95 research outputs found
Can the Green Economy deliver it all? Experiences of renewable energy policies with socio-economic objectives
The Green Economy (GE) paradigm aims to reconcile environmental and socio-economic objectives. Policies to deploy renewable energy (RE) are widely perceived as a way to tap the potential synergies of these objectives. It is, however, still largely unclear whether the potential of simultaneously achieving both environmental and socio-economic objectives can be fully realized, and whether and how multiple objectives influence policy design, implementation, and evaluation. We aim to contribute to this aspect of GE research by looking at selected country experiences of renewable energy deployment with respect to the socio-economic goals of job creation or energy access. Across the cases examined, we find the following implications of relevance for the GE framework: First, we confirm the important role of governmental action for GE, with the specific need to state objectives clearly and build monitoring capacity. Second, consistent with the âstrongâ green growth variant of GE, some of the cases suggest that while renewable deployment may indeed lead to short-term socio-economic benefits, these benefits may not last. Third, we underline the urgent need for new methodologies to analyze and better understand multiple-objective policies, which are at the heart of the GE paradigm
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The german energy transition: Societal experiment and social learning process
[No abstract available
Zinc depletion regulates the processing and secretion of IL-1β.
Sterile inflammation contributes to many common and serious human diseases. The pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-1β (IL-1β) drives sterile inflammatory responses and is thus a very attractive therapeutic target. Activation of IL-1β in sterile diseases commonly requires an intracellular multi-protein complex called the NLRP3 (NACHT, LRR, and PYD domains-containing protein 3) inflammasome. A number of disease-associated danger molecules are known to activate the NLRP3 inflammasome. We show here that depletion of zinc from macrophages, a paradigm for zinc deficiency, also activates the NLRP3 inflammasome and induces IL-1β secretion. Our data suggest that zinc depletion damages the integrity of lysosomes and that this event is important for NLRP3 activation. These data provide new mechanistic insight to how zinc deficiency contributes to inflammation and further unravel the mechanisms of NLRP3 inflammasome activation
Akzeptanz der CO2-Bepreisung in Deutschland: Die hohe Bedeutung der RĂźckverteilung der Einnahmen
Im Jahr 2021 wurde in Deutschland die sogenannte CO2-Bepreisung fossiler Kraft- und Brennstoffe eingefßhrt, um deren Verbrauch zum Zwecke des Klimaschutzes zu reduzieren. Dieser Preisaufschlag auf fossile Energieträger wird in den kommenden Jahren sukzessive erhÜht. Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Akzeptanz der
CO2-Bepreisung fßr die Zeit vor Einfßhrung des CO2-Preises im Jahr 2019. Eine Erhebung unter mehr als 6.000 Haushalten zeigt, dass eine leichte absolute Mehrheit von 53,7 % der Befragten grundsätzlich bereit ist, zu Klimaschutzzwecken hÜhere Kosten in Kauf zu nehmen. Die Zustimmung zu einer CO2-Bepreisung nimmt jedoch mit sinkendem Einkommen deutlich ab: Bei Befragten der untersten Einkommensgruppe
liegt die Zustimmungsrate bei knapp unter 40 %. Erwartungsgemäà verringert sich die Zustimmung auch mit der HÜhe des CO2-Preises. So wurde ein CO2-Preis von 50 Euro von einer Mehrheit der Befragten von 50,6 % abgelehnt. Um bei bis zum Jahr 2025 auf 55 Euro steigenden CO2-Preisen die mehrheitliche Akzeptanz der Bßrger zu gewinnen, wird hier fßr einen breit angelegten Ausgleichsmechanismus durch die Reduzierung
verzerrender und sozial ungerechter Steuern und Abgaben auf den Strompreis plädiert, die insbesondere Gering- und Durchschnittsverdienern zugutekommt. Andernfalls kÜnnten die ßber die Zeit steigenden CO2-Preise eine hohe soziale Sprengkraft entfalten
Flight validation of ground-based assessment for control power requirements at high angles of attack
A review is presented in viewgraph format of an ongoing NASA/U.S. Navy study to determine control power requirements at high angles of attack for the next generation high-performance aircraft. This paper focuses on recent flight test activities using the NASA High Alpha Research Vehicle (HARV), which are intended to validate results of previous ground-based simulation studies. The purpose of this study is discussed, and the overall program structure, approach, and objectives are described. Results from two areas of investigation are presented: (1) nose-down control power requirements and (2) lateral-directional control power requirements. Selected results which illustrate issues and challenges that are being addressed in the study are discussed including test methodology, comparisons between simulation and flight, and general lessons learned
A framework for the local information dynamics of distributed computation in complex systems
The nature of distributed computation has often been described in terms of
the component operations of universal computation: information storage,
transfer and modification. We review the first complete framework that
quantifies each of these individual information dynamics on a local scale
within a system, and describes the manner in which they interact to create
non-trivial computation where "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts".
We describe the application of the framework to cellular automata, a simple yet
powerful model of distributed computation. This is an important application,
because the framework is the first to provide quantitative evidence for several
important conjectures about distributed computation in cellular automata: that
blinkers embody information storage, particles are information transfer agents,
and particle collisions are information modification events. The framework is
also shown to contrast the computations conducted by several well-known
cellular automata, highlighting the importance of information coherence in
complex computation. The results reviewed here provide important quantitative
insights into the fundamental nature of distributed computation and the
dynamics of complex systems, as well as impetus for the framework to be applied
to the analysis and design of other systems.Comment: 44 pages, 8 figure
Continuous-time modeling of cell fate determination in Arabidopsis flowers
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The genetic control of floral organ specification is currently being investigated by various approaches, both experimentally and through modeling. Models and simulations have mostly involved boolean or related methods, and so far a quantitative, continuous-time approach has not been explored.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We propose an ordinary differential equation (ODE) model that describes the gene expression dynamics of a gene regulatory network that controls floral organ formation in the model plant <it>Arabidopsis thaliana</it>. In this model, the dimerization of MADS-box transcription factors is incorporated explicitly. The unknown parameters are estimated from (known) experimental expression data. The model is validated by simulation studies of known mutant plants.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The proposed model gives realistic predictions with respect to independent mutation data. A simulation study is carried out to predict the effects of a new type of mutation that has so far not been made in <it>Arabidopsis</it>, but that could be used as a severe test of the validity of the model. According to our predictions, the role of dimers is surprisingly important. Moreover, the functional loss of any dimer leads to one or more phenotypic alterations.</p
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