Esfahan metro stations, opportunities for urban regeneration

Màster universitari en Estudis Avançats en Arquitectura: UrbanismeEsfahan City is composed by varied interconnected classes of crossings which represent the idea of difference plus coincidence in the city. These crossings can happen in the varied formats of superimposition, juxtaposition, or accumulation of different layers, which could be known as different size centers, key points, and such places that give services and provide varied options to the local and passengers, and get constructed by accumulating different things, constructive elements such as historical and new passages, architecture, uses and activities around the corners of the meeting points, intersections, or historical and new centralities. As there are a high numbers of city crossings which have been emerged to the life of the city by super imposition of complete alien systems of roads and streets and recently metro stations, on the historical structure and layers of the city, there is a big opportunity for the city to think of putting ignoring elements in contact, joining them, letting them to boost each other rather than just passing without having any constructive dialogue, constructing new centralities and regenerating the cities through enterprising, and doing specific and different size interventions on these points of intersections. As a part of whole new system of public transportation, “Metro stations”, the most recent type of city crossings imposed on previous city structure, to get it more complete and diverse. Metro stations can be counted as complete examples of underground collective spaces. The spaces of metro, including stations, their platforms and wagons are like ground level streets and squares or such those places where the quality of collective life get materialized there. This thesis will look at the “metro stations” as the strategic places which have merit of being new centralities for the city, where there are lot of uses, activities and possibilitis and options for people to chose from, working as intermediated collective spaces in the center of each site. These spaces are linking or interconnecting different existing elements, such as other sourrounded crossings or intersections, different system of passages, modes of mobility, uses activities and important facilities, with each other through having connectivity with the new centralities of metro stations and their platforms. It is really interesting to see how theses regenerative punctual intervention of metro stations, as a part of grand urban and regional enterprise for the metropolitan city of Esfahan are in a close interaction with different existing elements and logics and, simultaneously, in various scales from local and city scale to the territorial

Esfahan multi-node metropolis: conflicts and opportunities on urban nodes and intersections

(English) As one of the world's most famous Islamic cities globally, Esfahan has been the focus of previous architectural and urban studies discussing its forms and structures and presenting its most distinctive features. Based on prior local and international knowledge, the study deals specifically with the urban transformation of Esfahan through the lenses of urban history and urban morphology, and it stresses the theme of urban nodes and encountering places which are characteristics of the different mobility modes and their associated city forms. The urban transformation of the city has been interpreted and summarized in three fundamental periods linked to the enormous expansion and changes in communications, mobility and transportation as the root of major urban changes. The thesis states that Esfahan has not one but three identities overlapped in its urban structure. The "Ground and Water" city (from ancient time, pedestrian-based city), the "Asphalt" city (modern time, wheel-based city), and the "Iron" city (currently, metro-rail-based city) respond to varying forms of mobility and exchange, configuring the three networks of central nodes and intersections. From this perspective, the three main chapters unveil the leading logics of the three cohabiting models in the current city and depict the urban changes through new mapping series. The research reveals some traditional urbanism potentials for hosting in the intersection points of coincidence, diversity, and exchange through studying four historical and paradigmatic examples of the "Ground and Water" city's nodes and intersections, including relevant Bazaar nodes and the Khaju bridge case. At the same time, it offers some applicable lessons from these spots that can be useful for the intervention or the creation of the future of intersections and central places in Esfahan. The construction of a new network of arterial streets (since the 1930s), large-scale development and redevelopment plans (since the 1960s), and a radical spatial transformation dominated twentieth-century attitudes towards the historic contextual environment represented a point of rupture for a traditionally capillary city, altering the identity of Iranian cities. In most cases, the birth of a modern identity meant the death or weakening of its precedent. In other words, the continuity of contemporary arterial streets devoted to automobile traffic cost the discontinuity of historical arterial long-distance water streams (Madi) and ground passages, which caused segregation in their associated relevant and surrounding buildings and residential neighborhoods. On the other hand, since the metro lines run underground and their connection with the ground level is punctual in each station, the relationship with its previous city structures may be set in a complementary mode. This complementary character, which generally adds to its previous systems, allows the metro to be more than a new exclusive metropolitan mobility system. The research employs in-depth analysis of some case studies as the investigation's main methodological, qualitative, and exploratory nature. Gazing at different potential intersection points, some paradigmatic historical nodes, and current and in-progress urban projects show how it is possible to improve the quality of the urban condition of various city nodes and intersections by enhancing the relationship of their different corresponding logics, which in their multiple interactions might rebalance the efficiency of the entire city. The future of Esfahan is not only about developing new networks of urban nodes but mainly about figuring out the opportunities for enhancing the relations between the diverse networks in favor of a higher urban quality. The research considers the proximity and the synergies between the three described city logics as the golden and key opportunity for transforming the contemporary city and building upon its future.(Español) Siendo una de las ciudades islámicas más famosas del mundo, Esfahan ha sido el foco de estudios arquitectónicos y urbanos previos discutiendo sus formas y estructuras y presentando sus características más distintivas. Sobre la base del conocimiento local e internacional previo, el estudio aborda específicamente la transformación urbana de Esfahan a través de las miradas de la historia y morfología urbana y pone énfasis en el tema de los nodos urbanos y los lugares de encuentro característicos de los diferentes modos de movilidad y las formas de ciudad asociadas. La transformación urbana de la ciudad ha sido interpretada y resumida en tres periodos fundamentales ligados a la enorme expansión y cambios en las comunicaciones, la movilidad y el transporte como raíz de los grandes cambios urbanísticos. La tesis afirma que Esfahan no tiene una sino tres identidades superpuestas en su estructura urbana. La ciudad "Tierra y Agua" (desde la antigüedad, ciudad basada en la movilidad peatonal), la ciudad "Asfalto" (moderna, ciudad basada en la movilidad rodada) y la ciudad "Hierro" (actual, ciudad basada en la movilidad discontinua del metro y el ferrocarril). Estas tres identidades responden a diversas formas de movilidad e intercambio, configurando tres redes de nodos centrales e intersecciones. Desde esta perspectiva, los tres capítulos principales revelan las lógicas rectoras de los tres modelos de convivencia en la ciudad actual y retratan los cambios urbanos a través de nuevas series cartográficas. La investigación revela la potencialidad del urbanismo tradicional para albergar la coincidencia, la diversidad y el intercambio a través del estudio de cuatro ejemplos históricos y paradigmáticos de los nodos e intersecciones de las ciudades "Tierra y Agua", incluidos los nodos relevantes del Bazar y el caso del puente Khaju. Al mismo tiempo, ofrece algunas lecciones aplicables de estos ejemplos que pueden ser útiles para la intervención o la creación del futuro de las intersecciones y lugares centrales en Esfahan. La construcción de una nueva red de calles arteriales (desde la década de 1930), los planes de desarrollo y reurbanización a gran escala (desde la década de 1960) y una transformación espacial radical dominaron las actitudes del siglo XX hacia el entorno contextual histórico, representaron un punto de ruptura para una ciudad tradicionalmente capilar, alterando la identidad de las ciudades iraníes. Por otro lado, en la actualidad la construcción de las líneas de metro que discurren bajo tierra y su conexión puntual con el nivel del suelo en cada estación permite la relación complementaria con anteriores estructuras urbanas. Este carácter complementario, que en general se suma a los sistemas anteriores, permite que el metro sea algo más que un nuevo sistema independiente de la movilidad metropolitana. La investigación emplea el análisis en profundidad de algunos casos de estudio como principal carácter metodológico, cualitativo y exploratorio de la investigación. La mirada a diferentes puntos de intersección potenciales, algunos nodos históricos paradigmáticos y proyectos urbanos actuales y en curso, muestran cómo es posible mejorar la calidad de la condición urbana de la constelación de nodos e intersecciones de la ciudad al mejorar la relación de sus diferentes lógicas correspondientes, que en sus múltiples interacciones podría reequilibrar la eficiencia de la ciudad en su conjunto. El futuro de Esfahan no está únicamente en el desarrollo de nuevas redes de nodos urbanos, sino principalmente en descubrir las oportunidades para mejorar las relaciones entre las diversas redes a favor de una mayor calidad e interacción urbana. La investigación considera la proximidad y las sinergias entre las tres lógicas identitarias de ciudad descritas como la oportunidad dorada y clave para transformar la ciudad contemporánea y construir su futuro.Postprint (published version

Inflammaging is driven by upregulation of innate immune receptors and systemic interferon signaling and is ameliorated by dietary restriction

Aging is characterized by a chronic low-grade inflammation known as inflammaging in multiple tissues, representing a risk factor for age-related diseases. Dietary restriction (DR) is the best-known non-invasive method to ameliorate aging in many organisms. However, the molecular mechanism and the signaling pathways that drive inflammaging across different tissues and how they are modulated by DR are not yet understood. Here we identify a multi-tissue gene network regulating inflammaging. This network is characterized by chromatin opening and upregulation in the transcription of innate immune system receptors and by activation of interferon signaling through interferon regulatory factors, inflammatory cytokines, and Stat1-mediated transcription. DR ameliorates aging-induced alterations of chromatin accessibility and RNA transcription of the inflammaging gene network while failing to rescue those alterations on the rest of the genome. Our results present a comprehensive understanding of the molecular network regulating inflammation in aging and DR and provide anti-inflammaging therapeutic targets

Esfahan metro stations, opportunities for urban regeneration

Màster universitari en Estudis Avançats en Arquitectura: UrbanismeEsfahan City is composed by varied interconnected classes of crossings which represent the idea of difference plus coincidence in the city. These crossings can happen in the varied formats of superimposition, juxtaposition, or accumulation of different layers, which could be known as different size centers, key points, and such places that give services and provide varied options to the local and passengers, and get constructed by accumulating different things, constructive elements such as historical and new passages, architecture, uses and activities around the corners of the meeting points, intersections, or historical and new centralities. As there are a high numbers of city crossings which have been emerged to the life of the city by super imposition of complete alien systems of roads and streets and recently metro stations, on the historical structure and layers of the city, there is a big opportunity for the city to think of putting ignoring elements in contact, joining them, letting them to boost each other rather than just passing without having any constructive dialogue, constructing new centralities and regenerating the cities through enterprising, and doing specific and different size interventions on these points of intersections. As a part of whole new system of public transportation, “Metro stations”, the most recent type of city crossings imposed on previous city structure, to get it more complete and diverse. Metro stations can be counted as complete examples of underground collective spaces. The spaces of metro, including stations, their platforms and wagons are like ground level streets and squares or such those places where the quality of collective life get materialized there. This thesis will look at the “metro stations” as the strategic places which have merit of being new centralities for the city, where there are lot of uses, activities and possibilitis and options for people to chose from, working as intermediated collective spaces in the center of each site. These spaces are linking or interconnecting different existing elements, such as other sourrounded crossings or intersections, different system of passages, modes of mobility, uses activities and important facilities, with each other through having connectivity with the new centralities of metro stations and their platforms. It is really interesting to see how theses regenerative punctual intervention of metro stations, as a part of grand urban and regional enterprise for the metropolitan city of Esfahan are in a close interaction with different existing elements and logics and, simultaneously, in various scales from local and city scale to the territorial

Traumatic Arteriovenous Malformation of the Superficial Temporal Artery

Most of the vascular lesions on head and neck soft tissue are congenital, but a rare cause can be trauma. A 23-year-old man came to our clinic with a wide pulsatile tortuous mass in the left temporofrontal area. That mass was appeared since 10 years ago. Ten years before his coming to our clinic, he had a blunt trauma in that area. After that, a small wound appeared there and healed gradually. In clinical examination, mass was large and pulsatile, and a fine murmur was detected from it. In paraclinical examination, computed tomography scan with intravenous contrast and sonography revealed a vascular mass with arteriovenous (AV) fistula in soft tissue only in that area. We operated him and vascular mass completely excised without recurrency. Pathologic report was AV malformation (AVM). According to our study, also rare trauma is one of the causes of AVMs, and we able to resection it completely without recurrency

Three Lessons from Khaju Bridge, in the Promotion and Construction of New Urban Nodes

In the last few years, we have been working with the idea of urban nodes and intersections, looking at different historical and actual categories of “city corners”1 and territorial and urban crossing points, in variation and specified. It is the multiplication and accumulation of different city corners and urban nodes which all together configures not just the city of Esfahan but, also, any other city. Khaju Bridge is one of the most popular public places that represents a type of urban nodes in the city of Esfahan. By studying the Khaju Bridge, as a hybrid infrastructural element and its changing functions and influential domains in different historical periods, since the beginning to the present moment, we could extrapolate and share three essential and applicable lessons for looking at or intervening in the case of current urban intersections, including: Turning to a richer condition, from the specialized to a hybrid infrastructure It is crucial to see how the Khaju Bridge, as an important urban node, got more complex reflecting the need of the city for growth and new development. Replacing the khaju with its previous bridge was the transformation of a simple bridge (single functioning or a more specialized system) to the promoted and more complex one; the bridge- dike- palace of Khaju as a hybrid infrastructural element. The dual level of urban land Even though that “doubling the land” seems something very modern, we see how a historical element like the bridge of Khaju, as an infrastructural artifact, at its strategical position, takes the advantages of multiplying opportunities and options through doubling the surface of the urban land. The capacity of being flexible The bridge has been changed a lot since the beginning to the present moment. At the middle of the 17th century the bridge was working in the middle of more open space, was inducing in something more than itself, in association with different other elements such as a temporary and artificial lake in alliance with the gardens and palaces, water canals, mils and water wells. Nowadays, the bridge is standing on its own, working in a smaller, closer ambient and limited to the two fronts of the river but still successful, favorable and crowded, even when it is sitting on the dried riverbed of Zayandeh-Rud.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

The Correlation between Organizational Commitment of Nurses and the Quality of Hospital Services at Women\'s Hospital of Tehran

Background: The present study aimed to determine the asociation between organizational commitment of the nurses and quality of hospital services at Women's Hospital of Tehran. Methods: This was an analytical, cross-sectional, and practical study in which 75 nurses and 187 patients were randomly selected from Women's Hospital wards. Data collection was done through two standard questionnaires. Statistical analysis was performed using correlation tests and one-way ANOVA by SPSS20. Results: According to the results of this study, normative commitment was statistically associated with the quality of services (P = 0.03; r = 0.33) as well as its two dimensions of guarantee (P = 0.04; r = 0.35) and reliability (P = 0.05; r = 0.34). Also a significant positive relationship was found between the continuance commitment and reliability (P = 0.04; r = 0.30). Conclusion: Considering the correlation of normative and continuance commitments with some dimentions of the quality of hospital services it seems that planning and action twards improvement of these commitments may lead to high-quality services

Relationship between life style-related factors with cardiac ischemia among inpatients: A case-control study

Introduction: More than seventeen millions people die due to cardiovascular diseases which account for one third of death worldwide. Half of 60% of all mortality caused by acquired diseases throughout the world is due to heart disorders and this ratio will augment to 73% by 2020. It is known that individual lifestyle has a great influence on the well-being of cardiovascular system. Seven of the top ten etiologies leading to death are related to the pattern of lifestyle. This study explored various lifestyle-related factors affecting ischemic conditions. Method: This study was performed as a case control investigation on 65 subjects along with 65 controls who were all admitted at Sevome Shaaban hospital in Damavand town of Iran. All data ) demographic and life-style variables) were gathered, using three different types of questionnaire obtained from each person. p< 0.05 was considered as significant. Results: Age, marriage status, smoking, physical activities, diet and mental health condition were shown to have a significant effect on ischemia (P <0.001). Insufficient physical activities, fatty and low fiber food as well as impaired psychology conditions were among the risk factors that contributed to Ischemic heart disease. Conclusion: Insufficient physical activities, fatty and low fiber food as well as impaired psychology conditions were among the risk factors that contribute to ischemic heart disease

Wnt activity and basal niche position sensitize intestinal stem and progenitor cells to DNA damage

Aging and carcinogenesis coincide with the accumulation of DNA damage and mutations in stem and progenitor cells. Molecular mechanisms that influence responses of stem and progenitor cells to DNA damage remain to be delineated. Here, we show that niche positioning and Wnt signaling activity modulate the sensitivity of intestinal stem and progenitor cells (ISPCs) to DNA damage. ISPCs at the crypt bottom with high Wnt/β‐catenin activity are more sensitive to DNA damage compared to ISPCs in position 4 with low Wnt activity. These differences are not induced by differences in cell cycle activity but relate to DNA damage‐dependent activation of Wnt signaling, which in turn amplifies DNA damage checkpoint activation. The study shows that instructed enhancement of Wnt signaling increases radio‐sensitivity of ISPCs, while inhibition of Wnt signaling decreases it. These results provide a proof of concept that cell intrinsic levels of Wnt signaling modulate the sensitivity of ISPCs to DNA damage and heterogeneity in Wnt activation in the stem cell niche contributes to the selection of ISPCs in the context of DNA damage