The world economy crucially depends on multi-layered value chains with high degrees of sector-related specialization. Its final products are of international character and serve the needs and wants ...of the global citizen. However, many production processes are causing severe damage to the environment and moreover create health hazard for workers and local populations. This research article focuses on the increasing global unequal economic- and ecological exchange, fundamentally embedded in international trade. Resource extraction and labor conditions in the Global South as well as the implications for climate change originating from industry emissions in the North are investigated with an agent-based model. The model serves as a testbed for simulation experiments with evolutionary political economic policies. An international institution is introduced sanctioning the polluting extractivist sector in the Global South as well as the emitting industrial capital good producers in the North with the aim of subsidizing innovation reducing environmental and social impacts. Both regions are modelled as macroeconomic complex adaptive systems where international trade is restricted to a three-sector value chain, originating from mining resources in the South that are traded to capital good producers in the North crafting machinery which is eventually traded to consumer good firms, both in the North and South. The main outcome of the study is that sanctions alone are not effective in countering unequal exchange. They only make a difference in combination with subsidies for innovation activities, which are protecting labor and reducing local pollution in mines as well as reducing carbon-emissions in capital good production.
Abstract
This contribution argues that evolutionary economic geography needs to widen its conceptual apparatus in order to engage with the grand challenges of our times. Instead of understanding ...evolution as a gradual, path-dependent and geographically localized process, the current challenges result from various global political-economic transformations requiring an understanding of evolution as a outcome of variational and transformational change, the incorporation of macro-scale analysis, the augmentation of territorial with relational conceptualizations of space and a focus on historical analysis of political-economic development rather than ahistorical descriptions of regional outcomes of a generalized evolutionary process. We illustrate the potential impact of globalization on the competitive advantage of US metropolitan areas through an analysis of relations of unequal exchange between the USA and the Global South. The estimated value drain constitutes a potential source of revenue for producers in the North that complements the competitive advantages of cities based on superior localized technological performance.
COMMONSIM: Simulating the utopia of COMMONISM Gerdes, Lena; Aigner, Ernest; Meretz, Stefan ...
Review of Evolutionary Political Economy,
10/2023, Letnik:
4, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
This research article presents an agent-based simulation hereinafter called COMMONSIM. It builds on COMMONISM, i.e. a large-scale commons-based vision for a utopian society. In this society, ...production and distribution of means are not coordinated via markets, exchange and money, or a central polity, but via bottom-up signalling and polycentric networks, i.e. ex ante coordination via needs. Heterogeneous agents care for each other in life groups and produce in different groups care, environmental as well as intermediate and final means to satisfy sensual-vital needs. Productive needs decide on the magnitude of activity in groups for a common interest, e.g. the production of means in a multi-sectoral artificial economy. Agents share cultural traits identified by different behaviours: a propensity for egoism, leisure, environmentalism and productivity. The narrative of this utopian society follows principles of critical psychology and sociology, complexity and evolution, the theory of commons and critical political economy. The article presents the utopia and an agent-based study of it, with emphasis on culture-dependent allocation mechanisms and their social and economic implications for agents and groups.
Skin transcriptome studies in atopic dermatitis (AD) showed broad dysregulation as well as “improvement” under therapy. These observations were mainly made in trials and based on microarray data.
Our ...aim was to explore the skin transcriptome and the impact of systemic treatment in patients of the TREATgermany registry.
Biopsy specimens from 59 patients with moderate-to-severe AD before and 30 patients 12 weeks after start of systemic treatment (dupilumab n = 22 or cyclosporine n = 8) and from 31 healthy controls were subjected to mRNA sequencing. Differential expression, pathway enrichment, correlation, and coexpression network analysis were conducted.
Both lesional and nonlesional skin showed a stable “core” signature characterized by disturbed epidermal differentiation and activation of IL-31/IL-1 signaling. A second dynamic signature showed progressive enrichment for type 2 inflammation, TH17 signaling, and natural killer cell function. Markers correlated with disease activity have functions in epidermal barrier properties and immune modulation. IL4RA was among the top 3 central dysregulated genes. Cyclosporine led to a more pronounced global transcriptome reversion and normalized TH17 cell/IL23 signaling, whereas dupilumab led to a stronger increase in level of epidermal differentiation markers. Both treatments strongly decreased levels of type 2 markers, but overall the residual profile was still profoundly different from that of healthy skin. Lower levels of IL4RA and IL13 and high IL36A expression were related to a stronger clinical response to dupilumab.
The AD core signature is characterized by dysregulation of genes related to keratinocyte differentiation and itch signaling. A dynamic signature reflects progressive immune responses dominated by type 2 cytokines with an additional role of TH17 and natural killer cell signaling.
Disabled people are often overlooked in considerations about work design, which contributes to their exclusion from the labor market. This issue also reflects within research, as the body of ...knowledge on the working conditions of disabled employees remains relatively limited.
A scoping review was conducted to assess the research landscape concerning the working conditions of disabled employees. Five databases have been searched, focusing on relevant studies published between 2017 and 2022.
One hundred fourteen studies were included in the review. It was found that social aspects of work appeared within a substantial portion of the examined studies. Furthermore, it became evident that the interplay of accessibility and flexibility provides an important dynamic to make work design both inclusive and feasible.
The recurrent prominence of social aspects, accessibility, and flexibility across the studies shows common challenges and potentials within the work situation of disabled employees. This suggests avenues for future research and inclusive work design.
Understanding cellular organization demands the best possible spatial resolution in all three dimensions. In fluorescence microscopy, this is achieved by 4Pi nanoscopy methods that combine the ...concepts of using two opposing objectives for optimal diffraction-limited 3D resolution with switching fluorescent molecules between bright and dark states to break the diffraction limit. However, optical aberrations have limited these nanoscopes to thin samples and prevented their application in thick specimens. Here we have developed an improved iso-stimulated emission depletion nanoscope, which uses an advanced adaptive optics strategy to achieve sub-50-nm isotropic resolution of structures such as neuronal synapses and ring canals previously inaccessible in tissue. The adaptive optics scheme presented in this work is generally applicable to any microscope with a similar beam path geometry involving two opposing objectives to optimize resolution when imaging deep in aberrating specimens.
An integrated molecular surveillance for tuberculosis (TB) improves the understanding of ongoing TB transmission by combining molecular typing and epidemiological data. However, the implementation of ...an integrated molecular surveillance for TB is complex and requires thoughtful consideration of feasibility, demand, public health benefits and legal issues. We aimed to pilot the integration of molecular typing results between 2008 and 2010 in the German Federal State of Baden-Württemberg (population 10.88 Million) as preparation for a nationwide implementation. Culture positive TB cases were typed by IS6110 DNA fingerprinting and results were integrated into routine notification data. Demographic and clinical characteristics of cases and clusters were described and new epidemiological links detected after integrating typing data were calculated. Furthermore, a cross-sectional survey was performed among local public health offices to evaluate their perception and experiences. Overall, typing results were available for 83% of notified culture positive TB cases, out of which 25% were clustered. Age <15 years (OR = 4.96, 95% CI: 1.69-14.55) and being born in Germany (OR = 2.01, 95% CI: 1.44-2.80) were associated with clustering. At cluster level, molecular typing information allowed the identification of previously unknown epidemiological links in 11% of the clusters. In 59% of the clusters it was not possible to identify any epidemiological link. Clusters extending over different counties were less likely to have epidemiological links identified among their cases (OR = 11.53, 95% CI: 3.48-98.23). The majority of local public health offices found molecular typing useful for their work. Our study illustrates the feasibility of integrating typing data into the German TB notification system and depicts its added public health value as complementary strategy in TB surveillance, especially to uncover transmission events among geographically separated TB patients. It also emphasizes that special efforts are required to strengthen the communication between local public health offices in different counties to enhance TB control.
In light of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, protecting vulnerable groups has become a high priority. Persons at risk of severe disease, for example, those receiving immunosuppressive therapies for chronic ...inflammatory cdiseases (CIDs), are prioritised for vaccination. However, data concerning generation of protective antibody titres in immunosuppressed patients are scarce. Additionally, mRNA vaccines represent a new vaccine technology leading to increased insecurity especially in patients with CID.
Here we present for the first time, data on the efficacy and safety of anti-SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines in a cohort of immunosuppressed patients as compared with healthy controls.
42 healthy controls and 26 patients with CID were included in this study (mean age 37.5 vs 50.5 years). Immunisations were performed according to national guidelines with mRNA vaccines. Antibody titres were assessed by ELISA before initial vaccination and 7 days after secondary vaccination. Disease activity and side effects were assessed prior to and 7 days after both vaccinations.
Anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies as well as neutralising activity could be detected in all study participants. IgG titres were significantly lower in patients as compared with controls (2053 binding antibody units (BAU)/mL ±1218 vs 2685±1102). Side effects were comparable in both groups. No severe adverse effects were observed, and no patients experienced a disease flare.
We show that SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines lead to development of antibodies in immunosuppressed patients without considerable side effects or induction of disease flares. Despite the small size of this cohort, we were able to demonstrate the efficiency and safety of mRNA vaccines in our cohort.
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