Multiple Cellular Responses to Serotonin Contribute to Epithelial Homeostasis

Epithelial homeostasis incorporates the paradoxical concept of internal change (epithelial turnover) enabling the maintenance of anatomical status quo. Epithelial cell differentiation and cell loss (cell shedding and apoptosis) form important components of epithelial turnover. Although the mechanisms of cell loss are being uncovered the crucial triggers that modulate epithelial turnover through regulation of cell loss remain undetermined. Serotonin is emerging as a common autocrine-paracine regulator in epithelia of multiple organs, including the breast. Here we address whether serotonin affects epithelial turnover. Specifically, serotonin's roles in regulating cell shedding, apoptosis and barrier function of the epithelium. Using in vivo studies in mouse and a robust model of differentiated human mammary duct epithelium (MCF10A), we show that serotonin induces mammary epithelial cell shedding and disrupts tight junctions in a reversible manner. However, upon sustained exposure, serotonin induces apoptosis in the replenishing cell population, causing irreversible changes to the epithelial membrane. The staggered nature of these events induced by serotonin slowly shifts the balance in the epithelium from reversible to irreversible. These finding have very important implications towards our ability to control epithelial regeneration and thus address pathologies of aberrant epithelial turnover, which range from degenerative disorders (e.g.; pancreatitis and thyrioditis) to proliferative disorders (e.g.; mastitis, ductal ectasia, cholangiopathies and epithelial cancers)

Cartographic Visualization for Indoor Semantic Wayfinding

In recent years, pedestrian navigation assistance has been used by an increasing number of people to support wayfinding tasks. Especially in unfamiliar and complex indoor environments such as universities and hospitals, the importance of an effective navigation assistance becomes apparent. This paper investigates the feasibility of the indoor landmark navigation model (ILNM), a method for generating landmark-based routing instructions, by combining it with indoor route maps and conducting a wayfinding experiment with human participants. Within this context, three different cartographic visualization scenarios were designed and evaluated. Two of these scenarios were based on the implementation of the ILNM algorithm, with the concurrent effort to overcome the challenge of representing the semantic navigation instructions in two different ways. In the first scenario, the selected landmarks were visualized as pictograms, while in the second scenario, an axonometric-based design philosophy for the depiction of landmarks was followed. The third scenario was based on the benchmark approach (metric-based routing instructions) for conveying routing instructions to the users. The experiment showed that the implementation of the ILNM was feasible, and, more importantly, it was beneficial in terms of participants’ navigation performance during the wayfinding experiment, compared to the metric-based instructions scenario (benchmark for indoor navigation). Valuable results were also obtained, concerning the most suitable cartographic approach for visualizing the selected landmarks, while implementing this specific algorithm (ILNM). Finally, our findings confirm that the existence of landmarks, not only within the routing instructions, but also as cartographic representations on the route map itself, can significantly help users to position themselves correctly within an unfamiliar environment and to improve their navigation performance

The Malls phenomenon on urban development of Athens

112 σ.ΕΔΩ ΚΑΙ ΜΙΑ ΔΕΚΑΕΤΙΑ ΕΚΑΝΕ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΛΛΑΔΑ ΤΗΝ ΕΜΦΑΝΙΣΗ ΤΟΥ ΕΝΑ ΝΕΟ ΦΑΙΝΟΜΕΝΟ. ΑΥΤΟ ΤΩΝ ΕΜΠΟΡΟΨΥΧΑΓΩΓΙΚΩΝ ΠΟΛΥΧΩΡΩΝ. ΞΕΦΕΥΓOΝΤΑΣ ΑΠΟ ΤΙΣ ΠΑΡΑΔΟΣΙΑΚΕΣ ΜΟΡΦΕΣ ΛΕΙΤΟΥΡΓΙΑΣ ΤΟΥ ΕΜΠΟΡΙΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΤΗΣ ΑΝΑΨΥΧΗΣ ΣΤΗΝ ΠΡΩΤΕΥΟΥΣΑ ΟΙ ΝΕΟΙ ΑΥΤΟΙ ΧΩΡΟΙ, ΣΑΦΩΣ ΕΠΗΡΕΑΣΜΕΝΟΙ ΑΠΟ ΤΑ ΑΜΕΡΙΚΑΝΙΚΑ ΠΡΟΤΥΠΑ, ΚΑΝΟΥΝ ΔΥΝΑΜΙΚΑ ΤΗΝ ΕΜΦΑΝΙΣΗ ΤΟΥΣ. ΣΤΗΝ ΠΑΡΟΥΣΑ ΔΙΠΛΩΜΑΤΙΚΗ ΕΡΓΑΣΙΑ ΓΙΝΕΤΑΙ ΜΙΑ ΠΡΟΣΠΑΘΕΙΑ ΠΡΟΣΕΓΓΙΣΗΣ ΤΟΥ ΝΕΟΥ ΑΥΤΟΥ ΦΑΙΝΟΜΕΝΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΤΗΣ ΕΝΣΩΜΑΤΩΣΗΣ ΤΟΥ ΣΤΟΝ ΠΟΛΕΟΔΟΜΙΚΟ ΙΣΤΟ ΤΗΣ ΠΟΛΗΣ ΤΩΝ ΑΘΗΝΩΝ. ΓΙΝΕΤΑΙ ΑΞΙΟΛΟΓΗΣΗ ΤΗΣ ΥΠΑΡΧΟΥΣΑΣ ΚΑΤΑΣΤΑΣΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΑΝΑΦΟΡΑ ΣΕ ΣΥΓΚΕΚΡΙΜΕΝΑ ΠΑΡΑΔΕΙΓΜΑΤΑ, ΕΝΩ ΕΞΑΓΟΝΤΑΙ ΣΥΜΠΕΡΑΣΜΑΤΑ ΓΙΑ ΤΗΝ ΑΛΛΗΛΕΠΙΔΡΑΣΗ ΤΟΥΣ ΜΕ ΤΗΝ ΠΕΡΙΟΧΗ ΠΟΥ ΧΩΡΟΘΕΤΗΘΗΚΑΝ ΣΕ ΣΧΕΣΗ ΜΕ ΠΑΡΑΓΟΝΤΕΣ ΟΠΩΣ Η ΑΝΑΠΤΥΞΗ, ΤΟ ΚΥΚΛΟΦΟΡΙΑΚΟ, ΤΟ ΠΡΟΒΛΗΜΑ ΣΤΑΘΜΕΥΣΗΣ ΚΑΙ Η ΑΛΛΟΙΩΣΗ ΤΟΥ ΙΣΤΟΥ ΤΗΣ ΓΕΙΤΟΝΙΑΣ. ΤΕΛΟΣ, ΠΑΡΟΥΣΙΑΖΟΝΤΑΙ ΚΑΠΟΙΕΣ ΠΡΟΤΑΣΕΙΣ ΓΙΑ ΤΟ ΠΩΣ ΘΑ ΜΠΟΡΟΥΣΕ ΤΟ ΝΕΟ ΑΥΤΟ ΜΟΝΤΕΛΟ ΕΜΠΟΡΙΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΑΝΑΨΥΧΗΣ ΝΑ ΣΥΝΥΠΑΡΞΕΙ ΟΜΑΛΟΤΕΡΑ ΜΕ ΤΟΥΣ ΚΑΤΟΙΚΟΥΣ ΑΥΤΗΣ ΤΗΣ ΠΟΛΗΣ.FOR A DECADE NOW MADE ITS APPEARANCE IN HELLAS A NEW PHENOMENON. THE MALLS. ESCAPING FROM THE TRADITIONAL FUNCTIONS OF COMMERCIAL AND LEISURE IN THE CAPITAL CITY, THESE NEW SITES, CLEARLY INFLUENCED BY AMERICAN STANDARDS, MAKE A DYNAMIC APPEARANCE. THIS DISSERTATION TRIES TO APPROACH THIS NEW PHENOMENON AND THE INTEGRATION OF THE URBAN FABRIC OF ATHENS. THEN COMES THE EVALUATION OF THE SITUATION AND OVERALL IMPRESSION OF THE MULTIPLEX PHENOMENON IN THIS REGION REFERRING TO SPECIFIC EXAMPLES AND DRAWS CONCLUSIONS ABOUT THE INTERACTIONS WITH THE REGION THEY BUILT IN RELATION TO FACTORS SUCH AS GROWTH, TRAFFIC CONGESTION, PARKING PROBLEMS AND THE DETERIORATION OF THE FABRIC OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD. FINALLY WE WILL PRESENT SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR HOW COULD THIS NEW MODEL OF COMMERCE AND RECREATION TO CO-EXIST SMOOTHLY WITH THE RESIDENTS OF THE CITY.Χαράλαμπος Γ. Γκόνο

Neuroendocrine peptides in the prostate

Circulating androgens are required for normal growth and maintenance of function of the prostate. However, the prostate also contains neuroendocrine peptides, found either in nerve terminals or in prostatic neuroendocrine cells, which are likely to regulate prostate growth or function. The neuronal peptides are likely to participate in the regulation of the synthesis and secretion of prostatic secretory products. While the function of the neuroendocrine cells is undefined, there is evidence for growth-regulating effects of several neuroendocrine cell peptides. Since neuroendocrine differentiation has been correlated with tumor grade and poor prognosis in prostate cancer, the peptide products of the neuroendocrine cells may influence cancer cell replication as well. Recent evidence in other tissues suggests that peptide hormone receptor second-messenger systems may interact with steroid receptors to modulate their actions. These findings raise the possibility that prostatic neuroendocrine peptides may modulate the response of prostate to androgens

Planning the integration of residential students in the context of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in cartography

Cartography is a field that has fundamentally changed within the last years. The predominant changes have to do with the output media, as well as the map production technologies and dissemination channels. Existing Web mapping tools facilitate a great variety of users to produce maps in order to visually present the results of their projects. However, there is a lack of knowledge on how to successfully use these tools in order to develop cartographic products based on the established cartographic principles, which are outcomes of scientific research. The use of such tools in a wrong way can easily result to misleading outcomes, thus motivating the need to develop innovative teaching approaches for the broader audience. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) represent a relatively new distance-learning educational approach, which more and more universities try to integrate in their teaching. MOOCs offer the possibility to access thousands of students from all around the world, and not only to offer them educational experiences, but also to interact with them via the MOOC platforms. In cartography and GIScience the number of offered MOOCs is relatively small compared to other fields like “Business & Management” or “Computer Science”. However, the large number of people that enrolled and followed these courses shows an untapped potential for the MOOCs specialized in cartography. The teaching concept that is mainly used in the existing MOOCs is relatively similar, with the content of the course divided into several weeks containing video lectures given by (usually) one person. After each week’s lectures, students have to understand and apply the learned content and to solve some exercises or other related tasks. Despite the advantages of this concept, there are still two issues that remained unsolved: at first the students of the host university do not benefit a lot from the MOOC because most of them do not even follow it, and secondly those MOOCs usually use commercial software for their exercises. To overcome these limitations, the Institute of Cartography and Geoinformation (IKG) of ETH Zurich plans to innovate and apply a novel method in the framework of the MOOC “Introduction to Web Cartography” that starts in the spring semester of 2018. The main idea is that the MOOC course is offered in parallel with the respective course at the host university and that the students who attend the course at ETH are also highly involved in the MOOC. This involvement exploits the advantages of existing technology and includes daily interaction of the residential students with their MOOC colleagues via the provided course forum. The interaction deals with, but is not limited to, discussions over the approaches that are used to solve the exercises, project work presentations, terms explanation etc. This teaching methodology will be introduced in the framework of the ETH course “Cartography II” that takes place in the spring semester of 2018. For the whole duration of the course, data will be collected from all the involved parties in the form of surveys. The data will be analyzed to help us identify which are the advantages and disadvantages of this learning approach and also to extract information regarding the benefits for the residential and MOOC students respectively. The knowledge generated from this information will help us evaluate the impact of integrating residential students in the context of a MOOC specialized in cartography