Public space for refugees: community facilities in the context of permanent temporariness

At this moment in history, a staggering 60 million refugees rely on international help - the highest number of displaced persons ever. A large variety of solutions have been developed that cater for primary needs. However, long-term public and community facilities have been neglected. This project is addressing the necessity of dignifying community facilities in the context of permanent temporariness in refugee camps. Twelve plans for public buildings are developed, each with a different program. During the coming spring, certain parts of these projects will be built in scale 1:1, as part of the building exercises of the battalion of genie troops. In order to develop these prototypes, a variety of camp types, public building types and techniques have been researched and analysed. All together these studies have been assembled in a catalogue, intended as a toolbox for designing public buildings for refugees

The Constrained Maximal Expression Level Owing to Haploidy Shapes Gene Content on the Mammalian X Chromosome.

X chromosomes are unusual in many regards, not least of which is their nonrandom gene content. The causes of this bias are commonly discussed in the context of sexual antagonism and the avoidance of activity in the male germline. Here, we examine the notion that, at least in some taxa, functionally biased gene content may more profoundly be shaped by limits imposed on gene expression owing to haploid expression of the X chromosome. Notably, if the X, as in primates, is transcribed at rates comparable to the ancestral rate (per promoter) prior to the X chromosome formation, then the X is not a tolerable environment for genes with very high maximal net levels of expression, owing to transcriptional traffic jams. We test this hypothesis using The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) and data from the Functional Annotation of the Mammalian Genome (FANTOM5) project. As predicted, the maximal expression of human X-linked genes is much lower than that of genes on autosomes: on average, maximal expression is three times lower on the X chromosome than on autosomes. Similarly, autosome-to-X retroposition events are associated with lower maximal expression of retrogenes on the X than seen for X-to-autosome retrogenes on autosomes. Also as expected, X-linked genes have a lesser degree of increase in gene expression than autosomal ones (compared to the human/Chimpanzee common ancestor) if highly expressed, but not if lowly expressed. The traffic jam model also explains the known lower breadth of expression for genes on the X (and the Z of birds), as genes with broad expression are, on average, those with high maximal expression. As then further predicted, highly expressed tissue-specific genes are also rare on the X and broadly expressed genes on the X tend to be lowly expressed, both indicating that the trend is shaped by the maximal expression level not the breadth of expression per se. Importantly, a limit to the maximal expression level explains biased tissue of expression profiles of X-linked genes. Tissues whose tissue-specific genes are very highly expressed (e.g., secretory tissues, tissues abundant in structural proteins) are also tissues in which gene expression is relatively rare on the X chromosome. These trends cannot be fully accounted for in terms of alternative models of biased expression. In conclusion, the notion that it is hard for genes on the Therian X to be highly expressed, owing to transcriptional traffic jams, provides a simple yet robustly supported rationale of many peculiar features of X's gene content, gene expression, and evolution

The posterior cruciate ligament: a study on its bony and soft tissue anatomy using novel 3D CT technology

The bony insertion sites of the PCL have been studied and described extensively using 2D technology such as macroscopic images, plain radiograph, computerized tomography (CT) and MRI. The purpose of this study is to visualize both the tibial and the femoral bony insertion sites but also the soft tissue anatomy of the native PCL using novel 3D CT imaging. In addition, new concepts of best-fit cylinder and central axis are introduced and evaluated. Nine unpaired knees of embalmed cadavers were used in this study. Following the dissection process, the PCL was injected with a contrast medium for computed tomography (CT) imaging. The obtained CT images were segmented and rendered in 3D allowing morphological and morphometric analysis of PCL. Femoral and tibial footprint surface area, best-fit PCL-cylinder intersection area, best-fit PCL-cylinder/footprint coverage ratio, best-fit PCL-cylinder central axis projections at the tibial and femoral footprint were used to describe the anatomy of the PCL. Mean footprint surface area of the tibial and femoral footprint were 189.1 and 293.3 mmA(2), respectively. The mean diameter of the best-fit cylinder was 10.5 mm. The mean coverage of the best-fit cylinder on the tibial and femoral footprint was 76.5 and 46.5, respectively. The best-fit cylinder central axis was located in the anterolateral AL bundle footprint on the femur and more centrally in the PCL footprint on the tibia. This study is the first to describe the detailed anatomy of the human PCL with respect to its course and footprints using a 3D approach. It confirms the large difference between the tibial and the femoral footprint area with the former being significantly smaller. In addition, a large inter-patient variability is observed. The best-fit cylinder and central axis concept offer additional insights into the optimal tunnel placement at the tibia and femoral footprint in order to cover the largest portion of the native PCL soft tissue

Public space for refugees: community facilities in the context of permanent temporariness

At this moment in history, a staggering 60 million refugees rely on international help - the highest number of displaced persons ever. A large variety of solutions have been developed that cater for primary needs. However, long-term public and community facilities have been neglected. This project is addressing the necessity of dignifying community facilities in the context of permanent temporariness in refugee camps. Twelve plans for public buildings are developed, each with a different program. During the coming spring, certain parts of these projects will be built in scale 1:1, as part of the building exercises of the battalion of genie troops. In order to develop these prototypes, a variety of camp types, public building types and techniques have been researched and analysed. All together these studies have been assembled in a catalogue, intended as a toolbox for designing public buildings for refugees