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The digital archive of Queensland architecture offers a wealth of information on the region's design history. The archive was originally constructed as part of the Hot Modernism project and focused on the period 1945-1975. We are now expanding to include earlier and later periods. The database comprises thousands of audiovisual and textual files that allow you to explore relationships between people, projects and firms.

Background: Associations of low lung function with features of poor cardio-metabolic health have been reported. It is, however, unclear whether these co-morbidities reflect causal associations, shared genetic heritability or are confounded by environmental factors. Methods: We performed three analyses: (1) cardio-metabolic health to lung function association tests in Northern Finland Birth cohort 1966, (2) cross-trait linkage disequilibrium score regression (LDSC) to compare genetic backgrounds and (3) Mendelian randomisation (MR) analysis to assess the causal effect of cardio-metabolic traits and disease on lung function, and vice versa (bidirectional MR). Genetic associations were obtained from the UK Biobank data or published large-scale genome-wide association studies (N > 82,000). Results: We observed a negative genetic correlation between lung function and cardio-metabolic traits and diseases. In Mendelian Randomisation analysis (MR), we found associations between type 2 diabetes (T2D) instruments and forced vital capacity (FVC) as well as FEV1/FVC. Body mass index (BMI) instruments were associated to all lung function traits and C-reactive protein (CRP) instruments to FVC. These genetic associations provide evidence for a causal effect of cardio-metabolic traits on lung function. Multivariable MR suggested independence of these causal effects from other tested cardio-metabolic traits and diseases. Analysis of lung function specific SNPs revealed a potential causal effect of FEV1/FVC on blood pressure. Conclusions: The present study overcomes many limitations of observational studies by using Mendelian Randomisation. We provide evidence for an independent causal effect of T2D, CRP and BMI on lung function with some of the T2D effect on lung function being attributed to inflammatory mechanisms. Furthermore, this analysis suggests a potential causal effect of FEV1/FVC on blood pressure. Our detailed analysis of the interplay between cardio-metabolic

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a common lung disorder characterized by persistent and progressive airflow limitation as well as systemic changes. Metabolic changes in blood may help detect COPD in an earlier stage and predict prognosis. Methods: We conducted a comprehensive study of circulating metabolites, measured by proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy, in relation with COPD and lung function. The discovery sample consisted of 5557 individuals from two large population-based studies in the Netherlands, the Rotterdam Study and the Erasmus Rucphen Family study. Significant findings were replicated in 12,205 individuals from the Lifelines-DEEP study, FINRISK and the Prospective Investigation of the Vasculature in Uppsala Seniors (PIVUS) studies. For replicated metabolites further investigation of causality was performed, utilizing genetics in the Mendelian randomization approach. Results: There were 602 cases of COPD and 4955 controls used in the discovery meta-analysis. Our logistic regression results showed that higher levels of plasma Glycoprotein acetyls (GlycA) are significantly associated with COPD (OR = 1.16, P = 5.6 × 10⁻⁴ in the discovery and OR = 1.30, P = 1.8 × 10⁻⁶ in the replication sample). A bi-directional two-sample Mendelian randomization analysis suggested that circulating blood GlycA is not causally related to COPD, but that COPD causally increases GlycA levels. Using the prospective data of the same sample of Rotterdam Study in Cox-regression, we show that the circulating GlycA level is a predictive biomarker of COPD incidence (HR = 1.99, 95%CI 1.52–2.60, comparing those in the highest and lowest quartile of GlycA) but is not significantly associated with mortality in COPD patients (HR = 1.07, 95%CI 0.94–1.20). Conclusions: Our study shows that circulating blood GlycA is a biomarker of early COPD pathology.

Previous reports link differential DNA methylation (DNAme) to environmental exposures that are associated with lung function. Direct evidence on lung function DNAme is, however, limited. We undertook an agnostic epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) on pre-bronchodilation lung function and its change in adults. In a discovery–replication EWAS design, DNAme in blood and spirometry were measured twice, 6—15 years apart, in the same participants of three adult population-based discovery cohorts (n=2043). Associated DNAme markers (p<5×10−7) were tested in seven replication cohorts (adult: n=3327; childhood: n=420). Technical bias-adjusted residuals of a regression of the normalised absolute β-values on control probe-derived principle components were regressed on level and change of forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1), forced vital capacity (FVC) and their ratio (FEV1/FVC) in the covariate-adjusted discovery EWAS. Inverse-variance-weighted meta-analyses were performed on results from discovery and replication samples in all participants and never-smokers. EWAS signals were enriched for smoking-related DNAme. We replicated 57 lung function DNAme markers in adult, but not childhood samples, all previously associated with smoking. Markers not previously associated with smoking failed replication. cg05575921 (AHRR (aryl hydrocarbon receptor repressor)) showed the statistically most significant association with cross-sectional lung function (FEV1/FVC: pdiscovery=3.96×10−21 and pcombined=7.22×10−50). A score combining 10 DNAme markers previously reported to mediate the effect of smoking on lung function was associated with lung function (FEV1/FVC: p=2.65×10−20). Our results reveal that lung function-associated methylation signals in adults are predominantly smoking related, and possibly of clinical utility in identifying poor lung function and accelerated decline. Larger studies with more repeat time-points are needed to identify lung function DNAme in never-s

Many workers are daily exposed to occupational agents like gases/fumes, mineral dust or biological dust, which could induce adverse health effects. Epigenetic mechanisms, such as DNA methylation, have been suggested to play a role. We therefore aimed to identify differentially methylated regions (DMRs) upon occupational exposures in never-smokers and investigated if these DMRs associated with gene expression levels. To determine the effects of occupational exposures independent of smoking, 903 never-smokers of the LifeLines cohort study were included. We performed three genome-wide methylation analyses (Illumina 450 K), one per occupational exposure being gases/fumes, mineral dust and biological dust, using robust linear regression adjusted for appropriate confounders. DMRs were identified using comb-p in Python. Results were validated in the Rotterdam Study (233 never-smokers) and methylation-expression associations were assessed using Biobank-based Integrative Omics Study data (n = 2802). Of the total 21 significant DMRs, 14 DMRs were a

Birthweight is associated with health outcomes across the life course, DNA methylation may be an underlying mechanism. In this meta-analysis of epigenome-wide association studies of 8,825 neonates from 24 birth cohorts in the Pregnancy And Childhood Epigenetics Consortium, we find that DNA methylation in neonatal blood is associated with birthweight at 914 sites, with a difference in birthweight ranging from −183 to 178 grams per 10% increase in methylation (PBonferroni < 1.06 x 10−7). In additional analyses in 7,278 participants, <1.3% of birthweight-associated differential methylation is also observed in childhood and adolescence, but not adulthood. Birthweight-related CpGs overlap with some Bonferroni-significant CpGs that were previously reported to be related to maternal smoking (55/914, p = 6.12 x 10−74) and BMI in pregnancy (3/914, p = 1.13x10−3), but not with those related to folate levels in pregnancy. Whether the associations that we observe are causal or explained by confounding or fetal growth influencing DNA methylation (i.e. reverse causality) requires further research.

This paper explores violent urbanism in the recent science-fiction filem District 9 whhich depicts an alien immigration camp, filmed on location in Soweto in 2008 in the midst of a series of violent clashed between indigenous South Africans and the new wave of African immigrants. Violent Urbanism is the State of method of control of bodies and populations by those precise biological techniques that determine geopolitical sites for the control of cities. This film while presented as cinema verite speaks the real invasion of traditional, spatio-disciplinary regimes such as corporate-run detention centres, refugee camps, border control and enforced relocation by those imperceptible techniques which violate the body by reducing it to a biological datum, tool, or specimen to serve the security agenda of the twenty-first century nation-state. These techniques are chemical and biological warfare proliferation; genetic engineering; and surveillance systems, such as biometrics, whose purview is no longer limited to the specular but includes the molecular. District 9 evinces a compelling urban image of contemporary biopolitics that disturbs the received historiography of post-apartheid urbanism. Clearly Johannesburg is not the only place this could or is happening - the reach of biopolitics is worldwide. District 9 visualises with utter precision the corporate hijacking of the biological realm in contemporary cites, just as it asks the unsettling question, who exactly is the "audience" of Violent Urbanism?

In the late 1880s a pre-fabricated Japanese house was shipped from Kobe, Japan, to Brisbane, Australia, and erected in the up-market suburb of New Farm by Japanese tradesmen. This paper is developed from a broader project researching the life of G W Paul, the man who had the house built and subsequently lived in it for the remainder of his life. Paul’s motivation in importing the house represented a unique, but unfulfilled effort to develop a future, hybrid culture for Queensland. This effort took the form of a commercial venture to construct Japanese houses as desirable and climatically suitable dwellings. Against the backdrop of this ambition, this paper presents new research to elucidate and extend previous knowledge, assesses the reception of the house by its nineteenth century Brisbane audience, and considers possible reasons for the limited response which signalled the cancellation of the commercial venture.

The historical context surrounding Bruno Taut's Glashaus has been established through work of authors like Reyner Banham, Dennis Sharp and Ian Boyd-Whyte. However, these English language translations, are mostly derived from secondary sources such as Adolf Behne and Paul Scheerbart. Surprisingly, Taut's own writings largely do not feature in this prevailing account of his work. Since 1990, strong doubts have arisen about this conventional picture of Taut's Glashaus. Manfred spiedel, for instance, minimizes Paul Scheerbart's contribution to the design by arguing that Scheerbart met Taut only a few months before the construction of the Glashaus, that is, after Taut had finished his preliminary sketches. Kurt Junghanns goes further and asserts that the Glashaus design was complete beefore Taut and Scheerbart ever met. In 2005, Kai Gutschow published The Culture of Criticism: Adolf Behne and the Development of Modern Architecture in Germany, 1910 - 1914. Most startling, Gutschow asserts that Behne acts as the propagandist for the Glashaus by fabricating its link with Expressionism. This is particularly troubling because nobody contributed more to establishing the link between the Glashaus, Bruno Taut and Expressionism than Behne. As a result of this new evidence, this paper concurs that the established historical understanding of the Glashaus is flawed. By returning to Taut's own writings, a reinterpretation can be offered that strongly links the Glashaus to the Victoria regia lily and Strasbourg Cathedral. The significance of this approach is that it re-establishes Taut's own rational behind the design of the Glashaus, and thus contributes to the re-evaluation of the generally accepted histories of the Modern movement.

In contradistinction to the progressive globalisation of knowledge through projects such as the World Digital Library (WDL), Hans Ulrich Obrist recently suggested an 'archipelago model' - clusters of smaller libraries where users are guided through knowledge by prolific individuals. These are personal archives made available to a wider public, and that are tested and reconfigured through exhibitions, publications and other collaborative projects. Obrist cites Aby Warburg's library as an exemplary precedent. In this context, the paper examines Aby Warburg's 'Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek' (K.B.W.) as a discussion platform for contemporary approaches to libraries, such as Obrist's, which resist the sustainment of the library as a neutral storehouse as well as the elimination of the individual in the production of knowledge. The K.B.W. includes transformations of traditional modes of knowledge production and organization that offer an opportunity to broaden the interpretation of how the relationship between the audience and the library both (as a system and as a building) can be reconfigured. As the first modern library of this kind, the K.B.W. assumes paradigmatic importance. This paper focuses on two aspects of Warburg's library, each of which touches upon the topic of library/audience in a different way: first, on the transformation of Warburg's private library into a newly designed research institute and the conceptual demands his methodology posed on the audience as well as on the architecture of the new library building; and secondly, on Warburg's understanding of the 'library as laboratory' that represented a shift from knowledge storage to knowledge production, and from readers to collaborators. In these instances, Warburg challenges the idea of the library as a 'storehouse of frozen facts' whilst simultaneously reconfiguring the library as an open system of 'potential relations.'

The New South Wales Instruction Act (1880) revolutionised the Colony's elementary education, making it free, compulsory and secular and led to the appointment of William Edmund Kemp as Architect for Public Schools (1880-1896). Influenced by the doctrine of utilitarianism, Kemp prioritised the needs of his school audience by planning schools that facilitated effective teaching under the English pupil-teacher system and provided the necessary space, light, ventilation and sanitation. His European ethnocentric heritage inclined him towards the principles of civic decorum that he had practised with James Barnet and an Italianate style suitable for the Australian climate. He wished his schools to communicate their purpose as beacons of education, reform and progress and endowed them with a dignified character that enabled them to sit alongside the other public buildings as important theatres of community life. Kemp broke away from the medieval revival styles of Victorian England and their ecclesiastical associations, popularised in the Colony at the hands of Edmund Blacket and George A. Mansfield. It was because of his departure from the Gothic style that he later had cause to lament, 'I have been told that the buildings I have erected during my tenure of the Office of Architect for Schools are not like schools, and that they are not picturesque.' His colonial audience, imbued with ideals of Empire and Englishness and cherishing visions of steep roofs and pointed arches, were disappointed. This paper will consider Kemp's schools at Young (1884) and Pyrmont (1884) designed for very different communities, each at the 'ragged edge of empire'. Young was a thriving rural town that had grown rapidly after the discovery of alluvial gold while Pyrmont comprised a working-class population of an industrial inner-Sydney suburb. Pyrmont School was applauded a decade later for its 'Doric feeling' and for its representation of emerging Australian architectural values.