Influence of the orientation and the angle of inclination in the metal roof

Postmodern architecture is responsible for carrying out the building distributions of the urban canyon of cities; For this, it provides the tools required to adjust the territory to social, economic, and environmental needs. One of these tools is aimed at the applicability of construction strategies such as the correct solar orientation. The present investigation of an experimental nature, carried out in the Crucita parish of Ecuador, evaluates the thermal temperatures inside two houses in their current state, assessing it in two prototypes with one water and two waters on the four cardinal orientations: with four different angles of inclination of the cover. Where it was determined that the thermal comfort inside that provides the least increase in temperature is for the house with a roof facing west, with an angle of inclination greater than 20°.

DNA Nanodevices: from Mechanical Motions to Biomedical Applications

: Inspired by molecular machines in nature, artificial nanodevices have been designed to realize various biomedical functions. Self-assembled deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) nanostructures that feature designed geometries, excellent spatial accuracy, nanoscale addressability and marked biocompatibility provide an attractive candidate for constructing dynamic nanodevices with biomarker-targeting and stimuli-responsiveness for biomedical applications. Here, a summary of typical construction strategies of DNA nanodevices and their operating mechanisms are presented. We also introduced recent advances in employing DNA nanodevices as platforms for biosensing and intelligent drug delivery. Finally, the broad prospects and main challenges of the DNA nanodevices in biomedical applications are discussed.

Sustainable catalyst-free N-formylation using CO2 as a carbon source

: The development of new sustainable catalytic conversion methods of carbon dioxide (CO2) is of great interest in the synthesis of valuable chemicals. N-formylation of CO2 with amine nucleophiles as substrates has been studied in depth. The key to benign formylation is to select a suitable reducing agent to activate CO2. This paper showcases the activation modes of CO2 and the construction strategies of sustainable and catalyst-free N-formylation systems. The research progress of catalyst-free N-formylation of amines and CO2 is reviewed. There are two broad prominent categories, namely reductive amidation of CO2 facilitated by organic solvents and ionic liquids in the presence of hydrosilane. Attention is also paid to discussing the involved reaction mechanism with practical applications and identifying the remaining challenges in this field.

Fingerprint construction through genotyping by sequencing for applied breeding in Brassica rapa

This study evaluated genotyping by sequencing (GBS) protocol for fingerprinting Brassica rapa and the data derived were more reliable than the re-sequencing data of B. rapa. Of the 10 enzyme solutions used to analyze the numbers of genotypes and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in B. rapa, five solutions showed better results, namely: A (HaeIII, 450–500 bp), E (RsaI+HaeIII, 500–550 bp), F (RsaI+HaeIII, 500–600 bp), G (RsaI+HaeIII, ‘All’ fragment), and J (RsaI+EcoRV-HF®, ‘All’ fragment). The five enzyme solutions showed less than 40% similarity in different individuals from various samples, and 90% similarity in between two individuals from one sample. The E enzyme solution was most suitable for fingerprinting B. rapa revealing well-distributed SNPs in the whole genome. Of the 82 highly inbred lines and 18 F1 lines of B. rapa sequenced by GBS in E enzyme solution, known parents of 10 F1 lines were verified and male parents were discovered for 8 F1 lines that had only known female parents. This study provided a valuable method for screening parents for F1 lines in B. rapa for applied breeding through efficient evaluation of GBS with varied library construction strategies.

Ecological Design and Construction Strategies through Life Cycle Assessment of Carbon Budget for Urban Parks in Korea

Although urban parks sequester carbon by vegetation growth, they emit carbon due to materials production, transport, construction, management, demolition, and disposal throughout their life cycle. This study estimated the carbon budget of urban parks over their life cycle according to land cover type and explored ecological design and construction strategies to maximize carbon reduction. After setting up the scope of the life cycle, the energy and material used for each stage were analyzed on the basis of field survey, design and construction details, and literature review of 30 study parks. The net carbon uptake per unit of park area averaged 8.51 kg/m2, with urban parks playing an important role as a source of carbon uptake to mitigate the climate change. This study suggested ecological design and construction strategies including the expansion of tree planting spaces through the minimization of grass and impervious areas, the minimization of changes to existing topography, and the utilization of local materials. As a result of applying these strategies to study parks, the net carbon uptake increased approximately 9.2 times. These study results are expected to be useful as information for the implementation of carbon-neutral policies and greenspace establishment projects.

Sharing the construction of assessment rubrics with students: A Model for collaborative rubric construction

Traditionally, rubrics were used simply as grading tools to provide marking frameworks that were transparent to students. More recently, rubrics have been promoted as educational tools to inform students of good practice with the assumption that they engage with these rubrics to guide their learning. However, some tensions arise from this approach, including the assumption that students actually engage with assessment rubrics and, most notably, whether students understand the purpose of rubrics and the language used within. In response, this paper promotes the practice of teachers involving their students in the co-construction of rubrics by presenting a Model of Collaborative Rubric Construction. This Model was informed by an extensive literature review, advice from international assessment experts, and both qualitative and quantitative data from students and teachers who worked in partnership to coconstruct and use assessment rubrics across three higher education institutions. The Model, structured as three-tiers, offers background information about rubrics and their co-construction, strategies to guide collaboration in the rubric co-construction process, and shared scholarship associated with the project (i.e., research methods, recommendations for practice, and relevant references and publications) in which the Model was developed.

Increasing the power of interpretation for soil metaproteomics data

Background Soil and sediment microorganisms are highly phylogenetically diverse but are currently largely under-represented in public molecular databases. Their functional characterization by means of metaproteomics is usually performed using metagenomic sequences acquired for the same sample. However, such hugely diverse metagenomic datasets are difficult to assemble; in parallel, theoretical proteomes from isolates available in generic databases are of high quality. Both these factors advocate for the use of theoretical proteomes in metaproteomics interpretation pipelines. Here, we examined a number of database construction strategies with a view to increasing the outputs of metaproteomics studies performed on soil samples. Results The number of peptide-spectrum matches was found to be of comparable magnitude when using public or sample-specific metagenomics-derived databases. However, numbers were significantly increased when a combination of both types of information was used in a two-step cascaded search. Our data also indicate that the functional annotation of the metaproteomics dataset can be maximized by using a combination of both types of databases. Conclusions A two-step strategy combining sample-specific metagenome database and public databases such as the non-redundant NCBI database and a massive soil gene catalog allows maximizing the metaproteomic interpretation both in terms of ratio of assigned spectra and retrieval of function-derived information.