Design Emergencies and the Power of Design. Interview with Paola Antonelli

The interview with Paola Antonelli mostly focuses on the Design Emergency project she is curating together with Alice Rawsthorn as an experimental cultural initiative created in March-April 2020, during the first Covid-19 lockdown. By presenting the origin of the project and its main goals, she highlights the role of design in the pandemic and post-pandemic, and, more generally, in every crisis, when people need to adapt and deal with change. The presentation of some of the designers she met in this project concretely demonstrates the assumptions and approach: to make people understand the power and the importance of design

imaging the kidney from light to super resolution microscopy

Abstract The important achievements in kidney physiological and pathophysiological mechanisms can largely be ascribed to progress in the technology of microscopy. Much of what we know about the architecture of the kidney is based on the fundamental descriptions of anatomic microscopists using light microscopy and later by ultrastructural analysis provided by electron microscopy. These two techniques were used for the first classification systems of kidney diseases and for their constant updates. More recently, a series of novel imaging techniques added the analysis in further dimensions of time and space. Confocal microscopy allowed us to sequentially visualize optical sections along the z-axis and the availability of specific analysis software provided a three-dimensional rendering of thicker tissue specimens. Multiphoton microscopy permitted us to simultaneously investigate kidney function and structure in real time. Fluorescence-lifetime imaging microscopy allowed to study the spatial distribution of metabolites. Super-resolution microscopy increased sensitivity and resolution up to nanoscale levels. With cryo-electron microscopy, researchers could visualize the individual biomolecules at atomic levels directly in the tissues and understand their interaction at subcellular levels. Finally, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization imaging mass spectrometry permitted the measuring of hundreds of different molecules at the same time on tissue sections at high resolution. This review provides an overview of available kidney imaging strategies, with a focus on the possible impact of the most recent technical improvements

A distributed combustion solver for engine simulations on grids

AbstractMulti-dimensional models for predictive simulations of modern engines are an example of multi-physics and multi-scale mathematical models, since lots of thermofluiddynamic processes in complex geometrical configurations have to be considered. Typical models involve different submodels, including turbulence, spray and combustion models, with different characteristic time scales. The predictive capability of the complete models depends on the accuracy of the submodels as well as on the reliability of the numerical solution algorithms. In this work we propose a multi-solver approach for reliable and efficient solution of the stiff Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE) systems arising from detailed chemical reaction mechanisms for combustion modeling. Main aim was to obtain high-performance parallel solution of combustion submodels in the overall procedure for simulation of engines on distributed heterogeneous computing platforms. To this aim we interfaced our solver with the CHEMKIN-II package and the KIVA3V-II code and carried out multi-computer simulations of realistic engines. Numerical experiments devoted to test reliability of the simulation results and efficiency of the distributed combustion solver are presented and discussed

P6_1 The Lion King(dom)

In Walt Disney’s film The Lion King, Mufasa tells his son Simba that everything he sees is theirKingdom. In this paper, we show that the area of their kingdom would depend on the height that they are at during this scene. At a height of 10 meters, it is found that Mufasa’s kingdom has an upper limit of 493.4 km^2

P6_2 Music Under the Sea

We consider the differences in how music would sound to Ariel from Walt Disney’s The Little Mermaid when on land compared to under the sea. We take into account the dependence on temperature and depth when calculating the speed of sound in salt water. We found that Ariel’s voice would be higher in frequency when under the sea, along with wind and brass instruments. In order to sound familiar to her on land, these instruments would have to be shortened in length. Percussion and string instruments would not be affected

P6_10 Satellite Five

In the BBC show Doctor Who, the Doctor takes his companion Rose to a 500 floor broadcasting satellite named Satellite Five. The heat produced by the first 499 floors, is recirculated downwards in order to provide a cool environment for the alien editor on the 500th floor. We consider the effect of this on the external aluminium shell of the satellite. Heat produced by the 499 floors is found to be 4.25 × 10^11 J. As a consequence, the temperature rise and volume expansion of the aluminium shell are found to be 16 K and 13 m^3 respectively. The pressure, if thermal expansion were to be restricted, is found to be 8.2 × 10^7 Nm^-2, which isn’t enough to break the shell

P6_9 Sailing Away From Global Warming

Concern for global warming has raised over the last few decades, hence motivations to palliate its effects have increased. We investigate increasing the radius of Earth’s orbit by solar sailing in order to reduce the amount of solar radiation incident on the planet, consequently reducing surface temperatures. We found that Earth’s distance from the Sun would have to increase by 1.2×10^9 m and the surface area of the sails needed is approximately 1.4 × 10^54 m^2

P6_7 Killer Rabbits: Preparing for Battle

In the 1975 film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, we are introduced to a fictional rabbit who has the ability to decapitate and kill humans. Within this article, we explore breeding an army of 100 million of these rabbits on-board a spacecraft for the purpose of invading a habitable planet within the Universe. We discover that it would take a total of 3.6 years to breed this number. We also investigate how far they could travel within a rabbits’ expected lifetime, travelling at a velocity of 0.85c, and the amount of time this voyage would appear to take from the perspective of a stationary observer on Earth. It is calculated that, throughout a period of 7 years, they could cover a total distance of 5.9 light years. This would appear to take 13 years to the stationary Earth observer