Earth's biodiversity and human societies face pollution, overconsumption of natural resources, urbanization, demographic shifts, social and economic inequalities, and habitat loss, many of which are ...exacerbated by climate change. Here, we review links among climate, biodiversity, and society and develop a roadmap toward sustainability. These include limiting warming to 1.5°C and effectively conserving and restoring functional ecosystems on 30 to 50% of land, freshwater, and ocean "scapes." We envision a mosaic of interconnected protected and shared spaces, including intensively used spaces, to strengthen self-sustaining biodiversity, the capacity of people and nature to adapt to and mitigate climate change, and nature's contributions to people. Fostering interlinked human, ecosystem, and planetary health for a livable future urgently requires bold implementation of transformative policy interventions through interconnected institutions, governance, and social systems from local to global levels.
Earth’s biodiversity and human societies face pollution, overconsumption of natural resources, urbanization, demographic shifts, social and economic inequalities, and habitat loss, many of which are ...exacerbated by climate change. Here, we review links among climate, biodiversity, and society and develop a roadmap toward sustainability. These include limiting warming to 1.5°C and effectively conserving and restoring functional ecosystems on 30 to 50% of land, freshwater, and ocean “scapes.” We envision a mosaic of interconnected protected and shared spaces, including intensively used spaces, to strengthen self-sustaining biodiversity, the capacity of people and nature to adapt to and mitigate climate change, and nature’s contributions to people. Fostering interlinked human, ecosystem, and planetary health for a livable future urgently requires bold implementation of transformative policy interventions through interconnected institutions, governance, and social systems from local to global levels.
Vietnam is estimated to have lost more than half of its forest cover in the past 50 years, with a number of contributing causes. The state nationalization of all forest resources during socialist ...rule from 1954 to the opening of the economy in the 1980s contributed significantly to illegal logging, as any locally-used forest was considered to be national property. During this period, there was a generalized 'free-for-all' on the forests, contributing to a massive breakdown of local tenure rules and resource allocation. Despite the dissolution of many of the state-owned logging reserves and distribution of this land to local communities, which began in the late 1980s, deforestation has continued. During the 1990s, an export ban on raw logs from Vietnam was enacted to halt the continued deforestation, with generally ineffective results. While the state continues to blame local people for illegal logging and attendant deforestation, this paper will show that perceived criminal and corrupt actions by the government have significantly contributed to the problem. Furthermore, the paper will explain how local people terms as 'illegal loggers' explain their actions in terms of social justice, poverty alleviation, and local control, rather than in the state's terms of 'illegality'.
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BFBNIB, GIS, IJS, KISLJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK
Recent advances in silicon technology, mm-Wave integrated circuit/antenna/package design, and beam-forming techniques at 60GHz, together with the emergence of suitable wireless standards, have ...enabled consumer electronics products to support wireless transmission of multi-Gb/s data such as high-definition (HD) audio/video content. Further expansion into portable and mobile platforms will require lower power consumption, smaller form factor, and lower cost. This paper describes a fully integrated, low-cost 60GHz phased-array transceiver pair, implemented in 65nm standard digital CMOS and packaged with an embedded antenna array, capable of robust 10m non-line of sight (NLOS) communication. The array is configurable from 32 elements to 8 or fewer elements, making the transceiver pair suitable for both fixed, high-data-rate and portable, low-power applications. To enhance the robustness of the multi-element design, dynamic phase shifters allow the beam direction to be changed in real time to adapt to changing environments without interruption of the multi-Gb/s data stream. The transceiver pair supports the WirelessHD and draft 802.11ad (WiGig) standards at maximum data rates of 7.14Gb/s and 6.76Gb/s, respectively.
A prospective, randomized, double-blind, endoscopic study is described in which the efficacy of cimetidine (13 patients) is compared to that of antacids (14 patients) in the prevention of stress ...ulceration following severe thermal injury. Each treatment modality was equally effective in the prevention of acute gastroduodenal disease and its associated complications. Both cimetidine and antacids produced a near elimination of duodenal disease and markedly reduced the severity of gastric disease when compared to that of untreated historical controls. Lack of major side effects and ease of administration make cimetidine an attractive alternative to antacid therapy in the prophylaxis of stress-induced gastroduodenal disease in the thermally injured patient.
The possibility that the inability of Streptococcus faecalis to utilize 5-methyltetrahydropteroylglutamate or pteroyltriglutamate might be due to permeability was investigated. Whereas the former was ...taken up by S. faecalis cells growing on pteroylglutamic acid, the latter was not. No subsequent conversion of the 5-methyltetrahydropteroylglutamate took place and accumulation, which was against a considerable concentration gradient, was inhibited by fluoride. It would thus appear to be an active process.
The cytokine interleukin-12 (IL-12) was thought to have a central role in T cell-mediated responses in inflammation for more than a decade after it was first identified. Discovery of the cytokine ...IL-23, which shares a common p40 subunit with IL-12, prompted efforts to clarify the relative contribution of these two cytokines in immune regulation. Ustekinumab, a therapeutic agent targeting both cytokines, was recently approved to treat psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, and related agents are in clinical testing for a variety of inflammatory disorders. Here we discuss the therapeutic rationale for targeting these cytokines, the unintended consequences for host defense and tumor surveillance and potential ways in which these therapies can be applied to treat additional immune disorders.
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DOBA, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBMB, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Climate change induced by anthropogenic warming of the earth's atmosphere is a daunting problem. This review examines one of the consequences of climate change that has only recently attracted ...attention: namely, the effects of climate change on the environmental distribution and toxicity of chemical pollutants. A review was undertaken of the scientific literature (original research articles, reviews, government and intergovernmental reports) focusing on the interactions of toxicants with the environmental parameters, temperature, precipitation, and salinity, as altered by climate change. Three broad classes of chemical toxicants of global significance were the focus: air pollutants, persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including some organochlorine pesticides, and other classes of pesticides. Generally, increases in temperature will enhance the toxicity of contaminants and increase concentrations of tropospheric ozone regionally, but will also likely increase rates of chemical degradation. While further research is needed, climate change coupled with air pollutant exposures may have potentially serious adverse consequences for human health in urban and polluted regions. Climate change producing alterations in: food webs, lipid dynamics, ice and snow melt, and organic carbon cycling could result in increased POP levels in water, soil, and biota. There is also compelling evidence that increasing temperatures could be deleterious to pollutant-exposed wildlife. For example, elevated water temperatures may alter the biotransformation of contaminants to more bioactive metabolites and impair homeostasis. The complex interactions between climate change and pollutants may be particularly problematic for species living at the edge of their physiological tolerance range where acclimation capacity may be limited. In addition to temperature increases, regional precipitation patterns are projected to be altered with climate change. Regions subject to decreases in precipitation may experience enhanced volatilization of POPs and pesticides to the atmosphere. Reduced precipitation will also increase air pollution in urbanized regions resulting in negative health effects, which may be exacerbated by temperature increases. Regions subject to increased precipitation will have lower levels of air pollution, but will likely experience enhanced surface deposition of airborne POPs and increased run-off of pesticides. Moreover, increases in the intensity and frequency of storm events linked to climate change could lead to more severe episodes of chemical contamination of water bodies and surrounding watersheds. Changes in salinity may affect aquatic organisms as an independent stressor as well as by altering the bioavailability and in some instances increasing the toxicity of chemicals. A paramount issue will be to identify species and populations especially vulnerable to climate–pollutant interactions, in the context of the many other physical, chemical, and biological stressors that will be altered with climate change. Moreover, it will be important to predict tipping points that might trigger or accelerate synergistic interactions between climate change and contaminant exposures.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
We have recently reported that the expression of peptidylarginine deiminase 2 (PADI2) is regulated by EGF in mammary cancer cells and appears to play a role in the proliferation of normal mammary ...epithelium; however, the role of PADI2 in the pathogenesis of human breast cancer has yet to be investigated. Thus, the goals of this study were to examine whether PADI2 plays a role in mammary tumor progression, and whether the inhibition of PADI activity has anti-tumor effects.
RNA-seq data from a collection of 57 breast cancer cell lines was queried for PADI2 levels, and correlations with known subtype and HER2/ERBB2 status were evaluated. To examine PADI2 expression levels during breast cancer progression, the cell lines from the MCF10AT model were used. The efficacy of the PADI inhibitor, Cl-amidine, was tested in vitro using MCF10DCIS cells grown in 2D-monolayers and 3D-spheroids, and in vivo using MCF10DCIS tumor xenografts. Treated MCF10DCIS cells were examined by flow-cytometry to determine the extent of apoptosis and by RT2 Profiler PCR Cell Cycle Array to detect alterations in cell cycle associated genes.
We show by RNA-seq that PADI2 mRNA expression is highly correlated with HER2/ERBB2 (p = 2.2 × 106) in luminal breast cancer cell lines. Using the MCF10AT model of breast cancer progression, we then demonstrate that PADI2 expression increases during the transition of normal mammary epithelium to fully malignant breast carcinomas, with a strong peak of PADI2 expression and activity being observed in the MCF10DCIS cell line, which models human comedo-DCIS lesions. Next, we show that a PADI inhibitor, Cl-amidine, strongly suppresses the growth of MCF10DCIS monolayers and tumor spheroids in culture. We then carried out preclinical studies in nude (nu/nu) mice and found that Cl-amidine also suppressed the growth of xenografted MCF10DCIS tumors by more than 3-fold. Lastly, we performed cell cycle array analysis of Cl-amidine treated and control MCF10DCIS cells, and found that the PADI inhibitor strongly affects the expression of several cell cycle genes implicated in tumor progression, including p21, GADD45α, and Ki67.
Together, these results suggest that PADI2 may function as an important new biomarker for HER2/ERBB2+ tumors and that Cl-amidine represents a new candidate for breast cancer therapy.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
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