Key challenges for the fashion industry in tackling climate change

The global rise in the earth’s surface temperature in coming decades will bring with it increased instances of flooding, drought and volatile weather patterns. One of the main industries affected is fashion, which is responsible for some 5% of current global carbon emissions (Bauck, 2017). There is common acknowledgement that every stage in the production of garments for the fashion world creates pollution and emission problems: from sourcing and use of scarce water resources in the production of cotton, to farming processes in the production of leather, from the use of industrial dyes and synthetic textile fibres to the need for ships, planes and lorries to transport the final product globally. This article explores the main challenges facing the fashion industry from climate change. The main argument of this essay is that fashion has grown to be a key exemplar industry of global capitalism, often being associated with the positive and negatives excesses of globalisation. It is also therefore seen as one of the key industries responsible for climate change causing much reflection within the industry as to how this key issue should be tackled. On the plus side, the fashion industry can capitalize on its modern high-profile status to bring real attention to climate change issues through publicity and media attention. The global scale of clothing manufacturing and distribution, and the pollution it helps to create, has led many in the industry to seek ways to promote climate change initiatives in the industry. This aspiration, though, is a most difficult one in an industry with complex global production and distribution chains and one which is so embedded in modern consumer culture, often blamed for the worsening environment degradation worldwide

The reform of public service broadcasting in Italy

This thesis provides an overview to a series of reforms undertaken at RAI (Radiotelevisione Italiana), the Italian public service broadcasting company between June 1993 and April 1996. The reform process began as a direct result of the collapse of the Christian Democrats and its coalition partners after 45 years of continuous government and was initiated by the centre-left 'Technocrat' government led by the former governor of the Bank of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (April 1993 to May 1994); it was also continued by the centre-right Berlusconi government (May 1994 to December 1994) and by the centre-left Dini technocrat government (January 1995 to April 1996). The research aims to focus on two related topics in order to fully explain the broad social, economic and political context within which the reforms took place. Firstly, especial interest wil be given to an historical analysis of public service provision in Italy in the light of the twin pressures coming from the state and market. Historically, these twin pressures have had a detrimental effect on public service broadcasting in Italy. Secondly, the research also focuses on the impact of the reform process on the functioning of public service broadcasting in Italy. It identifies four areas of RAJ's operations which merit special attention: the system of political occupation, the so-called lottizzazione; the internal network system; the devolution of Raitre; and RAI and Fininvest-Mediaset duopoly. This thesis uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies, including primary and secondary analysis and interviews with key architects of the reform process

Molecular Mechanisms Mediating the Effects of Acute Dietary Vitamin A Deficiency on a Defined Model Human Gut Microbiota

Micronutrient deficiencies represent a form of hidden hunger that afflict two billion people worldwide. To test the hypothesis that dietary micronutrient deficiency has differential effects on members of the human gut microbiota, a consortium containing 92 sequenced phylogenetically diverse bacterial strains was introduced into germ-free mice. Recipient animals were subjected to a diet oscillation that began with highly defined micronutrient-sufficient diet followed by a derivative diet with one of four types of single micronutrient deficiency, or a diet representing combined deficiencies, followed by return to the original sufficient diet. Times-series studies of microbial community structure and transcriptome revealed that acute vitamin A deficiency had the largest effects. Bacteroides vulgatus, a member of the developing microbiota associated with healthy growth of children, was a prominent responder, increasing its abundance in the absence of dietary vitamin A, and manifesting robust changes in gene expression affecting a number of metabolic and other pathways. In vitro studies of different retinoids revealed that retinol was the most potent inhibitor of B. vulgatus growth. Applying retinol selection to a library of 30,300 B. vulgatus transposon mutants revealed that disruption of AcrR, a member of the TetR family of transcriptional repressors, abrogated retinol sensitivity. Genetic complementation studies, vitro RNA-Seq analysis, and transcription factor binding assays disclosed that AcrR (i) functions as a repressor of an adjacent AcrAB-TolC efflux system (and of dispersed genes comprising a larger regulon) and (ii) mediates retinol sensitivity. Measurement of retinol efflux from wild-type, acrR-mutant, and complemented acrR mutant strains of B. vulgatus, combined with studies of the effects of a pharmacologic inhibitor of this efflux system and of bile acids on growth provided additional support that members of the AcrR regulon, including AcrAB-TolC, function as determinants of retinol and bile acid sensitivity in gut Bacteroides. Our findings raise the possibility that dietary retinol availability, bile acids generated by microbial biotransformation, and this efflux system interact to influence the fitness of B. vulgatus and perhaps other gut bacterial species

PSM in Italy: Troubled RAI in a Troubled Country

The chapter explores public service media in Italy. In the comparative literature the Italian RAI is often taken as a paradigmatic case of a highly (party) politicized public service broadcaster. Political interference has arguably been a constant feature of RAI’s sixty-year-long history, although the forms in which this phenomenon has manifested itself have changed considerably over time. After briefly contextualising historically and comparatively the case of public service media in Italy, the chapter sets out to discuss recent developments, including the effects of recent reforms to RAI’s governance and funding regimes. It then places these developments and the current debate over the role and future of RAI against the backdrop of a changing political landscape, the country’s ongoing economic problems and major social and cultural transformations

Ancestral light and chloroplast regulation form the foundations for C4 gene expression.

C4 photosynthesis acts as a carbon concentrating mechanism that leads to large increases in photosynthetic efficiency. The C4 pathway is found in more than 60 plant lineages1 but the molecular enablers of this evolution are poorly understood. In particular, it is unclear how non-photosynthetic proteins in the ancestral C3 system have repeatedly become strongly expressed and integrated into photosynthesis gene regulatory networks in C4 leaves. Here, we provide clear evidence that in C3 leaves, genes encoding key enzymes of the C4 pathway are already co-regulated with photosynthesis genes and are controlled by both light and chloroplast-to-nucleus signalling. In C4 leaves this regulation becomes increasingly dependent on the chloroplast. We propose that regulation of C4 cycle genes by light and the chloroplast in the ancestral C3 state has facilitated the repeated evolution of the complex and convergent C4 trait.The work was funded by the European Union 3to4 project and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) grant BB/J011754/1. I.G.-M. was supported by the Amgen Foundation. Research on chloroplast signalling by M.J.T. was supported by BBSRC grant (BB/J018139/1).This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the Nature Publishing Group via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2016.16

Mechanisms by which sialylated milk oligosaccharides impact bone biology in a gnotobiotic mouse model of infant undernutrition

Undernutrition in children is a pressing global health problem, manifested in part by impaired linear growth (stunting). Current nutritional interventions have been largely ineffective in overcoming stunting, emphasizing the need to obtain better understanding of its underlying causes. Treating Bangladeshi children with severe acute malnutrition with therapeutic foods reduced plasma levels of a biomarker of osteoclastic activity without affecting biomarkers of osteoblastic activity or improving their severe stunting. To characterize interactions among the gut microbiota, human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), and osteoclast and osteoblast biology, young germ-free mice were colonized with cultured bacterial strains from a 6-mo-old stunted infant and fed a diet mimicking that consumed by the donor population. Adding purified bovine sialylated milk oligosaccharides (S-BMO) with structures similar to those in human milk to this diet increased femoral trabecular bone volume and cortical thickness, reduced osteoclasts and their bone marrow progenitors, and altered regulators of osteoclastogenesis and mediators of Th2 responses. Comparisons of germ-free and colonized mice revealed S-BMO-dependent and microbiota-dependent increases in cecal levels of succinate, increased numbers of small intestinal tuft cells, and evidence for activation of a succinate-induced tuft cell signaling pathway linked to Th2 immune responses. A prominent fucosylated HMO, 2'-fucosyllactose, failed to elicit these changes in bone biology, highlighting the structural specificity of the S-BMO effects. These results underscore the need to further characterize the balance between, and determinants of, osteoclastic and osteoblastic activity in stunted infants/children, and suggest that certain milk oligosaccharides may have therapeutic utility in this setting

Identification of new members of the Escherichia coli K-12 MG1655 SlyA regulon.

SlyA is a member of the MarR family of bacterial transcriptional regulators. Previously, SlyA has been shown to directly regulate only two operons in Escherichia coli K-12 MG1655, fimB and hlyE (clyA). In both cases SlyA activates gene expression by antagonizing repression by the nucleoid associated protein H-NS. Here the transcript profiles of aerobic glucose-limited steady-state chemostat cultures of E. coli K-12 MG1655, slyA mutant and slyA over-expression strains are reported. The transcript profile of the slyA mutant was not significantly different to that of the parent; however, that of the slyA expression strain was significantly different from that of the vector control. Transcripts representing 27 operons were increased in abundance, whereas 3 were decreased. Of the 30 differentially regulated operons, 24 have been previously associated with sites of H-NS binding, suggesting that antagonism of H-NS repression is a common feature of SlyA-mediated transcription regulation. Direct binding of SlyA to DNA located upstream of a selection of these targets permitted the identification of new operons likely to be directly regulated by SlyA. Transcripts of four operons coding for cryptic adhesins exhibited enhanced expression and this was consistent with enhanced biofilm formation associated with the SlyA over-producing strain

A sparse covarying unit that describes healthy and impaired human gut microbiota development

Characterizing the organization of the human gut microbiota is a formidable challenge given the number of possible interactions between its components. Using a statistical approach initially applied to financial markets, we measured temporally conserved covariance among bacterial taxa in the microbiota of healthy members of a Bangladeshi birth cohort sampled from 1 to 60 months of age. The results revealed an ecogroup of 15 covarying bacterial taxa that provide a concise description of microbiota development in healthy children from this and other low-income countries, and a means for monitoring community repair in undernourished children treated with therapeutic foods. Features of ecogroup population dynamics were recapitulated in gnotobiotic piglets as they transitioned from exclusive milk feeding to a fully weaned state consuming a representative Bangladeshi diet