Society, Environment and Human Security in the Arctic Barents Region

Peer reviewe

Society, Environment and Human Security in the Arctic Barents Region

This title is published in Open Access with the support of the University of Helsinki.The Arctic-Barents Region is facing numerous pressures from a variety of sources, including the effect of environmental changes and extractive industrial developments. The threats arising out of these pressures result in human security challenges. This book analyses the formation, and promotion, of societal security within the context of the Arctic-Barents Region. It applies the human security framework, which has increasingly gained currency at the UN level since 1994 (UNDP), as a tool to provide answers to many questions that face the Barents population today. The study explores human security dimensions such as environmental security, economic security, health, food, water, energy, communities, political security and digital security in order to assess the current challenges that the Barents population experiences today or may encounter in the future. In doing so, the book develops a comprehensive analysis of vulnerabilities, challenges and needs in the Barents Region and provides recommendations for new strategies to tackle insecurity and improve the wellbeing of both indigenous and local communities. This book will be a valuable tool for academics, policy-makers and students interested in environmental and human security, sustainable development, environmental studies and the Arctic and Barents Region in particular

Promoting and measuring remyelination and neuroprotection in clinical trials of people with multiple sclerosis

The most tractable strategy to delay or prevent the progressive phase of MS is to promote endogenous remyelination; doing so restores nerve conduction and prevents demyelinated axons from degenerating. The rate-limiting stage in this process is differentiation of oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs) into mature, myelinating, oligodendrocytes. In animals, agonism of the retinoid X receptor (RXR)-γ enhances remyelination in this way. Metformin also promotes remyelination, this time by overcoming an age-associated block to the responsiveness of OPCs to pro-differentiation factors. In this PhD I show that bexarotene, a non-selective agonist of the RXR receptor, promotes remyelination in people with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis. Converging evidence from electrophysiology and neuroimaging in a phase II clinical trial (CCMR One) demonstrate that this occurs in demyelinated lesions and is greatest in lesions located in grey matter regions of the brain. I additionally conducted analyses which suggest an age-dependency of bexarotene’s remyelinating effect and led a follow-up sub study of the trial participants which showed the treatment effect afforded by bexarotene is sustained, years after treatment. Unfortunately, bexarotene was poorly tolerated, and so the legacy of this trial will likely be one of shaping the framework for future assessments of remyelinating therapies. As such, I designed, obtained funding and secured approvals for a clinical trial to test the remyelinating effect of the combination of metformin with clemastine (CCMR Two), implementing lessons from CCMR One in the trial design; this is due to commence participant recruitment in 2021. In exploring treatments for progressive forms of MS, not limited to the process of remyelination, I worked with the MS Society to develop and implement a rigorous, expert-led, evidence-based approach to the selection of licensed drugs for repurposing and testing in clinical trials of people with progressive MS. I reviewed the preclinical and clinical literature for a list of compounds and condensed these into a database of summary documents. These were presented to a panel of experts and people affected by MS, ultimately leading to four treatments being recommended for immediate testing in progressive MS trials: R-α-lipoic acid, metformin, the combination treatment of R-α-lipoic acid and metformin, and niacin. Regrettably, much of my research has been halted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this PhD I had additionally sought to evaluate electrophysiological techniques for quantifying remyelination and neuroprotection – multifocal VEP and saccadometry – in cohorts of people with MS and in the setting of the CCMR Two trial. Instead, when these studies were delayed, I embraced an opportunity to help the Cambridge COVID-19 research effort, working on the RECOVERY trial in the first wave, and leading my own project to analyse enrolment to treatment trials, ultimately describing the barriers to, and implications of, low recruitment rates in advance of the subsequent waves. Consequently, further exploratory research with electrophysiology and the CCMR Two trial will be the subject of post-doctoral research.Multiple Sclerosis Society of the United Kingdo

Solastalgia in Biocitizenship’s Perspective on Narrating Energy

Peer reviewe

(Indigenous) Language as a Human Right

The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed 2022-2032 as the International Decade of Indigenous Languages. Building on lessons of the International Year of Indigenous Languages of 2019, the Decade will draw attention to the critical loss of indigenous languages and the urgent need to preserve, revitalize and promote indigenous languages. These actions are necessary, in part, because existing laws and policies have proven inadequate to redress the legacy of state suppression of indigenous languages or ensure nondiscrimination in contemporary usage. In light of the International Year and Decade, this Article explores the rights of indigenous peoples to use, revitalize, and transmit their languages, as recognized in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and other human rights instruments. The Article considers how a better understanding of the human rights dimensions of the problem-and especially a more thoughtful approach to the implementation of human rights in both law and society-could help to advance remedial and ongoing measures toward the realization of indigenous peoples language rights going forward

(Indigenous) Language as a Human Right

The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed 2022-2032 as the International Decade of Indigenous Languages. Building on lessons of the International Year of Indigenous Languages of 2019, the Decade will draw attention to the critical loss of indigenous languages and the urgent need to preserve, revitalize and promote indigenous languages. These actions are necessary, in part, because existing laws and policies have proven inadequate to redress the legacy of state suppression of indigenous languages or ensure nondiscrimination in contemporary usage. In light of the International Year and Decade, this Article explores the rights of indigenous peoples to use, revitalize, and transmit their languages, as recognized in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and other human rights instruments. The Article considers how a better understanding of the human rights dimensions of the problem-and especially a more thoughtful approach to the implementation of human rights in both law and society-could help to advance remedial and ongoing measures toward the realization of indigenous peoples language rights going forward

Environment 2.0 : the 9th Biennial Conference on Environmental Psychology, 26-28 September 2011, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

On behalf of the Environmental Psychology Division of the German Association of Psychology, the 9th Biennial International Conference on Environmental Psychology is organized by the Human-Technology Interaction (HTI) group of the School of Innovation Sciences of the Eindhoven University of Technology. The HTI group is internationally acclaimed for perception research, and has become established as a major centre of excellence in human-technology interaction research. Bringing together psychological and engineering expertise, its central mission is investigating and optimizing interactions between people, systems, and environments, in the service of a socially and ecologically sustainable society