Emerging technologies - some strategies for a future of design and the formation of somatic experience

This brief paper highlights some of the issues that have arisen in a research that emerging from the experience of attempting to extend design analysis and criticism into those student projects which engaged with ‘incorporated technologies’ such as nanotechnology, virtual and augmented reality, DNA computing or implant augmentation. The research itself will take the form of a number of narratives intended to explore and invite discussion of ideas drawn from philosophy and science, posited as a means to initiate discussion among designers. This paper particularly explores how this process of dialogue arose from the discussion of complex and ‘uncertain’ ideas with student designers and emerged from the experience of developing curricula for the undergraduate ‘design futures’ course at the University of Wales. It is suggested that issues emerging from this research may have some impact upon the design of future pedagogies for design education and upon the future of industrial design conceptualisation. Questions are raised of the methodology of those designers who claim to model users experiences through metaphoric or comparative allusion to antique models of mechanical processes or through social interactions conceived to bear comparison with established human rituals. The paper describes how a speculative method of dialogue is being designed in order to explore the potential of an extensionist philosophical model. The dialogic method, whilst still in the process of construction, is centred upon a process of ‘story-telling’. It is anticipated that these stories will go some way towards the embodied, inclusion of emerging uncertain and unorthodox ideas of ‘extension’ in philosophy, biology, ecology, psychology and neuroscientific into the schema of industrial design conceptualisation

Malentangled: Function Redacting Tape

The neologism entanglement proposes that all things are connected through super-complex meshworks of mutable interdependencies. This entanglement of interdependencies is often obscured through forgetness, a radically reductive process by which things are taken to be isolated and interdependencies are forgotten. In some instances – for example when objects break – people are again reminded of the interdependentness of things. Malentanglement theory proposes that forgetness may also encounter a remindness through humour, and not only through catastrophe (depunctualisation). The ‘Function Redacting Tape’ project takes redaction as a method for doctoring documents, but it deploys this method in the material context of design. Project Participants are provided with black PVC adhesive tape and invited to consider the functions of designed objects. They are then asked to redact these functions (using the tape) and in doing so to make documented interventions that draw back the metaphorical veil of forgetness for reasons of design enquiry. The project functions as a sort of rudimentary cultural probe that might shed some light on entanglement, humour, and design, whilst simultaneously testing the employment of humour to aid participation in design research

Cu-Mediated C–H ¹⁸F‑Fluorination of Electron-Rich (Hetero)arenes

This communication describes a method for the nucleophilic radiofluorination of electron-rich arenes. The reaction involves the initial C­(sp²)–H functionalization of an electron-rich arene with MesI­(OH)­OTs to form a (mesityl)­(aryl)­iodonium salt. This salt is then used in situ in a Cu-mediated radiofluorination with [¹⁸F]­KF. This approach leverages the stability and availability of electron-rich arene starting materials to enable mild late-stage radiofluorination of toluene, anisole, aniline, pyrrole, and thiophene derivatives. The radiofluorination has been automated to access a 41 mCi dose of an ¹⁸F-labeled nimesulide derivative in high (2800 ± 700 Ci/mmol) specific activity

Experimental and DFT‑D Studies of the Molecular Organic Energetic Material RDX

We have performed simulations utilizing the dispersion-corrected density functional theory method (DFT-D) as parametrized by Grimme on selected polymorphs of RDX (cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine). Additionally, we present the first experimental determination of the enthalpy of fusion (Δ<i>H</i>_fus) of the highly metastable β-form of RDX. The characteristics of fusion for β-RDX were determined to be 186.7 ± 0.8 °C, 188.5 ± 0.4 °C, and 12.63 ± 0.28 kJ mol^–1 for the onset temperature, peak temperature (or melting point), and Δ<i>H</i>_fus, respectively. The difference in experimental Δ<i>H</i>_fus for the α- and β-forms of RDX is 20.46 ± 0.92 kJ mol^–1. Ambient-pressure lattice energies (<i>E</i>_L) of the α- and β-forms of RDX have been calculated and are in excellent agreement with experiment. In addition the computationally predicted difference in <i>E</i>_L (20.35 kJ mol^–1) between the α- and β-forms is in excellent agreement with the experimental difference in Δ<i>H</i>_fus. The response of the lattice parameters and unit-cell volumes to pressure for the α- and γ-forms have been investigated, in addition to the first high-pressure computational study of the ε-form of RDXthese results are in very good agreement with experimental data. Phonon calculations provide good agreement for vibrational frequencies obtained from Raman spectroscopy, and a predicted inelastic neutron scattering (INS) spectrum of α-RDX shows excellent agreement with experimental INS data determined in this study. The transition energies and intensities are reproduced, confirming that both the eigenvalues and the eigenvectors of the vibrations are correctly described by the DFT-D method. The results of the high-pressure phonon calculations have been used to show that the heat capacities of the α-, γ-, and ε-forms of RDX are only weakly affected by pressure

Anti-TcNMT shows no cross-reactivity with human cells.

<p>Immunofluorescence microscopy of non-infected and infected cells 72- and 96-h post-infection stained with anti-TcNMT (red), co-stained with DAPI (blue) to visualize host cell and parasite DNA. Scale bar, 10 μm.</p

Alignment of <i>T</i>. <i>cruzi</i> NMT with NMTs from <i>T</i>. <i>brucei</i>, <i>L</i>. <i>major</i> and human.

<p>The deduced open reading frame of <i>Tc</i>NMT (AI069625) was aligned with <i>Tb</i>NMT (TRYP10.0.001826–6), <i>Lm</i>NMT (AF3059561), and human NMT (<i>Hs</i>NMT) (<i>HUMAN</i>, P30419) using the ClustalW2 multiple sequence alignment program (<a href="http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/msa/clustalw2/" target="_blank">http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/msa/clustalw2/</a>). Strictly conserved residues are shown in red. The insertions in protozoan NMTs (<i>Tc</i>NMT, <i>Tb</i>NMT, and <i>Lm</i>NMT) are underlined. Red boxes indicate key residues involved in myristoyl-CoA binding; black boxes indicate residues involved in peptide binding identified in yeast species. Arrows identify the pocket floor residues in <i>C</i>. <i>albicans</i>.</p

DDD compounds inhibit intracellular proliferation of <i>T</i>. <i>cruzi</i>.

<p>(<b>A</b>) Representative images of cells treated with the vehicle control (DMSO), untreated, treated with 800 μM benznidazole (BZ) or 10 μM compound <b>8</b>, stained with Draq5 (left panel), and analyzed by HCI. Artificial images created after segmentation on the fluorescence bioimager (right panel). Host cells are shown in blue, extracellular parasites in red and intracellular parasites in pink. (<b>B</b>) The multiparametric data obtained on a cell-by-cell basis by HCI was analyzed to determine several parameters associated to infection of host cells by <i>T</i>. <i>cruzi</i> including the percentage of cells infected with at least five parasites (percentage of cells in which the parasite proliferated), treated or not with DDD compounds <b>1–8</b>. C, controls: 40, 400, and 800 μM BZ, DMSO, and Untreated.</p

DDD compounds are trypanocidal against purified intracellular amastigotes.

<p>Total number of parasites in each well was counted to evaluate the cytotoxicity of the compounds <b>1</b>, <b>5</b>, and <b>8</b> against purified ICA (<b>A</b>) and Epi (<b>B</b>). C, controls: Untreated, DMSO, and H₂O₂.</p

EC₅₀ values and selectivity index (S.I.) of DDD compounds in noninfected and <i>T</i>. <i>cruzi</i>-infected U2OS cells, and purified intracellular amastigotes.

<p>(<b>a</b> and <b>b</b>) Non-infected and infected U2OS cells, respectively, were incubated for 48 h at 37°C with DDD compounds 1–8. (<b>c</b>) Purified ICAs were incubated for 24 h at 37°C with DDD compounds 1–8. (<b>d</b>) Not determined.</p

TcNMT is overexpressed in epimastigotes treated with DDD compounds.

<p>Epi forms were treated for 12 h with or without 10 μM of compound <b>1</b>, <b>5</b>, or <b>8</b>. Levels of NMT expression were confirmed by western blotting using anti-TcNMT. BiP (binding protein) was used as a loading control.</p