Teaching Geometry and Surfaces Evaluation Through Graphic Representation and Dynamic Paper Models

To make the geometrical cognitive process more interactive, we produced teaching aids (tangible models, graphic tablets) that help students in visualiz-ing their geometrical-analytical investigations of the architectural artifacts and enhance their spatial prefiguration and critical form-reading skills, three-dimensional thinking and geometrical reading of shapes. Then, we looked for a medium suitable to create simple three-dimensional models, not only observable, like virtual models, not only tangible, like physical models pro-posed in the design studios, but also dynamic, using multiple media and lan-guages in the same training message. As an example, we present here an interdisciplinary lesson between Cal-culus and Architectural Drawing and Survey Laboratory about developable surfaces, experimented on first year students of the bachelor program in Ar-chitecture. The lesson is based on the use of a graphic tablet and some ori-gami inspired models: it summarizes the geometric description of a pyramid and a cloister vault of equal height and equal orthographic projection on the horizontal plane. We saw that tackling the same topic in both teaching contexts is not a use-less overlap, but a stimulus to compare different languages and methods. 2D and 3D paper models of artifacts – and of projective reduction from 3D to the plane – aid spatial intuition and the subtle exercise of controlling mental images which replace artifacts, turning 3D configurations into signifying im-ages. Moreover, this experience stimulates reading and evaluation of the drawn geometry (ruled surfaces, projections, developments), increasing criti-cal sense in reading the built environmen

Genome Analysis of the Anaerobic Thermohalophilic Bacterium Halothermothrix orenii

Halothermothirx orenii is a strictly anaerobic thermohalophilic bacterium isolated from sediment of a Tunisian salt lake. It belongs to the order Halanaerobiales in the phylum Firmicutes. The complete sequence revealed that the genome consists of one circular chromosome of 2578146 bps encoding 2451 predicted genes. This is the first genome sequence of an organism belonging to the Haloanaerobiales. Features of both Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria were identified with the presence of both a sporulating mechanism typical of Firmicutes and a characteristic Gram negative lipopolysaccharide being the most prominent. Protein sequence analyses and metabolic reconstruction reveal a unique combination of strategies for thermophilic and halophilic adaptation. H. orenii can serve as a model organism for the study of the evolution of the Gram negative phenotype as well as the adaptation under thermohalophilic conditions and the development of biotechnological applications under conditions that require high temperatures and high salt concentrations

Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (4th edition)1.

In 2008, we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, this topic has received increasing attention, and many scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Thus, it is important to formulate on a regular basis updated guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Despite numerous reviews, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to evaluate autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. Here, we present a set of guidelines for investigators to select and interpret methods to examine autophagy and related processes, and for reviewers to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of reports that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a dogmatic set of rules, because the appropriateness of any assay largely depends on the question being asked and the system being used. Moreover, no individual assay is perfect for every situation, calling for the use of multiple techniques to properly monitor autophagy in each experimental setting. Finally, several core components of the autophagy machinery have been implicated in distinct autophagic processes (canonical and noncanonical autophagy), implying that genetic approaches to block autophagy should rely on targeting two or more autophagy-related genes that ideally participate in distinct steps of the pathway. Along similar lines, because multiple proteins involved in autophagy also regulate other cellular pathways including apoptosis, not all of them can be used as a specific marker for bona fide autophagic responses. Here, we critically discuss current methods of assessing autophagy and the information they can, or cannot, provide. Our ultimate goal is to encourage intellectual and technical innovation in the field