Nuevos transportes y movilidad urbana

Introducción Dossier Centra

Cities as innovation: towards a new understanding of population growth, social inequality and urban sustainability

With case studies on 30 cities in five continents and a selection of infographics illustrating these dynamic cities, this edited volume is an essential resource for planners and students of urbanisation and urban change

Small-town factories and the metropolis: Manufacturing dispersal in Bogotá, Colombia, 1958-1990

The research focuses on the capital city of Colombia, Bogota, where, somewhat unusually in Latin America the nation's population and wealth continued to concentrate at a markedly faster and more sustained pace than in most large cities in the country in the period 1958-1990. Contrary to evidence from large cities in both the developed and the developing world there was little sign of a major dispersal of employment beyond a relatively small central sector. The research aims firstly to document shifts during the study period in manufacturing production and employment within what it defines as the 'Bogota metropolitan area' (BMA); and secondly, to examine the possible reasons behind the lack of a more marked spatial dispersal of manufacturing jobs. Thus, the study seeks to answer the question: Why, despite Bogota's sustained economic and demographic growth in the period 1958-1990, did manufacturing industry disperse only very moderately within the Bogota metropolitan area? Apart from an extensive coverage of the theoretical and empirical material on the subject, the study uses a combination of secondary material represented by a range of studies on the subject, and primary information, which includes spatially and sectorally-disaggregated official data on manufacturing industry, information collected through a specially-designed survey of a sample of manufacturing establishments equally distributed between the core and the rest of the BMA, and interviews with national and local government officials. A series of hypotheses are tested for the case study using well known techniques such as shift-share and correlation analysis. The results of the field survey are used to examine how a range of factor costs are linked to the locational trends of a group of randomly selected establishments both in the core of the BMA and outside it. The study examines in turn the market orientation of the interviewed establishments, their present and future space needs, the incidence of labour factors upon their location, and an array of variables that may collectively be labelled 'government factors' as their availability is directly or indirectly dependent on official policies

La gobernanza del transporte público urbano: Indagaciones alrededor de los Metrocables de Medellín

In this article we examine the notion of ‘governance’ in its two main meanings as applied to the case of the aerial cable cars (‘Metrocables’) in Colombia’s second largest urban centre, Medellín. In its first meaning, governance is understood as ‘good government’ based on the efficient and transparent actions of local government institutions in close collaboration with other social actors, while its second meaning stresses the notion of ‘good government’ as a neoliberal strategy that helps impose the interests of political and economic elites and, above all, the accumulation of private capital. In Medellín, the use of aerial cable cars as a public transport system is a demonstration of political imagination, technical creativity and management capacity of public enterprises. We conclude that the benefits derived from articulating marginalised populations and the creation of real impressions of social inclusion do not derive simply from isolated interventions such as an aerial cable car but, as was done in Medellín, these must be complemented with urban upgrading projects, changes in local political practices and a genuine increase in individual and collective opportunities

Healthy communities

There is considerable knowledge of how to enhance the health of communities through reshaping their environments, particularly the urban environments in which people increasingly live. We have much less understanding of how to deliver these healthier urban environments. This paper reviews the research on four key urban health problematics – sanitation and wastewater treatment, transportation and mobility, the urban heat island impacts, and indoor air quality – and considers the implications for urban planning and management

Safety, tumor trafficking and immunogenicity of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells specific for TAG-72 in colorectal cancer.

BackgroundT cells engineered to express chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) have established efficacy in the treatment of B-cell malignancies, but their relevance in solid tumors remains undefined. Here we report results of the first human trials of CAR-T cells in the treatment of solid tumors performed in the 1990s.MethodsPatients with metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC) were treated in two phase 1 trials with first-generation retroviral transduced CAR-T cells targeting tumor-associated glycoprotein (TAG)-72 and including a CD3-zeta intracellular signaling domain (CART72 cells). In trial C-9701 and C-9702, CART72 cells were administered in escalating doses up to 1010 total cells; in trial C-9701 CART72 cells were administered by intravenous infusion. In trial C-9702, CART72 cells were administered via direct hepatic artery infusion in patients with colorectal liver metastases. In both trials, a brief course of interferon-alpha (IFN-α) was given with each CART72 infusion to upregulate expression of TAG-72.ResultsFourteen patients were enrolled in C-9701 and nine in C-9702. CART72 manufacturing success rate was 100% with an average transduction efficiency of 38%. Ten patients were treated in CC-9701 and 6 in CC-9702. Symptoms consistent with low-grade, cytokine release syndrome were observed in both trials without clear evidence of on target/off tumor toxicity. Detectable, but mostly short-term (≤14 weeks), persistence of CART72 cells was observed in blood; one patient had CART72 cells detectable at 48 weeks. Trafficking to tumor tissues was confirmed in a tumor biopsy from one of three patients. A subset of patients had 111Indium-labeled CART72 cells injected, and trafficking could be detected to liver, but T cells appeared largely excluded from large metastatic deposits. Tumor biomarkers carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and TAG-72 were measured in serum; there was a precipitous decline of TAG-72, but not CEA, in some patients due to induction of an interfering antibody to the TAG-72 binding domain of humanized CC49, reflecting an anti-CAR immune response. No radiologic tumor responses were observed.ConclusionThese findings demonstrate the relative safety of CART72 cells. The limited persistence supports the incorporation of co-stimulatory domains in the CAR design and the use of fully human CAR constructs to mitigate immunogenicity

A Compact Multiphoton 3D Imaging System for Recording Fast Neuronal Activity

We constructed a simple and compact imaging system designed specifically for the recording of fast neuronal activity in a 3D volume. The system uses an Yb:KYW femtosecond laser we designed for use with acousto-optic deflection. An integrated two-axis acousto-optic deflector, driven by digitally synthesized signals, can target locations in three dimensions. Data acquisition and the control of scanning are performed by a LeCroy digital oscilloscope. The total cost of construction was one order of magnitude lower than that of a typical Ti:sapphire system. The entire imaging apparatus, including the laser, fits comfortably onto a small rig for electrophysiology. Despite the low cost and simplicity, the convergence of several new technologies allowed us to achieve the following capabilities: i) full-frame acquisition at video rates suitable for patch clamping; ii) random access in under ten microseconds with dwelling ability in the nominal focal plane; iii) three-dimensional random access with the ability to perform fast volume sweeps at kilohertz rates; and iv) fluorescence lifetime imaging. We demonstrate the ability to record action potentials with high temporal resolution using intracellularly loaded potentiometric dye di-2-ANEPEQ. Our design proffers easy integration with electrophysiology and promises a more widespread adoption of functional two-photon imaging as a tool for the study of neuronal activity. The software and firmware we developed is available for download at http://neurospy.org/ under an open source license

Rapid Sequencing of the Bamboo Mitochondrial Genome Using Illumina Technology and Parallel Episodic Evolution of Organelle Genomes in Grasses

Background: Compared to their counterparts in animals, the mitochondrial (mt) genomes of angiosperms exhibit a number of unique features. However, unravelling their evolution is hindered by the few completed genomes, of which are essentially Sanger sequenced. While next-generation sequencing technologies have revolutionized chloroplast genome sequencing, they are just beginning to be applied to angiosperm mt genomes. Chloroplast genomes of grasses (Poaceae) have undergone episodic evolution and the evolutionary rate was suggested to be correlated between chloroplast and mt genomes in Poaceae. It is interesting to investigate whether correlated rate change also occurred in grass mt genomes as expected under lineage effects. A time-calibrated phylogenetic tree is needed to examine rate change. Methodology/Principal Findings: We determined a largely completed mt genome from a bamboo, Ferrocalamus rimosivaginus (Poaceae), through Illumina sequencing of total DNA. With combination of de novo and reference-guided assembly, 39.5-fold coverage Illumina reads were finally assembled into scaffolds totalling 432,839 bp. The assembled genome contains nearly the same genes as the completed mt genomes in Poaceae. For examining evolutionary rate in grass mt genomes, we reconstructed a phylogenetic tree including 22 taxa based on 31 mt genes. The topology of the wellresolved tree was almost identical to that inferred from chloroplast genome with only minor difference. The inconsistency possibly derived from long branch attraction in mtDNA tree. By calculating absolute substitution rates, we found significan