ERK1/2 is an ancestral organising signal in spiral cleavage

Animal development is classified as conditional or autonomous based on whether cell fates are specified through inductive signals or maternal determinants, respectively. Yet how these two major developmental modes evolved remains unclear. During spiral cleavage—a stereotypic embryogenesis ancestral to 15 invertebrate groups, including molluscs and annelids—most lineages specify cell fates conditionally, while some define the primary axial fates autonomously. To identify the mechanisms driving this change, we studied Owenia fusiformis, an early-branching, conditional cleaving annelid. In Owenia, ERK1/2-mediated FGF receptor signalling specifies the endomesodermal progenitor. This cell acts as an embryonic organiser, inducing mesodermal and posterodorsal fates in neighbouring cells and repressing anteriorising signals. The organising role of ERK1/2 in Owenia is shared with molluscs, but not with autonomous cleaving annelids. Together, these findings indicate that conditional specification of an ERK1/2+ organiser is ancestral in spiral cleavage, repeatedly lost in annelid lineages as they evolved autonomous development.

In the Shadow of Sustainable Development

The prevailing notion of sustainable development has remained ineffective at reducing environmental degradation and social inequalities. The chapter argues that sustainable development, as it has been conceived, is actually a shell game for creating neocolonial dependency in the developing world rather than more sustainable, self-sufficient nations. This chapter explains the history of colonization and urbanization, contextualizing the problem of weak, neoliberal, sustainable development using social science environmental theories, such as climate denialism, ecofeminism, environmental justice, metabolic rift, and treadmill of production. It then provides an alternative, a radical sustainability that is at once socially and ecologically egalitarian, or transformative, and restores the health of people and the planet, or regenerative. These cases are presented as alternatives to sustainable development and as examples of radical sustainability and self-sufficient, autonomous development.

Moscow Shi‘ite Communities in the Post-Soviet Period

This article is devoted to the study of Shi‘ite Muslims, natives of Transcaucasia, South Asia, and Southern Dagestan, settled in the Moscow region during the post-Soviet period. The study is based on the author’s field materials (2017–2021). There are three main stages of the formation of Shi‘ite communities in Moscow: activities individual activists in the 1990s; sustainable development in the 2000s; and full-fledged autonomous existence in the 2010s. The article shows that the Shi‘ites in Moscow are not united in the one whole community, moreover, communities representing different ethnic groups are independent of each other. They develop separately; at the same time, some neophytes stand apart. The structure and social relations in Shi‘ite communities largely reproduce patterns of social organization of their homeland. Ethnic, cultural and linguistic borders do not become transparent. Political events and upheavals in the exodus countries activate the national and ethnic feelings of the Moscow Shi‘ites. The Shi‘ite communities have built interstate religious networks, which allow them to continue their autonomous development in the Moscow region.

Architecture & Legitimacy: Strategies for the Development of Urban Informal Settlements

Currently, 1 in 6 people live in slums, or informal settlements in cities throughout the developing world. They are built illegally and are characterized by lack of proper sanitation, unsafe housing, and crowded living conditions. Despite their appearance, informal settlements are legitimate communities; they are vibrant, with sophisticated social, economic and cultural networks that support the livelihoods of residents who call them home. These communities give the urban poor a physical place within the city, giving them access to the opportunities and advantages that the current age of the 'global city' can offer to any willing participant. As architects who see the responsibility in choosing the informal settlement as a realm for engagement, this thesis proposes that any architectural intervention be mindful of the importance of the networks contained within the streets and buildings of the informal settlement. By preserving the built-fabric of the settlement, the architect legitimizes the settlement's density and scale, while ensuring the urban poor have a physical place in the city. They have managed to develop their own communities without any investment from outside forces, any intervention should only support that autonomous development. These structures, as well as the people and activities with them, are vital to the survival of residents of informal settlements.

Architecture & Legitimacy: Strategies for the Development of Urban Informal Settlements

Currently, 1 in 6 people live in slums, or informal settlements in cities throughout the developing world. They are built illegally and are characterized by lack of proper sanitation, unsafe housing, and crowded living conditions. Despite their appearance, informal settlements are legitimate communities; they are vibrant, with sophisticated social, economic and cultural networks that support the livelihoods of residents who call them home. These communities give the urban poor a physical place within the city, giving them access to the opportunities and advantages that the current age of the 'global city' can offer to any willing participant. As architects who see the responsibility in choosing the informal settlement as a realm for engagement, this thesis proposes that any architectural intervention be mindful of the importance of the networks contained within the streets and buildings of the informal settlement. By preserving the built-fabric of the settlement, the architect legitimizes the settlement's density and scale, while ensuring the urban poor have a physical place in the city. They have managed to develop their own communities without any investment from outside forces, any intervention should only support that autonomous development. These structures, as well as the people and activities with them, are vital to the survival of residents of informal settlements.

Embryo development in Carica papaya Linn

ABSTRACTPapaya (Carica papaya Linn.) is a tropical plant whose draft genome has been sequenced. Papaya produces large fruits rich in vitamins A and C and is an important cash crop in developing countries. Nonetheless, little is known about how the female gametophyte develops, how it is fertilized and how it develops into a mature seed containing an embryo and an endosperm. The Papaya female gametophyte displays a Polygonum-type architecture consisting of two synergid cells, an egg cell, a central cell, and three antipodal cells. Reports are available of the presumed existence of varieties in which cross fertilization is bypassed and autonomous development of embryos occurs (e.g., apomixis). In this study, we analyzed the development of female gametophytes in a commercial Hawaiian parental line and in the presumed apomictic Costa Rican line L1. Samples were collected before and after anthesis to compare the overall structure, size and transcriptional patterns of several genes that may be involved in egg and endosperm cell fate and proliferation. These genes were the putative papaya homologs of ARGONAUTE9 (AGO9), MEDEA (MEA), RETINOBLASTOMA RELATED-1 (RBR1), and SLOW WALKER-1 (SWA1). Our results suggest that its feasible to identify the contour of structural features of Polygonum-type development, and that in bagged female flowers of line L1 we might have observed autonomous development of embryo-like structures. Possible downregulation of papaya homologs for AGO9, MEA, RBR1 and SWA1 was observed in embryo sacs from line L1 before and after anthesis, which may suggest a tentative link between suspected apomixis and transcriptional downregulation of genes for RNA-directed DNA methylation, histone remodelers, and rRNA processing. Most notably, the large size of the papaya embryo sac suggests that it could be a cytological alternative to Arabidopsis thaliana for study. Significant variation in embryo sac size was observed between the varieties under study, suggesting wide differences in the genetic regulation of anatomical features.

Experimental Pressure-Forming: Adding Value through Tooling Improvement, and a Hypothesis for Tooling Provision in Autonomous Development Environments

This paper describes improved pressure forming techniques, metal-forming methods related to industrial processes, but suited to lower capitalisation contracting or do-it-yourself (DIY) fabrication settings. Working from literature and previous research, the author describes advancements to the tooling’s capabilities, compared to other research vectors for double-axis curvature metal forming. These works connect fabricators’ situational constraints to value constructs that surround making’s particularity as research, and to values driving autonomous development construction networks. This paper asks: what values drive, and what value is added by, improving such sub-optimal fabrication processes? Given industrial and digital processes’ extensive capabilities, are there contexts where intermediate technologies are particularly suited? How do those contexts constrain technical researchers’ ability to add value through tooling improvement? This paper presents recent technical research, and projects a method to integrate that research into autonomous development fabrication contexts within the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) and China’s Great Bay Region.

Importance of health education actions to improve quality of life of vulnerable populations

Introduction Health Education (HE), which is an integral part of Brazilian basic health care policy, reflects on the actions of a specific service or area. In regions where access to health care is precarious and poor socioeconomic conditions predominates, HE is fundamental for the comprehension of the health-illness process which aims at promoting a better quality of life. This study aims to assess through experiment the viability and adhesion of HE actions conducted in indigenous and Riverside communities in the Brazilian Amazon region. Methodology This study aims at reporting field trips during health expeditions between July and August 2019 in communities of the state of Pará, Brazil. The HE was composed by seven students and professors. Throughout patient's medical care, the team selected individuals to participate in different group dynamics at common spaces in the community area. The topics covered had been pre-screened based on epidemiological surveys conducted in previous expeditions. Visual and ludic resources were adapted to match local reality. Results 2860 medical and dental care consultations were given. The adherence to the dynamics in was significant and covered the majority of them. The topics approached by the HE team were breast-feeding, family-planning, non-transmissible chronic diseases, healthy eating habits, hygiene, and awareness for natural resources. It has been observed that culture was a determinant factor for small a number of individuals in the comprehension of actions taken by the HE team. Conclusions Despite the strong cultural influence, HE proves to be a fertile ground and it must be encouraged in indigenous and riverside communities. The actions taken by the HE team should consider the local reality in every step of the process of implementation. In spite of the context in which locals of indigenous and riverside communities are inserted, HE promotes an autonomous development of their quality of life. Key messages Health education is one of the pillars of the national policy of basic health care in Brazil and is fundamental to promote better quality of life in vulnerable populations. Encouraging interventions in vulnerable communities contributes directly to the autonomous development of quality of life.

‘matters of Religion & Morality’: Herder, Wordsworth, and Blake

Chapter six aims to elucidate the decisive overall agreement, as well as the subtle nuances, that Robinson discerned in the works of Herder, Wordsworth, and Blake, and according to which he disseminated them, both among these poets and wider audiences in England and Germany. Robinson found these three poets to be advancing idiosyncratic forms of aesthetic free play that kindle the moral imagination of their readers. The chapter reads Robinson’s three articles on Herder in the Unitarian Monthly Repository (1808–09) and his German article on Blake in Friedrich Perthes’s Vaterländisches Museum (1811) against the informal critiques of Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads that Robinson elaborated in a series of letters in late 1802. These critiques are so ground-breaking since they constitute a profound, autonomous development of Kantian and post-Kantian notions of aesthetic autonomy into a distinctive conceptualization of literature’s cross-cultural ethical relevance, and thus provide the clearest definition of Robinson’s critical principle of ‘Free Moral Discourse’. According to this principle, art has a bearing on morality through their shared aspiration to disinterestedness, while the ultimate unattainability of such reciprocal disinterestedness creates a dynamic interplay between its two constituents.