Le Corbusier in Chandigarh: A Search for the Natural Order

[EN] This paper is an attempt to analyse and decode Le Corbusier’s application of his exceptionally singular and complex understanding of the order of the natural world in his urban masterpiece- Chandigarh City. It was Le Corbusier’s strong belief that architecture was a personal search for truth, a truth that was contained in the organic harmony of nature. He was convinced that with the advent of the machine in the 19th century, ties between man and nature had been severed. For the sake of the citizen’s physiological and psychological health, he felt it was essential that future cities focus on reconnecting man to nature through large green parks open to the sky, unpolluted by the machine. His own formative years in the lush forests of the Swiss countryside, sketching and abstracting natural forms helped him observe and internalise the inherent logic in their geometry. Over the years, a deeper study of mathematical proportions of the human body led Le Corbusier to propose the Modulor as a standard for the human scale in architecture. This only further cemented his belief that there was no separate natural order and man-made order; man was a part of nature and therefore a part of the natural order as well. However, it was the spiritual aspect of city planning that fascinated Le Corbusier the most. After a life long study of natural forms, he was fully convinced that this Spirit was hidden in the geometries of nature. To him, it was essential that the twentieth century city employ this spiritual order as a means restore harmony between man, nature and the cosmos[ES] Este trabajo conforma un intento para analizar y decodificar la aplicación de Le Corbusier en su comprensión excepcionalmente singular y compleja del orden del mundo natural en su obra maestra urbana - La Ciudad de Chandigarh. La firme creencia de Le Corbusier era que la arquitectura constituía una búsqueda personal de la verdad, una verdad establecida en la armonía orgánica de la naturaleza. Estaba convencido de que con el surgimiento de las máquinas en el siglo XIX, los lazos entre el hombre y la naturaleza se habían roto. Por el bien de la salud fisiológica y sicológica de los ciudadanos, sentía que era fundamental que las ciudades futuras se enfocaran en reconectar al hombre con la naturaleza a través de grandes parques verdes abiertos al cielo, sin ser contaminados por máquinas. Sus propios años de formación en los frondosos bosques del campo Suizo, esbozando y captando formas naturales lo ayudaron a observar e internalizar la lógica inherente en su geometría. Con el transcurso de los años, un estudio más profundo de proporciones matemáticas del cuerpo humano, llevaron a que Le Corbusier propusiera el Modulor como un estándar para la escala humana en arquitectura. Esto sólo consiguió consolidar aun más su creencia de que no había una separación entre el orden natural y el hecho por el hombre; el hombre era parte de la naturaleza y por lo tanto parte del orden natural también. Sin embargo, fue el aspecto espiritual de la planificación de la ciudad lo que más fascinó a Le Corbusier. Luego de un estudio de formas naturales a lo largo de la vida, se convenció por completo acerca de que este Espíritu estaba escondido en las geometrías de la naturaleza. Para él era primordial que la ciudad del siglo veinte empleara este orden espiritual como un medio para restaurar la armonía entre el hombre, la naturaleza y el cosmos.Ramesh, A. (2016). Le Corbusier in Chandigarh: A Search for the Natural Order. En LE CORBUSIER. 50 AÑOS DESPUÉS. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 1784-1797. https://doi.org/10.4995/LC2015.2015.784OCS1784179

Spoken language-mediated anticipatory eye-movements are modulated by reading ability - Evidence from Indian low and high literates

We investigated whether levels of reading ability attained through formal literacy are related to anticipatory language-mediated eye movements. Indian low and high literates listened to simple spoken sentences containing a target word (e.g., "door") while at the same time looking at a visual display of four objects (a target, i.e. the door, and three distractors). The spoken sentences were constructed in such a way that participants could use semantic, associative, and syntactic information from adjectives and particles (preceding the critical noun) to anticipate the visual target objects. High literates started to shift their eye gaze to the target objects well before target word onset. In the low literacy group this shift of eye gaze occurred only when the target noun (i.e. "door") was heard, more than a second later. Our findings suggest that formal literacy may be important for the fine-tuning of language-mediated anticipatory mechanisms, abilities which proficient language users can then exploit for other cognitive activities such as spoken language-mediated eye gaze. In the conclusion, we discuss three potential mechanisms of how reading acquisition and practice may contribute to the differences in predictive spoken language processing between low and high literates

Serum estradiol level on the day of ovulation trigger and pregnancy outcomes in in-vitro fertilisation-intracytoplasmic sperm injection cycles

Background: There is conflicting evidence with regards to the impact of supraphysiologic estradiol levels in in-vitro fertilisation-intracytoplasmic sperm injection (IVF-ICSI) cycles on pregnancy outcomes such as oocyte quality, implantation, and clinical pregnancy. The objective of our study was to evaluate the effect of serum estradiol levels on the day of ovulation trigger on pregnancy outcomes in IVF-ICSI cycles.Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study, which included eighty-three women who underwent IVF-ICSI and experienced fresh embryo transfer (ET) over one year period. The women included in the study were divided into four groups according to the serum estradiol level on the day of ovulation trigger; Group I: 4000pg/ml. The outcome measures including number of oocytes retrieved, MII (metaphase II) oocytes, fertilization rate, embryo quality, overall pregnancy rate, implantation rate and clinical pregnancy rate were compared among these four groups.Results: The total number of oocytes, MII oocytes as well as good quality embryos significantly increased from group 1 to group 4. The implantation rate was lowest in group 4 compared to all other groups, although not statistically significant. There was no significant difference in overall and clinical pregnancy rate between the groups.Conclusions: Serum estradiol level shows a positive correlation with the number of oocytes retrieved and good quality embryos. A higher estradiol level does not have a significant negative impact on the implantation rate, overall or clinical pregnancy rate

SIFT-FANN: An efficient framework for spatio-spectral fusion of satellite images

Image fusion techniques are widely used for remote sensing data. A special application is for using low resolution multi-spectral image with high resolution panchromatic image to obtain an image having both spectral and spatial information. Alignment of images to be fused is a step prior to image fusion. This is achieved by registering the images. This paper proposes the methods involving Fast Approximate Nearest Neighbor (FANN) for automatic registration of satellite image (reference image) prior to fusion of low spatial resolution multi-spectral QuickBird satellite image (sensed image) with high spatial resolution panchromatic QuickBird satellite image. In the registration steps, Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) is used to extract key points from both images. The keypoints are then matched using the automatic tuning algorithm, namely, FANN. This algorithm automatically selects the most appropriate indexing algorithm for the dataset. The indexed features are then matched using approximate nearest neighbor. Further, Random Sample Consensus (RanSAC) is used for further filtering to obtain only the inliers and co-register the images. The images are then fused using Intensity Hue Saturation (IHS) transform based technique to obtain a high spatial resolution multi-spectral image. The results show that the quality of fused images obtained using this algorithm is computationally efficient

Solar Photovoltaic Principles

Due to the limited supply of fossil fuels in the modern era, humankind’s need for new energy sources is of utmost importance. Consequently, solar energy is essential to society. Solar energy is an endless and pure source of energy. Solar energy research is being used to help solve the world’s energy dilemma, safeguard the environment, and promote significant sustainable economic growth. Humans have now constructed numerous solar photovoltaic power plants to produce electricity, and many people have installed solar panels on their homes’ roofs to do the same. The non-mathematical explanation of PV solar cell theory and its circuit architecture is covered in this chapter. It is written for a variety of groups, including engineers who need an introduction to the subject of photovoltaic cells, end users who require a deeper understanding of the theory to support their applications, students interested in PV science and technology, and others. The fundamentals of the individual electricity-producing solar cell—the photovoltaic cell—are discussed in this chapter. The reader is informed about the workings of PV cells. The chapter focuses on the operation and construction of PV cells. The advantages and disadvantages of the cell’s potential industrial applications are discussed. Here, we go over how to ensure that the PV cells used in contemporary renewable energy systems are up to snuff

Optical properties of bimodally distributed InAs quantum dots grown on digital AlAs0.56Sb0.44 matrix for use in intermediate band solar cells

High-quality InAs quantum dots (QDs) with nominal thicknesses of 5.0–8.0 monolayers were grown on a digital AlAs0.56Sb0.44 matrix lattice-matched to the InP(001) substrate. All QDs showed bimodal size distribution, and their optical properties were investigated by photoluminescence (PL) and time-resolved PL measurements. Power dependent PL exhibited a linear relationship between the peak energy and the cube root of the excitation power for both the small QD family (SQDF) and the large QD family (LQDF), which is attributed to the type-II transition. The PL intensity, peak energy, and carrier lifetime of SQDF and LQDF showed very sensitive at high temperature. Above 125 K, the PL intensity ratio increased continuously between LQDF and SQDF, the peak energy shifted anomalously in SQDF, and the longer carrier radiative lifetime (≥3.0 ns at 77 K) reduced rapidly in SQDF and slowly in LQDF. These results are ascribed to thermally activated carrier escape from SQDF into the wetting layer, which then relaxed into LQDF with low-localized energy states

Genome sequence and rapid evolution of the rice pathogen Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae PXO99A

Background: Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae causes bacterial blight of rice (Oryza sativa L.), a major disease that constrains production of this staple crop in many parts of the world. We report here on the complete genome sequence of strain PXO99A and its comparison to two previously sequenced strains, KACC10331 and MAFF311018, which are highly similar to one another. Results: The PXO99 A genome is a single circular chromosome of 5,240,075 bp, considerably longer than the genomes of the other strains (4,941,439 bp and 4,940,217 bp, respectively), and it contains 5083 protein-coding genes, including 87 not found in KACC10331 or MAFF311018. PXO99A contains a greater number of virulence-associated transcription activator-like effector genes and has at least ten major chromosomal rearrangements relative to KACC10331 and MAFF311018. PXO99 A contains numerous copies of diverse insertion sequence elements, members of which are associated with 7 out of 10 of the major rearrangements. A rapidly-evolving CRISPR (clustered regularly interspersed short palindromic repeats) region contains evidence of dozens of phage infections unique to the PXO99A lineage. PXO99A also contains a unique, near-perfect tandem repeat of 212 kilobases close to the replication terminus. Conclusion: Our results provide striking evidence of genome plasticity and rapid evolution within Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae. The comparisons point to sources of genomic variation and candidates for strain-specific adaptations of this pathogen that help to explain the extraordinary diversity of Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae genotypes and races that have been isolated from around the world. © 2008 Salzberg et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy