frailty-free and frail life expectancies exist across socio-economic groups, with wealth and area deprivation the most important socio-economic determinants. Narrowing these inequalities may extend frailty-free life expectancies more for women than men, suggesting strategies to reduce disparities should consider both socio-economic factors and gender. Care policies should account for the geographical clustering of socio-economically disadvantaged populations. Reducing socio-economic inequalities could increase frailty-free life expectancies and reduce health and social care costs