Use of a distant reporter group as evidence for a conformational change in a sensory receptor

A highly sensitive method for demonstrating ligand-induced conformational changes in protein molecules in solution is described. The method utilizes an environmentally sensitive reporter group that is known to be distant from the active site. In the present application a conformational change is demonstrated in the galactose receptor of Salmonella typhimurium, involved in bacterial sensing and transport, by means of an extrinsic fluorophore, 5-iodoacetamidofluorescein, attached at a single methionine residue, and the intrinsic tryptophan fluorophore. Binding of the ligand galactose perturbs the microenvironment of both the fluorescein and tryptophan, as shown by both spectral and potassium iodide quenching changes. The distance between the two dyes is established by fluorescence energy transfer methods to be 41 ± 10 angstrom. Since only one molecule of galactose binds per molecule of receptor and since the galactose molecule is only about 5 angstrom in length, changes at one of these sites reflect the result of an indirect effect. Hence, there must be a ligand-induced conformational change that is propagated a minimum of 30 angstrom through the receptor molecule

Sustaining municipal parks in an era of neoliberal austerity: The contested commercialisation of Gunnersbury Park

This paper analyses a potentially path shaping moment for the UK’s public parks by analysing a pivotal case study of park neoliberalisation. Like many municipal parks, Gunnersbury Park in West London is experiencing the effects of local government budget cuts. Governance, policy and physical changes have been introduced to reduce dependence on public funding and the result is a more commercially oriented park. This case is used to better understand how the period of neoliberal austerity 2010-2020 reshaped municipal parks. The paper highlights concerns over the transparency and accountability of the social enterprise that now manages Gunnersbury Park. It also shows how neoliberalisation and commercialisation are manifested in the park landscape: free events are replaced with ticketed ones, spaces for sport are transformed into bookable facilities, cafes are taken over by corporate chains and playgrounds are supplemented with paid entry alternatives. One of the main consequences is the financial and symbolic exclusion of those unable or unwilling to pay. The paper explores who has contested the recent changes, and why. Opponents are dismissed as idealistic NIMBYs but, by refusing to accept the post-political inevitability of park neoliberalisation, they are helping to ensure Gunnersbury Park’s remains a public and open space. The case is contextualised by situating it within a review of new park governance arrangements across London, and by comparing neoliberalisation processes here with those affecting New York parks. Ultimately, the research highlights the pitfalls of shifting away from the public funding and public management of municipal parks.

Grassroots Creative Hubs: Urban Regeneration, Recovered Industrial Factories and Cultural Production in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro

This chapter examines the nature, functioning and politics of grassroots creative hubs as contained in refurbished industrial factories. The renewal and transformation of factories into arts and cultural venues has been a key feature of post-industrial urbanism in the last three decades. Examples abound across the world, from railway and power stations to post office buildings and chocolate factories, these recovered infrastructures have been re-signified as cultural facilities – performing or multi-arts centres, galleries, cultural centres, creative economy laboratories, incubators and museums. These initiatives, be that they are led by local governments or community groups, are part of broader urban strategies for revitalising historical centres, revalorising cultural heritage and creating work opportunities as well as resources for tourism and business investment. But can a factory building be considered a creative hub? Does the materiality of these urban artefacts provide a solution to the oftentransient nature of ephemeral cultural urbanism? Refurbishing old industrial factories and warehouses for cultural use and creative production has been the subject of much investigation since the 1980s-1990s, mainly through the study of culture-led urban regeneration and gentrification (Zukin, 1989; Montgomery, 1995; Evans and Shaw, 2004; Mommaas, 2004; Pratt, 2009), and more recently, creative industry clusters and districts (Evans, 2009; Zukin and Braslow, 2011; O’Connor and Gu, 2012). These studies have pointed out the problems that arise from the organisation, management and long-term sustainability of converted industrial sites, as well as from the policy uses and abuses that often pave the way to real-estate development and social displacement. Drawing on insights from urban sociology and critical geography, the chapter conducts a case-study analysis of two cultural and creative economy factories in Latin America: Fábrica Bhering in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and IMPA, la Fábrica Cultural in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The chapter is comprised of three sections: the first discusses whether recovered industrial factories can be thought of as creative hubs in relation to ephemeral cultural urbanism; the second examines the two case-studies in the context of Brazil and Argentina; and the third offers concluding remarks. Overall the chapter contributes a Latin American perspective on culture-led urban regeneration to the study of creative hubs. Particularly, grassroots creative initiatives of urban renewal are presented as an alternative to the exclusionary gentrification processes to which creative hubs and other territorial forms of creativity are often related to, in times largely shaped by neoliberal operations driven by real-estate interests and alliances between political and economic urban elites

Rudolf Otto’s ‘The Absolute Other’ and a radical postsecular urban contextualization

This article proposes an idea of radical urban contextualisation that follows Rudolf Otto’s discussion on an encounter with the Absolute Other. The article critically reviews current applications of postsecularism to urban theory formulated in a general framework of Jurgen Habermas’ intervention in the early 21st century. The article argues that contemporary postsecular urban theory cannot fully answer fundamental challenges that contemporary cities are facing – both political and environmental – mostly because it focuses on linguistic and cultural aspects of a city. The article proposes the ‘radicalization’ of postsecularism, engaging directly with the ‘religious experience’ defined by Rudolf Otto as an encounter with The Absolute Other – the unknown and unpredictable. The Absolute Other notion allows to ultimately contextualize every urban situation in order to formulate conditions for future-oriented (post-capitalist) urbanism

Hipsters on Our High Streets: Consuming the Gentrification Frontier

Gentrification involves the displacement of working class populations, a phenomena most obviously manifest in the transformation of residential landscapes. But this is also palpable in the changes visible on many shopping streets, with locally-oriented stores serving poorer populations and ethnic minorities being replaced by 'hipster' stores such as 'real coffee' shops, vintage clothing stores and bars serving microbrews. These stores have been taken as a sign that the fortunes of struggling shopping streets are improving, with the new outlets often depicted as offering a better range of healthy, green and 'authentic' consumption choices than the shops they displace. However, this paper argues that we need to resist this form of retail change given it typically represents the first stage of a more thoroughgoing retail gentrification process, remaining suspicious of forms of hipster consumption which, while aesthetically 'improving' local shopping streets in deprived areas, actually encourage the colonisation of neighbourhoods by the more affluent

Hobson’s choice? Constraints on accessing spaces of creative production

Successful creative production is often documented to occur in urban areas that are more likely to be diverse, a source of human capital and the site of dense interactions. These accounts chart how, historically, creative industries have clustered in areas where space was once cheap in the city centre fringe and inner city areas, often leading to the development of a creative milieu, and thereby stimulating further creative production. Historical accounts of the development of creative areas demonstrate the crucial role of accessible low-cost business premises. This article reports on the findings of a case study that investigated the location decisions of firms in selected creative industry sectors in Greater Manchester. The study found that, while creative activity remains highly concentrated in the city centre, creative space there is being squeezed and some creative production is decentralizing in order to access cheaper premises. The article argues that the location choices of creative industry firms are being constrained by the extensive city centre regeneration, with the most vulnerable firms, notably the smallest and youngest, facing a Hobson’s choice of being able to access low-cost premises only in the periphery. This disrupts the delicate balance needed to sustain production and begs the broader question as to how the creative economy fits into the existing urban fabric, alongside the competing demands placed on space within a transforming industrial conurbation