Canada in a Climate Disrupted World

Climate change has already begun impacting economies and societies across the globe, and its impacts are expected to increase into the future. Adaptation to climate change is and will continue to be one of the greatest policy challenges facing the Canadian government. However, im- portant and much-needed work on understanding the future of climate change has not yet been completed. Gaps remain in the body of academic, government, and other policy-relevant publications. Specifically, there is a relative paucity of research done on the indirect impacts of climate change on Canada. These external impacts outside of Canada’s borders may have second-order effects, the implications of which have thus far remained largely unexplored. In this report, we identify key issue areas which are currently or potentially affected by these indirect impacts. We also undergo a thorough literature review, and locate areas in which further data re- search is required

Mice lacking epidermal PPARγ exhibit a marked augmentation in photocarcinogenesis associated with increased UVB-induced apoptosis, inflammation and barrier dysfunction

Recent studies suggest that peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) agonists may have cancer chemopreventive activity. Other studies have shown that loss of epidermal PPARγ results in enhanced chemical carcinogenesis in mice via unknown mechanisms. However, ultraviolet B (UVB) exposure represents the primary etiological agent for skin cancer formation and the role of PPARγ in photobiology and photocarcinogenesis is unknown. In previous studies, we demonstrated that UVB irradiation of cells results in the formation of oxidized glycerophosphocholines that exhibit PPARγ ligand activity. We therefore hypothesized that PPARγ would prove to be a chemopreventive target in photocarcinogenesis. We first showed that UVB irradiation of mouse skin causes generation of PPARγ agonist species in vivo. We then generated SKH-1 hairless, albino mice deficient in epidermal Pparg (Pparg-/-(epi)) using a cytokeratin 14 driven Cre-LoxP strategy. Using a chronic model of UVB photocarcinogenesis, we next showed that Pparg-/-(epi) mice exhibit an earlier onset of tumor formation, increased tumor burden and tumor progression. Increased tumor burden in Pparg-/-(epi) mice was accompanied by a significant increase in epidermal hyperplasia and p53 positive epidermal cells in surrounding skin lacking tumors. After acute UVB irradiation, Pparg-/-(epi) mice exhibited an augmentation of both UVB-induced Caspase 3/7 activity and inflammation. Increased apoptosis and inflammation was also observed after treatment with the PPARγ antagonist GW9662. With chronic UVB irradiation, Pparg-/-(epi) mice exhibited a sustained increase in erythema and transepidermal water loss relative to wildtype littermates. This suggests that PPARγ agonists could have possible chemopreventive activity in non-melanoma skin cancer

Metal impurity transport control in JET H-mode plasmas with central ion cyclotron radiofrequency power injection

The scan of ion cyclotron resonant heating (ICRH) power has been used to systematically study the pump out effect of central electron heating on impurities such as Ni and Mo in H-mode low collisionality discharges in JET. The transport parameters of Ni and Mo have been measured by introducing a transient perturbation on their densities via the laser blow off technique. Without ICRH Ni and Mo density profiles are typically peaked. The application of ICRH induces on Ni and Mo in the plasma centre (at normalized poloidal flux rho = 0.2) an outward drift approximately proportional to the amount of injected power. Above a threshold of ICRH power of about 3 MW in the specific case the radial flow of Ni and Mo changes from inwards to outwards and the impurity profiles, extrapolated to stationary conditions, become hollow. At mid-radius the impurity profiles become flat or only slightly hollow. In the plasma centre the variation of the convection-to-diffusivity ratio upsilon/D of Ni is particularly well correlated with the change in the ion temperature gradient in qualitative agreement with the neoclassical theory. However, the experimental radial velocity is larger than the neoclassical one by up to one order of magnitude. Gyrokinetic simulations of the radial impurity fluxes induced by electrostatic turbulence do not foresee a flow reversal in the analysed discharges