Making the World a Wilder Place: The World Wilderness Congress and Public Perceptions of Antarctic Wilderness

The World Wilderness Congress is a forum for people interested in wilderness protection, from policymakers to indigenous groups, and is noted as the world\u27s longest running conservation project. In addition, the Congress holds an academic conference to promote the sharing of knowledge and research regarding wild land conservation from a multitude of representatives from different countries and organizations. As participants in the 2013 World Wilderness Congress in Salamanca, Spain, student researchers Kelly, Larrea, and Pinkalla (under the supervision of anthropologist Jessica O\u27Reilly) experienced firsthand the political climate surrounding the international conversation on wilderness policy and protection. The student researchers also presented their original research findings to the World Wilderness Congress. Their major project was to conduct recorded interviews on public perceptions of Antarctic wilderness and analyze their results. This interview project is part of a multiyear, international initiative to provide public input on Antarctic wilderness management issues. Our Thursday Forum provides a brief overview of our research as well as discusses our broader experience at the World Wilderness Congress: the issues that international conservationists are discussing today, the challenges facing global wilderness preservation, and what we at CSB/SJU can do to protect wilderness at home and abroad

Perceptions of wilderness and the Antarctic: case studies from the United States

Wilderness is a vital Antarctic symbol. The United States’ extensive experience of wilderness protection at home and long-standing engagement in the Antarctic Treaty System make it an ideal candidate to galvanise support in the protection of Antarctica’s wilderness values. As a democracy, the nation’s policies can be influenced by its people’s values. This study aims to contribute to the protection of Antarctica’s wilderness values by examining the interrelationships between some Americans’ perceptions of wilderness and Antarctica and wilderness management in the US. Using ethnographic interviews and questionnaires, we collected information on perceptions of wilderness in general, and the Antarctic wilderness in particular, from university students and community members in the southern and Midwestern US on three occasions between 2012 and 2013. A total of 462 responses were analysed. Participants had low levels of knowledge about Antarctica. They relied on their cultural understandings of wilderness, which were distinctly American, to conceptualise Antarctica’s wilderness values. Many participants expressed a desire to maintain and protect wilderness areas from development, protect animal species and refrain from degradation of the land. The majority of participants stated that the importance of Antarctica lies in it being one of the world’s last great wildernesses and an important component of the Earth’s climate system. An overwhelming majority supported designating Antarctica as a wilderness reserve where development of infrastructure is limited. Furthermore, study participants’ low levels of knowledge about Antarctica and the complex relationships between science, Antarctica and climate change raise questions about forms of governance and human engagement in the Antarctic wilderness that can be truly of interest to humankind

Phosphorylation of p27Kip1 Regulates Assembly and Activation of Cyclin D1-Cdk4▿

p27 mediates Cdk2 inhibition and is also found in cyclin D1-Cdk4 complexes. The present data support a role for p27 in the assembly of D-type cyclin-Cdk complexes and indicate that both cyclin D1-Cdk4-p27 assembly and kinase activation are regulated by p27 phosphorylation. Prior work showed that p27 can be phosphorylated by protein kinase B/Akt (PKB/Akt) at T157 and T198. Here we show that PKB activation and the appearance of p27pT157 and p27pT198 precede p27-cyclin D1-Cdk4 assembly in early G1. PI3K/PKB inhibition rapidly reduced p27pT157 and p27pT198 and dissociated cellular p27-cyclin D1-Cdk4. Mutant p27 allele products lacking phosphorylation at T157 and T198 bound poorly to cellular cyclin D1 and Cdk4. Cellular p27pT157 and p27pT198 coprecipitated with Cdk4 but were not detected in Cdk2 complexes. The addition of p27 to recombinant cyclin D1 and Cdk4 led to cyclin D1-Cdk4-p27 complex formation in vitro. p27 phosphorylation by PKB increased p27-cyclin D1-Cdk4 assembly in vitro but yielded inactive Cdk4. In contrast, Src pretreatment of p27 did not affect p27-cyclin D1-Cdk4 complex formation. However, Src treatment led to tyrosine phosphorylation of p27 and catalytic activation of assembled cyclin D1-Cdk4-p27 complexes. Thus, while PKB-dependent p27 phosphorylation appears to increase cyclin D1-Cdk4-p27 assembly or stabilize these complexes in vitro, cyclin D1-Cdk4-p27 activation requires the tyrosine phosphorylation of p27. Constitutive activation of PKB and Abl or Src family kinases in cancers would drive p27 phosphorylation, increase cyclin D1-Cdk4 assembly and activation, and reduce the cyclin E-Cdk2 inhibitory function of p27. Combined therapy with both Src and PI3K/PKB inhibitors may reverse this process

Containment measures

OBSOLETE (project finished) - Description of containment measures during COVID'19 lockdown, in the context of SIlent Cities project. Please request access to Silent Cities if neede

Archived - General Information (DO NOT USE)

DO NOT USE - The goal of this component was to document the data collection process of the Silent Cities Dataset. This component is just left for archive