Future Cities: Asserting Public Governance

The smart city has become a main prism through which urban futures are viewed. With it comes the promise of big data technology enabling more resource-efficient urban systems and improved governance. Increasingly, however, this technocentric view is being challenged, at least rhetorically, by seeking to place people at the heart of smart city development. Yet, especially in the case of the UK, such development typically takes place within a governance context which marginalises established planning and decision processes, thus arguably weakening public accountability. Moreover, the norms of engagement change in that citizens are assigned more of an entrepreneurial role as co-producers of data-driven information. It becomes necessary, therefore, to reconsider as well as reinvigorate the place of the public in the future city. This article seeks to do so by making the case, on one hand, for strengthening institutional frameworks and, on the other, advancing a more active role for citizens to become involved in actualising and scrutinising future cities

A novel method for the isolation of subpopulations of rat adipose stem cells with different proliferation and osteogenic differentiation potentials

Bone marrow has been the elected cell source of studies published so far concerning bone and cartilage tissue-engineering approaches. Recent studies indicate that adipose tissue presents significant advantages over bone marrow as a cell source for tissue engineering. Most of these studies report the use of adipose stem cells (ASCs) isolated by a method based on the enzymatic digestion of the adipose tissue and on the ability of stem cells to adhere to a cell culture plastic surface. Using this method, a heterogeneous population was obtained containing different cell types that have been shown to compromise the proliferation and differentiation potential of the stem cells. This paper reports the development and optimization of a new isolation method that enables purified cell populations to be obtained that exhibit higher osteogenic differentiation and/or proliferation potential. This method is based on the use of immunomagnetic beads coated with specific antibodies and it is compared with other methods described in the literature for the selection of stem cell populations, e.g. methods based on a gradient solution and enzymatic digestion. The results showed that the isolation method based on immunomagnetic beads allows distinct subpopulations of rat ASCs to be isolated, showing different stem cells marker expressions and different osteogenic differentiation potentials. Therefore, this method can be used to study niches in ASC populations and/or also allow adipose tissue to be used as a stem cell source in a more efficient manner, increasing the potential of this cell source in future clinical applications.T. Rada thanks the EU Marie Curie Actions Alea Jacta Est for a PhD fellowship. This work was partially supported by the European Union-funded STREP Project HIPPOCRATES (Grant No. NMP3-CT-2003-505758) and was carried out under the scope of the European NoE EXPERTISSUES (Grant No. NMP3-CT-2004-500283)

HCV IRES manipulates the ribosome to promote the switch from translation initiation to elongation.

The internal ribosome entry site (IRES) of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) drives noncanonical initiation of protein synthesis necessary for viral replication. Functional studies of the HCV IRES have focused on 80S ribosome formation but have not explored its role after the 80S ribosome is poised at the start codon. Here, we report that mutations of an IRES domain that docks in the 40S subunit's decoding groove cause only a local perturbation in IRES structure and result in conformational changes in the IRES-rabbit 40S subunit complex. Functionally, the mutations decrease IRES activity by inhibiting the first ribosomal translocation event, and modeling results suggest that this effect occurs through an interaction with a single ribosomal protein. The ability of the HCV IRES to manipulate the ribosome provides insight into how the ribosome's structure and function can be altered by bound RNAs, including those derived from cellular invaders

Justice at Sea: Fishers’ politics and marine conservation in coastal Odisha, India

This is a paper about the politics of fishing rights in and around the Gahirmatha marine sanctuary in coastal Odisha, in eastern India. Claims to the resources of this sanctuary are politicised through the creation of a particularly damaging narrative by influential Odiya environmental actors about Bengalis, as illegal immigrants who have hurt the ecosystem through their fishing practices. Anchored within a theoretical framework of justice as recognition, the paper considers the making of a regional Odiya environmentalism that is, potentially, deeply exclusionary. It details how an argument about ‘illegal Bengalis’ depriving ‘indigenous Odiyas’ of their legitimate ‘traditional fishing rights’ derives from particular notions of indigeneity and territory. But the paper also shows that such environmentalism is tenuous, and fits uneasily with the everyday social landscape of fishing in coastal Odisha. It concludes that a wider class conflict between small fishers and the state over a sanctuary sets the context in which questions about legitimate resource rights are raised, sometimes with important effects, like when out at sea

‘I think that’s bad' : lay normativity and perceived barriers to employment in primary teaching in the UK

This article reports the results of a small-scale study into undergraduates’ perceptions of possible barriers to obtaining employment within primary teaching in the UK. The investigation focused upon barriers related to accent and gender. The study sample was a group of final-year undergraduates on an Education Studies degree at a university in South Wales. The study employed a threepart theoretical framework, drawing upon the work of Bourdieu, Andrew Sayer’s discussion of lay normativity and Nancy Fraser’s theory of two-dimensional social justice, to analyse the students’ perceptions of (in)justice deriving from perceived barriers. Results from seven focus groups indicated the students perceived employment-related impediments from processes of misrecognition and maldistribution in primary teaching recruitment. However, the students held complex views on these issues. The majority also voiced discourses which, it could be argued, serve to further the reproduction of such processes of maldistribution and misrecognition

Advances in imaging chest tuberculosis: blurring of differences between children and adults

This article reviews the ongoing role of imaging in the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) and its complications. A modern imaging classification of TB, taking into account both adults and children and the blurring of differences in the presentation patterns, must be absorbed into daily practice. Clinicians must not only be familiar with imaging features of TB but also become expert at detecting these when radiologists are unavailable. Communication between radiologists and clinicians with regard to local constraints, patterns of disease, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) coinfection rates, and imaging parameters relevant for management (especially in drug resistance programs) is paramount for making an impact with imaging, and preserving clinician confidence. Recognition of special imaging, anatomic and vulnerability differences between children and adults is more important than trying to define patterns of disease exclusive to children

Recombination rate and selection strength in HIV intra-patient evolution

The evolutionary dynamics of HIV during the chronic phase of infection is driven by the host immune response and by selective pressures exerted through drug treatment. To understand and model the evolution of HIV quantitatively, the parameters governing genetic diversification and the strength of selection need to be known. While mutation rates can be measured in single replication cycles, the relevant effective recombination rate depends on the probability of coinfection of a cell with more than one virus and can only be inferred from population data. However, most population genetic estimators for recombination rates assume absence of selection and are hence of limited applicability to HIV, since positive and purifying selection are important in HIV evolution. Here, we estimate the rate of recombination and the distribution of selection coefficients from time-resolved sequence data tracking the evolution of HIV within single patients. By examining temporal changes in the genetic composition of the population, we estimate the effective recombination to be r=1.4e-5 recombinations per site and generation. Furthermore, we provide evidence that selection coefficients of at least 15% of the observed non-synonymous polymorphisms exceed 0.8% per generation. These results provide a basis for a more detailed understanding of the evolution of HIV. A particularly interesting case is evolution in response to drug treatment, where recombination can facilitate the rapid acquisition of multiple resistance mutations. With the methods developed here, more precise and more detailed studies will be possible, as soon as data with higher time resolution and greater sample sizes is available.Comment: to appear in PLoS Computational Biolog

Comparing serial X-ray crystallography and microcrystal electron diffraction (MicroED) as methods for routine structure determination from small macromolecular crystals.

Innovative new crystallographic methods are facilitating structural studies from ever smaller crystals of biological macromolecules. In particular, serial X-ray crystallography and microcrystal electron diffraction (MicroED) have emerged as useful methods for obtaining structural information from crystals on the nanometre to micrometre scale. Despite the utility of these methods, their implementation can often be difficult, as they present many challenges that are not encountered in traditional macromolecular crystallography experiments. Here, XFEL serial crystallography experiments and MicroED experiments using batch-grown microcrystals of the enzyme cyclophilin A are described. The results provide a roadmap for researchers hoping to design macromolecular microcrystallography experiments, and they highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the two methods. Specifically, we focus on how the different physical conditions imposed by the sample-preparation and delivery methods required for each type of experiment affect the crystal structure of the enzyme

Discourse or dialogue? Habermas, the Bakhtin Circle, and the question of concrete utterances

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final publication is available at Springer via the link below.This article argues that the Bakhtin Circle presents a more realistic theory of concrete dialogue than the theory of discourse elaborated by Habermas. The Bakhtin Circle places speech within the “concrete whole utterance” and by this phrase they mean that the study of everyday language should be analyzed through the mediations of historical social systems such as capitalism. These mediations are also characterized by a determinate set of contradictions—the capital-labor contradiction in capitalism, for example—that are reproduced in unique ways in more concrete forms of life (the state, education, religion, culture, and so on). Utterances always dialectically refract these processes and as such are internal concrete moments, or concrete social forms, of them. Moreover, new and unrepeatable dialogic events arise in these concrete social forms in order to overcome and understand the constant dialectical flux of social life. But this theory of dialogue is different from that expounded by Habermas, who tends to explore speech acts by reproducing a dualism between repeatable and universal “abstract” discursive processes (commonly known as the ideal speech situation) and empirical uses of discourse. These critical points against Habermas are developed by focusing on six main areas: sentences and utterances; the lifeworld and background language; active versus passive understandings of language; validity claims; obligation and relevance in language; and dialectical universalism