“An Organic Behemoth Fossilized by a Black Magic Curse”: The Pseudo-Baroque Illegal Structure of Tangut Inn

《西夏旅館》四十七萬字的龐大結構曾被黃錦樹評為漫無節制，但本 文認為只有憑藉著過度增生的書寫意志，駱以軍才能建築他的偽巴洛克 空間。楊凱麟曾直指駱以軍「呈現巴洛克書寫的極限」，但相對於楊凱麟 的德勒茲式閱讀，本文試圖將《西夏旅館》的文學空間重疊在台灣錯綜複 雜的歷史脈絡上，並且追問駱以軍的「巴洛克建築狂想」究竟從何而來。 在台灣的建築語境中談論到巴洛克風格，我們常直覺性地想起日本殖民 時期的擬洋風或和洋折衷建築。從建築史的時間軸來看，擬洋風及和洋 折衷建築顯然不能被歸類為巴洛克，它們充其量只是挪用了巴洛克時期 的建築語彙。然而，就空間概念上來說，日本殖民建築和巴洛克建築皆 展示了威權、秩序、監視、光。上述四個特徵和《西夏旅館》昏暗狹窄的 空間結構無疑大相徑庭，因為西夏旅館是國民政府迫遷來台後臨時加蓋 在日式都市平面上的違章眷村建築。《西夏旅館》捕捉到台灣總是介於各 個殖民政權過渡時期的歷史失重感，而戰後台灣城市中盤根錯節的違章 建築正是例外狀態(stato di eccezione)的顯影——在懸置法律的法外空間恣意生長。作為一幢隱喻性的違章建築，《西夏旅館》拼貼歪斜的語言結 構亦顯現另一種例外狀態：一種遊走於文法空間之外的書寫。Kimchew Ng has once accused Yijun Luo’s 470,000-word Tangut Inn of being monstrously excessive, but this paper contends that Luo’s feverish will to write towards infinity grants him the possibility to create a pseudobaroque space. Kailin Yang has pointed out that Luo “displays the limit of baroque writing,” but this paper aims to read Tangut Inn in relation to Taiwan’s complicated historical background, and tries to trace the source of Luo’s “Baroque fantasy of architecture.” In Taiwan, the “Baroque style” is often erroneously used to refer to Pseudo-European or Semi-European buildings constructed under Japanese rule. As far as the history of architecture is concerned, the Baroque era ended around 1725, yet such Japanese colonial architecture is indeed conceptually evocative of Baroque architecture, for both emphasize sovereignty, order, surveillance and light. These four characteristics define what Tangut Inn is not: the space of Tangut Inn is dark and cramped, and its structure resembles a temporary “military dependents’ village” that is illegally built upon a former Japanese colony. Tangut Inn mirrors Taiwan’s perpetual state of being colonized by different sovereignties and Taiwanese people’s apathy towards history. Such a state of exception (stato di accezione) is reflected by Taiwan’s chaotic cityscape, where illegal structures multiply outside the legitimate space. As a metaphorical illegal structure, the chaotic pastiche of Tangut Inn displays another state of exception: a writing that is located outside the grammatical space

Fibrocartilage Tissue Engineering: The Role of the Stress Environment on Cell Morphology and Matrix Expression

Although much is known about the effects of uniaxial mechanical loading on fibrocartilage development, the stress fields to which fibrocartilaginous regions are subjected to during development are mutiaxial. That fibrocartilage develops at tendon-to-bone attachments and in compressive regions of tendons is well established. However, the three-dimensional (3D) nature of the stresses needed for the development of fibrocartilage is not known. Here, we developed and applied an in vitro system to determine whether fibrocartilage can develop under a state of periodic hydrostatic tension in which only a single principal component of stress is compressive. This question is vital to efforts to mechanically guide morphogenesis and matrix expression in engineered tissue replacements. Mesenchymal stromal cells in a 3D culture were exposed to compressive and tensile stresses as a result of an external tensile hydrostatic stress field. The stress field was characterized through mechanical modeling. Tensile cyclic stresses promoted spindle-shaped cells, upregulation of scleraxis and type one collagen, and cell alignment with the direction of tension. Cells experiencing a single compressive stress component exhibited rounded cell morphology and random cell orientation. No difference in mRNA expression of the genes Sox9 and aggrecan was observed when comparing tensile and compressive regions unless the medium was supplemented with the chondrogenic factor transforming growth factor beta3. In that case, Sox9 was upregulated under static loading conditions and aggrecan was upregulated under cyclic loading conditions. In conclusion, the fibrous component of fibrocartilage could be generated using only mechanical cues, but generation of the cartilaginous component of fibrocartilage required biologic factors in addition to mechanical cues. These studies support the hypothesis that the 3D stress environment influences cell activity and gene expression in fibrocartilage development

The expansion of human T-bet(high)CD21(low) B cells is T cell dependent

Accumulation of human CD21(low) B cells in peripheral blood is a hallmark of chronic activation of the adaptive immune system in certain infections and autoimmune disorders. The molecular pathways underpinning the development, function, and fate of these CD21(low) B cells remain incompletely characterized. Here, combined transcriptomic and chromatin accessibility analyses supported a prominent role for the transcription factor T-bet in the transcriptional regulation of these T-bet(high)CD21(low) B cells. Investigating essential signals for generating these cells in vitro established that B cell receptor (BCR)/interferon-gamma receptor (IFN gamma R) costimulation induced the highest levels of T-bet expression and enabled their differentiation during cell cultures with Toll-like receptor (TLR) ligand or CD40L/interleukin-21 (IL-21) stimulation. Low proportions of CD21(low) B cells in peripheral blood from patients with defined inborn errors of immunity (IEI), because of mutations affecting canonical NF-kappa B, CD40, and IL-21 receptor or IL-12/IFN gamma/IFN gamma receptor/signal transducer and activator of transcription 1 (STAT1) signaling, substantiated the essential roles of BCR- and certain T cell-derived signals in the in vivo expansion of T-bet(high)CD21(low) B cells. Disturbed TLR signaling due to MyD88 or IRAK4 deficiency was not associated with reduced CD21(low) B cell proportions. The expansion of human T-bet(high)CD21(low) B cells correlated with an expansion of circulating T follicular helper 1 (cTfh1) and T peripheral helper (Tph) cells, identifying potential sources of CD40L, IL-21, and IFN gamma signals. Thus, we identified important pathways to target autoreactive T-bet(high)CD21(low) B cells in human autoimmune conditions, where these cells are linked to pathogenesis and disease progression.Transplantation and immunomodulatio

Fluid-structure Interaction within a Layered Aortic Arch Model

The response of wall stress to the elasticity of each layer in the aorta wall was investigated to understand the role of the different elastic properties of layers in the aortic dissection. The complex mechanical interaction between blood flow and wall dynamics in a three-dimensional arch model of an aorta was studied by means of computational coupled fluid-structure interaction analysis. The results show that stresses in the media layer are highest in three layers and that shear stress is concentrated in the media layer near to the adventitia layer. Hence, the difference in the elastic properties of the layers could be responsible for the pathological state in which a tear splits across the tunica media to near to the tunica adventitia and the dissection spreads along the laminar planes of the media layer where it is near the adventitia layer