Advocacy coalitions, beliefs and climate change policy in the United States

The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) asserts that disagreement over policy core beliefs divides organizations into competing coalitions. We apply Discourse Network Analysis to 1,410 statements in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and USA Today to investigate what kinds of beliefs contribute to coalition formation in the climate change policy debate in the news media in the United States. We find that the beliefs concerning the reality of anthropogenic climate change, the importance of ecology over economy and desirability of governmental regulation divide organizations into three advocacy coalitions: the economy, ecology and science coalitions. Policy preferences such as cap and trade do not; they find support across coalition lines. Based on these findings, we suggest that ACF theory could be clarified to better account for how beliefs concerning policy instruments contribute to coalition formation. In some policy domains, policy instruments are where opposing coalitions find agreement. In others, they are more divisive.Peer reviewe

International organizations, advocacy coalitions, and domestication of global norms : Debates on climate change in Canada, the US, Brazil, and India

National climate policies are shaped by international organizations (IOs) and global norms. Drawing from World Society Theory and the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), we develop two related arguments: (1) one way in which IOs can influence national climate policy is through their engagement in mass-mediated national policy debates and (2) national organizations involved in the policy process may form advocacy coalitions to support or oppose the norms promoted by IOs. To examine the role of IOs in national policy debates and the coalitions that support and oppose them, we use discourse network analysis (DNA) on over 3500 statements in 11 newspapers in Canada, the United States (US), Brazil, and India. We find that in the high-income countries that are high per capita emitters (Canada and the US), IOs are less central in the policy debates and the discourse network is strongly clustered into competing advocacy coalitions. In the lower-income countries that are low per capita emitters (Brazil and India), IOs are more central and the discourse network is less clustered. Relating these findings to earlier research, we suggest that the differences we find between high and low per capita emitters may be to some extent generalizable to the relevant country groups beyond our four cases.Peer reviewe

Assessing biodiversity using forest structure indicators based on airborne laser scanning data

The role of forests in biodiversity assessment and planning is substantial as these ecosystems support approximately 80% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity. Forests provide food, shelter, and nesting environments for numerous species, and deliver multiple ecosystem services. It has been widely recognised that forest vegetation structure and its complexity influence local variations in biodiversity. As forests are facing threats globally caused by human activities, there is a need to map the biodiversity of these ecosystems. The main objective of this review was to summarise the use of airborne laser scanning (ALS) data in biodiversity-related assessment of forests. We draw attention to topics related to animal ecology, structural diversity, dead wood, fragmentation and forest habitat classification. After conducting a thorough literature search, we categorised scientific articles based on their topics, which served as the basis for the section division in this paper. The majority of the research was found to be conducted in Europe and North America, only a small fraction of the study areas was located elsewhere. Topics that have received the most attention were related to animal ecology (namely richness and diversity of forest fauna), assessment of dead trees and tree species diversity measures. Not all studies used ALS data only, as it were often fused with other remote sensing data – especially with aerial or satellite images. The fusion of spectral information from optical images and the structural information provided by ALS was highly advantageous in studies where tree species were considered. Relevant ALS variables were found to be case-specific, so variables varied widely between forest biodiversity studies. We found that there was a lack of research in geographical areas and forest types other than temperate and boreal forests. Also, topics that considered functional diversity, community composition and the effect of spatial resolution at which ALS data and field information are linked, were covered to much lesser extent

Mapping large European aspen (Populus tremula L.) in Finland using airborne lidar and image data

European aspen is a keystone species in boreal forests, which support numerous ecologically important and endangered species. As detection of those species by remote sensing is impossible, we instead investigated the detection of large aspen trees using airborne laser scanning and aerial image data. However, this is a challenge due to their low quantity and scattered occurrence. The performance was assessed with representative and unrepresentative (where aspens were over-represented) samples of the population. First, we detected individual trees and then the random forest (RF) classifier was used to identify large aspens. The RF classification was implemented with and without synthetic minority oversampling technique (SMOTE) to balance the training data due to the rarity of large aspens. At the tree-level, the best F1-score (0.44) was obtained when the unrepresentative plot data were used with SMOTE. However, the F1-score decreased to 0.21 when the representative data were used. The best plot-level (plots with at least one aspen tree) F1-score with the representative plot data was 0.41. We conclude that although data augmentation may improve the result, it is difficult to detect large aspen trees in genuine populations

Up with ecology, down with economy? : The consolidation of the idea of climate change mitigation in the global public sphere

Building on theories of valuation and evaluation, we develop an analytical framework that outlines six elements of the process of consolidation of an idea in the public sphere. We then use the framework to analyse the process of consolidation of the idea of climate change mitigation between 1997 and 2013, focusing on the interplay between ecological and economic evaluations. Our content analysis of 1274 articles in leading newspapers in five countries around the globe shows that (1) ecological arguments increase over time, (2) economic arguments decrease over time, (3) the visibility of environmental nongovernmental organizations as carriers of ecological ideas increases over time, (4) the visibility of business actors correspondingly decreases, (5) ecological ideas are increasingly adopted by political and business elites and (6) a compromise emerges between ecological and economic evaluations, in the form of the argument that climate change mitigation boosts, rather than hinders economic growth.Peer reviewe

Pistiäisallergian siedätyshoito on turvallista ja tehokasta

• Ampiainen aiheuttaa Suomessa suurimman osan pistiäisen pistoihin liittyvistä anafylaksioista. • Diagnostiikka on tärkeää sekä pistiäisen tunnistamiseksi että herkistymisen osoittamiseksi. • Allergian osoittamiseen käytetään immunoglobuliini E -luokan vasta-aineita ampiaisen ja mehiläisen myrkylle sekä niiden allergeenikomponenteille. • Kaikilta yleisreaktion saaneilta tutkitaan seerumin tryptaasin perustaso mastosytoosin poissulkemiseksi. • Siedätyshoitoa suositellaan niille, jotka ovat saaneet piston yhteydessä yleistyneen allergisen reaktion.</p

Induction of CD73 prevents death after emergency open aortic surgery for a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm : a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study

Mortality remains high after emergency open surgery for a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm (RAAA). The aim of the present study was to assess, if intravenous (IV) Interferon (IFN) beta-1a improve survival after surgery by up-regulating Cluster of differentiation (CD73). This is a multi-center phase II double-blind, 2:1 randomized, parallel group comparison of the efficacy and safety of IV IFN beta-1a vs. placebo for the prevention of death after open surgery for an infra-renal RAAA. All study patients presented a confirmed infra-renal RAAA, survived the primary emergency surgery and were treated with IFN beta-1a (10 mu g) or matching placebo for 6 days after surgery. Major exclusion criteria included fatal hemorrhagic shock, chronic renal replacement therapy, diagnosed liver cirrhosis, severe congestive heart failure, advanced malignant disease, primary attempt of endovascular aortic repair (EVAR), and per-operative suprarenal clamping over 30 min. Main outcome measure was all-cause mortality at day 30 (D30) from initial emergency aortic reconstruction. The study was pre-maturely stopped due to a reported drug-drug interaction and was left under-powered. Out of 40 randomized patients 38 were included in the outcome analyses (27 IFN beta-1a and 11 placebo). There was no statistically significant difference between treatment groups at baseline except more open-abdomen and intestinal ischemia was present in the IFN beta-1a arm. D30 all-cause mortality was 22.2% (6/27) in the IFN beta-1a arm and 18.2% (2/11) in the placebo arm (OR 1.30; 95% CI 0.21-8.19). The most common adverse event relating to the IFN beta-1a was pyrexia (20.7% in the IFN beta-1a arm vs. 9.1% in the placebo arm). Patients with high level of serum CD73 associated with survival (P = 0.001) whereas the use of glucocorticoids and the presence of IFN beta-1a neutralizing antibodies associated with a poor CD73 response and survival. The initial aim of the trial, if postoperative INF beta-1a treatment results on better RAAA survival, could not be demonstrated. Nonetheless the anticipated target mechanism up-regulation of CD73 was associated with 100% survival. According to present results the INF beta-1a induced up-regulation of serum CD73 was blocked with both use of glucocorticoids and serum IFN beta-1a neutralizing antibodies. The study was pre-maturely stopped due to interim analysis after a study concerning the use if IV IFN beta-1a in ARDS suggested that the concomitant use of glucocorticoids and IFN beta-1a block the CD73 induction.Peer reviewe

Pistiäisallergian siedätyshoito on turvallista ja tehokasta

VertaisarvioituAmpiainen aiheuttaa Suomessa suurimman osan pistiäisen pistoihin liittyvistä anafylaksioista. Diagnostiikka on tärkeää sekä pistiäisen tunnistamiseksi että herkistymisen osoittamiseksi. Allergian osoittamiseen käytetään immunoglobuliini E -luokan vasta-aineita ampiaisen ja mehiläisen myrkylle sekä niiden allergeenikomponenteille. Kaikilta yleisreaktion saaneilta tutkitaan seerumin tryptaasin perustaso mastosytoosin poissulkemiseksi. Siedätyshoitoa suositellaan niille, jotka ovat saaneet piston yhteydessä yleistyneen allergisen reaktion.Peer reviewe