INTREPID Futures Initiative: The future of Academia and trans-disciplinary knowledge production in the urban field, 6th INTREPID Report

The idea of hosting the 5th INTREPID Action Workshop in Gagliato, Calabria (Italy), between the 20th - 27th July 2017, raised during the London Workshop with the deliberate intention to embed one of the INTREPID research explorations within ongoing initiatives of some of the Universities involved in the INTREPID COST action: in particular a participatory design workshop on Creative Towns, coordinated by the University of Westminster, with the participation of Newcastle University. Other non-cost members involved are: ILAUD, The International Laboratory of Architecture and Urban Design, the London School of Economics, the Universita’ degli Studi Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria, the Università della Calabria and a local NGO, the Academy of the Nano-science of Gagliato. The participatory workshop has been funded by the Academy of the Nano-science of Gagliato and it has been fruitfully coupled with an INTREPID Workshop. The main aim of the participatory design workshop was to explore alternative scenarios for the sustainable local development of Gagliato, a small town located in a relative marginal area of the South of Italy, engaging various local stakeholders in the scenario exercise

A Creative “Nanotown”. Framing Sustainable Development Scenarios with Local People in Calabria

During a two-year research programme from 2016 to 2018, scholars and students from diferent disciplinary backgrounds engaged with the local community of the town of Gagliato in Calabria, Italy, to co-produce future scenarios of local development. The aim was to enable a transition towards sustainability for a town afected by economic and demographic decline, like many other rural areas of southern Italy, but also be the protagonist of a promising annual summer science festival which had contributed to raising some expectations of change. The research has been designed to enable transdisciplinary knowledge production in the urban feld that could matter for the local community and would ultimately produce a real, positive impact on people’s lives. Despite its broad premises to test innovative learning practices with participating students for an ideal future academia, its concrete outcomes have been deeply ingrained in the local community, becoming part of their discussions of daily life and even informing their political agenda

INTREPID Futures Initiative: Universities and Knowledge for Sustainable Urban Futures: as if inter and trans-disciplinarity mattered. 4th INTREPID REPORT

This London Workshop is meant to advance the agenda of “Universities and Knowledge for Sustainable Urban Futures: as if ID and TD mattered”, by helping to define the scope of the EU COST Action INTREPID contribution, and of the activities to be funded for 2017-2019. Intention statement: ‘To contribute to the shaping of tomorrow’s universities & their urban curricula: as if inter and transdisciplinary ways of knowing actually mattered’. For this purpose, the Workshop was a one-day gathering of experts and practitioners with diverse experience and disciplinary backgrounds. The report outlines the results obtained

Effects of Alpha-Lipoic Acid and Myoinositol Supplementation on the Oocyte Enviroment of Obese Infertile Women

INTRODUCTION Obesity is characterized by increased inflammation and oxidative stress, resulting in adverse effects on women reproductive potential. Antioxidant supplementation may exert a positive effect on the obese ovarian environment. Indeed, we preliminarily observed a reduction of mitochondrial (mt) DNA content, a marker of oxidative stress, in granulosa cells of obese infertile women supplemented with Sinopol\uae (Laborest SpA), composed by alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) 800 mg, myoinositol (MYO) 2 g, folic acid (FA) 400 ug. This suggested a potential role of Sinopol\uae in reducing oxidative stress in the obese ovarian environment. Here we analyzed Total Antioxidant Capacity (TAC) in follicular fluid and mtDNA levels in granulosa cells, in a larger population of infertile women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF). METHODS 19 normal weight (NW) and 24 obese (OB) infertile women were enrolled in our IVF center. Infertility was investigated and a non-ovarian diagnosis was made. Patients did not present any additional pathology. All women were provided with FA and among them 15 OB (OB-SIN) were also supplemented with ALA and MYO, for 2 months before ovarian stimulation. Follicular fluid (FF) and granulosa cells (GC) were collected after oocyte retrieval. TAC was measured in FF by enzymatic assay, mtDNA levels evaluated in GC by Real-time PCR. Results were compared by ANOVA and correlations assessed by Pearson\u2019s correlation (SPSS; IBM). RESULTS OB groups had similar BMI (OB patients supplemented with only folic acid (OB-F): 30.2 \ub1 0.7; OB-SIN: 32.7 \ub1 1.1 kg/m2). Women age was similar in all groups (NW: 36.7 \ub1 0.6; OB-F: 37.6 \ub1 1.7; OB-SIN: 35.9 \ub1 1.1 years). Among OB women, antioxidant capacity was significantly higher in OB-SIN than in OB-F. mtDNA levels showed an opposite trend, being decreased in OB-SIN and increased in OB-F compared to NW, though not reaching statistical significance. mtDNA levels were significantly and inversely correlated with the number of total oocytes and metaphase II (mature) oocytes. Pregnancy rate was similar in NW (36.8%) and OB-SIN (33.3%) women, while it was lower in OB-F patients (11.1%). CONCLUSION We analyzed molecular markers in granulosa cells and follicular fluid as indicators of oocytes oxidative state. Our results suggest that supplementation with a compound of ALA -a natural antioxidant, cofactor in the mt respiratory chain- and MYO -an insulin-sensitizer- might increase antioxidant defenses and reduce oxidative stress in the obese ovarian environment, possibly contributing at restoring physiological conditions. This might improve IVF pregnancy rates in obese infertile women. Further studies are needed to clarify the synergic action of ALA, MYO and FA on the oocyte oxidative environment. Supported by Laborest Sp

Braneworld stars and black holes

We look for spherically symmetric star or black hole solutions on a Randall-Sundrum brane from the perspective of the bulk. We take a known bulk solution, and analyse possible braneworld trajectories within it that correspond, from the braneworld point of view, to solutions of the brane Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff equations. Our solutions are therefore embedded consistently into a full bulk solution. We find the full set of static gravitating matter sources on a brane in a range of bulk spacetimes, analyzing which can correspond to physically sensible sources. Finally, we look at time-dependent trajectories in a Schwarzschild--anti de Sitter spacetime as possible descriptions of time-dependent braneworld black holes, highlighting some of the general features one might expect, as well as some of the difficulties involved in getting a full solution to the question.Comment: 39 pages, 15 figure

Strengthening impact assessment: a call for integration and focus

We suggest that the impact assessment community has lost its way based on our observation that impact assessment is under attack because of a perceived lack of efficiency. Specifically, we contend that the proliferation of different impact assessment types creates separate silos of expertise and feeds arguments for not only a lack of efficiency but also a lack of effectiveness of the process through excessive specialisation and a lack of interdisciplinary practice. We propose that the solution is a return to the basics of impact assessment with a call for increased integration around the goal of sustainable development and focus through better scoping. We rehearse and rebut counter arguments covering silo-based expertise, advocacy, democracy, sustainability understanding and communication. We call on the impact assessment community to rise to the challenge of increasing integration and focus, and to engage in the debate about the means of strengthening impact assessment

Towards precision medicine for hypertension: a review of genomic, epigenomic, and microbiomic effects on blood pressure in experimental rat models and humans

Compelling evidence for the inherited nature of essential hypertension has led to extensive research in rats and humans. Rats have served as the primary model for research on the genetics of hypertension resulting in identification of genomic regions that are causally associated with hypertension. In more recent times, genome-wide studies in humans have also begun to improve our understanding of the inheritance of polygenic forms of hypertension. Based on the chronological progression of research into the genetics of hypertension as the "structural backbone," this review catalogs and discusses the rat and human genetic elements mapped and implicated in blood pressure regulation. Furthermore, the knowledge gained from these genetic studies that provide evidence to suggest that much of the genetic influence on hypertension residing within noncoding elements of our DNA and operating through pervasive epistasis or gene-gene interactions is highlighted. Lastly, perspectives on current thinking that the more complex "triad" of the genome, epigenome, and the microbiome operating to influence the inheritance of hypertension, is documented. Overall, the collective knowledge gained from rats and humans is disappointing in the sense that major hypertension-causing genes as targets for clinical management of essential hypertension may not be a clinical reality. On the other hand, the realization that the polygenic nature of hypertension prevents any single locus from being a relevant clinical target for all humans directs future studies on the genetics of hypertension towards an individualized genomic approach

Noncommutativity, generalized uncertainty principle and FRW cosmology

We consider the effects of noncommutativity and the generalized uncertainty principle on the FRW cosmology with a scalar field. We show that, the cosmological constant problem and removability of initial curvature singularity find natural solutions in this scenarios.Comment: 8 pages, to appear in IJT