Queer Infrastructures: Objects of and Orientations towards Urban Research Practice

Drawing on Ahmed’s seminal work on queer phenomenology, this intervention proposes the concept of “queer infrastructure”. Queer infrastructure, as we deploy it, reflects both an object of and orientation towards urban research practice. As an object, we discuss the function, use, and practice of (our) queer networks, specifically for research assumed to be unrelated to studies of sexuality and located in the urban African context. Here we centre questions of becoming, affect, and relationality. As an orientation, we discuss what can be “seen” both when entering the field through queer networks and by seeing urban spaces through queerness. In doing so, we suggest that sexuality is always present in urban research, even when not explicitly so

Fintech urbanism in the startup capital of Africa

From innovations in mobile money to bookkeeping devices, the burgeoning of financial-technologies (fintech) in the Global South has been critiqued by scholars concerned with financialization, datafication, and recently, neo-coloniality. While sympathetic to these concerns, this paper argues for a more descriptive, ambivalent, and urban reading of the implications and stakes of this fintech boom. Using Cape Town as a case study, we explore how the city has become and positioned itself as a/the capital of fintech innovation in Africa. With two detailed vignettes that look respectively at the recent histories of business process offshoring in the city and at the cycles of experimentation that via Cape Town bring fintech to the rest of the continent, we make three arguments. First, that the urban state has been instrumental in shaping how fintech lands in cities and how the infrastructures which support it develop. Second, that diverse cultural economies of experimentation engender the worlding practices through which local fintech ecosystems operate. Overall, we suggest that paying attention to these different ways in which fintech is enabled and mobilized by the urban state opens a necessary research agenda into the ambivalence of financial innovation in Africa

Propeller flaps in partial ear reconstruction: a case series

Background: Ear defect reconstruction still remains a surgical challenge today. Proper reconstruction should result in correction of the deformity with minimum morbidity with the aim of achieving the most esthetically pleasing outcome possible. Herein, we present our clinical experience with propeller flap reconstruction of external ear defects with a focus on indications and surgical technique. Methods: Fourteen patients underwent surgery at our Plastic Surgery Unit between January 2015 and October 2019. After identifying perforators with a handheld Doppler ultrasound, a tailor-made flap was designed for each patient. Following tumor excision, dissection of the pedicle and of the remaining flap was performed with the aid of surgical loops. Flap in-setting and donor site closure were final steps. Results: Flaps have survived in their entirety in almost all our patients (13/14) maintaining optimal color and elasticity and showing no complications. In one case, a superficial distal necrosis was observed and, in another patient, tumor recurrence took place. Conclusions: Propeller flaps offer great advantages when used in ear reconstruction ensuring excellent esthetic results with a one-stage technique. Nevertheless, it must be kept in mind that good dissection skills are required in order to avoid complications. Level of evidence: Level IV, Therapeutic study

Microbial biofilm community structure and composition on the lithic substrates of Herculaneum Suburban Baths

In this work, we want to investigate the impact of different substrates and different environmental condition on the biofilm communities growing on plaster, marble, and mortar substrates inside the Herculaneum Suburban Baths. To do so, we measured environmental conditions and sampled biofilm communities along the walls of the baths and used culture-dependent and -independent molecular techniques (DGGE) to identify the species at each sampling sites. We used the species pool to infer structure and richness of communities within each site in each substrate, and confocal light scanning microscopy to assess the three-dimensional structure of the sampled biofilms. To gather further insights, we built a meta-community network and used its local realizations to analyze co-occurrence patterns of species. We found that light is a limiting factor in the baths environment, that moving along sites equals moving along an irradiation gradient, and that such gradient shapes the community structure, de facto separating a dark community, rich in Bacteria, Fungi and cyanobacteria, from two dim communities, rich in Chlorophyta. Almost all sites are dominated by photoautotrophs, with Fungi and Bacteria relegated to the role of rare species., and structural properties of biofilms are not consistent within the same substrate. We conclude that the Herculaneum suburban baths are an environment-shaped community, where one dark community (plaster) and one dim community (mortar) provides species to a “midway” community (marble)

Surviving Supergentrification in Inner City Sydney: Adaptive Spaces and Makeshift Economies of Cultural Production

Artists and creative workers have long been recognized as playing an important role in gentrification, being often portrayed as forerunners of urban change and displacement in former industrial and working-class suburbs of ‘post-Fordist’ cities. However, as is well represented by recent research, the relationship between the arts, gentrification and displacement has been called into question. The purpose of this article, which draws on 30 case studies of creative spaces in Sydney's inner suburbs, is to chart some of the strategies of spatial adaptation and makeshift economies of solidarity that cultural workers adopt in order to keep living and working in areas of ‘supergentrification’. We document how cultural infrastructure is transformed by the gentrification process and argue that these alterations are critical to the survival of arts and culture in the city. Such makeshift economies contribute, in a practical way, to preserving the diversity that gentrification is sometimes deemed to destroy or displace. While the survival of creative spaces is a much less researched phenomenon than other forms of resistance or displacement, we suggest that it has important consequences for both research and policy decisions around gentrification, infrastructural development and urban cultural economies

TF-CBT Training Augmented with a Self-Care Focus: Understanding Facilitators and Barriers to Treatment Implementation.

Clinicians working with youth exposed to trauma may be at increased risk for experiencing elevated levels of stress and symptoms of secondary traumatic stress, which can negatively impact clinician wellbeing and ultimately contribute to reduced access to quality care for clients. An innovative Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) training incorporating self-care practices (i.e., Practice What You Preach; PWYP) was developed to help facilitate the implementation of TF-CBT and to enhance clinicians\u27 coping and decrease stress. The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether the PWYP-augmented training met three Objectives: (1) increase clinicians\u27 feelings of TF-CBT competency; (2) improve clinicians\u27 coping abilities/reduce clinicians\u27 stress; and (3) increase clinicians\u27 insight into the benefits and/or challenges clients may experience in treatment. An exploratory aim was also developed to identify additional facilitators and barriers of TF-CBT implementation. The written reflections of 86 community-based clinicians who participated in the PWYP-augmented TF-CBT training were examined using qualitative methods. The majority of clinicians indicated increased feelings of competency and improved coping abilities and/or stress levels; almost half mentioned increased insight into clients\u27 experiences. The most frequently mentioned additional facilitators were related to elements of the TF-CBT treatment model. Anxiety/self-doubt was the barrier most frequently mentioned, though all clinicians who mentioned this barrier indicated it lessened or resolved over the course of the training. Incorporating self-care strategies into trainings may serve as a facilitator for TF-CBT implementation by enhancing the competency and well-being of clinicians. The additional insights into barriers and facilitators can be used to further improve the PWYP initiative and future training and implementation efforts

A mild photochemical approach to the degradation of phenols from olive oil mill wastewater

Photooxidation of cathecol (1) is carried out in aqueous solution at k > 300 nm using different sensitizers: rose bengal (RB), 9,10-dicyanoanthracene (DCA), 2,4,6-triphenylpyrylium tetrafluoroborate (Pyryl). The highest degradation is observed in the UV/RB-sensitized reaction (66% after 15 h of irradiation), mineralization and formation of dimers are the final events. This procedure has been extended to tyrosol (2), caffeic acid (3), vanillic acid (4), 4-hydroxycinnamic acid (5) and 4-hydroxybenzoic acid (6) as well as to a mixture of all phenols. A reduced toxicity of the UV/RB-irradiated solutions of cathecol and tyrosol towards alga Ankistrodesmus braunii is also verified

TOWARDS BENZ[A]ANTHRACENE XENOME ELUCIDATION IN PLANTS AND GREEN MICROALGAE

In only 12,000 years the Homo sapiens sapiens has completely modified the face of the Earth. The human pressure on the atmosphere, water and soil has been accelerate from the industrial revolution from which chemicals and energy have been released in the environment. Therefore, chemical environmental pollution and world climate changes are two of the main concerns that modern human must deal. Among chemicals released in the ecosystem the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAHs) have gathered significant environment concerns for their detrimental biological effects, toxicity, mutagenicity, and carcinogenicity. The distribution of PAHs in the three environment compartments is related to the number of fused benzene rings. Two or three benzene rings have been occurring in the atmosphere whereas 5 or more rings are largely bounds in the soil particles. Intermediate, 4-rings, such as benz(a)anthracene (B[a]A) are partitioned between air and soil. The molecular mechanism involved to degrade PAHs into less toxic compounds by bacteria and fungi in soil has been elucidated. On the other hands, the metabolism of PAHs in plant and microalgae remain unknown. Signalling, transport, biotransformation of PAHs to less toxic molecules and compartmentalization are the main steps involved for their detoxification in photosynthetic cell. The expression of genes involved in these xenobiotics detoxification steps constitutes the xenome. The final aim of this work is to determine the B[a]A xenome in plants of tomato and in microalgae. So far, we have assessed the ability of tomato plants to grow in vitro and take up the B[a]A. Tomato seedlings were transplanted to MS medium added with 50 and 100 μg g -1 B[a]A and cultivated for 30 days. The detection of B[a]A in shoots infer a translocation from roots to shoots. However, the content of the PAH in shoots was much lower than in the root apparatus indicating that B[a]A was translocated very little from roots to shoots. The identification of microalgae species B[a]A capable of growing in presence of has been performed on 14 different species belonging to the genera Chlorella, Scenedesmus, Chlamydomonas, Ankistrodesmus, Botriococcus and Selenastrum, with six different concentrations of B[a]A. Four microalgae species showed a growth inhibition percentage less than 50% in a medium containing 43.8 μM B[a]A. The capacity to degrade B[a]A and affect the photosynthetic pigment content has been evaluated in the identified microalgae grown for 21 days in the medium containing B[a]A. The four microalgae strains reached 90% B[a]A degradation. Then, in silico analysis was carried out on C. reinhardtii proteome to identify potential laccase involved in the degradation process. Finally, the response of intracellular and extracellular activity in the absence and presence of the B[a]A was analysed by ABTS and 2,6-DMP assays