Motivations for local climate adaptation in Dutch municipalities: climate change impacts and the role of local-level government

The local government level is considered to be crucial in preparing society for climate change impact. Yet little is known about why local authorities do or do not take action to adapt their community for climate change impacts. In order to implement effective adaptation policy, the motivations for local climate adaptation need to be examined. This paper explores these motivations in Dutch communities by comparing nine urban and rural cases. To be able to draw general conclusions, cases are selected on „projected risk‟ and „extreme weather event experience‟. Motivations for local climate adaptation appear much more determined by local institutional factors such as a green party aldermen or innovative network membership then projected risk or extreme weather event experience. This could be explained by the empiric data showing diffuse channels of climate change knowledge into the local government level and limited capacity to translate this knowledge into genuine adaptation strategie

Climate change adaptation in Dutch local communities: risk perception, institutional capacity and the role of local government

This report explains the outcomes of the research project Analysing local climate vulnerability and local adaptation strategies which was carried out from 2005 up till 2009 at the Twente Centre for Studies in Technology and Sustainable Development (CSTM), University of Twente. This project is funded within the research programme Vulnerability, Adaptation and Mitigation (VAM) from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). The role of local government is crucial for preparing society for climate change impacts.\ud Yet there are relatively few systemic studies of local community initiatives to improve adaptation capacities. The current study presents an analytic scheme for assessing Dutch municipalities in the context of multilevel governance. The scheme focuses on: (1) historical experience with flooding impacts, and (2) the probability/risk of new climate change impacts. Controlling for size and type of community (rural/urban), the study presents interview-based data for nine case studies. We can conclude that adaptation to climate change at the local level is a complex policy issue, depending on many external and internal factors. We have tried to gain insights into these factors by investigating the role and the institutional capacity of municipalities in the Netherlands. We have distinguished local ‘firebrands’ of significant importance. The presence of a local administrator (alderman) on environmental affairs from the national Green Party is related crucial to the promotion of climate-related initiatives.\ud We also found that the more ‘willing’ cases were active in all sorts of networks. This varied from EU projects to urban networks and inter-municipal cooperation. Interviewees actively confirmed that these networks played a key role, as they enable the local actors to exchange knowledge and best practices, and to share the costs of research and trial projects. Within such stimulating networks, local actors are more motivated to explore climate-adaptation efforts that would otherwise be too ambitious (resource-demanding) for a single municipality. The urban cases proved almost all (3 out of 4) to be active climate mitigation frontrunners. They generally consider climate change adaptation as a new dimension of climate policy. However, while mitigation now has become an urgent issue, the challenge of specific adaptation initiatives is new and combined with many uncertainties. In nearly every case, there was little\ud sense of urgency in relation to either vulnerability or preparedness. Despite the complex nature of the problem, interviewees in the mitigation frontrunner cases express their belief that the problem of climate change adaptation will gradually ‘settle’ into a more commonly accepted issue. Local conditions proved to be most decisive in our study of local adaptation strategies. The study reveals that the local situation exerts a significant impact on the climate change problem. It makes clear that all cases have their own particular situation that is determinative for the effects of climate change impacts. For instance, while the cases with high risk and experience are ‘used’ to preparing themselves for climatic events, the urban case without increased risk or any experience appeared to be similarly involved in climate change adaptation without any clear threat. The factors risk and experience did not prove as decisive as anticipated

Reflections on the uptake of climate change policies by local governments: facing the challenges of mitigation and adaptation

Background There is a growing body of literature that examines the role of local governments in addressing climate change vis-a-vis mitigation and adaptation. Although it appears that climate change mitigation strategies - in particular those addressing energy issues - are being adopted by a large majority of local governments, this cannot be said of climate change adaptation. This paper explores the uptake of these two types of climate change policy by local governments in the Netherlands. The central research question is: What lessons can be drawn from comparing the adoption and implementation of local climate change mitigation policies with local climate change adaptation policies in the Netherlands? Our paper contributes to the body of literature on climate change policy implementation, drawing particular attention to the ongoing debate on the institutional dimension of the adaptation-mitigation dichotomy. Methods A comparative case study research design was chosen to study the adoption and implementation of climate change (i) mitigation and (ii) adaptation policies by local governments in the Netherlands during the period 1998 to 2013. The data involved 89 expert interviews and secondary data sources from four research projects conducted by the present authors on local climate change policy implementation. Results Most Dutch municipalities have local climate change policies that address mitigation. Local governments pay relatively little attention to adaptation. The difference is mostly due to the take-up of central government-led policy support schemes aimed at the vertical integration of climate change mitigation policies. Moreover, mitigation is typically framed as an 'energy' issue whereas adaptation is framed as a 'water' issue. This has far-reaching consequences. Climate change adaptation has never been prioritized, nor has it been supported with properly funded policy support schemes. Conclusions In the realm of local climate change policies, adaptation is still considered an 'add-on' to climate change mitigation policy. Moreover, adoption and implementation of both adaptation and mitigation suffers from institutional inertia in Dutch local policy practic

Does native Trypanosoma cruzi calreticulin mediate growth inhibition of a mammary tumor during infection?

Indexación: Web of Science.Background: For several decades now an antagonism between Trypanosoma cruzi infection and tumor development has been detected. The molecular basis of this phenomenon remained basically unknown until our proposal that T. cruzi Calreticulin (TcCRT), an endoplasmic reticulum-resident chaperone, translocated-externalized by the parasite, may mediate at least an important part of this effect. Thus, recombinant TcCRT (rTcCRT) has important in vivo antiangiogenic and antitumor activities. However, the relevant question whether the in vivo antitumor effect of T. cruzi infection is indeed mediated by the native chaperone (nTcCRT), remains open. Herein, by using specific modified anti-rTcCRT antibodies (Abs), we have neutralized the antitumor activity of T. cruzi infection and extracts thereof, thus identifying nTcCRT as a valid mediator of this effect. Methods: Polyclonal anti-rTcCRT F(ab')(2) Ab fragments were used to reverse the capacity of rTcCRT to inhibit EAhy926 endothelial cell (EC) proliferation, as detected by BrdU uptake. Using these F(ab')(2) fragments, we also challenged the capacity of nTcCRT, during T. cruzi infection, to inhibit the growth of an aggressive mammary adenocarcinoma cell line (TA3-MTXR) in mice. Moreover, we determined the capacity of anti-rTcCRT Abs to reverse the antitumor effect of an epimastigote extract (EE). Finally, the effects of these treatments on tumor histology were evaluated. Results: The rTcCRT capacity to inhibit ECs proliferation was reversed by anti-rTcCRT F(ab')(2) Ab fragments, thus defining them as valid probes to interfere in vivo with this important TcCRT function. Consequently, during infection, these Ab fragments also reversed the in vivo experimental mammary tumor growth. Moreover, anti-rTcCRT Abs also neutralized the antitumor effect of an EE, again identifying the chaperone protein as an important mediator of this anti mammary tumor effect. Finally, as determined by conventional histological parameters, in infected animals and in those treated with EE, less invasive tumors were observed while, as expected, treatment with F(ab')(2) Ab fragments increased malignancy. Conclusion: We have identified translocated/externalized nTcCRT as responsible for at least an important part of the anti mammary tumor effect of the chaperone observed during experimental infections with T. cruzi.http://bmccancer.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12885-016-2764-

Evidence that breast cancer risk at the 2q35 locus is mediated through IGFBP5 regulation.

GWAS have identified a breast cancer susceptibility locus on 2q35. Here we report the fine mapping of this locus using data from 101,943 subjects from 50 case-control studies. We genotype 276 SNPs using the 'iCOGS' genotyping array and impute genotypes for a further 1,284 using 1000 Genomes Project data. All but two, strongly correlated SNPs (rs4442975 G/T and rs6721996 G/A) are excluded as candidate causal variants at odds against >100:1. The best functional candidate, rs4442975, is associated with oestrogen receptor positive (ER+) disease with an odds ratio (OR) in Europeans of 0.85 (95% confidence interval=0.84-0.87; P=1.7 × 10(-43)) per t-allele. This SNP flanks a transcriptional enhancer that physically interacts with the promoter of IGFBP5 (encoding insulin-like growth factor-binding protein 5) and displays allele-specific gene expression, FOXA1 binding and chromatin looping. Evidence suggests that the g-allele confers increased breast cancer susceptibility through relative downregulation of IGFBP5, a gene with known roles in breast cell biology