A failure in resilience: The corrupting influence of postwar Milan in Visconti’s Rocco and His Brothers

Abstract The 1960 Italian film Rocco and His Brothers (Rocco e i suoi Fratelli) is one of the greatest exemplars of Italian post-war cinema. The film depicts the disintegration and deterritorialization of an immigrant family from Lucania, a southern Italian village in Basilicata, and their relocation to Milan. The director of the film, Luchino Visconti, continuously alludes to the protagonist’s fascination with their hometown (paese). This nostalgic and wholesome image of paese contrasts the ubiquitous alienation and exploitation in the industrial North. The film is replete with signs and metaphors which explicitly and implicitly reinforce the evident tension between the immigrant family and an industrialized metropolis. Based on an interview with Mario Licari, Visconti’s assistant who accompanied him on location visits, this article offers an opportunity to revisit significant locations of the film such as Quartiere Fabio Filzi, the Alfa Romeo Factory, Milan Duomo, Ponte Della Ghisolfa, Parco Sempione, Stazione Centrale and Circolo Arci Bellezza. Underpinned by the theories of Giorgio Agamben, Antonio Gramsci and Andre Bazin this essay creates a theoretical framework that works in parallel with a detailed analysis of the scenes, original archival material, dialogues, places, and history of architecture of the locations. The article demonstrates how urban and architectural spaces not only accommodated the narrative of the film but shaped, twisted and structured the story of the masterpiece. The paper shows how Visconti succeeded in visualizing a ‘hidden’ Milan that was never appeared on the silver screen before Rocco and His Brothers

In praise of orthographic projections:Cinematic plans, history and application

This article offers insights for architectural and design educators that teach emerging cinematic and filmmaking practices. Due to its interdisciplinary nature and its practice-based methodology, this article presents the research, pedagogy and practice for educators in the field of architecture and spatial design as well as other creative disciplines such as film, animation and digital media. The argument is substantiated by empirical observations and qualitative analysis of student filmmaking projects and first-hand experiments in a design studio environment. Direct observations made from experiments in a design studio environment in which more than 50 students were trained and numerous internationally awarded architectural films and animations were produced. The research outcomes illustrate how traditional orthographic drawing techniques can operate as highly useful instruments in the process of designing narrative pieces of digital media, animation and film about architectural projects. The pedagogical approach has the potential to have implications on the discourse, practice and pedagogy of the emerging common ground between architecture, spatial design principles, digital media and filmmaking

Cutting Rate Effect on Temperature During Cortical Bone Sawing

When bone is cut the occurrence of thermal damage to the bone is of major concern to the surgeon. If the temperature exceeds 44°C for longer than 1 min, bone repair is impaired (Eriksson et al, 1984) and necrosis may occur. Repeated use of cutting blades may reduce the cutting efficiency (Wevers et al, 1987; Toksvig-Larsen et al, 1992). Wevers et al also found that there is a greater force required to cut cortical bone using a blunt saw compared to new one

The architecture of the video game Stray (2022): the feline quadruped cyberpunk player

The twenty-first century was marked by emerging ways of space- and place-making. The architecture of the virtual environments of video games is one of the alternative practices in which the discipline of architecture got involved. This essay looks at the architecture and spatial storytelling in the videogame Stray (2022). The relevance of studying Stray does not lie only in the game’s enigmatic interiors, rigorous space-oriented narrative, unique patchwork of neon-soaked, post-apocalyptic labyrinthine spaces, or the cyberpunk Kowloon-like ghettoised urban environment in which the game takes place; Stray is an unprecedented case study as its gameplay is narrated through a non-human perspective: through the point of view of a cat accompanied by a small flying robot called B 12. This essay provides a critical review of the game and attempts to dissect how the spatial storytelling of its post/non-human architecture is orchestrated. Spatial puzzle mechanics, the fluctuation of the game between urban, architectural, and interior scales, and the role that platforms and vertical design techniques play are the subjects of the article. The challenges of the interaction of a game character with four legs with spatial elements, video game placemaking, and spatial design of fetch quests are other topics that the essay will look into. The article is supported by comments from an unpublished interview with Viv (one of the developers of the game) and a series of detailed analytical drawings from the reconstruction of the game environments by the authors

Prediction of the Thromboembolic Syndrome: an Application of Artificial Neural Networks in Gene Expression Data Analysis

The aim of this study was to propose a method for improving the power of recognition and classification of thromboembolic syndrome based on the analysis of ‎ gene expression data using artificial neural networks. The studied method was performed on a dataset which contained data about 117 patients admitted to a hospital in Durham in 2009. Of all the studied patients, 66 patients were suffering from thromboembolic syndrome and 51 people were enrolled in the study as the control group. The gene expression level of 22277 was measured for all the samples and was entered into the model as the main variable. Due to the high number of variables, principal components analysis and auto-encoder neural network methods were used in order to reduce the dimension of data. The results showed that when using auto-encoder networks, the classification accuracy was 93.12. When using the PCA method to reduce the size of the data, the obtained accuracy was 78.26, and hence a significant difference in the accuracy of classification was observed. If auto-encoder network method is used, the sensitivity and specificity will be 92.58 and 93.68 and when PCA method is used, they will be 0.77 and 0.78 respectively. The results suggested that auto-encoder networks, compared with the PCA method, had a higher level of accuracy for the classification of thromboembolic syndrome status

Distribution of Bupivacaine in Epidural Space

Background: There is no consensus regarding the spread of local anesthesia in thoracic epidural space to obtain regional analgesia or anesthesia. We aimed to determine the distribution of Bupivacaine injected into the thoracic epidural space to evaluate its cranial or caudal spread in patients undergoing epidural anesthesia.Materials and Methods: In a prospective clinical trial, thirty adults patients (12 males and 18 females) with ASA class I and II, scheduled for elective cholecystectomy under thoracic epidural anesthesia with 0.5% Isobaric Bupivacaine were studied. Clinical and radiological outcomes were evaluated to assess the correlation between the volume of the local anesthetic injected to the thoracic epidural space and the extension of its spread within the epidural space. Immediately after insertion and fixation of epidural catheter, patients were transferred to MRI unit to receive 8 mL of 5% Bupivacaine plus 1 mL Magnevist through the epidural catheter. Then, the patterns of spread were evaluated. Data were obtained prospectively during the procedure.Results: Mean distribution of bupivacaine in thoracic epidural space was 0.64 level/ml of local anesthetics and the average of spread was 5.21 levels. The mean spread of bupivacaine was more in females (5.5 ± 1.1) than males (4.8 ± 1.1); but the difference was not significant. Unlike Patients’ age and weight, the height and body mass index had a significant negative correlation with the distribution of Bupivacaine.Conclusion: Distribution of Bupivacaine in epidural space in female patients is more than male ones and the tendency of spread is more toward the cephalad direction than caudal.Keywords: Bupivacaine distribution, Epidural anesthesia, Local Anesthesia, Bupivacaine, Magnevis

Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products for Age-Related Macular Degeneration; Scaffold Fabrication and Delivery Methods

Retinal degenerative diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD) represent a leading cause of blindness, resulting in permanent damage to retinal cells that are essential for maintaining normal vision. Around 12% of people over the age of 65 have some form of retinal degenerative disease. Whilst antibody-based drugs have revolutionised treatment of neovascular AMD, they are only effective at an early stage and cannot prevent eventual progression or allow recovery of previously lost vision. Hence, there is a clear unmet need to find innovative treatment strategies to develop a long-term cure. The replacement of damaged retinal cells is thought to be the best therapeutic strategy for the treatment of patients with retinal degeneration. Advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) are a group of innovative and complex biological products including cell therapy medicinal products, gene therapy medicinal products, and tissue engineered products. Development of ATMPs for the treatment of retinal degeneration diseases has become a fast-growing field of research because it offers the potential to replace damaged retinal cells for long-term treatment of AMD. While gene therapy has shown encouraging results, its effectiveness for treatment of retinal disease may be hampered by the body’s response and problems associated with inflammation in the eye. In this mini-review, we focus on describing ATMP approaches including cell- and gene-based therapies for treatment of AMD along with their applications. We also aim to provide a brief overview of biological substitutes, also known as scaffolds, that can be used for delivery of cells to the target tissue and describe biomechanical properties required for optimal delivery. We describe different fabrication methods for preparing cell-scaffolds and explain how the use of artificial intelligence (AI) can aid with the process. We predict that combining AI with 3D bioprinting for 3D cell-scaffold fabrication could potentially revolutionise retinal tissue engineering and open up new opportunities for developing innovative platforms to deliver therapeutic agents to the target tissues

Are the determinants of the progression to type 2 diabetes and regression to normoglycemia in the populations with pre-diabetes the same?

Funding The main project has been funded by Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences.Peer reviewedPublisher PD