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In 'Bold Ventures', Belgian poet Charlotte Van den Broeck goes in search of buildings that were fatal for their architects - architects who either killed themselves or are rumoured to have done so. The buildings range across time and space - from a church with a twisted spire built in 17th-century France to a theatre that collapsed mid-performance in 1920s Washington, DC., and an eerily sinking swimming pool in her hometown of Turnhout. Drawing on a vast range of material, from Hegel and Charles Darwin to art history, stories from her own life and popular culture, patterns gradually come into focus, as Van den Broeck asks: what is that strange life-or-death connection between a creation and its creator?

Some years before he began his work creating Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted wrote of how magical he found an allée of oaks in South Carolina: \"I stopped my horse and held my breath; I thought of old Kit North's rhapsody on trees; and it was no rhapsody-it was all here, and real: 'Light, shade, shelter, coolness, freshness, music, dew, and dreams dropping through their umbrageous twilight-dropping, direct, soft, sweet, soothing, and restorative from heaven.'\" Time is part of an allée's magic, the majesty of which is the patient work of decades; it must be protected from nature, which would always want to spring up new trees and mar the design, and it must be protected from man, for in each generation there are those who wish for some new arrangement, and who would destroy the old before it can come to ripeness. Scott wrote quickly, and swift composition can make a writer the voice of an age, as Scott was. [...]walking the quarter mile under the elms, we come to our destination, the marvelous Bethesda Terrace, the miracle that stands at the center of the park. Downing died young in a boat accident, but Vaux continued his work, starting a design for the new Central Park. Vaux decided to enlist the aid of Olmsted, who was already the park superintendent and had a superior knowledge of the terrain of the park and its hydrology.

In the complex political scene surrounding the death of Francisco Franco, Spanish female architects were crossing borders to try and understand what was happening abroad. This article provides unpublished data on the various experiences of female graduates in Spain when they shared their enthusiasm, concerns and energy with colleagues from other countries at international conferences that took place before the arrival of democracy. For almost four decades, between 1939 and 1975, Spanish female architects were limited by the patriarchal system’s own barriers and by the political barriers imposed by Franco’s regime. This paper aims to organise and articulate women’s memories, proving the implicit acceptance of patriarchal ideas and models at the start of the 20th century, the timidity of the congress resolutions in the sixties and the later awakening provided by UIFA (Union Internationale des Femmes Architectes) congresses. Finally, it is worth examining the metamorphosis that occurred in free western societies in the 20th century, with respect to the role played by women as a user and as a professional, through the attentive gaze of women architects from a nondemocratic country.

Hyaluronan (HA) is essentially secreted by every cell and plays a critical role in maintaining normal cell physiology. While the structure and function of HA have been extensively investigated, questions regarding the sizes and conformation of HA under physiological and inflamed conditions, in relevance to its functions, remain elusive. In this article, we update our knowledge of the HA functional properties, including binding proteins and their signaling networks, as well as matrix formation, which can potentially induce phase separation and affect the mobility and behavior of small molecules, proteins, and cells. We detail the striking differences regarding the biological outcomes of signaling pathways for HA and membrane receptors versus HA and GPI-linked hyaluronidase Hyal-2. We describe: (1) the native, large-sized HA is not proapoptotic but signals with an overexpressed HYAL-2/WWOX/SMAD4 complex to induce apoptosis, which is likely to occur in an inflamed microenvironment; (2) HA-binding proteins are connected via signal pathway networks. The competitive binding of HA and TGF-β to the membrane HYAL-2 and the downstream HYAL-2/WWOX/SMAD4 signaling is addressed; (3) the phase-separated proteins or small molecules in the HA matrices may contribute to the aberrant interactions, leading to inflammation and disease progression; (4) the role of HA and complement C1q in Alzheimer’s disease via connection with a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease WWOX is also discussed; (5) a hidden function is the inducible HA conformational changes that confer cancer suppression and, probably, retardation of neurodegeneration.

Background Older general population-based studies found an inverse association between serum HDL-cholesterol and both cardiovascular disease (CVD) events and mortality, but more recent data have suggested a U-shaped relationship. Whether this applies to type 2 diabetes is uncertain. The aim of this study was to assess the prognostic significance of serum HDL-cholesterol concentrations in representative, community-based participants from the Fremantle Diabetes Study Phase II (FDS2). Methods We followed 1,479 FDS2 participants with confirmed type 2 diabetes (713 females, mean age 65.6 years; 763 males, mean age 65.9 years) from entry (2008–2011) to death/end-2021. Major adverse cardiovascular events (non-fatal myocardial infarction (MI), non-fatal stroke, cardiovascular death; 3-point MACE), and all-cause mortality were ascertained from prospectively collected data and validated administrative databases. Independent associates of 3-point MACE by sex, excluding participants with prior MI/stroke, were assessed using Cox and competing risk models with sex-specific quintiles of HDL-cholesterol added to the most parsimonious models. Predictors of all-cause mortality were identified using Cox proportional hazards modelling. Results In females, with baseline serum HDL-cholesterol quintile 2 (1.04–1.22 mmol/L) as reference, both quintiles 1 (< 1.04 mmol/L) and 5 (> 1.59 mmol/L) were significant independent predictors of 3-point MACE ( P  < 0.027) and all-cause death ( P  < 0.019) after adjustment for a full range of demographic, clinical and laboratory variables. In males, serum HDL-cholesterol quintile did not add to the most parsimonious model for 3-point MACE, but quintile 1 (< 0.90 mmol/L) was a significant predictor of death ( P  = 0.026 versus quintile 4 (1.15–1.31 mmol/L) as reference) after adjustment. Competing risk analyses for 3-point MACE showed similar results to the Cox models for both sexes. Conclusion There was a significant U-shaped relationship between serum HDL-cholesterol and both 3-point MACE and all-cause death in females with type 2 diabetes after adjustment for confounders. There was no such relationship for 3-point MACE in males but a low HDL-cholesterol was associated with all-cause mortality. These data have sex-specific implications for assessment of serum lipid profiles in the clinical management of type 2 diabetes.

The stem cell niche plays a pivotal non–cell-autonomous role in maintaining stem cell function, yet it can be disrupted by tissue injury or cancer therapy. Here, we propose that dying cells induced by external insults actively construct a novel, enhanced stem cell niche that facilitates stem cell survival under harsh conditions. This phenomenon is evolutionarily conserved across diverse species and evolutionary hierarchies, contributing critically to both tissue regeneration and tumor recurrence. In the context of tissue regeneration, dying differentiated daughter cells reinforce stemness by secreting ligands and protective factors that support self-renewal. Additionally, damaged environmental cells, including stromal and inflammatory cells, contribute to niche reconstruction through paracrine signaling. The clearance of dying cells further modulates the niche to better support stem cell for regeneration or tumor regrowth. Among cell death modalities, apoptosis, particularly caspase-3–mediated apoptosis, plays a central role by orchestrating microenvironmental remodeling and activating pro-stemness signaling pathways. These mechanisms are also hijacked by cancer cells to reinforce therapy resistance, which are often overlooked. Unraveling how dying cells dynamically reshape the stem cell niche provides novel insights into regenerative biology and may inform therapeutic strategies to overcome tumor therapy resistance.

The increasing mortality of COVID-19 can aggravate soil contamination by metals, harmful to the health of the population, requiring new projects for future cemeteries capable of mitigating these impacts to the environment, justifying the importance of studying the concentrations of metals in the soil of urban cemeteries. The paper analyzed the levels of metals in the soil of urban cemeteries in the City of Carazinho, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, located in southern Brazil, considering the increase in deaths by COVID-19, for the purpose of future projects for cemeteries aimed at mitigating the impacts generated on the environment. The soils of the three urban cemeteries in Carazinho were sampled, with 5 internal and external points, with 3 repetitions at depths of 0–20 and 20–40 cm, adding 180 samples to measure the concentrations of Fe, Mn, Cu, Zn, Cr and Pb (g kg −1 ), considering the analytical sequence: (1) analysis in triplicate with mean deviation (RDS); (2) R2 of the analytical curve; (3) traceability of the pattern of each metal; (4) quantification limit of each metal (QL), with the performance of nitroperchloric digestion of the samples and the determinations of metals by flame modality atomic absorption spectrometry. Quantitative data on deaths by COVID-19 were analyzed by univariate modeling of time series, in the integrated autoregressive moving averages model. The results of this study were made available to fifteen architects, who attributed future solutions for environmentally sustainable cemeteries. The results showed high levels of copper (Cu) and iron (Fe) in the soil of the cemeteries studied. Considering the increase in deaths and subsequent burials per COVID-19 revealed a prediction for the death toll of 6,082,306 for June 9, 2022, it is assumed that metal contamination can reach even higher levels. To mitigate these levels of contamination by metals, 80% of the architect respondents expressed their preference for a vertical cemetery, with treatment of gases and effluents to mitigate environmental impacts.

We aimed to investigate the impact of testosterone on the prognosis of heart failure (HF), as well as the underlying cardiac function, cardiac damage, and exercise capacity. We analyzed consecutive 618 men with HF (age 65.9 years). These patients were divided into quartiles based on their serum levels of total testosterone (TT): first (TT > 631 ng/dl, n = 154), second (462 < TT ≤ 631 ng/dl, n = 155), third (300 < TT ≤ 462 ng/dl, n = 156), and fourth (TT ≤ 300 ng/dl, n = 153) quartiles. In the Kaplan–Meier analysis (mean 1,281 days), all-cause mortality progressively increased throughout from the first to the fourth groups. In the multivariable Cox proportional hazard analysis, TT was found to be an independent predictor of all-cause mortality (hazard ratio 0.929, p = 0.042). In addition, we compared the parameters of echocardiography and cardiopulmonary exercise testing, as well as levels of B-type natriuretic peptide and cardiac troponin I, among the 4 groups. Left ventricular ejection fraction and B-type natriuretic peptide did not differ among the groups. In contrast, the fourth quartile, compared with the first, second, and third groups, had higher levels of troponin I and lower peak VO2 (p <0.05, respectively). Decreased serum testosterone is associated with myocardial damage, lower exercise capacity, and higher mortality in men with HF.

There is a long history of scholars finding in architecture tools for thinking, whether this is the relationship between nature and culture in Simmel's ruins, industrial capitalism in Benjamin's Parisian arcades, or the rhythms of the primordial in Heidegger's Black Forest farmhouse. But what does it mean to take seriously the concepts and dispositions articulated by architects themselves? How might processes of designing and making constitute particular forms of thinking? This article considers the words and buildings of Lahore-based architect Kamil Khan Mumtaz (b. 1939) as an entry point into such questions. It outlines how professional architecture in Pakistan has grappled with the unsettled status of the past in a country forged out of two partitions (1947 and 1971). Mumtaz's work and thought—engaging questions of tradition, authority, craft and the sacred—demonstrates how these predicaments have been productive for conceptualizing time, labor and the nature of dwelling in a postcolonial world.

In \"The Language of Loss: Grief Therapy as a Process of Meaning Reconstruction,\" Robert A. Neimeyer proposes a constructivist theory of grief, beyond \"'brute facts' themselves\" (263), toward a narrative approach: \"Like a novel that loses a central character in the middle chapters, the life story disrupted by loss must be reorganized, rewritten, to find a new strand of continuity that bridges the past with the future in an intelligible fashion\" (263). Death, for Tuder, is not bound up in just her father taking his fife, but about the ways in which she (and her family) is affected by his suicide: \"a gun, preceded by a few decades of alcoholism and undiagnosed depression.\" Tuder reveres the power of the almighty gods and goddesses - Questioner and Celebrant- and seeks solace in their wisdom: \"Oh small worlds,/Oh little stages,/Take me out of myself/And give me the power of the gods.\" Tuder knows well \"this work of mourning is never finished, \" the work of re-membering is never done. 1 Rando's three phases include 1) the avoidance phase (recognizing the loss), 2) the confrontation phase (reacting to the separation, recollecting and re-experiencing the deceased and the relationship, and relinquishing the old attachments to the deceased and the old assumptive world), and 3) the accommodation phase (readjusting to move adaptively into the new world without forgetting the old and reinvesting emotional energy) (43-60).