The Metaverse, the Built Environment, and Public Health: Opportunities and Uncertainties.

There has been a growing interest in the "metaverse," and discourse about how this platform may contribute to different fields of science is already beginning to emerge. In this paper, we discuss key opportunities and uncertainties about how a metaverse might contribute to advancing knowledge in the interdisciplinary field of the built environment and public health aimed at reducing noncommunicable diseases.

Integrating Interactive Clothing and Cyber-Physical Systems: A Humanistic Design Perspective.

This study is aimed at bridging the gap from a transdisciplinary perspective between cyber-physical systems (CPS) architecture in the field of information science and emotional design in the field of humanistic science for interactive fashion innovation. Information related to a familiar feeling in the process of interactive clothing design is used to explain how the transformation could be realized from data. By creating the cyber-physical-clothing systems (CPCS), the architecture model in the hyper world and takes the development process of an interactive parent-child clothing as a case study for analyzing the transformation from the physical signal input to the social symbol recognition output. The experimental results, which from the perspective of clothing art design rather than information discipline, show that interactive parent-child clothing is not only suitable for the rehabilitation of autistic children but also recognized by most parents. The reasonable embedding of sensing technology can greatly enhance the added value of clothing products. This study provides a fruitful practical application reference for designers who are engaged in the field of art and design but not familiar with the relevant information technology. Furthermore, the application principle and the technical process of CPCS for further interactive clothing design is explained.

The Effects of Interior Materials on the Restorativeness of Home Environments.

The effects of a restorative environment on attention restoration and stress reduction have received much attention in societies, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Interior materials are a crucial environmental element influencing people's perceived restorativeness at home. Nevertheless, few studies have examined the links between interior materials and the restorativeness of home environments. To address this gap, this study aimed to investigate the restorative potential of interior materials among a sample of adults in China. Cross-sectional data from 85 participants whose professional majors were related to interior design were selected. The measures of the restorative potential of each interior material were obtained by a questionnaire adapted from the semantic differential method. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare the restorative potential of interior materials. We found that glass material had the best restorative potential in home environments. Doubts were raised regarding wood material's restorativeness, and more consideration should be granted for designing a restorative home with wood material. In contrast, metal is not recommended for restorative home design. These findings contribute to the evidence of the restorative effects of home design.

Sedentary behaviour and sleep quality.

High-quality sleep is an important factor in sustaining health and improving well-being. Previous evidence has demonstrated the positive associations between increased physical activity and reduced sedentary behaviour (SB) with sleep quality. The substitutional relationships between SB, light-intensity physical activity (LPA), and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) need to be considered when examining how a particular behaviour may impact sleep quality. No studies, to our knowledge, have explored these substitutional relationships in middle-aged adulthood. Using an isotemporal substitution approach, this study examined the associations of replacing sedentary time with physical activity on sleep quality measures in a sample of middle-aged adults in Japan. Data from 683 adults aged 40-64 living in Japan were used. The average daily time spent in SB, LPA, and MVPA was objectively assessed by accelerometers. Two self-reported sleep quality measures were obtained using questionnaires, including rest by sleep and sleep quality. Multivariable linear regression models were used to assess the associations of SB, LPA, and MVPA with the sleep quality measures stratified by gender. We found that each 60 min unit of SB or LPA replaced with MVPA was favourably associated with rest by sleep among women (ß = 0.16, 95% CI 0.07, 0.28, p < 0.001; ß = 0.18, 95% CI 0.07, 0.32, p < 0.05, respectively). There were no significant associations between SB, LPA, and MVPA with sleep measures in men across all three models. These findings indicate that higher MVPA has a positive association with sleep quality in middle-aged women.

The Design Challenges for Dog Ownership and Dog Walking in Dense Urban Areas: The Case of Japan.

There has been growing interest in the role of pet ownership, particularly dog ownership, in managing noncommunicable diseases. The built environment can act as a facilitator or barrier to owning a dog or dog walking. Nevertheless, limited studies conducted in different geographical contexts have examined how the built environment can influence dog ownership and dog walking. In this interdisciplinary article, using Japan as a case study, we identify key design challenges to owning and walking dogs in dense urban areas as a means of promoting health and wellbeing.

Can the income level of rural residents be improved by the Chinese "Broadband Village?": Evidence from a regression discontinuity design of the six pilot provinces.

The "Broadband Village" (B&V) initiative is a substantial investment in internet construction in rural areas in six western provinces implemented by the Chinese government since 2014. This study evaluates the effect this policy has had. Panel data of 1,049 counties in China from 2015 to 2019 are used for the regression discontinuity design (RD) to estimate the impact of B&V on the improvement of the income level of rural residents. The results show that, compared to the counties without the B&V policy, the income of rural residents in counties with B&V has increased by 1.468-1.518 times, which is nearly 1.3 times the sample mean of survey data, indicating that the income level of rural residents has been improved significantly by B&V. However, the quantile regression results show that the higher the income level of rural residents, the smaller the effect of this policy. From the dynamic effect of years, the influence curve of B&V on rural residents' income is an inverted U-shaped, first increasing and then decreasing, and the impact of this policy on the income level of highly-educated farmers is greater. Finally, three different methods are used to verify the robustness of the model.

An Analysis of Characteristics of Children's Growth through Practical Art.

Children's paintings reflect their growth environments and psychological conditions, and these growth environments represent children's family and educational environments in primary schools. The characteristics of these paintings change as children grow, and children's expressiveness in the paintings also improves. Children's paintings are a representation of their perceptions of things; children transform their perceptions into images that can be understood and observed by people. This research studies the growth characteristics of children based on professional painting techniques. A digital image analysis method was used to analyze the painting techniques of children aged between 7 and 13. The growth characteristics of the different age groups were combined to analyze the representative characteristics of children's paintings at different ages. Lastly, the results of part of a questionnaire survey were used to assist in studying these characteristics. Analysis of these paintings shows that children have a poor ability to control the scale of the objects. Furthermore, the details of the objects are ignored, and children have a poor imitation ability. Young children have lower spatial cognitive abilities than older children, and girls prefer to participate in painting more than boys.

The Distributions and Boundary of Two Distinct, Local Forms of Japanese Pond Frog, Pelophylax porosus brevipodus, Inferred From Sequences of Mitochondrial DNA.

The Nagoya Daruma pond frog Pelophylax porosus brevipodus is distributed in western Japan and is traditionally divided into two local forms: the Okayama form in the west and the Nagoya form in the east. These two forms are genetically differentiated, but have never been defined taxonomically because their distributions are unclear to date. To complete the distributions and identify the boundary of the two forms, we genetically investigated 16 populations including eight populations located within the unexamined area. We found that the distributional boundary is located within a small area of Hyogo Prefecture where haplotypes of mitochondrial cytochrome b (cytb) and D-loop region corresponding to the two forms co-existed. On the other hand, the polymorphic site of the nuclear gene SOX3 revealed introgression over the boundary into Okayama cytb clade. These results suggest that the two forms were geographically isolated from each other in the past, and secondarily contacted and then accepted one-way introgression. As a next step of the research, taxonomic approach is expected to define the two forms.