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Has China become a neo-colonizer, exporting its cultural and economic power to the world based on its agenda of building soft power? Existing scholarship on neocolonialism and data colonialism largely focuses on how China's infrastructural expansion and increasingly platformised cultural sectors can achieve its ambitious platformised cultural sectors overseas. Yet, how China's cultural power is manifested, negotiated, or resisted in people's daily lives in a South-South setting remains under-researched and under-theorised. This article uses everyday fashion in Kenya as a case study to investigate China's cultural and economic power expansion in the Global South. We examined how cultural differences are negotiated and mediated on two Chinese(-invested) e-commerce platforms. Through focus groups and platform walkthrough method, our findings serve to enrich existing theories of cultural production-platform relationships applicable in the study of various cultural and creative sectors, to offer new understandings of how symbolic, sociopolitical and cultural meanings of fashion are constructed through divergent platform affordances, and to reveal the various forms of cultural negotiations and resistance in different contexts, multiplying our frames of reference., (© The Author(s) 2024.)

Adjacent plant cells are connected by specialized cell wall regions, called middle lamellae, which influence critical agricultural characteristics, including fruit ripening and organ abscission. Middle lamellae are enriched in pectin polysaccharides, specifically homogalacturonan (HG). Here, we identify a plant-specific Arabidopsis DUF1068 protein, called NKS1/ELMO4, that is required for middle lamellae integrity and cell adhesion. NKS1 localizes to the Golgi apparatus and loss of NKS1 results in changes to Golgi structure and function. The nks1 mutants also display HG deficient phenotypes, including reduced seedling growth, changes to cell wall composition, and tissue integrity defects. These phenotypes are comparable to qua1 and qua2 mutants, which are defective in HG biosynthesis. Notably, genetic interactions indicate that NKS1 and the QUAs work in a common pathway. Protein interaction analyses and modeling corroborate that they work together in a stable protein complex with other pectin-related proteins. We propose that NKS1 is an integral part of a large pectin synthesis protein complex and that proper function of this complex is important to support Golgi structure and function., Competing Interests: Competing interests statement:The authors declare no competing interest.

Background: Computed tomography (CT)-derived pectoralis muscle area (PMA) measurements are prognostic in people with or at-risk of COPD, but fully automated PMA extraction has yet to be developed. Our objective was to develop and validate a PMA extraction pipeline that can automatically: 1) identify the aortic arch slice; and 2) perform pectoralis segmentation at that slice., Methods: CT images from the Canadian Cohort of Obstructive Lung Disease (CanCOLD) study were used for pipeline development. Aorta atlases were used to automatically identify the slice containing the aortic arch by group-based registration. A deep learning model was trained to segment the PMA. The pipeline was evaluated in comparison to manual segmentation. An external dataset was used to evaluate generalisability. Model performance was assessed using the Dice-Sorensen coefficient (DSC) and PMA error., Results: In total 90 participants were used for training (age 67.0±9.9 years; forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV 1 ) 93±21% predicted; FEV 1 /forced vital capacity (FVC) 0.69±0.10; 47 men), and 32 for external testing (age 68.6±7.4 years; FEV 1 65±17% predicted; FEV 1 /FVC 0.50±0.09; 16 men). Compared with manual segmentation, the deep learning model achieved a DSC of 0.94±0.02, 0.94±0.01 and 0.90±0.04 on the true aortic arch slice in the train, validation and external test sets, respectively. Automated aortic arch slice detection obtained distance errors of 1.2±1.3 mm and 1.6±1.5 mm on the train and test data, respectively. Fully automated PMA measurements were not different from manual segmentation (p>0.05). PMA measurements were different between people with and without COPD (p=0.01) and correlated with FEV 1 % predicted (p<0.05)., Conclusion: A fully automated CT PMA extraction pipeline was developed and validated for use in research and clinical practice., Competing Interests: Conflicts of interest: D. Genkin reports no conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest: A.R. Jenkins acknowledges salary support from Le Fonds de Recherche du Québec Santé - Postdoctoral Training fellowship. Conflicts of interest: N. van Noord reports no conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest: K. Makimoto reports no conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest: S. Collins reports no conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest: M.K. Stickland acknowledges salary support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada, and University Hospital Foundation. Conflicts of interest: W.C. Tan reports no conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest: J. Bourbeau acknowledges salary support from the Canadian Institute of Health Research, Réseau en santé respiratoire du FRQS, McGill University Health Centre Foundation, AstraZeneca Canada Ltd, Boehringer Ingelheim Canada Ltd, GlaxoSmithKline Canada Ltd, Grifols, Novartis, Sanofi, Trudell Canada Ltd, Pfizer Canada Ltd and COVIS Pharma Canada Ltd. Conflicts of interest: D. Jensen reports no conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest: M. Kirby is a paid consultant at VIDA Diagnostics., (Copyright ©The authors 2024.)

Keratoconus is primarily an anterior corneal disorder of unclear aetiology. Stem cells may play a role in the perpetuation of keratoconus, although this has yet to be definitively established. Sphere-forming cells from normal human donor corneas have previously been shown to be a heterogenous mix of epithelial, stromal, stem and progenitor cell components which have potential for treatment of corneal dystrophies. Our work set out to isolate and characterise sphere-forming cells from human keratoconic tissue. Keratoconic donor corneas were successfully used to culture sphere-forming cells in vitro. Time lapse imaging of these spheres on a collagen surface over 8 days revealed keratoconic spheres lack the ability to maintain a central core and have diminished ability to repopulate the surface. Immunocytochemistry showed positive labelling for the stem cell marker 'Adenosine triphosphate-binding cassette sub-family B member 5 (ABCB5)' indicating stem cell retention and the myofibroblast marker alpha smooth muscle actin indicating wound repair while droplet digital Polymerase Chain Reaction confirmed an increase in expression of stem and stromal cell markers in keratoconic spheres compared to spheres cultured from normal donors at day 7 post-placement. Keratoconic sphere-forming cells showed a diminished repopulation ability, a faster wound healing response and lack of central core retention. These results suggest stem cells in keratoconus may be in an elevated state of wound repair and unable to respond appropriately to further injury in corneal maintenance. Sphere forming cell populations in keratoconus appear to be different to those isolated from normal corneas and this may be an important consideration in unearthing keratoconus aetiology., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)