Linking urban design to sustainability : formal indicators of social urban sustainability field research in Perth, Western Australia

The making of a livable urban community is a complex endeavor. For much of the 20th Century plannersand engineers believed that modern and rational decision-making would create successful cities. Today, political leaders across the globe are considering ways to promote sustainable development and the concepts of New Urbanism are making their way from the drawing board to the ground. While much has changed in the world, the creation of a successful street is as much of an art today as it was in the 1960s.Our work seeks to investigate 'street life' in cities as a crucial factor towards community success. What arethe components of the neighborhood and street form that contributes to the richness of street life? To answer this question we rely on the literature. The aim of the Formal Indicators of Social Urban Sustainability studyis to measure the formal components of a neighborhood and street that theorists have stated important in promoting sustainability. This paper will describe how this concept helps to bridge urban design and sustainability. It will describe the tool and show how this was applied in a comparative assessment of Joondalup and Fremantle, two urban centers in the Perth metropolitan area

Niche shifts after island colonization spurred adaptive diversification and speciation in a cosmopolitan bird clade

Islands have long been recognized as key contributors to biodiversity because they facilitate geographic isolation and ecological divergence from mainland ancestors. However, island colonization has traditionally been considered an evolutionary dead-end process, and its consequences for continental biodiversity remain understudied. Here, we use the evolutionary radiation of Columbiformes (i.e. pigeons and doves) to examine if ecological niche shifts on islands shaped biological diversification and community composition on continents. We show that the colonization of islands by continental, terrestrial-foraging lineages led to the exploitation of a new ecological niche (i.e. arboreal foraging). This transition towards arboreal foraging was associated with evolutionary adaptation towards a new morphological optimum. In addition, arboreal-foraging lineages of islands experienced an increase in speciation rates, which was associated with successful range expansions to other islands as well as back colonization of continents. Our results provide empirical evidence that diversification on continents can only be fully understood when studying the diversification processes that took place on islands, challenging the view of islands as mere sinks of evolutionary diversity

Form and urban change : an urban morphometric study of five gentrified neighbourhoods in London

Research in Urban Morphology has long been exploring the form of cities and their changes over time, especially by establishing links with the parallel dynamics of these cities’ social, economic and political environments. The capacity of an adaptable and resilient urban form for ensuring a fertile environment for economic prosperity and social cohesion is at the forefront of discussion. Gentrification has emerged in the past few decades as an important topic of research in urban sociology, geography and economy, addressing the social impact of some forms of urban evolution; to some extent, these studies emphasise the form of the environment in which gentrification takes place, however, a systematic and quantitative method for a detailed characterization of this type of urban form is still far from being achieved. With this paper, we make a first step towards the establishment of an approach based on “urban morphometrics”. To this end, we measure and compare key morphological features of five London neighbourhoods that have undergone a process of piecemeal gentrification. Findings suggest that these five case studies display similar and recognisable morphological patterns in terms of their built form, geographical location of main and local roads and physical relationships between street fronts and street types. These initial results, while not implying any causal or universal relationship between morphological and social dynamics, nevertheless contribute to; a) highlight the benefits of a rigorous quantitative approach towards interpreting urban form beyond the disciplinary boundaries of Urban Morphology and b) define the statistical recurrence of a few, specific morphological features amongst the five cases of gentrified areas in London

Chronic Myeloid Leukemia: Molecular Monitoring of Residual Disease by Genomic DNA Compared to Conventional mRNA Analysis in Follow-Ups up to 8 Years

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a clonal myeloproliferative disorder resulting from the t(9;22)(q34;q11) balanced reciprocal translocation within a pluripotent stem cell (SC). The resulting Philadelphia (Ph) chromosome produces BCR-ABL1 fusion gene coding for a deregulated Abl tyrosine- kinase with constitutive and tumorigenic activity. The first line therapy of CML is imatinib mesylate, which targets Bcr-Abl protein, inhibiting proliferation pathways. Complete cytogenetic response can be achieved in 95% of patients treated in the early chronic phase (CP)1. Molecular monitoring of minimal residual disease is crucial to detect poor responses to imatinib and optimizing treatment with second generation tyrosine-kinase inhibitors or allogeneic stem cell transplantation. Residual leukemia is assessed by a quantitative manner evaluating levels of BCR-ABL1 transcripts by real-time reverse transcriptase PCR (qRT-PCR). Although qRT-PCR detects mRNA levels in a very sensitive manner, the negative result is difficult to interpret, because undetectable levels of chimeric transcript can reflect either an effective elimination of leukemia cells, or the presence of a quiescent leukemia SC transcriptionally silent

Inhibition of HSP90 distinctively modulates the global phosphoproteome of Leishmania mexicana developmental stages

Heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) is an evolutionarily conserved chaperone protein that plays a central role in the folding and maturation of a large array of client proteins. In the unicellular parasite Leishmania, the etiological agent of the neglected tropical disease leishmaniasis, treatment with HSP90 inhibitors leads to differentiation from promastigote to amastigote stage, resembling the effects of established environmental triggers, low pH and heat shock. This indicates a crucial role for HSP90 in the life cycle control of Leishmania. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain unknown. Using a combination of treatment with the classical HSP90 inhibitor tanespimycin, phosphoproteome enrichment, and tandem mass tag (TMT) labeling-based quantitative proteomic mass spectrometry (MS), we systematically characterized the perturbing effect of HSP90 inhibition on the global phosphoproteome of Leishmania mexicana across its life cycle stages and showed that the HSP90 inhibition causes substantially distinct molecular effects in promastigote and amastigote forms.While phosphorylation of HSP90 and its co-chaperone HSP70 was decreased in amastigote, the opposite effect was observed in promastigotes. Our results showed that kinase activity and microtubule motor activity are highly represented in the negatively affected phosphoproteins of the promastigotes, whereas ribosomal proteins, protein folding, and proton channel activity are preferentially enriched in the perturbed amastigote phosphoproteome. Additionally, cross-comparison of our results with HSP90 inhibition-affected RNA-binding proteins showed that RNA helicase domains were distinctively enriched among the upregulated amastigote phosphoproteins. In addition to providing robust identification and quantification of 1,833 phosphorylated proteins across three life cycle stages of L. mexicana, this study reveals the dramatically different ways the HSP90 inhibition stress modulates the phosphoproteome of the pathogenic amastigote and provides in-depth insight into the scope of selective molecular targeting in the therapeutically relevant amastigote stage

Structural Properties of Planar Graphs of Urban Street Patterns

Recent theoretical and empirical studies have focused on the structural properties of complex relational networks in social, biological and technological systems. Here we study the basic properties of twenty 1-square-mile samples of street patterns of different world cities. Samples are represented by spatial (planar) graphs, i.e. valued graphs defined by metric rather than topologic distance and where street intersections are turned into nodes and streets into edges. We study the distribution of nodes in the 2-dimensional plane. We then evaluate the local properties of the graphs by measuring the meshedness coefficient and counting short cycles (of three, four and five edges), and the global properties by measuring global efficiency and cost. As normalization graphs, we consider both minimal spanning trees (MST) and greedy triangulations (GT) induced by the same spatial distribution of nodes. The results indicate that most of the cities have evolved into networks as efficienct as GT, although their cost is closer to the one of a tree. An analysis based on relative efficiency and cost is able to characterize different classes of cities.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, 3 table

Quasi-probability representations of quantum theory with applications to quantum information science

This article comprises a review of both the quasi-probability representations of infinite-dimensional quantum theory (including the Wigner function) and the more recently defined quasi-probability representations of finite-dimensional quantum theory. We focus on both the characteristics and applications of these representations with an emphasis toward quantum information theory. We discuss the recently proposed unification of the set of possible quasi-probability representations via frame theory and then discuss the practical relevance of negativity in such representations as a criteria for quantumness.Comment: v3: typos fixed, references adde

Lignin/Carbohydrate Complex Isolated from Posidonia oceanica Sea Balls (Egagropili): Characterization and Antioxidant Reinforcement of Protein-Based Films

A lignin fraction (LF) was extracted from the sea balls of Posidonia oceanica (egagropili) and extensively dialyzed and characterized by FT-IR and NMR analyses. LF resulted water soluble and exhibited a brownish-to-black color with the highest absorbance in the range of 250-400 nm, attributed to the chromophore functional groups present in the phenylpropane-based polymer. LF high-performance size exclusion chromatography analysis showed a highly represented (98.77%) species of 34.75 kDa molecular weight with a polydispersity index of 1.10 and an intrinsic viscosity of 0.15. Quantitative analysis of carbohydrates indicated that they represented 28.3% of the dry weight of the untreated egagropili fibers and 72.5% of that of LF. In particular, eight different monosaccharides were detected (fucose, arabinose, rhamnose, galactose, glucose, xylose, glucosamine and glucuronic acid), glucuronic acid (46.6%) and rhamnose (29.6%) being the most present monosaccharides in the LF. Almost all the phenol content of LF (113.85 ± 5.87 mg gallic acid eq/g of extract) was water soluble, whereas around 22% of it consisted of flavonoids and only 10% of the flavonoids consisted of anthocyanins. Therefore, LF isolated from egagropili lignocellulosic material could be defined as a water-soluble lignin/carbohydrate complex (LCC) formed by a phenol polymeric chain covalently bound to hemicellulose fragments. LCC exhibited a remarkable antioxidant activity that remained quite stable during 6 months and could be easily incorporated into a protein-based film and released from the latter overtime. These findings suggest egagropili LCC as a suitable candidate as an antioxidant additive for the reinforcement of packaging of foods with high susceptibility to be deteriorated in aerobic conditions

Hydrogen sulfide inhibits inflammatory pain and enhances the analgesic properties of delta opioid receptors

Chronic inflammatory pain is present in many pathologies and diminishes the patient’s quality of life. Moreover, most current treatments have a low efficacy and significant side effects. Recent studies demonstrate the analgesic properties of slow-releasing hydrogen sulfide (H2S) donors in animals with osteoarthritis or neuropathic pain, but their effects in inflammatory pain and related pathways are not completely understood. Several treatments potentiate the analgesic actions of δ-opioid receptor (DOR) agonists, but the role of H2S in modulating their effects and expression during inflammatory pain remains untested. In C57BL/6J male mice with inflammatory pain provoked by subplantar injection of complete Freund’s adjuvant, we evaluated: (1) the antiallodynic and antihyperalgesic effects of different doses of two slow-releasing H2S donors, i.e., diallyl disulfide (DADS) and phenyl isothiocyanate (P-ITC) and their mechanism of action; (2) the pain-relieving effects of DOR agonists co-administered with H2S donors; (3) the effects of DADS and P-ITC on the oxidative stress and molecular changes caused by peripheral inflammation. Results demonstrate that both H2S donors inhibited allodynia and hyperalgesia in a dose-dependent manner, potentiated the analgesic effects and expression of DOR, activated the antioxidant system, and reduced the nociceptive and apoptotic pathways. The data further demonstrate the possible participation of potassium channels and the Nrf2 transcription factor signaling pathway in the pain-relieving activities of DADS and P-ITC. This study suggests that the systemic administration of DADS and P-ITC and local application of DOR agonists in combination with slow-releasing H2S donors are two new strategies for the treatment of inflammatory pain

Unjamming of active rotators

Active particle assemblies can exhibit a wide range of interesting dynamical phases depending on internal parameters such as density, adhesion strength or self-propulsion. Active self-rotations are rarely studied in this context, although they can be relevant for active matter systems, as we illustrate by analyzing the motion of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii algae under different experimental conditions. Inspired by this example, we simulate the dynamics of a system of interacting active disks endowed with active torques and self-propulsive forces. At low packing fractions, adhesion causes the formation of small rotating clusters, resembling those observed when algae are stressed. At higher densities, the model shows a jamming to unjamming transition promoted by active torques and hindered by adhesion. We also study the interplay between self-propulsion and self-rotation and derive a phase diagram. Our results yield a comprehensive picture of the dynamics of active rotators, providing useful guidance to interpret experimental results in cellular systems where rotations might play a role