The Evolution of 3D Printing in AEC: From Experimental to Consolidated Techniques

The chapter leads the reader through the historical development of additive manufacturing (AM) techniques until the most recent developments. A tentative taxonomy is added to the historical perspective, in order to better understand the main lines of development and the potential cross-fertilization opportunities. Some case studies are analyzed in order to provide a clearer picture of the practical applications of AM in architecture engineering and construction (AEC), with a particular attention to the use of AM for final products rather than just prototypes. Eventually, some thoughts are shared as to the impact of AM on AEC beyond the mere cost-effectiveness and well into the potential change of paradigms in how architecture can be thought of and further developed embracing the new world of opportunities brought by AM

Industrial culture and contemporary project design: examples of experimental building construction systems

This paper intend to deepen, within the broad theme of technological culture, theory and practice of architectural project, at which industrial culture does and will refer the architectural project in the near future, emphasizing the potential that contemporary techniques are slowly but pervasively offering to the construction industry

Healthcare for all in emerging countries: a preliminary investigation of facilities in Kolkata, India

Introduction. India is one of the five countries with the lowest public health spending levels: the private medical services are one of the most developed fields, meanwhile public health ones are totally inadequate with the most number of health facilities concentrated in cities, where only the 25% of the population lives. Public facilities are mainly made up of primary level and not well distributed on the territories, so they do not guarantee accessibility to a wide sample of population, who live in rural areas of India. Methodology. Starting from the analysis of three different health care levels in the Indian context, the research team developed a meta-project that considers all the current criticisms and the Indian customs through a flexible layout that responds to the healthcare needs of population. Result and Discussion. The research work is aimed to develop a meta-project that considers all the current criticisms and the Indian customs through flexible layouts that responds to the healthcare needs of population. Conclusion. The innovation of the research work is to develop the hygienic aspects, the layout and the distribution, the sub-division of the medical functions through the Indian culture and the needs of the country. The choice of lowly technologies permits to promote the usage of local materials, their maintenance and skills for creating a virtuous economic system

Load-Responsive Cellular Envelopes with Additive Manufacturing

The last decades have been marked by a growing concern over scarcity of resources caused by the rapid industrialization of emerging economies as well as by the high material consumption at a global scale. These changing environmental conditions have inevitably created new challenges and demands for mediation of the interaction between the natural and the human-made environments. In response to these challenges, designers are currently moving away from conventional top-down design, towards a nature-inspired approach in search of the underlying principles of morphogenesis and materialization inherent to biological entities. Inscribed in this approach, this paper proposes an innovative design-to-fabrication workflow for the conception of nature-inspired load-responsive skin systems which integrates the use of computational tools, Additive Manufacturing, and material experiments with full-scale prototypes. The design phase employs custom algorithms to determine an optimal material distribution for free-form architectural shapes, given a specific loading condition. Through fabrication tests at different scales, the viability of a production system based on Fused Deposition Modelling is demonstrated. Subsequently, the realization of a final prototype of a load-responsive cellular envelope cladded with Fiber-Glass Reinforced Plastic is presented. Opportunities and current limitations of the approach and the emerging architectural system are critically discussed towards future developments

Dopaminergic and glutamatergic signaling crosstalk in Huntington's disease neurodegeneration : the role of p25/cyclin-dependent kinase 5

Altered glutamatergic and dopaminergic signaling has been proposed as contributing to the specific striatal cell death observed in Huntington's disease (HD). However, the precise mechanisms by which mutant huntingtin sensitize striatal cells to dopamine and glutamate inputs remain unclear. Here, we demonstrate in knock-in HD striatal cells that mutant huntingtin enhances dopaminemediated striatal cell death via dopamineD1 receptors. Moreover, we show thatNMDAreceptors specifically potentiate the vulnerability of mutant huntingtin striatal cells to dopamine toxicity as pretreatment withNMDAincreased D1R-induced cell death in mutant but not wild-type cells. As potential underlying mechanism of increased striatal vulnerability, we identified aberrant cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (Cdk5) activation. We demonstrate that enhanced Cdk5 phosphorylation and increased calpain-mediated conversion of the Cdk5 activator p35 into p25 may account for the deregulation of Cdk5 associated to dopamine and glutamate receptor activation in knock-in HD striatal cells. Moreover, supporting a detrimental role of Cdk5 in striatal cell death, neuronal loss can be widely prevented by roscovitine, a potent Cdk5 inhibitor. Significantly, reduced Cdk5 expression together with enhanced Cdk5 phosphorylation and p25 accumulation also occurs in the striatum of mutant HdhQ111 mice and HD human brain suggesting the relevance of deregulated Cdk5 pathway in HD pathology. These findings provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying the selective vulnerability of striatal cells in HD and identify p25/Cdk5 as an important mediator of dopamine and glutamate neurotoxicity associated to HD

Healthcare for all in emerging countries: a preliminary investigation of facilities in Kolkata, India

Introduction. India is one of the five countries with the lowest public health spending levels: the private medical services are one of the most developed fields, meanwhile public health ones are totally inadequate with the most number of health facilities concentrated in cities, where only the 25% of the population lives. Public facilities are mainly made up of primary level and not well distributed on the territories, so they do not guarantee accessibility to a wide sample of population, who live in rural areas of India. Methodology. Starting from the analysis of three different health care levels in the Indian context, the research team developed a meta-project that considers all the current criticisms and the Indian customs through a flexible layout that responds to the healthcare needs of population. Result and Discussion. The research work is aimed to develop a meta-project that considers all the current criticisms and the Indian customs through flexible layouts that responds to the healthcare needs of population. Conclusion. The innovation of the research work is to develop the hygienic aspects, the layout and the distribution, the sub-division of the medical functions through the Indianculture and the needs of the country.The choice of lowly technologies permits to promote the usage