The Realistic Utopia. Maintaining Criticality in Architectural Practices of Participation.

Recent discourses on participatory architectural practices have argued that despite their claims of a transformative agenda, these practices are typically coopted by power, utilised to manipulate and placate opposition, and prevent rather than enable progressive change. Elsewhere so-called critical practices of architecture have been judged equally ineffective at creating substantive change, unable to engage in the world as it is and instead retreating into abstract, speculative and utopian projects. Placing the discourses together it would appear that while participatory forms of architecture have difficulty maintaining criticality towards the relational power structures through which they operate, critical forms of architecture have somewhat reciprocal limitations participating in reality. To seek a possible means to navigate the apparent divergence between participation and criticality in architecture this thesis returns to a notion developed by one of the leading early exponents of participation. In 1971 the Italian architect, urbanist, writer and educator, Giancarlo De Carlo gave a lecture in Melbourne entitled An Architecture of Participation in which he introduced the concept of the ‘realistic Utopia’. Through the course of the thesis a layered definition of the realistic utopia is developed. This is done first through a close reading of De Carlo’s principle theoretical works on participation and by mapping the evolution and transformation of the core ideas through his work and the influential contexts in which he was operating. The changes in social, economic and political contexts which have occurred since De Carlo used the term are outlined, with reference to the accompanying discourses on participation and criticality in architecture, to examine the continued relevance and required amendments to the realistic utopia as a conceptual tool for contemporary practices. The thesis argues that the realistic utopia draws together a number of overlooked aspects of De Carlo’s architectural theorisation which explicitly sought a means for architecture to operate critically. The realistic utopia is understood as a means to stimulate social change through the practice of architecture, albeit indirectly, through an iterative and reticulating process of producing images of spatial alternatives in a dialectic relationship with its ‘public’. The thesis argues that the realistic utopia offers a distinct conception of the interaction between architectural objects, the processes by which they are formed and the societal structures which frame this formation. It shows that beyond being a means to understand the multi-directional relationship between architecture and society, the realistic utopia offers a conceptual tool to aid action within the complex set of forces at work in this relationship. In this way, it locates the realistic utopia as something of importance beyond an assessment of the work of De Carlo, or even the broader project of participation he fostered, and is here opened up for renewed use by practitioners today

Operating Principles, Common Questions, and Performance Data for an Atmospheric Driven Atmos Clock

The elegance of the Atmos clock and the curiosity of mankind in self-operational mechanical systems have propelled this time device into our collective desire for more knowledge. The search for a self-winding time piece, based on normal atmospheric fluctuations, was pursued for centuries by horologists with the well-known clock proposed by J. L. Reutter and commercialized by Jaeger LeCoultre. This clock has generated numerous discussions throughout the years as noted in past Bulletin articles and other correspondences within the time keeping community. In this paper, the operating principles of the Atmos clock will be reviewed using fundamental science and engineering principles. Next, key questions and experimental observations will be discussed in light of the operating concepts to clarify the clock’s performance. Finally, an extensive database will be introduced which was gathered through physical measurements and data recording of an Atmos 540 clock

Model of a Mechanical Clock Escapement

The mechanical tower clock originated in Europe during the 14th century to sound hourly bells and later display hands on a dial. An important innovation was the escapement mechanism, which converts stored energy into oscillatory motion for fixed time intervals through the pendulum swing. Previous work has modeled the escapement mechanism in terms of inelastic and elastic collisions. We derive and experimentally verify a theoretical model in terms of impulsive differential equations for the Graham escapement mechanism in a Seth Thomas tower clock. The model offers insight into the clock’s mechanical behavior and the functionality of the deadbeat escapement mechanism

Energy Harvesting from Atmospheric Variations - Theory and Test

The last two decades have offered a dramatic rise in the use of digital technologies such as wireless sensor networks that require small isolated power supplies. Energy harvesting, a method to gather energy from ambient sources including sunlight, vibrations, heat, etc., has provided some success in powering these systems. One of the unexplored areas of energy harvesting is the use of atmospheric temperature variations to obtain usable energy. This paper investigates an innovative device to extract energy from atmospheric variations using ethyl chloride filled mechanical bellows. The apparatus consists of a bellows filled with ethyl chloride working against a spring in a closed and controlled environment. The bellows expand/contract depending upon the ambient temperature and the energy harvested is calculated as a function of the bellows’ length. The experiments showed that 6 J of energy may be harvested for a 23 degree Celsius change in temperature. The numerical results closely correlated to the experimental data with a deviation of 1%. In regions with high diurnal temperature variation, such an apparatus may yield approximately 250 uW depending on the ambient temperature range

High Sensitivity Tunable Radio Frequency Sensors

Highly sensitive and tunable RF sensors that provide detection and analysis of single cells and particles are provided. The tunable RF sensors are configured as tunable interferometers, wherein cells or particles to be analyzed are passed through a channel, such as a microfluidic channel, across waveguides corresponding to reference and test branches of the interferometers. A network analyzer coupled to the interferometers can be configured to measure a plurality of scattering parameters, such as transmission scattering coefficients (S.sub.21) of the reference and test branches, to evaluate characteristics of cells passing through the channel. A plurality of tunable interferometers may be employed, each interferometer operating in different frequency bands such that information obtain from the plurality of interferometers may be combined to provide further information

The Effects of Climate Change on Harp Seals (Pagophilus groenlandicus)

Harp seals (Pagophilus groenlandicus) have evolved life history strategies to exploit seasonal sea ice as a breeding platform. As such, individuals are prepared to deal with fluctuations in the quantity and quality of ice in their breeding areas. It remains unclear, however, how shifts in climate may affect seal populations. The present study assesses the effects of climate change on harp seals through three linked analyses. First, we tested the effects of short-term climate variability on young-of-the year harp seal mortality using a linear regression of sea ice cover in the Gulf of St. Lawrence against stranding rates of dead harp seals in the region during 1992 to 2010. A similar regression of stranding rates and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index values was also conducted. These analyses revealed negative correlations between both ice cover and NAO conditions and seal mortality, indicating that lighter ice cover and lower NAO values result in higher mortality. A retrospective cross-correlation analysis of NAO conditions and sea ice cover from 1978 to 2011 revealed that NAO-related changes in sea ice may have contributed to the depletion of seals on the east coast of Canada during 1950 to 1972, and to their recovery during 1973 to 2000. This historical retrospective also reveals opposite links between neonatal mortality in harp seals in the Northeast Atlantic and NAO phase. Finally, an assessment of the long-term trends in sea ice cover in the breeding regions of harp seals across the entire North Atlantic during 1979 through 2011 using multiple linear regression models and mixed effects linear regression models revealed that sea ice cover in all harp seal breeding regions has been declining by as much as 6 percent per decade over the time series of available satellite data

Excess Circulating Alternatively Activated Myeloid (M2) Cells Accelerate ALS Progression While Inhibiting Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis

Circulating immune cells including autoreactive T cells and monocytes have been documented as key players in maintaining, protecting and repairing the central nervous system (CNS) in health and disease. Here, we hypothesized that neurodegenerative diseases might be associated, similarly to tumors, with increased levels of circulating peripheral myeloid derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), representing a subset of suppressor cells that often expand under pathological conditions and inhibit possible recruitment of helper T cells needed for fighting off the disease.We tested this working hypothesis in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and its mouse model, which are characterized by a rapid progression once clinical symptoms are evident. Adaptive transfer of alternatively activated myeloid (M2) cells, which homed to the spleen and exhibited immune suppressive activity in G93A mutant superoxide dismutase-1 (mSOD1) mice at a stage before emergence of disease symptoms, resulted in earlier appearance of disease symptoms and shorter life expectancy. The same protocol mitigated the inflammation-induced disease model of multiple sclerosis, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), which requires circulating T cells for disease induction. Analysis of whole peripheral blood samples obtained from 28 patients suffering from sporadic ALS (sALS), revealed a two-fold increase in the percentage of circulating MDSCs (LIN(-/Low)HLA-DR(-)CD33(+)) compared to controls.Taken together, these results emphasize the distinct requirements for fighting the inflammatory neurodegenerative disease, multiple sclerosis, and the neurodegenerative disease, ALS, though both share a local inflammatory component. Moreover, the increased levels of circulating MDSCs in ALS patients indicates the operation of systemic mechanisms that might lead to an impairment of T cell reactivity needed to overcome the disease conditions within the CNS. This high level of suppressive immune cells might represent a risk factor and a novel target for therapeutic intervention in ALS at least at the early stage