Preface

Mass immigration represents an extremely relevant issue in the contemporary debate.?The whole world is facing the ethic and practical problem of finding possible solutions to manage the arrival of an increasing number of displaced people. The UNHCR's annual report "Global Trends" reports that about 65.3 million people were forced from their homes in 2015. The host spaces generated from such a status of crisis are multiple as well as complex. They are often marginalized?areas that struggle for a better integration inside hosting societies, and exceptional spaces with a common stateless character that make them an anomaly, exception also in legal terms. The spaces of?displacement are conceived to face an emergency and to host people and territory.?The work presented in this book addresses the issue of spaces of displacement focusing the attention on the refugee spaces of Lebanon, particularly on the informal settlements in the region of the Bekaa Valley, where the agricultural land is turning into a space of displacement. The goal of the research is to imagine weak strategies through which to design the wait that these spaces are experiencing and its consequences over time, taking into consideration both the human and the territorial aspects and two different but consequential periods, the settlement and the after- settlement.?The design parameter chosen to develop such a project is the ecology intended as the grade zero from which the project-process could start and evolve, the instrument able to work with time and that resists to it

The burial landscape in the contemporary metropolis

Concrete, cold marble, fake flowers with neon-like colors. This is often how we perceive cemeteries in Italy, overcrowded condominiums resembling lifeless cities. We are living in a historical moment of existential – and climatic crisis where the need for places of remembrance is growing, as well as the need to rethink the spaces of death to answer a multicultural society. From this point of view, institutions in Italy are stuck in a nineteenth-century conception of cemeteries, old and obsolete, unable to accommodate different rituals and spiritualities due to legislative - and therefore architectural - inability to offer real alternatives. Why are cemeteries only considered as spaces for the dead, and not as places for the living? What is the reason behind the repatriation of the bodies? Why haven’t cemeteries evolved with the city and its citizens? Where does spirituality come from and why do we need it? Is it possible to give a design response to the contemporary need for places of spirituality? Is it possible to design spaces that can help a healthy separation from the loved ones? This book aims to investigate these questions, observing the old and new dynamics that revolve around the theme of death, the treatment of the body, the business around the funeral rites, the places of death, and finally the symbolic and psychological meaning of the final key moment in a person’s life. Death is still a central moment of reflection in life, a matter that institutions cannot hide and forget. Being aware that there is no single and universal solution, this book also gives space to a new sensitivity towards the environment, trying to provide not just design answers but highlighting the need for a profound discussion on the need for a greater inclusivity in the spaces of death. A multitude of bodies and cultures that cannot and must not conform to a single and predominant treatment / ritual, and that could finally find their space to express their beliefs. An inclusion that must necessarily go through a review of the practices and methods of treating the bodies. We also wish to bring on a discussion on how individuals with multiple marginalized identities face different access in attaining a good death and use this knowledge to bring equity to end-of-life care and to the spaces of death

Artificial intelligence as (meta-)art? Emergent technologies in the design process

Over the past decades, philosophy-of-science scholars have been questioning the epistemology of automated data analysis. Coming to the field of artif icial intelligence application in the design process, the debate has been less intense and articulate. The interest in developing a disciplinary discussion refers to the proactive quality of design, which aims at introducing artifacts into the physical world through the act of shaping, which includes a process of context interpretation. By acknowledging that the environment and its interpretation are inextricably bound to the design process, and by questioning the epistemology of automated analytics, we ask if artificial intelligence is not an aesthetic device producing outcomes that are a form of (meta-)art. Our hypothesis is that the models for automated data analysis do not satisfy the need for objectivity often expected through the application of parametric design because of their biases. However, as an aesthetic interpretation of a place, they inspire designers and stimulate their interpretation in the framework of the hermeneutic process of design, indicating an evolution toward a renewed “new-humanism,” a rediscovery of the creative agency of the designer in an un-hierarchical relationship with nature

Regulatory peptides in the urinary bladder of two genera of Antarctic Teleosts

Somatostatin 14, prolactin, atrial natriuretic peptide, galanin and urotensin II were found using immunohistochemistry in the urinary bladders of the Antarctic \uaeshes Trematomus bernacchii (Nototheniidae) and Chionodraco hamatus (Channichthyidae) caught in the Ross Sea. The urinary bladders of the two species showed a dierent histology in the epithelial layer. In T. bernacchii the epithelium comprises a single type of columnar cells, while in C. hamatus the columnar cells are restricted to the ventral portion of the bladder, and the dorso-lateral region is lined by cuboidal cells. No dierence in the intensity of the immunostaining was observed in the two cell types; the only variation was a dierent distribution of the immunoreactions, which were present in the whole cytoplasm in the cuboidal cells and restricted to the apical and/or basal portion of the columnar cells

Novel effects of strains in graphene and other two dimensional materials

The analysis of the electronic properties of strained or lattice deformed graphene combines ideas from classical condensed matter physics, soft matter, and geometrical aspects of quantum field theory (QFT) in curved spaces. Recent theoretical and experimental work shows the influence of strains in many properties of graphene not considered before, such as electronic transport, spin-orbit coupling, the formation of Moir\'e patterns, optics, ... There is also significant evidence of anharmonic effects, which can modify the structural properties of graphene. These phenomena are not restricted to graphene, and they are being intensively studied in other two dimensional materials, such as the metallic dichalcogenides. We review here recent developments related to the role of strains in the structural and electronic properties of graphene and other two dimensional compounds.Comment: 75 pages, 15 figures, review articl

Recognition of O6-benzyl-2′-deoxyguanosine by a perimidinone-derived synthetic nucleoside: a DNA interstrand stacking interaction

The 2′-deoxynucleoside containing the synthetic base 1-[(2R,4S,5R)-4-hydroxy-5-(hydroxymethyl)-tetrahydrofuran-2-yl)-1H-perimidin-2(3H)-one] (dPer) recognizes in DNA the O6-benzyl-2′-deoxyguanosine nucleoside (O6-Bn-dG), formed by exposure to N-benzylmethylnitrosamine. Herein, we show how dPer distinguishes between O6-Bn-dG and dG in DNA. The structure of the modified Dickerson-Drew dodecamer (DDD) in which guanine at position G4 has been replaced by O6-Bn-dG and cytosine C9 has been replaced with dPer to form the modified O6-Bn-dG:dPer (DDD-XY) duplex [5′-d(C1G2C3X4A5A6T7T8Y9G10C11G12)-3′]2 (X = O6-Bn-dG, Y = dPer) reveals that dPer intercalates into the duplex and adopts the syn conformation about the glycosyl bond. This provides a binding pocket that allows the benzyl group of O6-Bn-dG to intercalate between Per and thymine of the 3′-neighbor A:T base pair. Nuclear magnetic resonance data suggest that a similar intercalative recognition mechanism applies in this sequence in solution. However, in solution, the benzyl ring of O6-Bn-dG undergoes rotation on the nuclear magnetic resonance time scale. In contrast, the structure of the modified DDD in which cytosine at position C9 is replaced with dPer to form the dG:dPer (DDD-GY) [5′-d(C1G2C3G4A5A6T7T8Y9G10C11G12)-3′]2 duplex (Y = dPer) reveals that dPer adopts the anti conformation about the glycosyl bond and forms a less stable wobble pairing interaction with guanin

Fluid-structure interaction simulation of prosthetic aortic valves : comparison between immersed boundary and arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian techniques for the mesh representation

In recent years the role of FSI (fluid-structure interaction) simulations in the analysis of the fluid-mechanics of heart valves is becoming more and more important, being able to capture the interaction between the blood and both the surrounding biological tissues and the valve itself. When setting up an FSI simulation, several choices have to be made to select the most suitable approach for the case of interest: in particular, to simulate flexible leaflet cardiac valves, the type of discretization of the fluid domain is crucial, which can be described with an ALE (Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian) or an Eulerian formulation. The majority of the reported 3D heart valve FSI simulations are performed with the Eulerian formulation, allowing for large deformations of the domains without compromising the quality of the fluid grid. Nevertheless, it is known that the ALE-FSI approach guarantees more accurate results at the interface between the solid and the fluid. The goal of this paper is to describe the same aortic valve model in the two cases, comparing the performances of an ALE-based FSI solution and an Eulerian-based FSI approach. After a first simplified 2D case, the aortic geometry was considered in a full 3D set-up. The model was kept as similar as possible in the two settings, to better compare the simulations' outcomes. Although for the 2D case the differences were unsubstantial, in our experience the performance of a full 3D ALE-FSI simulation was significantly limited by the technical problems and requirements inherent to the ALE formulation, mainly related to the mesh motion and deformation of the fluid domain. As a secondary outcome of this work, it is important to point out that the choice of the solver also influenced the reliability of the final results

Perturbative instabilities in Horava gravity

We investigate the scalar and tensor perturbations in Horava gravity, with and without detailed balance, around a flat background. Once both types of perturbations are taken into account, it is revealed that the theory is plagued by ghost-like scalar instabilities in the range of parameters which would render it power-counting renormalizable, that cannot be overcome by simple tricks such as analytic continuation. Implementing a consistent flow between the UV and IR limits seems thus more challenging than initially presumed, regardless of whether the theory approaches General Relativity at low energies or not. Even in the phenomenologically viable parameter space, the tensor sector leads to additional potential problems, such as fine-tunings and super-luminal propagation.Comment: 21 pages, version published at Class. Quant. Gra

Thin accretion disk signatures of slowly rotating black holes in Ho\v{r}ava gravity

In the present work, we consider the possibility of observationally testing Ho\v{r}ava gravity by using the accretion disk properties around slowly rotating black holes of the Kehagias-Sfetsos solution in asymptotically flat spacetimes. The energy flux, temperature distribution, the emission spectrum as well as the energy conversion efficiency are obtained, and compared to the standard slowly rotating general relativistic Kerr solution. Comparing the mass accretion in a slowly rotating Kehagias-Sfetsos geometry in Ho\v{r}ava gravity with the one of a slowly rotating Kerr black hole, we verify that the intensity of the flux emerging from the disk surface is greater for the slowly rotating Kehagias-Sfetsos solution than for rotating black holes with the same geometrical mass and accretion rate. We also present the conversion efficiency of the accreting mass into radiation, and show that the rotating Kehagias-Sfetsos solution provides a much more efficient engine for the transformation of the accreting mass into radiation than the Kerr black holes. Thus, distinct signatures appear in the electromagnetic spectrum, leading to the possibility of directly testing Ho\v{r}ava gravity models by using astrophysical observations of the emission spectra from accretion disks.Comment: 12 pages, 15 figures. V2: 13 pages, clarifications and discussion added; version accepted for publication in Classical and Quantum Gravit

Computational Modeling-Based Discovery of Novel Classes of Anti-Inflammatory Drugs That Target Lanthionine Synthetase C-Like Protein 2

Background: Lanthionine synthetase component C-like protein 2 (LANCL2) is a member of the eukaryotic lanthionine synthetase component C-Like protein family involved in signal transduction and insulin sensitization. Recently, LANCL2 is a target for the binding and signaling of abscisic acid (ABA), a plant hormone with anti-diabetic and anti-inflammatory effects. Methodology/Principal Findings: The goal of this study was to determine the role of LANCL2 as a potential therapeutic target for developing novel drugs and nutraceuticals against inflammatory diseases. Previously, we performed homology modeling to construct a three-dimensional structure of LANCL2 using the crystal structure of lanthionine synthetase component C-like protein 1 (LANCL1) as a template. Using this model, structure-based virtual screening was performed using compounds from NCI (National Cancer Institute) Diversity Set II, ChemBridge, ZINC natural products, and FDAapproved drugs databases. Several potential ligands were identified using molecular docking. In order to validate the antiinflammatory efficacy of the top ranked compound (NSC61610) in the NCI Diversity Set II, a series of in vitro and pre-clinical efficacy studies were performed using a mouse model of dextran sodium sulfate (DSS)-induced colitis. Our findings showed that the lead compound, NSC61610, activated peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma in a LANCL2- and adenylate cyclase/cAMP dependent manner in vitro and ameliorated experimental colitis by down-modulating colonic inflammatory gene expression and favoring regulatory T cell responses