Architectural self-fabrication

The paper will focus on the role of computational design and digital fabrication in the processes of urban and architectural self-regeneration of existing infrastructures and buildings. The Architectural Fabrication research agenda takes inspiration from some of the concepts mentioned in Christopher Alexander’s essay ‘Systems generating systems’ (1968). It aims at introducing ways in which systems thinking and computer aided manufacturing can be most directly applied to the built environment. Hacking architectural spaces, by evolving their genetic spatial and structural codes, is developing the idea of optimizing resources involving inhabitants rather than generating other top down architectural solutions. During the last decades (starting from the book of Mario Carpo, ‘The Digital Turn in Architecture’) the digital shift in architectural design has generated a new discipline with the aim to define an innovative way to bridge the notion of nature with the one of teknè. From such a cultural milieu many research agenda were focusing on the concepts of morphogenesis and evolutionary thinking inspired by the work of French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari based on the theory of complex systems. Despite this interest in bridging an evolutionary approach with the notion of emergent technologies in architecture (well described in the book ‘The Architecture of Emergence’ of Michael Weinstock) only a very few researchers have investigated on the potential of computational design as a driver for the ecological rehabilitation of existing infrastructures. As a matter of fact, the computational designers were so worried to claim for a new aesthetical identity of their discipline while a new opportunity was emerging for applying this evolutionary approach in order to hack existing structures. The idea of living infrastructures is related to the possibility of developing contextual algorithms in order to customize standard solutions with a post-human process that creates diversified spatial configurations out of very rigid organizational systems. Therefore, the paper will also talk about the Hacking Gomorra project as a possible paradigm of experimenting a 3D printing protocol for the environmental rehabilitation of a mega-structural housing building in Naples (Italy)

Potentialities of a Low Temperature Solar Heating System Based on Slurry Phase Change Materials (PCS)

Flat-plate solar thermal collectors are the most common devices to convert solar energy into heat. Water-based fluids are commonly adopted as heat carrier for this technology, although their efficiency is limited by some thermodynamic and heat storage constraints. To overcome some of these limitations, an innovative approach is the use of latent heat, which can be available by means of microencapsulated slurry PCMs (mixtures of microencapsulated Phase Change Materials, water and surfactants). The viscosity of these fluids is similar to that of water and they can be easily pumped. In the present work, some of the thermo-physical and rheological properties and material behaviour that interest flat-plate solar thermal collectors with slurry PCM as the heat carrier fluid are analysed. Concepts of solar thermal systems filled with a slurry phase change material are proposed and a prototypal system is presented. Possible advantages and drawbacks of this technology are also discussed

Targeting cancer cells overexpressing folate receptors with new terpolymer-based nanocapsules: Toward a novel targeted dna delivery system for cancer therapy

Chemotherapeutics represent the standard treatment for a wide range of cancers. However, these agents also affect healthy cells, thus leading to severe off-target effects. Given the non-selectivity of the commonly used drugs, any increase in the selective tumor tissue uptake would represent a significant improvement in cancer therapy. Recently, the use of gene therapy to completely remove the lesion and avoid the toxicity of chemotherapeutics has become a tendency in oncotherapy. Ideally, the genetic material must be safely transferred from the site of administration to the target cells, without involving healthy tissues. This can be achieved by encapsulating genes into non-viral carriers and modifying their surface with ligands with high selectivity and affinity for a relevant receptor on the target cells. Hence, in this work we evaluate the use of terpolymer-based nanocapsules for the targeted delivery of DNA toward cancer cells. The surface of the nanocapsules is decorated with folic acid to actively target the folate receptors overexpressed on a variety of cancer cells. The nanocapsules demonstrate a good ability of encapsulating and releasing DNA. Moreover, the presence of the targeting moieties on the surface of the nanocapsules favors cell uptake, opening up the possibility of more effective therapies

SUDARE-VOICE variability-selection of Active Galaxies in the Chandra Deep Field South and the SERVS/SWIRE region

One of the most peculiar characteristics of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) is their variability over all wavelengths. This property has been used in the past to select AGN samples and is foreseen to be one of the detection techniques applied in future multi-epoch surveys, complementing photometric and spectroscopic methods. In this paper, we aim to construct and characterise an AGN sample using a multi-epoch dataset in the r band from the SUDARE-VOICE survey. Our work makes use of the VST monitoring program of an area surrounding the Chandra Deep Field South to select variable sources. We use data spanning a six month period over an area of 2 square degrees, to identify AGN based on their photometric variability. The selected sample includes 175 AGN candidates with magnitude r < 23 mag. We distinguish different classes of variable sources through their lightcurves, as well as X-ray, spectroscopic, SED, optical and IR information overlapping with our survey. We find that 12% of the sample (21/175) is represented by SN. Of the remaining sources, 4% (6/154) are stars, while 66% (102/154) are likely AGNs based on the available diagnostics. We estimate an upper limit to the contamination of the variability selected AGN sample of about 34%, but we point out that restricting the analysis to the sources with available multi-wavelength ancillary information, the purity of our sample is close to 80% (102 AGN out of 128 non-SN sources with multi-wavelength diagnostics). Our work thus confirms the efficiency of the variability selection method in agreement with our previous work on the COSMOS field; in addition we show that the variability approach is roughly consistent with the infrared selection.Comment: Published in A & A, 15 pages, 6 figure

Trichoderma atroviride P1 Colonization of Tomato Plants Enhances Both Direct and Indirect Defense Barriers Against Insects

Numerous microbial root symbionts are known to induce different levels of enhanced plant protection against a variety of pathogens. However, more recent studies have demonstrated that beneficial microbes are able to induce plant systemic resistance that confers some degree of protection against insects. Here, we report how treatments with the fungal biocontrol agent Trichoderma atroviride strain P1 in tomato plants induce responses that affect pest insects with different feeding habits: the noctuid moth Spodoptera littoralis (Boisduval) and the aphid Macrosiphum euphorbiae (Thomas). We observed that the tomato plant–Trichoderma P1 interaction had a negative impact on the development of moth larvae and on aphid longevity. These effects were attributed to a plant response induced by Trichoderma that was associated with transcriptional changes of a wide array of defense-related genes. While the impact on aphids could be related to the up-regulation of genes involved in the oxidative burst reaction, which occur early in the defense reaction, the negative performance of moth larvae was associated with the enhanced expression of genes encoding for protective enzymes (i.e., Proteinase inhibitor I (PI), Threonine deaminase, Leucine aminopeptidase A1, Arginase 2, and Polyphenol oxidase) that are activated downstream in the defense cascade. In addition, Trichoderma P1 produced alterations in plant metabolic pathways leading to the production and release of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are involved in the attraction of the aphid parasitoid Aphidius ervi, thus reinforcing the indirect plant defense barriers. Our findings, along with the evidence available in the literature, indicate that the outcome of the tripartite interaction among plant, Trichoderma, and pests is highly specific and only a comprehensive approach, integrating both insect phenotypic changes and plant transcriptomic alterations, can allow a reliable prediction of its potential for plant protectio

Supernova rates from the SUDARE VST-Omegacam search II. Rates in a galaxy sample

This is the second paper of a series in which we present measurements of the Supernova (SN) rates from the SUDARE survey. In this paper, we study the trend of the SN rates with the intrinsic colours, the star formation activity and the mass of the parent galaxies. We have considered a sample of about 130000 galaxies and a SN sample of about 50 events. We found that the SN Ia rate per unit mass is higher by a factor of six in the star-forming galaxies with respect to the passive galaxies. The SN Ia rate per unit mass is also higher in the less massive galaxies that are also younger. These results suggest a distribution of the delay times (DTD) less populated at long delay times than at short delays. The CC SN rate per unit mass is proportional to both the sSFR and the galaxy mass. The trends of the Type Ia and CC SN rates as a function of the sSFR and the galaxy mass that we observed from SUDARE data are in agreement with literature results at different redshifts. The expected number of SNe Ia is in agreement with the observed one for all four DTD models considered both in passive and star-forming galaxies so we can not discriminate between different progenitor scenarios. The expected number of CC SNe is higher than the observed one, suggesting a higher limit for the minimum progenitor mass. We also compare the expected and observed trends of the SN Ia rate with the intrinsic U - J colour of the parent galaxy, assumed as a tracer of the age distribution. While the slope of the relation between the SN Ia rate and the U - J color in star-forming galaxies can be reproduced well by all four DTD models considered, only the steepest of them is able to account for the rates and colour in star-forming and passive galaxies with the same value of the SN Ia production efficiency.Comment: A& A accepte

Electrophoresis of proteins and DNA on horizontal sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gels

An inexpensive Plexiglas apparatus which allows a simple and rapid preparation of horizontal polyacrylamide gels of different dimensions for different purposes, is described. Preparation of such gels is as easy and rapid as agarose gel preparation, and polymerized polyacrylamide gels are used to fractionate proteins or small DNA fragments using a common horizontal electrophoretic tank. This apparatus was used to electrophoretically fractionate proteins or DNA for immuno-blot analyses, particularirly in the study of the allergenic response to Parietaria judaica pollen in senescence, for Southern-blot hybridizations and in the study of DNA polymorphisms