Understood in some conceptual analysis as a pillar of territorial cohesion and due to its critical role in promoting territorial integration, territorial cooperation is often presented as one of the ...major positive achievements of European Union (EU) Cohesion Policy. In this context, this article proposes a conceptual framework to assess the contribution of the European Territorial Cooperation process, including the beyond-funding support from the Border Focal Point, to the ultimate goal of EU Cohesion Policy: territorial cohesion. For that, expertise from the leaders of European cross-border associations is used, as well as European Commission officials.
•Incompatible administrative and legal frameworks still create all sorts of barriers.•Cross-border public transport services are seen as crucial systemic barriers.•Only 44% of EU border residents has ...access to rail services.•Joint management structure which facilitates cross-border planning for transports.
Cross-border regions are the laboratories of European integration. Daily interactions across European borders let citizens experience the benefits of the European Union (EU) internal market. Still, many border barriers continue to prevent individuals and organisations from exploiting the full-potential of European border regions and the benefits of a more integrated European territory. Amongst these barriers are the absence or inappropriate supply of cross-border public transport services. In this context, this paper presents potential policy tools to increase border permeability related to cross-border public transport as well as practical results from a few case-studies implemented across Europe.
This summary report presents the results of the "Public Consultation on overcoming border obstacles (2020)". The 2020 European Commission's public consultation on overcoming obstacles comes as a ...follow-up to the "Cross-Border Review" initiative, carried-out in 2015 by the Commission's Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO). This has led to the 2017 Communication "Boosting Growth and Cohesion in EU Border regions" (2017 EU Borders' Communication) and has paved the way for the work DG REGIO has conducted on obstacles since then. This includes the setting up of its "Border Focal Point", staffed by a dedicated team working on the implementation of actions to solve/alleviate border obstacles. In the last few years, DG REGIO has drawn attention to the prevailing legal and administrative border obstacles that hamper interactions across border regions and negatively affect citizens from accessing work, education, emergency and health care services, business and public transport. The 2020 public consultation on overcoming border obstacles had a dual purpose. First, to engage in a dialogue with citizens and key stakeholders on cross-border obstacles, in order to obtain a comprehensive overview of the developments since the adoption of the 2017 EU Borders' Communication, and of persisting or new border obstacles. Second, to help formulate constructive recommendations on the future policy and tools to better support cross-border regions. The scope of this survey is to assess the situation in border regions under normal circumstances, i.e., not in pandemic. Therefore, respondents were asked to consider the situation pre-pandemic. However, recognizing the negative impacts of the pandemic the public consultation contains a dedicated section to explore the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on border regions. The findings of the present report will serve as supporting evidence to European policies to continue boosting the improvement of cross-border cooperation in future years.
We evaluated trends (2005–2013) and patterns of dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) and its ratio with dissolved organic carbon (DOC), DOC:DON in atmospheric deposition and soil solution of five Level ...II plots of the International Co-operative Programme on Assessment and Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Forests (ICP Forests) in Flanders, Northern Belgium. The primary aim was to confirm positive postulated trends in DON levels and DOC:DON under on-going recovery from acidification. The DON concentrations (0.95–1.41mgL−1) and fluxes (5.6–8.3kgha−1y−1) in throughfall were about twice as high compared to precipitation in the open field (0.40–0.48mgL−1, 3.0–3.9kgha−1y−1). Annual soil profile leaching losses of DON varied between 1.2 and 3.7kgha−1y−1. The highest soil DON concentrations and fluxes were observed beneath the O horizon (1.84–2.36mgL−1, 10.1–12.3kgha−1y−1). Soil solution concentrations and fluxes of DON showed significant increasing trends. Temporarily soil solution DOC:DON rose following an exceptionally long spring drought in 2007, suggesting an effect of drying and rewetting on DOM composition. Further research is needed to test the dependence of DON and DOC:DON on factors such as latitude, forest cover, length of the growing season, hydrology and topography. Nonetheless, even with considerable variation in soil type, level of base saturation, and soil texture in the five included ICP Forests Level II plots, all data revealed a proportionally larger positive response of DON flux than DOC to recovery from acidification.
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•DON concentrations increased under acidification recovery.•DON fluxes showed similar increasing trends.•DOC:DON peaked after drying and rewetting.
TLR have a crucial role in the detection of microbial infection in mammals. Until recently, most investigations on TLR have focused on cells of the innate immune system and on the role of TLR in the ...initiation of antigen-specific responses following recognition of microbial products by APC. Here, we report that murine T cells express TLR1, TLR2, TLR6, TLR7 and TLR9 mRNA. Using CD8 T cells from F5 TCR-transgenic mice, we demonstrate that the lipopeptide Pam(3)CysSK(4) (Pam), a synthetic analog of bacterial and mycoplasmal lipoproteins that recognizes TLR1/2 complex, costimulates antigen-activated T cells. Costimulation with Pam permits an increased cell proliferation and survival associated with a sustained CD25 expression and an enhanced expression of Bcl-xL anti-apoptotic protein. In addition, we show that costimulation with Pam up-regulates IFN-gamma production but also granzyme B secretion and cytotoxic activity of antigen-activated T cells, indicating that TLR2 engagement enhances the major effector functions of CD8 T cells. Finally, we demonstrate that TLR2 engagement on T cells lowers the activation threshold for costimulatory signals delivered by APC.
Control of proliferation by Bcl-2 family members Bonnefoy-Berard, Nathalie; Aouacheria, Abdel; Verschelde, Claire ...
BBA - Molecular Cell Research,
03/2004, Letnik:
1644, Številka:
2
Book Review, Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The anti-proliferative effect of Bcl-2 acts mainly at the level of the G0/G1 phase of the cell cycle. Deletions and point mutations in the bcl-2 gene show that the anti-proliferative activity of ...Bcl-2, can in some cases, be dissociated from its anti-apoptotic function. This indicates that the effect of Bcl-2 on cell cycle progression can be a direct effect and not only a consequence of its anti-apoptotic activity. Bcl-2 appears to mediate its anti-proliferative effect by acting on both signal transduction pathways (NFAT, ERK) and on specific cell cycle regulators (p27, p130).
We analyzed here the expression of the prosurvival Bcl-2 homologue A1 in peripheral B cell compartment. We observed that A1 mRNA are highly expressed in peripheral B cells as compared with other ...anti-apoptotic genes of the Bcl-2 family such as bcl-xl and bcl-2 itself. The expression of A1 is up-regulated in immature B cells at the transition between transitional type 1 (T1) and type 2 (T2) cells, and remained highly expressed in mature (M) B cells. We, therefore, analyzed the effect of B cell antigen receptor (BCR) and BAFF receptor (BAFF-R) engagement on the regulation of A1 in total B220
+ cells but also FACS-sorted immature T1, T2 and M B cells. We demonstrated that only BCR engagement up-regulated the expression of A1 mRNA and protein. These results suggest that A1 may play a key role in antigen-dependent signals that are required for survival and/or proliferation of peripheral B cells.
TLR have a crucial role in the detection of microbial infection in mammals. Until recently, most investigations on TLR have focused on cells of the innate immune system and on the role of TLR in the ...initiation of antigen‐specific responses following recognition of microbial products by APC. Here, we report that murine T cells express TLR1, TLR2, TLR6, TLR7 and TLR9 mRNA. Using CD8 T cells from F5 TCR‐transgenic mice, we demonstrate that the lipopeptide Pam3CysSK4 (Pam), a synthetic analog of bacterial and mycoplasmal lipoproteins that recognizes TLR1/2 complex, costimulates antigen‐activated T cells. Costimulation with Pam permits an increased cell proliferation and survival associated with a sustained CD25 expression and an enhanced expression of Bcl‐xL anti‐apoptotic protein. In addition, we show that costimulation with Pam up‐regulates IFN‐γ production but also granzyme B secretion and cytotoxic activity of antigen‐activated T cells, indicating that TLR2 engagement enhances the major effector functions of CD8 T cells. Finally, we demonstrate that TLR2 engagement on T cells lowers the activation threshold for costimulatory signals delivered by APC.
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