‘Unintended Cities’ and Inoperative Violence. Housing Resistance in Yangon

ABSTRACT

Urban development and city expansion in Yangon, Myanmar happened through the forced resettlement of people from the city toward the periphery. Forced resettlement has become the main mode of urban production since the British colonisation, and is sustained by laws, orders and policies. Building on Benjamin’s and Agamben’s essays on violence, we claim that it is possible to interrupt the endless cycle of law and violence by locating violence outside the debate around ‘means and ends’. Stemming from the authors’ experience and repeated encounters with practices of social mobilisation of women in Yangon over the last five years, we have traced the potential for deactivating the ‘signature’ of violence in the everyday practices of resistance of urban dwellers in the township of HlaingTharYar in Yangon. Through the incremental occupation, trespassing and building up of peripheral ‘vacant’ land, organised women’s groups are challenging the spatial order established by post/colonial regimes.     

Metal Complexes with Schiff Bases: Data Collection and Recent Studies on Biological Activities

Metal complexes play a crucial role in pharmaceutical sciences owing to their wide and significant activities. Schiff bases (SBs) are multifaceted pharmacophores capable of forming chelating complexes with various metals in different oxidation states. Complexes with SBs are extensively studied for their numerous advantages, including low cost and simple synthetic strategies. They have been reported to possess a variety of biological activities, including antimicrobial, anticancer, antioxidant, antimalarial, analgesic, antiviral, antipyretic, and antidiabetic ones. This review summarizes the most recent studies on the antimicrobial and antiproliferative activities of SBs-metal complexes. Moreover, recent studies regarding mononuclear and binuclear complexes with SBs are described, including antioxidant, antidiabetic, antimalarial, antileishmanial, anti-Alzheimer, and catecholase activities.     

Ferritin Heavy Chain Binds Peroxiredoxin 6 and Inhibits Cell Proliferation and Migration

The H Ferritin subunit (FTH1), as well as regulating the homeostasis of intracellular iron, is involved in complex pathways that might promote or inhibit carcinogenesis. This function may be mediated by its ability to interact with different molecules. To gain insight into the FTH1 interacting molecules, we analyzed its interactome in HEK293T cells. Fifty-one proteins have been identified, and among them, we focused our attention on a member of the peroxiredoxin family (PRDX6), an antioxidant enzyme that plays an important role in cell proliferation and in malignancy development. The FTH1/PRDX6 interaction was further supported by co-immunoprecipitation, in HEK293T and H460 cell lines and by means of computational methods. Next, we demonstrated that FTH1 could inhibit PRDX6-mediated proliferation and migration. Then, the results so far obtained suggested that the interaction between FTH1/PRDX6 in cancer cells might alter cell proliferation and migration, leading to a less invasive phenotype.     

A Hypothalamic Mechanism Regulates the Duration of a Migraine Attack: Insights from Microstructural and Temporal Complexity of Cortical Functional Networks Analysis

The role of the hypothalamus and the limbic system at the onset of a migraine attack has recently received significant interest. We analyzed diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) parameters of the entire hypothalamus and its subregions in 15 patients during a spontaneous migraine attack and in 20 control subjects. We also estimated the non-linear measure resting-state functional MRI BOLD signal’s complexity using Higuchi fractal dimension (FD) and correlated DTI/fMRI findings with patients’ clinical characteristics. In comparison with healthy controls, patients had significantly altered diffusivity metrics within the hypothalamus, mainly in posterior ROIs, and higher FD values in the salience network (SN). We observed a positive correlation of the hypothalamic axial diffusivity with migraine severity and FD of SN. DTI metrics of bilateral anterior hypothalamus positively correlated with the mean attack duration. Our results show plastic structural changes in the hypothalamus related to the attacks severity and the functional connectivity of the SN involved in the multidimensional neurocognitive processing of pain. Plastic changes to the hypothalamus may play a role in modulating the duration of the attack.     

Metabolomic Approaches for Detection and Identification of Biomarkers and Altered Pathways in Bladder Cancer

Metabolomic analysis has proven to be a useful tool in biomarker discovery and the molecular classification of cancers. In order to find new biomarkers, and to better understand its pathological behavior, bladder cancer also has been studied using a metabolomics approach. In this article, we review the literature on metabolomic studies of bladder cancer, focusing on the different available samples (urine, blood, tissue samples) used to perform the studies and their relative findings. Moreover, the multi-omic approach in bladder cancer research has found novel insights into its metabolic behavior, providing excellent start-points for new diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. Metabolomics data analysis can lead to the discovery of a “signature pathway” associated with the progression of bladder cancer; this aspect could be potentially valuable in predictions of clinical outcomes and the introduction of new treatments. However, further studies are needed to give stronger evidence and to make these tools feasible for use in clinical practice.     

A Constructive Object Oriented Modeling Language for Information Systems

One of the central aspects in an Information System is the meaning of data in the external world and the information carried by them. We propose a Constructive Object Oriented Modeling Language (COOML) for information systems, based on a constructive logic of pieces of information. The focus is on the definition of a data model suitable for organizing the information stored in OO systems. The underlying constructive logic supports a correct way of storing, exchanging and elaborating information.     

A combined experimental–numerical rheometric and mechanical characterization of EPM/EPDM rubber for medium voltage cable applications vulcanized with peroxides

The vulcanization of medium and high voltage (M‐H V) cables is an important industrial application where manufacturers use principally EPM/EPDM, crosslinked polyethylene (XLPE) and now also thermoplastic rubbers. In the present article, an EPDM compound for medium voltage cables—normally distributed to producers in pellets and ready to be cured—is considered and several experimental tests (rheometer curves and mechanical characterizations) are conducted changing controlled curing temperature, peroxide type and peroxide concentration. In particular, tests are replicated in a temperature range between 160 and 200°C, with data provided every 20°C, using two different peroxides, a mixture of three commercial peroxides at five different concentrations. A huge amount of experimental data (cure curves) is obtained (one for each temperature, peroxide used and concentration) and results are critically compared one each other, to have a quantitative insight into the most effective temperature and peroxide to be used during this kind of vulcanization, with the aim of maximizing vulcanization velocity, final torque reached and mechanical properties of cured rubber. The comprehensive experimental study proposed is finally assessed from a numerical point of view, utilizing a complex kinetic scheme constituted by reactions occurring in series and parallel, which allows estimating numerically the vulcanization degree by means of a single second order nonlinear differential equation, with unknown parameters determined through non‐linear least squares fitting, with target data represented by experimental rheoemeter curves. The experimental fitting is almost perfect for all the cases analyzed and is aimed at predicting (without an expensive experimentation) the most suitable production parameters (e.g., curing time and temperature) to guarantee improved mechanical properties and a good aging resistance of the items. In addition, the numerical approach could allow finding the most suitable recipe, also in presence of mixtures of peroxides, able to provide items with a uniform vulcanization level. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014 , 131, 40075.     

ESBC: an application for computing stabilization bounds

We describe the application ESBC to perform the timing analysis of a combinatorial circuit. The circuit is described by formulas of Classical Logic and the delays of propagation of the signals in a gate are represented by a kind of valuation form semantics. ESBC computes the exact stabilization times at which the output signals stabilize.     

A Next-Generation Sequencing Approach to Identify Gene Mutations in Early- and Late-Onset Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Patients of an Italian Cohort

Sequencing of sarcomere protein genes in patients fulfilling the clinical diagnostic criteria for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) identifies a disease-causing mutation in 35% to 60% of cases. Age at diagnosis and family history may increase the yield of mutations screening. In order to assess whether Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) may fulfil the molecular diagnostic needs in HCM, we included 17 HCM-related genes in a sequencing panel run on PGM IonTorrent. We selected 70 HCM patients, 35 with early (≤25 years) and 35 with late (≥65 years) diagnosis of disease onset. All samples had a 98.6% average of target regions, with coverage higher than 20× (mean coverage 620×). We identified 41 different mutations (seven of them novel) in nine genes: MYBPC3 (17/41 = 41%); MYH7 (10/41 = 24%); TNNT2, CAV3 and MYH6 (3/41 = 7.5% each); TNNI3 (2/41 = 5%); GLA, MYL2, and MYL3 (1/41=2.5% each). Mutation detection rate was 30/35 (85.7%) in early-onset and 8/35 (22.9%) in late-onset HCM patients, respectively (p < 0.0001). The overall detection rate for patients with positive family history was 84%, and 90.5% in patients with early disease onset. In our study NGS revealed higher mutations yield in patients with early onset and with a family history of HCM. Appropriate patient selection can increase the yield of genetic testing and make diagnostic testing cost-effective.