Phenomenal deformations: affordance as a design tool to deal with subject-object complementarity in Architecture

Ponència presentada a la sessió 4The production of knowledge related to the architectural project during the design phase mainly concerns the object in itself, while its relationship with occupants is an underrated factor for design success. This is due to the fact that architecture as a formal design field is naturally devoted to deal with the physical and geometric characteristics of the design object identified in unequivocal ways, while occupancy implies a degree of subjectivity and contingency which phenomenally deforms the object into its many manifestations. This paper analyses the concept of affordance by Gibson (1979) as a suitable tool to deal with occupancy in terms of subject-object complementarity because it addresses the ecological value of an object, i.e. its value in relation to a perceiving subject and not in itself. The first problems posed by the concept of affordance, hence, is how the subject can be identified given the variety of real occupants which interact with a certain environment. The common answer is to address only those aspects which are in common between all the subjects, i.e. the ones who define occupants as members of a species. At this level, indeed, occupants are natural subjects, which can only express basic needs to be met by sensorimotor activities, and for this reason a different approach considering the subject as culturally and also individually defined is needed in order to shift from an automatism of inhabitation to the self-determination of occupancy. Affordance must therefore be considered in a broader context going beyond sensorimotor activities and dealing also with upper cognitive faculties. However, an affordance related to a culturally-defined subject does not entail self-determination per se, since also cultural and individual schemes can be absorbed without the exercise of critique due to habituation. Activities driven by natural, cultural or individual schemes differ with regard to the interval they entail between the action received by the environment and subject's reaction. Indeed, more individuality is implied, longer the time needed to process data received from the environment. Time is here intended not as an extensive but as an intensive dimension. This means that it cannot be considered as a sum of instants, but an unitary event having a specific character. This is the concept of duration in Bergson, as opposed to spatialized time, and it also recalls Bakhtin's idea of chronotope. In the overall framework interweaving design activity and time through cognition, chronotopes can be useful in the definition of an affordance-based architectural approach. Indeed some chronotopes describing duration in its becoming are related to the contingent and direct relationship between the subject and his object which is expressed by the concept of affordance. The present paper aims at understanding how these contributions from cognitive sciences, literature, philosophy and semiotics can allow architects to improve affordance as a design tool starting from a review of the state of the art. At the end, some case studies from the past which address the question of a self-determined occupancy are proposed as exemplary of an affordance-based approach to architecture

Políticas públicas para a inovação tecnológica e competitividade: uma análise comparada nas relações internacionais

A abertura e liberalização comercial e financeira trouxe consigo novos desafios para países, empresas e organizações, suscitando novos níveis de organização e políticas públicas, de modo a sustentar e incrementar padrões de competitividade. Diversos países, dentre eles o Brasil, têm se deparado com a necessidade de revisar seus marcos regulatórios e institucionais, reorganizar suas atividades produtivas e fomentar um ambiente mais propício à cooperação entre os múltiplos agentes que compõem o sistema nacional de inovação. O crescente grau de internacionalização e interdependência econômica, juntamente à emergência de padrões de competitividade cada vez mais vinculados à capacidade de aprendizado e criação de conhecimento e inovação esparge inquietações quanto à inserção brasileira e dos países desenvolvidos em tal contexto. A habilidade em se engendrar condições para um contínuo aprendizado, com vistas à criação e difusão de conhecimentos, é premissa que se revela, como em nenhum outro período, crítica para a orquestração e sustentação de parâmetros superiores de competitividade. A literatura especializada indica que na atualidade não apenas os países mais industrializados da OCDE (Organização para a Cooperação e Desenvolvimento Econômico), mas também países em rápido nível de desenvolvimento, como a Coréia, a China e periféricos têm orquestrado um conjunto muito amplo e variado de políticas de inovação e competitividade, focando elementos tais como as condições de fomento, interação interinstitucional, participação de empresas no financiamento e execução à inovação, assim como a criação de um ambiente institucional mais aprazível aos negócios. Esse trabalho aponta que o Brasil, a despeito do conjunto de ações voltadas a este fim nos últimos anos, tais como a criação dos Fundos Setoriais e a nova Política Industrial, Tecnológica e de Comércio Exterior, encontra-se em situação fragilizada, em decorrência da limitação de recursos orçamentários e financeiros para o fomento à C&T, do restrito estreitamento das relações entre atores do sistema nacional de inovação, além da configuração de um ambiente institucional ineficiente. Tais constatações vêm comprometendo a inserção e a competitividade do país e de suas empresas em meio a este novo contexto

TGFβ impairs HNF1α functional activity in Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition interfering with the recruitment of CBP/p300 acetyltransferases

The cytokine transforming growth factor β (TGFβ) plays a crucial role in the induction of both epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) program and fibro-cirrhotic process in the liver, where it contributes also to organ inflammation following several chronic injuries. All these pathological situations greatly increase the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and contribute to tumor progression. In particular, late-stage HCCs are characterized by constitutive activation of TGFβ pathway and by an EMT molecular signature leading to the acquisition of invasive and metastatic properties. In these pathological conditions, the cytokine has been shown to induce the transcriptional downregulation of HNF1α, a master regulator of the epithelial/hepatocyte differentiation and of the EMT reverse process, the mesenchymal-to-epithelial transition (MET). Therefore, the restoration of HNF1α expression/activity has been proposed as targeted therapeutic strategy for liver fibro-cirrhosis and late-stage HCCs. In this study, TGFβ is found to trigger an early functional inactivation of HNF1α during EMT process that anticipates the effects of the transcriptional downregulation of its own gene. Mechanistically, the cytokine, while not affecting the HNF1α DNA-binding capacity, impaired its ability to recruit CBP/p300 acetyltransferases on target gene promoters and, consequently, its transactivating function. The loss of HNF1α capacity to bind to CBP/p300 and HNF1α functional inactivation have been found to correlate with a change of its posttranslational modification profile. Collectively, the results obtained in this work unveil a new level of HNF1α functional inactivation by TGFβ and contribute to shed light on the early events triggering EMT in hepatocytes. Moreover, these data suggest that the use of HNF1α as anti-EMT tool in a TGFβ-containing microenvironment may require the design of new therapeutic strategies overcoming the TGFβ-induced HNF1α inactivation

Supramolecular Sensing of Chemical Warfare Agents.

AbstractChemical warfare agents are a class of organic molecules used as chemical weapons due to their high toxicity and lethal effects. For this reason, the fast detection of these compounds in the environment is crucial. Traditional detection methods are based on instrumental techniques, such as mass spectrometry or HPLC, however the use of molecular sensors able to change a detectable property (e. g., luminescence, color, electrical resistance) can be cheaper and faster. Today, molecular sensing of chemical warfare agents is mainly based on the "covalent approach", in which the sensor reacts with the analyte, or on the "supramolecular approach", which involves the formation of non‐covalent interactions between the sensor and the analyte. This Review is focused on the recent developments of supramolecular sensors of organophosphorus chemical warfare agents (from 2013). In particular, supramolecular sensors are classified by function of the sensing mechanism: i) Lewis Acids, ii) hydrogen bonds, iii) macrocyclic hosts, iv) multi‐topic sensors, v) nanosensors. It is shown how the supramolecular non‐covalent approach leads to a reversible sensing and higher selectivity towards the selected analyte respect to other interfering molecules