Para uma cartografia imaginária: desfragmentação de "As cidades invisíveis" de Italo Calvino

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em ArquitecturaPara uma Cartografia Imaginária pretende interpretar todos os lugares que o leitor/a vê ao viajar pelas Cidades Invisíveis. O caminho traçado por Calvino desvendanos subtis relações entre personagens sem nome, que nos contam como vivem, onde vivem ou onde poderiam viver. Ao deixar em aberto quais são as cidades descritas, o autor conduz o nosso imaginário por diversos cenários e épocas sem nunca ser possível identificar, com uma certeza inequívoca, a cidade que o autor retrata. Esbate-se a cidade real e a cidade utópica para nascer a cidade invisível. A desfragmentação que se apresenta nesta dissertação resulta de uma intenção de refletir sobre a cidade. Neste sentido, a nova sequência narrativa que aqui propomos corresponde a uma análise realizada sob o ponto de vista arquitetónico e urbanístico, mas abriu espaço a que outras áreas que se consideraram pertinentes se inscrevessem e diluíssem nesta análise. As cidades foram reagrupadas e analisadas sequencialmente, segundo o tema em que se inserem, e foram realizados vários quadros onde se procuraram conexões variáveis, consoante os pressupostos que interessava analisar. À semelhança do que acontece num tabuleiro de xadrez, tema recorrente no texto, as cidades (como peças) foram deslocadas, propondo novas ligações. Foi possível estabelecer uma conexão entre as várias narrativas de As Cidades Invisíveis; aliás, a sua leitura individual torna-as incompletas, sendo apenas na sua continuidade que se complementam. A estrutura dúplice presente na obra é uma das características que estimula a criação de esquemas abstratos, onde se estabelecem ligações que impulsionam a especulação sobre diversos temas, tendo sempre como pretexto uma vontade de pensar a cidade.The intention of this Imaginary Map is to interpret all the places which the reader visits while he is traveling through The Invisible Cities. The path traced by Calvino unveils to us the subtle relationships between unnamed characters who tell us how they live, where they live or where they could live. In order to leave the described cities open for interpretation, the author leads our imagination through several scenes and times without identifying, with certainty, which city he is describing. The real city and the utopian city merge into the Invisible City. The intended defragmentation of this dissertation is the result of a reflection upon the city. In this sense, we propose a narrative which corresponds sequentially to an architectural and urban analysis, but gives way to other areas. The cities were grouped according to the subject in which they belonged, and were charted according to their themes even as other connections appeared in the process. The recurring theme in the text is similar to a chessboard, where the cities, like pawns, were displaced by proposing new connections. It was possible to establish a connection between the various narratives of The Invisible Cities and even though each city’s individual reading makes them incomplete (on their own), only in its continuity do they complement each other. The dual structure (of good and bad) in this work is one of the characteristics that stimulates the creation of abstract schemes, which establish connections that drive speculation on various topics, always having, as a pretext, a willingness to think about the City

Desacyl-ghrelin does not influence insulin sensitivity

Acyl-ghrelin has been reported to increase food intake and adiposity and it is the best studied of the orexigenic gastrointestinal hormones. On the other hand, desacyl-ghrelin – DAG (the unacylated form of the hormone) has been reported as a potential player on carbohydrate metabolism. However, the potential impact of DAG on glucose homeostasis remains uncertain. In this study we aim to assess the association between DAG and insulin sensitivity

Assessing the ability of Lactobacillus strains to counteract enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) infection by using a Galleria mellonella in vivo model

Enteric colibacillosis is a common disease in weanling pigs, with postweaning diarrhea (PWD) as the main symptom in piglets. It is caused by the colonization of the small intestine by enterotoxigenic strains of Escherichia coli (ETEC). Of the control strategies, antibiotics and zinc oxide have been the most effective in reducing the economic losses caused by PWD. However, concerns about antibiotic resistance have led to restrictions on the use of critically important antimicrobials in food-producing animals, and in June 2021 zinc oxide was banned in the European Union due to the environmental risks it poses. As a result, efforts are underway to develop more environmentally friendly alternatives to combat ETEC infections, such as probiotics. In this study, we evaluated the ability of three potential probiotics (Lactobacillus gasseri, L. acidophilus and L. reuteri) to reduce the ETEC infection by using a Galleria mellonella in vivo model in 2 different perspectives: co-infection (i.e. Lactobacillus + ETEC); and prophylactic strategy (i.e. prior infection with Lactobacillus for 4 h followed by ETEC infection). Survival rate and health index scores of G. mellonella were assessed at 24, 48, and 72 h post-infection. In addition, real-time PCR was also performed to determine the transcript levels of genes encoding the G. mellonella antimicrobial peptides to infer the immune response to ETEC infection. Our results suggest that a co-infection strategy was not effective in controlling ETEC infection. On the other hand, when a prophylactic strategy was used, we observed significant differences between the treated larvae and the control. Overall, we observed that L. acidophilus was able to reduce ETEC strain SP11 infection. Differences in the expression of antimicrobial peptides were also found when comparing treated and control conditions. In conclusion, specific Lactobacillus species seem to have the potential to protect against ETEC infection.This work was financially supported by the Project PTDC/CVT-CVT/4620/2021, funded by FEDER funds through COMPETE2020–Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI) and by national funds (PIDDAC) through FCT/MCTES. It was also supported by: LA/P/0045/2020 (ALiCE), UIDB/00511/2020 and UIDP/00511/2020 (LEPABE), funded by national funds through FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC); and under the scope of the strategic funding of UIDB/04469/2020 unit (CEB). J.C. also thanks FCT for the CEEC Individual (2022.06886.CEECIND)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

From Moore to Cavino: the invisible cities of 20th Century planning

The contrast between the social and urban Utopia of Thomas Moore and the English Society of the sixteenth century can be used as an excuse to reflect on the concept of Utopia as an idea that is not possible to concretize when it is proposed but can be feasible some years later. In the planning of 20th-Century New Towns we often find a strong component of Utopia due to the inadequacy to the social and/or technical conditions of the moment. The contrast between the ideal plan and the construct results (when there are any) is often strong, allowing us to consider the existing of an invisible city that is hidden behind the actual urban spaces; it can be a utopia waiting to be concretized or a dystopia caused by an unforeseen evolution of urban spaces and social dynamics. In the 1972 work of Calvino, The Invisible Cities, we find a poetic discourse about the city that can be interpreted as a critical reflection on the ideas and results of the coeval urban practices. In this paper, we intent to present an interpretation of some of the 20th Century urban ideas based on the reading of the eleven themes of this book. The links that can be established between the various Invisible Cities (moving and combining them, like the pieces of a chess game) inspire the formulation of several assumptions that can be related to the images, forms and ideas of some Archetypes and Utopias of 20th Century planning: Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse, Mies van der Rohe’s plan for the IIT in Chicago, Minoru Yamasaki’s Pruitt-Igoe housing complex, Robert Ventury’s (et al.) studies on Las Vegas and Levittown, the images produced by Archigram and the theoretical work of Jane Jacobs, Aldo Rossi, Kevin Lynch, Rem Koolhaas, François Ascher and Joel Garreau

Swine enteric colibacillosis: Current treatment avenues and future directions

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2022.981207/full#supplementary-materialEnteric colibacillosis is a common disease in nursing and weanling pigs. It is caused by the colonization of the small intestine by enterotoxigenic strains of Escherichia coli (ETEC) that make use of specific fimbria or pili to adhere to the absorptive epithelial cells of the jejunum and ileum. Once attached, and when both the immunological systems and the gut microbiota are poorly developed, ETEC produce one or more enterotoxins that can have local and, further on, systemic effects. These enterotoxins cause fluid and electrolytes to be secreted into the intestinal lumen of animals, which results in diarrhea, dehydration, and acidosis. From the diversity of control strategies, antibiotics and zinc oxide are the ones that have contributed more significantly to mitigating post-weaning diarrhea (PWD) economic losses. However, concerns about antibiotic resistance determined the restriction on the use of critically important antimicrobials in food-producing animals and the prohibition of their use as growth promoters. As such, it is important now to begin the transition from these preventive/control measures to other, more sustainable, approaches. This review provides a quick synopsis of the currently approved and available therapies for PWD treatment while presenting an overview of novel antimicrobial strategies that are being explored for the control and treatment of this infection, including, prebiotics, probiotics, synbiotics, organic acids, bacteriophages, spray-dried plasma, antibodies, phytogenic substances, antisense oligonucleotides, and aptamers.Research in swine colibacillosis in CA Laboratory was supported by funding from the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) Strategic Project Unit PTDC/CVT-CVT/4620/2021. It was also partially funded by LA/P/0045/2020 (ALiCE), UIDB/00511/2020 and UIDP/00511/2020 (LEPABE), funded by national funds through FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC), by FCT under the scope of the strategic funding of UIDB/04469/2020 unit (CEB), and by LABBELS-Associate Laboratory in Biotechnology, Bioengineering, and Microelectromechnaical Systems, LA/P/0029/2020.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Studies on the interaction of three lytic bacteriophages with a wide collection of Escherichia coli strains implicated in swine enteric colibacillosis

bioRxiv - the Preprint Server for BiologyThe misuse of antibiotics in the swine industry and their on-going restriction requires alternatives to control enterotoxigenic and shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (ETEC and STEC, respectively). This study evaluates the potential of three coliphages, vB_EcoM_FJ1, vB_EcoM_FN and vB_EcoM_SP1 against 104 ETEC, STEC and ETEC/STEC strains isolated from pig colibacillosis in Portuguese (2018-2020) and Spanish farms (2006-2016), encompassing 71.2% mcr-positive strains (33.7% with mcr-1, 1.9% mcr-2, 35.6% mcr-4 and 2.9% mcr-5) and 18.3% positive strains for TEM (1%), SHV (6.7%), and CTX-M (11.5%) extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-encoding genes. In general, all bacteriophages presented a narrow lytic spectrum (up to 2.9%) against the 104 ETEC, STEC and ETEC/STEC. Bacteriophages shared >80% overall nucleotide identity with E. coli phage T4 (Tevenvirinae subfamily), but a particular look at the distal part of the long tail fiber (gp38) revealed no homology. All bacteriophages recognize lipopolysaccharides as receptors, and additionally, FN binds to an outer membrane protein A. Bacteriophage-insensitive mutants of vB_EcoM_FJ1 (90%) and vB_EcoM_FN (100%) were shown to be more susceptible to pig serum inactivation comparatively to the parental strain and furthermore, their adhesion capacity to porcine intestinal cells was diminished by, approximately, 90%. Contrariwise, vB_EcoM_SP1 insensitive variants did not display phenotypic differences comparing to the wild-type strain. This study demonstrates that besides being T4-like, these bacteriophages revealed a narrow lytic spectrum against diarrhoeagenic E. coli strains and that the acquisition of novel bacteriophage-encoded adhesins (gp38) seems to be determinant for such results.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Controlling ETEC colonization on cultures of an intestinal pig cell line with a T4-like phage

Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) colonizes the intestine of young pigs causing severe diarrhoea and consequently bringing high producing costs. The rise of antibiotic selective pressure together with on-going limitation on their use demands news strategies to tackle this pathology. The pertinence of using phages to tackle this problematic is being explored, and in this work, the efficacy of a T4-like phage vB_EcoM_FJ1 (FJ1) in reducing the load of ETEC O9:H9 (Sta, F5/F41) was assessed. FJ1 has a 170,053 bp genome, and of the 270 coding sequences none corresponds to identified undesirable proteins, such as integrases or transposases. Envisaging the oral application to piglets, FJ1 was previously encapsulated on CaCO3/alginate. Assays were performed on 15-day cultures of the intestinal pig cell line IPEC-1 seeded in transwell inserts. Phage treatment occurred 2 hours after ETEC infection, when, in average, 5x105 CFU.cm-2 were adhered to cultured cells. Encapsulated phage provided reductions of, approximately, 2.3 Log CFU.cm-2 and 2.8 Log CFU.cm-2 on adhered bacteria, respectively 3 and 6 hours after administration. The repeated exposure of the host to FJ1 led to the emergence of phage-insensitive mutants, phenotype that brought fitness costs to the host strain: they were 70% more vulnerable to the pig complement system and less efficient in adhering to cultured cells (in about 90%). Overall, FJ1 is presented here as promising to fight against ETEC infections through oral administration to piglets.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

BETWEEN RISKS AND PREVENTION: YOUNG UNIVERSITY HEALTH STUDENTS' SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT THE HUMAN PAPILLOMAVIRUS

Objective: to identify the social representations of young university students in the health area about the Human Papillomavirus and to analyze how they develop risk factors and prevention strategies against this infection.Method: an exploratory and descriptive study based on the Theory of Social Representations and carried out from July 2018 to July 2020 using the Free Word Association Test with 200 students from 14 health areas at a public university in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The data were analyzed by means of Correspondence Factor Analysis using the Tri-Deux 5.2 program.Results: the university students' representations vary according to gender and sexual orientation. However, they only direct responsibility for prevention of the disease to women.Conclusion: identifying young people's representations about the Human Papillomavirus contributes so that Nursing can devise strategies to face it through the training of these future professionals