Ka Ho Research Articles

A heterotopic reading of heritage: The Village of Our Lady in Ka Ho, Macau

Postcolonial Macau is keen to celebrate its colonial legacy to preserve its cultural distinctiveness. This study explores the reordering of a Portuguese colonial site, the Village of Our Lady in Ka Ho, into an architectural heritage in the broader postcolonial context. Employing the Foucauldian concept of ‘other spaces’, specifically ‘utopia’ and ‘heterotopia’, the study argues for the heterotopic nature of heritage. It identifies the discourses and material representations of heritage, their construction and their mirroring of mainstream social ideals. Heritage as heterotopia is a conceptual entity that informs and is realised with material objects. The discourse takes heritage spaces as mediums for performances through symbolic loading on material objects to demonstrate the space's otherness. In addition, colonial nostalgia emerges as a dominant narrative in shaping urban identity. The primary proposition of this research is that heritage is made through othering, and the otherness of heritage is presented through performing. Heritage‐making transforms the site from a ‘heterotopia of deviation’ to a ‘heterotopia of performance’, which reveals the societal transition from early modernity that advocates for scientific knowledge to postmodernity that embraces neoliberalism, and then to the arriving era of post‐postmodernity based on performatism.

Damage by typhoon Hato compared among three different plant communities in Macau, China.

Tropical cyclones are among the major climatic disasters threatening human survival and development. They are also responsible in part for forest taxonomic composition and dynamics and may lead to catastrophic succession between ecosystems. In this study, we aimed to investigate the extensiveness and severity of the effect caused by Typhoon Hato among the three primary plant communities in Macau, China, including Guia Hill, Taipa Grande, and Ka Ho. The plants' damage was classified into seven categories, ranging from Degree 6, which represents the most severe damage, to Degree 0, which represents almost no damage. The impact of Typhoon Hato was evaluated at different levels, including sample plots, species, DBH, and community structure. Our results show that the sub-climax community of Guia Hill was most disturbed, with the highest damage index (DI) of 55.28%. Similarly, the Ka Ho shoreline shrub community was also considerably influenced, with a DI of 48.14%. By contrast, the managed secondary forest around Taipa Grande was the least affected, with a DI of 32.66%. Additionally, from the tree layer perspective, the tall trees at Guia Hill canopy layer were directly affected by wind, while the dense understory layer suffered from severe secondary damage due to the fallen trees and branches. For Taipa Grande, the dominant species in the canopy layer were shorter and had less direct damage; the secondary damage was also small as a consequence. Ka Ho had more dwarfed and multibranched species surviving from the sea breeze since Ka Ho was close to the sea. The dense plant structure in Ka Hoprotected plants from being easily broken by typhoons, but some twigs and leaves were lost. Some less damaged local species and easily recovered species found in this study could inform the selection of wind-resistant species for the typhoon-affected communities.

Tumor irradiation combined with minimally invasive surgery (vascular-targeted photodynamic therapy) enhances anti-tumour effects in preclinical prostate cancer

Hanna T Sjoberg, Yiannis Philippou, Anette L Magnussen, Iain DC Tullis, Esther Bridges, Andrea Chatrian, Joel Loefebvre, Ka Ho Tam, Emma A Murphy, Jens Rittscher, Dina Preise, Lilach Agemy, Tamar Yechezkel, Sean C Smart, Paul Kinchesh, Stuart Gilchrist, Danny P Allen, David A Scheiblin, Stephen J Lockett, David A Wink, Alastair D Lamb, Ian G Mills, Adrian Harris, Ruth J Muschel, Boris Vojnovic, Avigdor Scherz, Freddie C Hamdy, Richard J Bryant.
 
 Introduction There is an important clinical need to improve the treatment of high risk localised and locally advanced prostate cancer (PCa), and to reduce the side effects of these treatments. We hypothesised that multi-modality therapy combining radiotherapy and vascular-targeted photodynamic therapy (VTP) could PCa tumour control compared against monotherapy with each of these treatments alone. This could provide proof-of-concept to take to the clinic. VTP is a minimally invasive focal surgical therapy for localised PCa, which rapidly destroys targeted tumours through vascular disruption. Tumour vasculature is characterised by vessel immaturity, increased permeability, aberrant branching and inefficient flow. Fractionated radiotherapy (FRT) alters the tumour microenvironment and promotes transient vascular normalisation.
 Materials and Methods We investigated whether sequential delivery of FRT followed by VTP 7 days later improves PCa tumour control compared to monotherapy with FRT or VTP alone.
 Results FRT induced vascular normalisation changes in PCa flank tumour allografts, improving vascular function as demonstrated using dynamic contrast enhanced magnetic resonance imaging. FRT followed by VTP significantly delayed tumour growth in flank PCa allograft pre-clinical models, compared with monotherapy with FRT or VTP alone, and improved overall survival.
 Conclusion Taken together, these results suggest that combining FRT and VTP could become a promising multimodal clinical strategy in PCa therapy. This provides proof-of-concept for this multi-modality therapy approach to take forward to early phase clinical trials.

Message from the Editor-in-Chief, Professor Ka Ho Mok

Message from the Editor-in-Chief, Professor Ka Ho Mok

Analysis of wet acid deposition in Macau

Records of precipitation in Macau are collected from three local monitoring stations from 1993 to 2003. Chemical compositions of precipitation are analyzed to reveal the causes of wet deposition in Macau. The review of annual rainfall volumes and the volume weighted annual pH values over this period show that there is a slight spatial variation in the rainfall volume and the entire area of Macau is subjected to acidic precipitation. The monthly rainfall volumes and the monthly concentrations of five ionic species including H+, nssSO4 2-, NO3 -, nssCa2+, and NH4 + are analyzed statistically and their distributions are found to have positive skewness and kurtosis. The monthly rainfall volume is found to follow the Gamma distribution which is consistent with the findings in other regions of Asia. In addition, the monthly concentration of each ionic species is found to follow the lognormal distribution. Nonetheless, the distribution of each ionic species exhibits spatial variability across the stations. Therefore, it is suspected that the sources of wet acid deposition in different parts of Macau are different and further correlation analysis on the values of [H+], nss[Ca2+], [NH4 +], nss[SO4 2-], and [NO3 -] of the precipitation is carried out. Correlation analysis on the monthly concentrations of the ionic species shows that the linear correlation between [H+] and nss[SO4 2-] is higher than the linear correlation between [H+] and [NO3 -] at two of the monitoring stations. The result indicates that sulfur dioxide could be a relatively important contributor of acid wet deposition with respect to nitrogen dioxide in Macau as suggested by previous preliminary studies. In addition, the eleven-year averaged ratio of [SO4 2-]/[NO3 -] at Ka-Ho being 5.06 reinforces this conclusion. However, the dominant sources contributing to the acidity in two regions of Macau, namely Fortaleza and Taipa Grande respectively are still unknown since the anions do not show any significant positive correlation to the hydrogen ion at these two stations. It is only ascertained that the dominant source of acidity in Ka Ho can be originated from the emission of SO2 as the relatively strong linear correlation of [H+] and nss[SO4 2-] indicates that the free acidity is mainly contributed from the sulfuric acid. For the other stations, the wet acid deposition is then believed to be controlled by local sources of sulfuric acid, nitric acid and some other acids that are not accounted for in the present study. Finally, the monthly concentrations of the ionic species are found to be negatively correlated with the monthly rainfall volume at three monitoring stations. Hence, it is concluded that longer rainfall duration would reduce the acidity in rainwater.