Spatio-temporal Fragmentation of Leisure Activities in Information Era： Empirical Evidence from Nanjing, China

Activity fragmentation provides a new approach for understanding the transformation of urban space and function in the information era. Numerous theoretical and empirical studies have been conducted on activity fragmentation, but few studies have focused on the fragmentation of leisure activities. This study was intended to extend the extant literature by: 1) analysing the spatio-temporal fragmentation of physical and virtual leisure activities by using a dataset collected in Nanjing, China, and 2) evaluating the reasons of leisure activity fragmentation, as well as the potential spatial effect of activity fragmentation. The results indicated that virtual leisure activities are more fragmented than physical leisure activities, but the fragmentation of physical and virtual leisure activities varies on weekday and weekend, as well as in various locations and urban districts. In addition, the results suggested that sociodemographic factors and information and communication technology(ICT) variables distinctly affect the fragmentation of leisure activities. Meanwhile, the fragmentation of virtual leisure activities may enhance the transformation of traditional urban space by reallocating leisure activity times and locations.

Treating inflammatory bowel disease by adsorptive leucocytapheresis:A desire to treat without drugs

Ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease are the major phenotypes of the idiopathic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which afflicts millions of individuals throughout the world with debilitating symptoms, impairing function and quality of life. Current medications are aimed at reducing the symptoms or suppressing exacerbations. However, patients require life-long medications, and this can lead to drug dependency, loss of response together with adverse side effects. Indeed, drug side effects become additional morbidity factor in many patients on long-term medications. Nonetheless, the efficacy of anti-tumour necrosis factors (TNF)-α biologics has validated the role of inflammatory cytokines notably TNF-α in the exacerbation of IBD. However, inflammatory cytokines are released by patients’ own cellular elements including myeloid lineage leucocytes, which in patients with IBD are elevated with activation behaviour and prolonged survival. Accordingly, these leucocytes appear logical targets of therapy and can be depleted by adsorptive granulocyte/monocyte apheresis (GMA) with an Adacolumn. Based on this background, recently GMA has been applied to treat patients with IBD in Japan and in the European Union countries. Efficacy rates have been impressive as well as disappointing. In fact the clinical response to GMA seems to define the patients’ disease course, response to medications, duration of active disease, and severity at entry. The best responders have been first episode cases (up to 100%) followed by steroid naïve and patients with a short duration of active disease prior to GMA. Patients with deep ulcers together with extensive loss of the mucosal tissue and cases with a long duration of IBD refractory to existing medications are not likely to benefit from GMA. It is clinically interesting that patients who respond to GMA have a good long-term disease course by avoiding drugs including corticosteroids in the early stage of their IBD. Additionally, GMA is very much favoured by patients for its good safety profile. GMA in 21st century reminds us of phlebotomy as a major medical practice at the time of Hippocrates. However, in patients with IBD, there is a scope for removing from the body the sources of pro-inflammatory cytokines and achieve disease remission. The bottom line is that by introducing GMA at an early stage following the onset of IBD or before patients develop extensive mucosal damage and become refractory to medications, many patients should respond to GMA and avoid pharmacologics. This should fulfill the desire to treat without drugs.

The Minimal Active Fragment of the Cry1Ai Toxin is Located Between 36~I and 605~I

The novel crylAi gene that cloned from Bacillus thuringiensis strain SC6H8 encoded a protein exhibiting strong toxicity against Plutella xylostella and Chilo suppressalis in our previous study. Using the available information for the active fragments of other Cry toxins, eight truncated fragments were constructed to identify the minimal active fragment of CrylAi. All truncated fragments were expressed in Escherichia coli strain BL21 （DE3）, and the insecticidal activity against 2ndinstar P. xylostella larvae was assessed using full-length CrylAi as a positive control. The results indicate that the minimal active fragment of the CrylAi toxin against P. xylostella is located between amino acid residues 36^1 and 605^1, which is smaller than the regions previously reported for CrylA. The first two amino acids （34T and 35P） on helix a-1 and whole helix a-2 of domain I and sheet 13-32 of domain III are necessary for CrylAi toxin to keep its toxicity against P. xylostella.

CRYSTAL STRUCTURE OF THE COMPLEX OF MUNG BEAN TRYPSIN INHIBITOR LYSINE ACTIVE FRAGMENT WITH BOVINE TRYPSIN AT 1.8 A RESOLUTION

The structure of the complex of mung bean trypsin inhibitor lysine active fragment with bovine trypsin has been determined at a resolution of 1.8 A by A-ray crystallographic analysis and the complex model refined by restrained least-squares minimization with the data between 10 and 1.8 resolution.The current conventional R factor is 17.3%,and the model con- tains 1648 protein atoms,219 inhibitor atoms and 126 water molecules.The most prominent feature of the inhibitor fragment is that it does not contain any alpha-helices.Most of the chain fold in an irregular fashion.The seven residues of the binding segment of the inhibitor lysine active frag- ment are in specific contact with bovine trypsin.The binding interaction and geometry around the reactive site are similar to that observed in other studies of trypsin-inhibitor complexes.