From Cyberpunk to Cramped Dweller: The Peculiar History of Hong Kong ‘Heterotopias’

75.6% of land comprising Hong Kong remains undeveloped according to the special administrative region’s planning department. In turn, Hong Kong’s constricted real estate, now estimated to be the world’s costliest, has created eye-popping living arrangements historically and contemporarily. Denizens’ colorful reputation and imagination for flouting city ordinances, zoning laws, and spatial management stand emblematic of tenacious self-sufficiency and a free-spirited brand of runaway capitalist initiative. Why is this conspicuous trademark of Hong Kong’s societal fabric very much alive in the 21st Century? Why does this matter in a rapidly urbanizing world witnessing the ascension of mega-urban centers alongside ever-widening socioeconomic chasms? This paper intends to illuminate the peculiar origins and longevity of the Kowloon Walled City, an urban monolith of notoriety and autonomy that blossomed in a semi-legal grey zone unencumbered under British protectorate rule for nearly a century. Parallels will connect the linear trajectory between Kowloon’s hardnosed living to today’s comparable Chungking Mansions and the hundreds of thousands of cage homes appearing in all corners of the city. This paper aims to answer why these residential paradoxes continue to function with efficiency and relevancy, posing solutions for indigent housing while exacerbating the stigma of social and economic ostracism.

DAAM mediates the assembly of long-lived, treadmilling stress fibers in collectively migrating epithelial cells in Drosophila

Stress fibers (SFs) are actomyosin bundles commonly found in individually migrating cells in culture. However, whether and how cells use SFs to migrate in vivo or collectively is largely unknown. Studying the collective migration of the follicular epithelial cells in Drosophila, we found that the SFs in these cells show a novel treadmilling behavior that allows them to persist as the cells migrate over multiple cell lengths. Treadmilling SFs grow at their fronts by adding new integrin-based adhesions and actomyosin segments over time. This causes the SFs to have many internal adhesions along their lengths, instead of adhesions only at the ends. The front-forming adhesions remain stationary relative to the substrate and typically disassemble as the cell rear approaches. By contrast, a different type of adhesion forms at the SF’s terminus that slides with the cell’s trailing edge as the actomyosin ahead of it shortens. We further show that SF treadmilling depends on cell movement and identify a developmental switch in the formins that mediate SF assembly, with Dishevelled-associated activator of morphogenesis acting during migratory stages and Diaphanous acting during postmigratory stages. We propose that treadmilling SFs keep each cell on a linear trajectory, thereby promoting the collective motility required for epithelial migration.

The small and large intestine contain transcriptionally related mesenchymal stromal cell subsets that derive from embryonic Gli1+ mesothelial cells

Intestinal fibroblasts (FB) play essential roles in intestinal homeostasis. Here we show that the small and large intestinal lamina propria (LP) contain similar FB subsets that locate in specific anatomical niches and express distinct arrays of epithelial support genes. However, there were tissue specific differences in the transcriptional profile of intestinal FB subsets in the two sites. All adult intestinal LP mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC), including FB, smooth muscle cells (SMC) and pericytes derive from Gli1-expressing embryonic precursors which we identify as mesothelial cells. Trajectory analysis suggested that adult SMC and FB derive from distinct embryonic intermediates, and that adult FB subsets develop in a linear trajectory from CD81+ FB. Finally, we show that colonic subepithelial PDGFRαhi FB comprise several functionally and anatomically distinct populations that originate from an Fgfr2-expressing FB intermediate. Collectively our results provide novel insights into MSC diversity, location, function and ontogeny, with implications for our understanding of intestinal development, homeostasis and disease.

Community, Nation and Region: Shrimoni Akali Dal (SAD) and the Politics of Community Formation

This article relies on a historical sociology approach to trace the shifting trajectory of community formation and the forging of boundaries through three discrete though corresponding imaginaries— panth (community) , qaum (nation) and punjabiyat (regional identity)—in the Sikh political narrative. The emergence of each of these grand ideas of Sikh solidity has a history putatively inter-laced with the social make up and political economy of its time. The central object of enquiry for this article is the Shrimoni Akali Dal (SAD) and the attempt is to examine the shifting terrain of its religio-political goals and objectives. Since its inception in 1920, the SAD as a political organisation and Shrimoni Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee as the chief ecclesiastical authority, have been the principle bearers of the Sikh religio-political consciousness. The three constitutive imageries of community formation that SAD in particular and Sikh politics in general has fostered, do not betray a linear trajectory. Instead, there is a discernible simultaneity where each of these ideas co-exist, but subject to contextual operationalisation.

From Cyberpunk to Cramped Dweller: The Peculiar History of Hong Kong ‘Heterotopias’

75.6% of land comprising Hong Kong remains undeveloped according to the special administrative region’s planning department. In turn, Hong Kong’s constricted real estate, now estimated to be the world’s costliest, has created eye-popping living arrangements historically and contemporarily. Denizens’ colorful reputation and imagination for flouting city ordinances, zoning laws, and spatial management stand emblematic of tenacious self-sufficiency and a free-spirited brand of runaway capitalist initiative. Why is this conspicuous trademark of Hong Kong’s societal fabric very much alive in the 21st Century? Why does this matter in a rapidly urbanizing world witnessing the ascension of mega-urban centers alongside ever-widening socioeconomic chasms? This paper intends to illuminate the peculiar origins and longevity of the Kowloon Walled City, an urban monolith of notoriety and autonomy that blossomed in a semi-legal grey zone unencumbered under British protectorate rule for nearly a century. Parallels will connect the linear trajectory between Kowloon’s hardnosed living to today’s comparable Chungking Mansions and the hundreds of thousands of cage homes appearing in all corners of the city. This paper aims to answer why these residential paradoxes continue to function with efficiency and relevancy, posing solutions for indigent housing while exacerbating the stigma of social and economic ostracism.

The small and large intestine contain transcriptionally related mesenchymal stromal cell subsets that derive from embryonic Gli1+ mesothelial cells

Intestinal fibroblasts (FB) play essential roles in intestinal homeostasis. Here we show that the small and large intestinal lamina propria (LP) contain similar FB subsets that locate in specific anatomical niches and express distinct arrays of epithelial support genes. However, there were tissue specific differences in the transcriptional profile of intestinal FB subsets in the two sites. All adult intestinal LP mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC), including FB, smooth muscle cells (SMC) and pericytes derive from Gli1-expressing embryonic precursors which we identify as mesothelial cells. Trajectory analysis suggested that adult SMC and FB derive from distinct embryonic intermediates, and that adult FB subsets develop in a linear trajectory from CD81+ FB. Finally, we show that colonic subepithelial PDGFRαhi FB comprise several functionally and anatomically distinct populations that originate from an Fgfr2-expressing FB intermediate. Collectively our results provide novel insights into MSC diversity, location, function and ontogeny, with implications for our understanding of intestinal development, homeostasis and disease.

DAAM mediates the assembly of long-lived, treadmilling stress fibers in collectively migrating epithelial cells in Drosophila

Stress fibers (SFs) are actomyosin bundles commonly found in individually migrating cells in culture. However, whether and how cells use SFs to migrate in vivo or collectively is largely unknown. Studying the collective migration of the follicular epithelial cells in Drosophila, we found that the SFs in these cells show a novel treadmilling behavior that allows them to persist as the cells migrate over multiple cell lengths. Treadmilling SFs grow at their fronts by adding new integrin-based adhesions and actomyosin segments over time. This causes the SFs to have many internal adhesions along their lengths, instead of adhesions only at the ends. The front-forming adhesions remain stationary relative to the substrate and typically disassemble as the cell rear approaches. By contrast, a different type of adhesion forms at the terminus of the SF that slides with the trailing edge of the cell as the actomyosin ahead of it shortens. We further show that SF treadmilling depends on cell movement and identify a developmental switch in the formins that mediate SF assembly, with DAAM acting during migratory stages and Diaphanous acting during post-migratory stages. We propose that treadmilling SFs keep each cell on a linear trajectory, thereby promoting the collective motility required for epithelial migration.

The Organization of Power in Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness: A Foucauldian Reading

The present study aims to highlight the role of power in Arundhati Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness through the ideas given by Michel Foucault. Roy discusses various power centers present in contemporary Indian society, which institutionalize the suppression faced by various characters in the novel on the basis of their caste, religion, social class, or political affiliations. The study intends to expose the dissection of these power centers active in society as the non-linear trajectory of power. The characters of Anjum, Tilo, Musa, and Revathy face suppression to the point of marginalization. This leads them to subvert the power structures of the society by resisting against them, thus negating the linear hierarchy of power.