A methodological approach to upscale toward an agroecology system in EU-LAFSs: The case of the parma bio-district

The increasing interest in bio-districts is part of the debate on the capacity to integrate agri-food systems and territory in order to improve the quality of life in rural communities. Considering the goals of developing and promoting an innovative territorial rural development approach, the bio-district can become a process toward a more sustainable model represented by the agroecological agriculture system. The paper presents a case study of the Parma bio-district through the approach of a Localized Agri Food System (LAFS) to verify whether bio-districts can be a tool for scaling up towards agroecology. Stakeholder classification and analysis are conducted using an influence-interest matrix. We identified four groups of stakeholders in relation to their interests and power to influence the process. In the case of the Parma bio-district the role of local institutions in dialogue with consumers and producers' associations is crucial for success. We conclude that bio-districts can be a tool for a scaling-up towards agroecology since they can facilitate a synergetic relation between organic and agroecological agriculture, spreading organic agriculture more widely around the local area. However, the involvement of a wide variety of different stakeholders means that governance is a key element in facilitating "cross fertilization" and preventing the process from becoming purely formulaic

Civil society participation in international governance : the UN and the WTO compared

Civil society participation has become a buzzword in the debate about the legitimacy and accountability of international governance. Many organizations, prominently among them the World Trade Organization (WTO), have come under considerable pressure to open up their policy-making process towards non-state actors. Although the WTO has become more transparent in recent years, direct stakeholder access to its policy making is still denied. This situation is often contrasted with that at the United Nations (UN), where there is (allegedly) much more formally regulated and more substantial participation of civil society. In this paper, we compare the patterns of participation in these two organizations and seek to identify some common dynamics. We present a general framework for analysis based on a model of the policy cycle that allows us to distinguish ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors that determine cooperation in different phases of policy making. In our empirical study, we find that in the WTO, there are few incentives for the organization itself to pull civil society actors into its policy-making process. Agendasetting is the task of governments; research and analysis is delivered by the Secretariat; compliance control is undertaken jointly by the organization and its members. To push the door to trade policy making open, civil society can only rely on public shaming, that is, threatening to undermine the organization’s legitimacy as it violates widely accepted standards of good governance. In the UN system, there is in fact more cooperation, but it remains largely limited to the policy phases of agenda-setting, research and analysis and compliance control. Quite like the WTO, the UN protects an intergovernmental core of policy making in which cooperation with civil society remains at the discretion of state parties. Evidence for this are informal and ad hoc ways of collaboration and a lack of participatory rights for non-state actors in the Security Council and the General Assembly. We conclude that studying civil society participation in international public organizations through the lens of the policy cycle can give us a fine-grained picture of cooperative arrangements and enables us to identify potentials for cooperation as well as exclusion. Yet, we also observed two other factors at work that were not really grasped by the model of the policy cycle. First, the institutional culture of organizations can be more or less amenable to civil society. Second, organizations are susceptible to campaigns for ‘good governance’ that invoke standards of due process and may open the door to nonstate actors

A Methodological Approach to Upscale Toward an Agroecology System in EU-LAFSs: The Case of the Parma Bio-District

The increasing interest in bio-districts is part of the debate on the capacity to integrate agri-food systems and territory in order to improve the quality of life in rural communities. Considering the goals of developing and promoting an innovative territorial rural development approach, the bio-district can become a process toward a more sustainable model represented by the agroecological agriculture system. The paper presents a case study of the Parma bio-district through the approach of a Localized Agri Food System (LAFS) to verify whether bio-districts can be a tool for scaling up towards agroecology. Stakeholder classification and analysis are conducted using an influence–interest matrix. We identified four groups of stakeholders in relation to their interests and power to influence the process. In the case of the Parma bio-district the role of local institutions in dialogue with consumers and producers’ associations is crucial for success. We conclude that bio-districts can be a tool for a scaling-up towards agroecology since they can facilitate a synergetic relation between organic and agroecological agriculture, spreading organic agriculture more widely around the local area. However, the involvement of a wide variety of dierent stakeholders means that governance is a key element in facilitating “cross fertilization” and preventing the process from becoming purely formulaic

Taxonomic and functional responses of benthic macroinvertebrate communities to hydrological and water quality variations in a heavily regulated river

Aquatic macroinvertebrates are frequently used to evaluate river system conditions and restoration project performance. A better understanding of macroinvertebrate community responses to multiple stressors is a primary challenge for river science. In this paper, macroinvertebrate responses to hydrological and water quality variability were studied in the regulated Oglio River (northern Italy). We hypothesized that in regulated rivers the hydrological, rather than the physico-chemical conditions, would affect macroinvertebrate communities and biomonitoring tools (taxonomic metrics and functional indices). Repeated sampling (six times a year) was performed at four sites downstream of four dams in a 30 km river stretch during 2014 and 2015. Data were analysed using a linear mixed effect framework, to take into account random variation due to site and sampling date, and with multivariate analysis to track changes in community structure. A total of 69 families and 134,693 organisms were identified. The investigated metrics were mainly affected by the coefficient of variation of discharge, minimum discharge, ammonium, and temperature. The short-term dynamics of hydrological and physico-chemical variables were generally less important than the overall random effects as drivers of macroinvertebrate-based metrics. However, the relevance of a random effect (site, time, their interaction) differed depending on the biological metrics analysed. Understanding potential differences in response to short term and short stretch conditions would benefit biomonitoring and restoration procedures in both regulated and natural rivers

Impact on Prehospital Delay of a Stroke Preparedness Campaign: A SW-RCT (Stepped-Wedge Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial)

Background and Purpose—Public campaigns to increase stroke preparedness have been tested in different contexts, showing contradictory results. We evaluated the effectiveness of a stroke campaign, designed specifically for the Italian population in reducing prehospital delay. Methods—According to an SW-RCT (Stepped-Wedge Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial) design, the campaign was launched in 4 provinces in the northern part of the region Emilia Romagna at 3-month intervals in randomized sequence. The units of analysis were the patients admitted to hospital, with stroke and transient ischemic attack, over a time period of 15 months, beginning 3 months before the intervention was launched in the first province to allow for baseline data collection. The proportion of early arrivals (within 2 hours of symptom onset) was the primary outcome. Thrombolysis rate and some behavioral end points were the secondary outcomes. Data were analyzed using a fixed-effect model, adjusting for cluster and time trends. Results—We enrolled 1622 patients, 912 exposed and 710 nonexposed to the campaign. The proportion of early access was nonsignificantly lower in exposed patients (354 [38.8%] versus 315 [44.4%]; adjusted odds ratio, 0.81; 95% confidence interval, 0.60–1.08; P=0.15). As for secondary end points, an increase was found for stroke recognition, which approximated but did not reach statistical significance (P=0.07). Conclusions—Our campaign was not effective in reducing prehospital delay. Even if some limitations of the intervention, mainly in terms of duration, are taken into account, our study demonstrates that new communication strategies should be tested before large-scale implementation. Clinical Trial Registration—URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT01881152

Nintedanib targets KIT D816V neoplastic cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells of systemic mastocytosis

The KIT D816V mutation is found in >80% of patients with systemic mastocytosis (SM) and is key to neoplastic mast cell (MC) expansion and accumulation in affected organs. Therefore, KIT D816V represents a prime therapeutic target for SM. Here, we generated a panel of patient-specific KIT D816V induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from patients with aggressive SM and mast cell leukemia to develop a patient-specific SM disease model for mechanistic and drug-discovery studies. KIT D816V iPSCs differentiated into neoplastic hematopoietic progenitor cells and MCs with patient-specific phenotypic features, thereby reflecting the heterogeneity of the disease. CRISPR/Cas9n-engineered KIT D816V human embryonic stem cells (ESCs), when differentiated into hematopoietic cells, recapitulated the phenotype observed for KIT D816V iPSC hematopoiesis. KIT D816V causes constitutive activation of the KIT tyrosine kinase receptor, and we exploited our iPSCs and ESCs to investigate new tyrosine kinase inhibitors targeting KIT D816V. Our study identified nintedanib, a US Food and Drug Administration-approved angiokinase inhibitor that targets vascular endothelial growth factor receptor, platelet-derived growth factor receptor, and fibroblast growth factor receptor, as a novel KIT D816V inhibitor. Nintedanib selectively reduced the viability of iPSC-derived KIT D816V hematopoietic progenitor cells and MCs in the nanomolar range. Nintedanib was also active on primary samples of KIT D816V SM patients. Molecular docking studies show that nintedanib binds to the adenosine triphosphate binding pocket of inactive KIT D816V. Our results suggest nintedanib as a new drug candidate for KIT D816V-targeted therapy of advanced SM.Peer reviewe