In conversation with… Balkrishna Doshi

[ES] El arquitecto indio Balkrishna Doshi, Premio Pritzker 2018, ha cumplido recientemente noventa y dos años en plena y entusiasta dedicación a su vocación arquitectónica y a su familia. El catedrático de proyectos arquitectónicos de la UPV, José María Lozano Velasco, ha tenido la oportunidad de encontrarse con él en Sangath -su estudio en Ahmedabad- el pasado mes de agosto, para compartir preocupaciones comunes y aprender de este maestro de la arquitectura que no desea ser llamado así.Cuando apenas acaba de clausurarse la segunda oportunidad –esta vez en el Architekmuseum der TUM de la Pinacoteca Moderna de Munich- para conocer de manera cuidadosa su obra, a través de la espléndida exposición denominada Architecture for the people que produjera el VITRA museum de Weil an Rhein, las reflexiones de primera mano y de viva -muy viva- voz de su autor resultan esclarecedoras para su mejor compresión.Es conocida la inestimable colaboración que Doshi prestó al gran maestro Le Corbusier en la concepción y ejecución de Chandigarh. También la imprescindible participación de nuestro arquitecto en el Campus del Indian Institute of Management de Ahmedabad de Louis Khan. E interesante estudiar la influencia de uno y otro en su obra primera. Como observar su evolución hacia la magia de Amdavad ni Gufa o su profunda atención por el Low cost housing, que en el distrito construido de Aranya, Indore, cobra realidad.No han faltado los estudios de colegas y amigos como William Curtis o Kenneth Frampton que, con más autoridad que nosotros, se han pronunciado al respecto.Este artículo es el resultado del conocimiento de todo ello y de las visitas realizadas a gran parte de la obra, más la enriquecedora conversación sostenida con su autor. Y su enfoque es otro. Hemos querido indagar en aquellas razones que hicieron denominar la primera época de Doshi como “Tradition and modernity”, en las más mágicas (o míticas, como él mismo las denomina) y en la principal herramienta para transmitirlas: el dibujo (y el dibujo de color).El artículo incluye transcripciones literales o adaptadas de algunos pasajes del encuentro, contextualizadas oportunamente.[EN] Indian architect Balkrishna Doshi, 2018 Pritzker Prize, has recently turned 92, remaining in full and enthusiastic dedication to his architectural vocation and his family. José María Lozano Velasco, UPV architectural project Professor, had the opportunity to meet him at Sangath– his studio in Ahmedabad– last August, to share common concerns and learn from this architectural master, though he eschews being given such titles. Right when the second opportunity to get to know his work in detail had just concluded –this time at the Architekmuseum der TUM, part of Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne art museum– through the splendid exhibition called Architecture for the people produced by the VITRA museum of Weil am Rhein, the author’s first-hand reflections in his own voice are enlightening for better comprehension of his work.It is well-known the invaluable collaboration that Doshi maintained with the great master Le Corbusier in the conception and execution of Chandigarh, in addition to the essential participation of our architect on the Campus of the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad of Louis Khan. It is also interesting to study the influence of both his first works as well as to observe his evolution towards the magic of Amdavad ni Gufa or his deep concern for low-cost housing, which in the district of Aranya, Indore, becomes a reality.We cannot preclude the studies of colleagues and friends such as William Curtis or Kenneth Frampton who, with more authority than us, have addressed the matter.This article is the result of the compiled knowledge and consideration given to the large part of the work plus the enriching conversation with its author. However, its approach is different as we have intended to investigate those reasons that made the first Doshi period be known as “Tradition and Modernity”, using the most magical (or mythical, as he likes to refer to them) and main tool to transmit them: the drawing (and the coloured drawing).This article includes literal or adapted transcripts from some passages of the meeting and have been contextualized for more better readability.Durán Fernández, J.; Lozano Portillo, A.; Lozano Velasco, JM. (2021). Conversando con... Balkrishna Doshi. EGA Expresión Gráfica Arquitectónica. 26(43):16-37. https://doi.org/10.4995/ega.2021.16607OJS1637264

MicroRNAs in skeletal muscle development

A fundamental process during both embryo development and stem cell differentiation is the control of cell lineage determination. In developing skeletal muscle, many of the diffusible signaling molecules, transcription factors and more recently non-coding RNAs that contribute to this process have been identified. This has facilitated advances in our understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the control of cell fate choice. Here we will review the role of non-coding RNAs, in particular microRNAs (miRNAs), in embryonic muscle development and differentiation, and in satellite cells of adult muscle, which are essential for muscle growth and regeneration. Some of these short post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression are restricted to skeletal muscle, but their expression can also be more widespread. In addition, we discuss a few examples of long non-coding RNAs, which are numerous but much less well understood

Multienzyme coimmobilization on triheterofunctional supports

IImmobilized multienzyme systems are gaining momentum in applied biocatalysis; however, the coimmobilization of several enzymes on one carrier is still challenging. In this work, we exploited a heterofunctional support activated with three different chemical functionalities to immobilize a wide variety of different enzymes. This support is based on agarose microbeads activated with aldehyde, amino, and cobalt chelate moieties that allow a fast and irreversible immobilization of enzymes, enhancing the thermostability of most of the heterogeneous biocatalysts (up to 21-fold higher than the soluble one). Furthermore, this trifunctional support serves to efficiently coimmobilize a multienzyme system composed of an alcohol dehydrogenase, a reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) oxidase, and a catalase. The confined multienzymatic system demonstrates higher performance than its free counterpart, achieving a total turnover number (TTN) of 1 × 105 during five batch consecutive cycles. We envision this solid material as a platform for coimmobilizing multienzyme systems with enhanced properties to catalyze stepwise biotransformations

Delineation of site‐specific management zones using estimation of distribution algorithms

In this paper, we present a novel methodology to solve the problem of delineating homogeneous site-specific management zones (SSMZ) in agricultural fields. This problem consists of dividing the field into small regions for which a specific rate of inputs is required. The objec- tive is to minimize the number of management zones, which must be homogeneous according to a specific soil property: physical or chem- ical. Furthermore, as opposed to oval zones, SSMZ with rectangular shapes are preferable since they are more practical for agricultural technologies. The methodology we propose is based on evolutionary computation, specifically on a class of the estimation of distribution algorithms (EDAs). One of the strongest contributions of this study is the representation used to model the management zones, which gener- ates zones with orthogonal shapes, e.g., L or T shapes, and minimizes the number of zones required to delineate the field. The experimental results show that our method is efficient to solve real-field and ran- domly generated instances. The average improvement of our method consists in reducing the number of management zones in the agricul- tural fields concerning other operations research methods presented in the literature. The improvement depends on the size of the field and the level of homogeneity established for the resulting management zones.IT1244-19 TIN2016-78365-R PID2019-104966GB-I0

An alternative Drum test method to UNECE Regulation 117 for measuring tyre/road noise under laboratory controlled conditions

Tyre/road sound emissions have been proved to be the main source of noise caused by road traffic when traveling at medium and high speeds (Sandberg and Ejsmont, 2002). Tyre/road noise has been widely studied among the last decades. However, an important part of this research has been focused, mainly, on track tests. Different track or road methods have been developed for measurement of tyre/road sound emissions. The most important ones are the Coast-By, the Close-Proximity, the Statistical Pass-By or the Controlled Pass-By methods. Among all of them, the Coast-By method has been raised in Europe as standard method concerning the approval of tyres with regard to tyre/road sound emissions as preconized in UNECE Regulation 117 (2007)[2]. However, all the above mentioned methods have several disadvantages such as the influence of environmental factors, the different results that can be obtained depending on the test track or the vehicle upon which the tests are carried out, the lack of repeatability or, the most important aspect, which is the limitation of the measured magnitude, the sound pressure level. A new methodology (Clar-Garcia et al., 2016) based on drum tests and the ISO 3744 (1994), which was developed in order to avoid these limitations, has been proved to be comparable to the Coast-By (CB) method. This paper describes how different tyres have been tested according to both the CB and the new Alternative Drum test method (A-DR) while their results have been compared. In order to be able to carry out this comparison, as the measured magnitudes and test conditions differ widely from one test to another, the standardised ISO 9613 sound propagation method (ISO 9613-2, 1996) has been applied to obtain the sound pressure value at 7.5 m from the sound power level of a tyre measured under laboratory-controlled conditions when rolling against a drum. Results have shown that both methods are not only comparable but also have remarkably similar sound spectra and, for that reason, the new methodology based on drum tests can be used in order to obtain tyre/road noise emission approved values

SafeWalks: aplicación móvil de supervisión de pacientes de Alzheimer

El principal objetivo de Internet of Things (IoT) es integrar las tecnologías informáticas en el quehacer cotidiano de las personas, facilitando su interacción con un entorno de dispositivos interconectados, pero el estado actual del arte hace que dicha interacción esté aún lejos de resultar trivial, precisando de continua intervención del usuario. El modelo People as a Service (PeaaS) pretende facilitar estas tareas por medio del uso del teléfono móvil como interfaz del usuario con IoT. PeaaS permite elaborar un perfil sociológico del usuario, que puede ser explotado por el mismo y servido a terceros de forma controlada. En este trabajo presentamos una aplicación móvil para la supervisión de personas afectadas de alzheimer como prueba de concepto del modelo PeaaS, teniendo como resultado una funcionalidad que va mucho más allá de la ofrecida por otros productos similares en este campo.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Generadores de electricidad bioinorgánicos. Conversión de energía química renovable a través de materiales piezoeléctricos funcionalizados con enzimas

In this project we have developed a new generation of bio-inorganic generators aimed at the electri­city production from renewable fuels. These systems are presented as an alternative to electroche­mical fueled cells. In this context, we have fabricated a new hybrid system, which fuses a biological machinery able to transform chemical energy into mechanical energy (pressure and vibration), with a piezoelectric material who convert such mechanical energy into electricity (bio-inorganic generator). The mechanical stimuli, as pressure and vibration, are generated as an outcome of the produced gases coming from renewable fuels; this reaction is catalyzed by the biological machinery (enzymes) which are part of the generator. These devices are able to produce electricity at the microscopic scale starting from renewable fuels as sugars and alcohols coming from the biomass. This fact is very significant allowing the indirect production of electricity with zero emissions. Moreover, these bio-inorganic generators open a passionate spectrum of new applications in different fields like sensing, robotics and energetics.En este proyecto hemos desarrollado una nueva generación de generadores bioinorgánicos para producir electricidad a partir de combustibles renovables. Estos sistemas se presentan como alternativa a las pilas de combustible basadas en procesos electroquímicos. En este contexto, hemos fabricado un nuevo sistema híbrido que fusiona una maquinaria biológica, capaz de transformar un combustible en energía mecánica (presión y vibración), con un material piezoeléctrico que transforma esa energía mecánica en electricidad (generador bioinorgánico). Los estímulos mecánicos de presión y vibración son generados gracias a la producción de gases a partir de combustibles. Esta reacción está catalizada por la maquinaria biológica (enzimas) que forma parte del generador. Estos dispositivos son capaces de producir electricidad a escala microscópica a partir de combustibles procedentes de fuentes renovables como azúcares y alcoholes provenientes de la biomasa. Este hecho es muy significativo, puesto que indirectamente permite generar electricidad con cero emisiones. Además, estos generadores bioinorgánicos abren un abanico apasionante de nuevas aplicaciones en campos tan diversos como la sensórica, la robótica y la energía