Background. The significance of mutual-help in communities for disaster management is a fundamental important concept. However, the current societal state does not reflect this lesson. S&G ...(Simulation and Gaming) has the potential to overcome the challenges faced in promoting community-based disaster management. No scientific research is currently present that reviews their achievements in Japan.
Aim. This paper analyzes the current achievements of S&G in enhancing community resilience against large-scale earthquakes in Japan.
Method. The paper clarifies the theoretical advantages of S&G in enhancing community resilience in coping and adaptive capacity plus proposes a conceptual contribution framework of S&G in improving community resilience. Based on this framework, the paper analyzes some major games that tackle community resilience against earthquakes in Japan.
Results. The paper demonstrates the achievements through the S&G spectrum that stresses the disastrous experience with specific resilience views on one side, while decision making for critical reflection from other players with more comprehensive resilience views on the other side.
Conclusion. The paper showcases the current S&G achievements in enhancing community resilience against large-scale earthquakes in Japan using the proposed framework, which can be utilized by other disaster-prone countries to develop and evaluate applications of S&G for increasing community resilience against earthquakes.
The organization of a cell emerges from the interactions in protein networks. The interactome is critically dependent on the strengths of interactions and the cellular abundances of the connected ...proteins, both of which span orders of magnitude. However, these aspects have not yet been analyzed globally. Here, we have generated a library of HeLa cell lines expressing 1,125 GFP-tagged proteins under near-endogenous control, which we used as input for a next-generation interaction survey. Using quantitative proteomics, we detect specific interactions, estimate interaction stoichiometries, and measure cellular abundances of interacting proteins. These three quantitative dimensions reveal that the protein network is dominated by weak, substoichiometric interactions that play a pivotal role in defining network topology. The minority of stable complexes can be identified by their unique stoichiometry signature. This study provides a rich interaction dataset connecting thousands of proteins and introduces a framework for quantitative network analysis.
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•Human interactome dataset connecting 5,400 proteins with 28,500 interactions•Three quantitative dimensions measure specificities, stoichiometries, and abundances•Stable complexes are rare but stand out by a signature of balanced stoichiometries•Weak interactions dominate the network and have critical topological properties
Weak interactions shape the cellular protein interaction network as determined from proteomic measures of cellular interaction specificities, the strength of those interactions, and the cellular copy numbers of the proteins involved.
During mitosis, adherent animal cells undergo a drastic shape change, from essentially flat to round. Mitotic cell rounding is thought to facilitate organization within the mitotic cell and be ...necessary for the geometric requirements of division. However, the forces that drive this shape change remain poorly understood in the presence of external impediments, such as a tissue environment. Here we use cantilevers to track cell rounding force and volume. We show that cells have an outward rounding force, which increases as cells enter mitosis. We find that this mitotic rounding force depends both on the actomyosin cytoskeleton and the cells' ability to regulate osmolarity. The rounding force itself is generated by an osmotic pressure. However, the actomyosin cortex is required to maintain this rounding force against external impediments. Instantaneous disruption of the actomyosin cortex leads to volume increase, and stimulation of actomyosin contraction leads to volume decrease. These results show that in cells, osmotic pressure is balanced by inwardly directed actomyosin cortex contraction. Thus, by locally modulating actomyosin-cortex-dependent surface tension and globally regulating osmotic pressure, cells can control their volume, shape and mechanical properties.
Target of rapamycin (TOR) kinases form two distinct complexes, TORC1 and TORC2, which are evolutionarily conserved among eukaryotes. These complexes control intracellular biochemical processes in ...response to changes in extracellular nutrient conditions. Previous studies using the fission yeast,
, showed that the TORC2 signaling pathway, which is essential for cell proliferation under glucose-limited conditions, ensures cell-surface localization of a high-affinity hexose transporter, Ght5, by downregulating its endocytosis. The TORC2 signaling pathway retains Ght5 on the cell surface, depending on the presence of nitrogen sources in medium. Ght5 is transported to vacuoles upon nitrogen starvation. In this review, we discuss the molecular mechanisms underlying this regulation to cope with nutritional stress, a response which may be conserved from yeasts to mammals.
As risks and effects of climate hazards increase, disaster-prone communities need to gather and systematize Local Disaster Knowledge (LDK) and link it with scientific knowledge for effective disaster ...risk management. Methods for extracting and synthesizing local knowledge have been developed, though duplicating the methods in any other areas remains a challenge. This study utilizes the concept of gamification for knowledge extraction, and develops a game called “Local Disaster Knowledge Extracting Game: Flood management in Thailand” and designs a focus group discussion which enables easy comparison with the game. The study sets its indicators to evaluate the effectiveness of LDK extraction, and through a social experiment in a model community for community-based flood management in North Thailand, it reveals the superior benefits of the gamification in comparison to focus group discussion in extracting more knowledge related to local contexts and more locally specific knowledge and promoting the social learning enabler.
Rheology of the Active Cell Cortex in Mitosis Fischer-Friedrich, Elisabeth; Toyoda, Yusuke; Cattin, Cedric J. ...
Biophysical journal,
08/2016, Volume:
111, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The cell cortex is a key structure for the regulation of cell shape and tissue organization. To reach a better understanding of the mechanics and dynamics of the cortex, we study here HeLa cells in ...mitosis as a simple model system. In our assay, single rounded cells are dynamically compressed between two parallel plates. Our measurements indicate that the cortical layer is the dominant mechanical element in mitosis as opposed to the cytoplasmic interior. To characterize the time-dependent rheological response, we extract a complex elastic modulus that characterizes the resistance of the cortex against area dilation. In this way, we present a rheological characterization of the cortical actomyosin network in the linear regime. Furthermore, we investigate the influence of actin cross linkers and the impact of active prestress on rheological behavior. Notably, we find that cell mechanics values in mitosis are captured by a simple rheological model characterized by a single timescale on the order of 10 s, which marks the onset of fluidity in the system.
Centrosomes in animal cells are dynamic organelles with a proteinaceous matrix of pericentriolar material assembled around a pair of centrioles. They organize the microtubule cytoskeleton and the ...mitotic spindle apparatus. Mature centrioles are essential for biogenesis of primary cilia that mediate key signalling events. Despite recent advances, the molecular basis for the plethora of processes coordinated by centrosomes is not fully understood. We have combined protein identification and localization, using PCP‐SILAC mass spectrometry, BAC transgeneOmics, and antibodies to define the constituents of human centrosomes. From a background of non‐specific proteins, we distinguished 126 known and 40 candidate centrosomal proteins, of which 22 were confirmed as novel components. An antibody screen covering 4000 genes revealed an additional 113 candidates. We illustrate the power of our methods by identifying a novel set of five proteins preferentially associated with mother or daughter centrioles, comprising genes implicated in cell polarity. Pulsed labelling demonstrates a remarkable variation in the stability of centrosomal protein complexes. These spatiotemporal proteomics data provide leads to the further functional characterization of centrosomal proteins.
Organellar proteomics revealed a surprising complexity of centrosome composition. New combinatorial approaches now further extend the list of centrosome proteins, but also begin to elucidate their dynamics and differential localization.
Many human‐cultured cell lines survive glucose starvation, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we searched for proteins required for cellular adaptation to glucose‐limited conditions ...and identified several endoplasmic reticulum chaperones in the glucose‐regulated protein (GRP) family as proteins enriched in the cellular membrane. Surprisingly, these proteins, which are required for cell surface localization of GLUT1 under high‐glucose conditions, become dispensable for targeting GLUT1 to the surface upon glucose starvation. In marked contrast, cell surface localization of single‐pass transmembrane proteins, such as epidermal growth factor receptor and CD98, is not disturbed by GRP78 depletion regardless of the extracellular glucose level. These results indicate that the extracellular glucose level regulates dependence on the GRPs for cell surface localization of multipass transmembrane proteins.
Chromosome segregation and cell division are essential, highly ordered processes that depend on numerous protein complexes. Results from recent RNA interference screens indicate that the identity and ...composition of these protein complexes is incompletely understood. Using gene tagging on bacterial artificial chromosomes, protein localization, and tandem-affinity purification-mass spectrometry, the MitoCheck consortium has analyzed about 100 human protein complexes, many of which had not or had only incompletely been characterized. This work has led to the discovery of previously unknown, evolutionarily conserved subunits of the anaphase-promoting complex and the γ-tubulin ring complex--large complexes that are essential for spindle assembly and chromosome segregation. The approaches we describe here are generally applicable to high-throughput follow-up analyses of phenotypic screens in mammalian cells.
Thailand has a long history of flood disasters. The Great Flood in 2011, for example, affected many parts of the country, including Bangkok. This obviously revealed the limitations of disaster ...management by the government. Movements in responding and helping communities to manage against flood disasters are still ambiguous and rudimentary; while local communities still rely on external support. This study aims to strengthen community-based disaster risk management (CBDRM) by using gaming simulation (GS) as a tool. This is participatory action research (PAR) using empirical data from applying GS, participatory observation and interviews in selected communities. Three flood prone communities in an upstream province in Thailand that represent successful case, on-going case and non-active case in building CBDRM used as case studies. The GS named ‘Community Cooperation Game’ (CCG) was designed as a prototype in a Japanese case study on flood management in Sonobe District, Kyoto Prefecture. The CCG was applied in the three flood prone communities in Thailand; that enabled these three communities to simulate flood situations and make mutual decisions on how to manage flood scenarios by following roles, rules and scenarios of the game. The main findings of this study are 1) a list of GS contributions in achieving CBDRM process indicators; and 2) evidence that suggest that GS can be used as a valuable tool to build CBDRM process by promoting social resilience through CCG in local communities in Thailand. The research concludes that the prototype of CCG on building CBDRM can be generalized in Thai local communities.
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