Empowering Communities Through Design

Francesca Galeazzi is an architectural engineer who leads the sustainability team at Arup Associates in Shanghai. Here she looks back with hindsight from 2050, reflecting on how rapid urbanisation in China, which started in the 1990s, played out over the next half-century. She describes how the initial highly centralised, mass urbanisation programmes gave way to a more local and community-based, participatory approach to decision-making and planning, foreshadowed by some key legislation around land ownership and design for community-based planning models in the early 2010s.     

“Virtual Design Studio”—Part 1: Interdisciplinary design processes

The “Virtual Design Studio (VDS)” is a software platform currently under development in support of an integrated, coordinated and optimized design of buildings and their energy and environmental systems. It is intended to assist collaborating architects, engineers and project management team members throughout from the early phases to the detailed building design development. The platform helps to facilitate the workflow and the processing of information in combination with appropriate, task-based performance simulation tools as further analyzed in Part 2 of this study (DOI: 10.1007/s12273-013-0111-1). The present paper summarizes how VDS relates to the building design process and its typical project stages, performance-based design considerations and respective performance optimization strategies. It outlines the methodology and scope for the organization, implementation and respective requirements for the VDS platform development based on the interdisciplinary design needs. Part 2 will present the methodology for the systems integration and software implementation of VDS.     

From urban renewal to local development. New conceptions and governance practices in the Italian peripheries

This article explores the relationships between changes in the conception of urban peripheries and changes in urban renewal policies, mainly focusing on policy debates and theoretical discourses developed within Italy. The aim is to test the usefulness of a non‐conventional approach to urban peripheries, both from a theoretical and practical point of view. According to this approach, urban peripheries can be thought of as plural and complex places, which are considered to be a fundamental part of the city and as the builders of urban identity. The article initially explores the changes in describing and interpreting urban peripheries, showing how they must be related to actual changes in urban settlement dynamics, as well as to changes in the theoretical frameworks used to understand the phenomenon of the Italian ‘urban periphery’. The article then shows how changes in interpretation have redefined the objectives and methods of policy interventions in the Italian context. Finally, certain critical issues will be discussed, in particular the origins of urban renewal policies and their recent evolution; the redefinition of the local authority role, and the relationships between institutional and social projects and activities. In this view, institutional projects are considered to be the formal projects carried out by public actors, for example municipalities, in order to manage the change in urban peripheries while social projects are understood as the informal practices of inhabitants of peripheries that change their living neighbourhoods.     

Identification of Reference Genes for RT-qPCR Data Normalization in Cannabis sativa Stem Tissues

Gene expression profiling via quantitative real-time PCR is a robust technique widely used in the life sciences to compare gene expression patterns in, e.g., different tissues, growth conditions, or after specific treatments. In the field of plant science, real-time PCR is the gold standard to study the dynamics of gene expression and is used to validate the results generated with high throughput techniques, e.g., RNA-Seq. An accurate relative quantification of gene expression relies on the identification of appropriate reference genes, that need to be determined for each experimental set-up used and plant tissue studied. Here, we identify suitable reference genes for expression profiling in stems of textile hemp (Cannabis sativa L.), whose tissues (isolated bast fibres and core) are characterized by remarkable differences in cell wall composition. We additionally validate the reference genes by analysing the expression of putative candidates involved in the non-oxidative phase of the pentose phosphate pathway and in the first step of the shikimate pathway. The goal is to describe the possible regulation pattern of some genes involved in the provision of the precursors needed for lignin biosynthesis in the different hemp stem tissues. The results here shown are useful to design future studies focused on gene expression analyses in hemp.     

Co-Expression and Co-Localization of Cartilage Glycoproteins CHI3L1 and Lubricin in Osteoarthritic Cartilage: Morphological,Immunohistochemical and Gene Expression Profiles

Osteoarthritis is the most common human arthritis characterized by degeneration of articular cartilage. Several studies reported that levels of human cartilage glycoprotein chitinase 3-like-1 (CHI3L1) are known as a potential marker for the activation of chondrocytes and the progression of Osteoarthritis (OA), whereas lubricin appears to be chondroprotective. The aim of this study was to investigate the co-expression and co-localization of CHI3L1 and lubricin in normal and osteoarthritic rat articular cartilage to correlate their modified expression to a specific grade of OA. Samples of normal and osteoarthritic rat articular cartilage were analyzed by the Kellgren–Lawrence OA severity scores, the Kraus’ modified Mankin score and the Histopathology Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI) system for histomorphometric evaluations, and through CHI3L1 and lubricin gene expression, immunohistochemistry and double immuno-staining analysis. The immunoexpression and the mRNA levels of lubricin increased in normal cartilage and decreased in OA cartilage (normal vs. OA, p < 0.01). By contrast, the immunoexpression and the mRNA levels of CHI3L1 increased in OA cartilage and decreased in normal cartilage (normal vs. OA, p < 0.01). Our findings are consistent with reports suggesting that these two glycoproteins are functionally associated with the development of OA and in particular with grade 2/3 of OA, suggesting that in the future they could be helpful to stage the severity and progression of the disease.     

Towards controlled cationic polymer growth from inorganic oxide defects: Directing the mechanism of polystyrene grafting from γ-irradiated silica

Most studies on surface-initiated controlled polymerizations for the synthesis of polymeric covalent organic-inorganic hybrid materials focus on chemical methods requiring specific modifications of the inorganic substrate. Few mechanistically-aware approaches have been undertaken towards exploiting the reactivity of defects induced by physical techniques such as ionizing radiations or UV–Vis light. Within this framework, we take grafted polymerization of styrene from γ-irradiated silica as a mechanistic testing ground where para- and diamagnetic silica defects are present, and polymerization proceeds through both radical and cationic mechanisms, resulting in a bimodal molecular weight distribution. We show that these mechanistic intricacies can be sorted out by resorting to the chemical arsenal developed in the last decades for controlled polymerizations. Specifically, we obtained a silica-polystyrene grafted material by cationic grafting from at 30 °C, a unimodal molecular weight distribution, and a relatively high molecular weight (Mn = 7.4 kDa) with a PDI of 1.68.     

Molecular Mechanisms and Physiological Changes behind Benign Tracheal and Subglottic Stenosis in Adults

Laryngotracheal stenosis (LTS) is a complex and heterogeneous disease whose pathogenesis remains unclear. LTS is considered to be the result of aberrant wound-healing process that leads to fibrotic scarring, originating from different aetiology. Although iatrogenic aetiology is the main cause of subglottic or tracheal stenosis, also autoimmune and infectious diseases may be involved in causing LTS. Furthermore, fibrotic obstruction in the anatomic region under the glottis can also be diagnosed without apparent aetiology after a comprehensive workup; in this case, the pathological process is called idiopathic subglottic stenosis (iSGS). So far, the laryngotracheal scar resulting from airway injury due to different diseases was considered as inert tissue requiring surgical removal to restore airway patency. However, this assumption has recently been revised by regarding the tracheal scarring process as a fibroinflammatory event due to immunological alteration, similar to other fibrotic diseases. Recent acquisitions suggest that different factors, such as growth factors, cytokines, altered fibroblast function and genetic susceptibility, can all interact in a complex way leading to aberrant and fibrotic wound healing after an insult that acts as a trigger. However, also physiological derangement due to LTS could play a role in promoting dysregulated response to laryngo-tracheal mucosal injury, through biomechanical stress and mechanotransduction activation. The aim of this narrative review is to present the state-of-the-art knowledge regarding molecular mechanisms, as well as mechanical and physio-pathological features behind LTS.