Global sustainable city-regions: Stockholm, Berlin, Kolkata, Abu Dhabi/Masdar, Bengaluru, Malawi, Belfast, Hong Kong, Seoul, Helsinki, & Scotland

This policy report, entitled ‘Global Sustainable City-Regions,’ covers the work developed by the lecturer, Dr Igor Calzada, MBA, FeRSA, as the editor of the publica- tion and students of the second edition of the Master course MSc in Leadership for Global Sustainable Cities from September to December 2016. Specifically, this policy report follows a two-sequential-module structure: • The first module, entitled ‘Global Cities: Sustainability and Society,’ consists of six methodological units. • Thereafter, the second module, entitled ‘Public Policy, Governance and Strategic Change in Cities,’ consists of five methodological units. The policy report focuses on three urban global issues in a comparative basis. The MSc was developed in a team-based dynamic by applying qualitative action research methodologies to understand and interpret each case and to benchmark and contrast with other cases that addressed the same global urban issue. The cases were selected jointly by the lecturer and the students in a dynamic process in order to achieve a suitable selection of cases that would allow them to: • arrange groups around one specific global urban issue, • compare cases around the same specific urban issue, and • produce a full case study by applying the two-sequential-module methodology. • Transformative Smart Cities: In recent years, the smart city paradigm has gained traction in urban policy and governance. Underlying the smart city discourse is the techno-utopian belief that the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is imperative to confront the challenges of urbanization and sustainable development. Although, little has been researched about the differences between this paradigm and its consequences in the Global South and in the Global North. In addition to this, since the smart city as a buzzword has conquered policy agendas worldwide, a transformational push is occurring in some innovative cities and regions worldwide. This urban issue called ‘Transformative Smart Cities’ is explained comparatively through five cases as follows: Stockholm, Kolkata, Masdar, Bengaluru, and Seoul. • Changing Social Innovation: Urban issues are usually complex and interconnected phenomena. Poverty, political conflicts, environmental awareness, mobility and transport mechanisms, geopolitical path-dependence, ethno-political unrest, digital connectivity and self-determination could be researched from the social innovation changing perspective. The capacity to think across and between as well as within the thematic factors is crucial. Likewise, a clear understanding of the way in which different disciplines can contribute to a step change in delivery against these changing challenges is therefore required. Ultimately, an awareness of the underlying factors and contexts (including social, political, economic, cultural, technological and historial), interdependencies, synergies, tensions and trade-offs that promote, obstruct or even reverse delivery against social innovation, both individually and collectively are key to understand changing dynamics in city-regions. This urban issue called ‘Changing Social Innovation’ is explained comparatively through six cases as follows: Berlin, Belfast, Malawi, Hong Kong, Helsinki, and Glasgow

Global sustainable city-regions: Stockholm, Berlin, Kolkata, Abu Dhabi/Masdar, Bengaluru, Malawi, Belfast, Hong Kong, Seoul, Helsinki, & Scotland

This policy report, entitled ‘Global Sustainable City-Regions,’ covers the work developed by the lecturer, Dr Igor Calzada, MBA, FeRSA, as the editor of the publica- tion and students of the second edition of the Master course MSc in Leadership for Global Sustainable Cities from September to December 2016. Specifically, this policy report follows a two-sequential-module structure: • The first module, entitled ‘Global Cities: Sustainability and Society,’ consists of six methodological units. • Thereafter, the second module, entitled ‘Public Policy, Governance and Strategic Change in Cities,’ consists of five methodological units. The policy report focuses on three urban global issues in a comparative basis. The MSc was developed in a team-based dynamic by applying qualitative action research methodologies to understand and interpret each case and to benchmark and contrast with other cases that addressed the same global urban issue. The cases were selected jointly by the lecturer and the students in a dynamic process in order to achieve a suitable selection of cases that would allow them to: • arrange groups around one specific global urban issue, • compare cases around the same specific urban issue, and • produce a full case study by applying the two-sequential-module methodology. • Transformative Smart Cities: In recent years, the smart city paradigm has gained traction in urban policy and governance. Underlying the smart city discourse is the techno-utopian belief that the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is imperative to confront the challenges of urbanization and sustainable development. Although, little has been researched about the differences between this paradigm and its consequences in the Global South and in the Global North. In addition to this, since the smart city as a buzzword has conquered policy agendas worldwide, a transformational push is occurring in some innovative cities and regions worldwide. This urban issue called ‘Transformative Smart Cities’ is explained comparatively through five cases as follows: Stockholm, Kolkata, Masdar, Bengaluru, and Seoul. • Changing Social Innovation: Urban issues are usually complex and interconnected phenomena. Poverty, political conflicts, environmental awareness, mobility and transport mechanisms, geopolitical path-dependence, ethno-political unrest, digital connectivity and self-determination could be researched from the social innovation changing perspective. The capacity to think across and between as well as within the thematic factors is crucial. Likewise, a clear understanding of the way in which different disciplines can contribute to a step change in delivery against these changing challenges is therefore required. Ultimately, an awareness of the underlying factors and contexts (including social, political, economic, cultural, technological and historial), interdependencies, synergies, tensions and trade-offs that promote, obstruct or even reverse delivery against social innovation, both individually and collectively are key to understand changing dynamics in city-regions. This urban issue called ‘Changing Social Innovation’ is explained comparatively through six cases as follows: Berlin, Belfast, Malawi, Hong Kong, Helsinki, and Glasgow

Hominin reactions to herbivore distribution in the Lower Palaeolithic of the Southern Levant

We explore the relationship between the edaphic potential of soils and the mineral properties of the underlying geology as a means of mapping the differential productivity of different areas of the Pleistocene landscape for large herbivores. These factors strongly control the health of grazing animals irrespective of the particular types of vegetation growing on them, but they have generally been neglected in palaeoanthropological studies in favour of a more general emphasis on water and vegetation, which provide an incomplete picture. Taking the Carmel-Galilee-Golan region as an example, we show how an understanding of edaphic potential provides insight into how animals might have exploited the environment. In order to simplify the analysis, we concentrate on the Lower Palaeolithic period and the very large animals that dominate the archaeofaunal assemblages of this period. Topography and the ability of soils to retain water also contribute to the differential productivity and accessibility of different regions and to patterns of seasonal movements of the animals, which are essential to ensure a supply of healthy fodder throughout the year, especially for large animals such as elephants, which require substantial regions of good grazing and browsing. Other animals migrating in groups have similar needs. The complex topography of the Southern Levant with frequent sudden and severe changes in gradient, and a wide variety of landforms including rocky outcrops, cliffs, gorges, and ridges, places major limits on these patterns of seasonal movements. We develop methods of mapping these variables, based on the geology and our substantial field experience, in order to create a framework of landscape variation that can be compared with the locations and contents of archaeological sites to suggest ways in which early hominins used the variable features of the landscape to target animal prey, and we extend the analysis to the consideration of smaller mammals that were exploited more intensively after the disappearance of the elephants. We consider some of the ways in which this regional-scale approach can be further tested and refined, and advocate the development of such studies as an essential contribution to understanding the wider pattern of hominin dispersal

Expression of P. falciparum var Genes Involves Exchange of the Histone Variant H2A.Z at the Promoter

Plasmodium falciparum employs antigenic variation to evade the human immune response by switching the expression of different variant surface antigens encoded by the var gene family. Epigenetic mechanisms including histone modifications and sub-nuclear compartmentalization contribute to transcriptional regulation in the malaria parasite, in particular to control antigenic variation. Another mechanism of epigenetic control is the exchange of canonical histones with alternative variants to generate functionally specialized chromatin domains. Here we demonstrate that the alternative histone PfH2A.Z is associated with the epigenetic regulation of var genes. In many eukaryotic organisms the histone variant H2A.Z mediates an open chromatin structure at promoters and facilitates diverse levels of regulation, including transcriptional activation. Throughout the asexual, intraerythrocytic lifecycle of P. falciparum we found that the P. falciparum ortholog of H2A.Z (PfH2A.Z) colocalizes with histone modifications that are characteristic of transcriptionally-permissive euchromatin, but not with markers of heterochromatin. Consistent with this finding, antibodies to PfH2A.Z co-precipitate the permissive modification H3K4me3. By chromatin-immunoprecipitation we show that PfH2A.Z is enriched in nucleosomes around the transcription start site (TSS) in both transcriptionally active and silent stage-specific genes. In var genes, however, PfH2A.Z is enriched at the TSS only during active transcription in ring stage parasites. Thus, in contrast to other genes, temporal var gene regulation involves histone variant exchange at promoter nucleosomes. Sir2 histone deacetylases are important for var gene silencing and their yeast ortholog antagonises H2A.Z function in subtelomeric yeast genes. In immature P. falciparum parasites lacking Sir2A or Sir2B high var transcription levels correlate with enrichment of PfH2A.Z at the TSS. As Sir2A knock out parasites mature the var genes are silenced, but PfH2A.Z remains enriched at the TSS of var genes; in contrast, PfH2A.Z is lost from the TSS of de-repressed var genes in mature Sir2B knock out parasites. This result indicates that PfH2A.Z occupancy at the active var promoter is antagonized by PfSir2A during the intraerythrocytic life cycle. We conclude that PfH2A.Z contributes to the nucleosome architecture at promoters and is regulated dynamically in active var genes

Mitochondrial Associated Ubiquitin Fold Modifier-1 Mediated Protein Conjugation in Leishmania donovani

In this report, we demonstrate the existence of the ubiquitin fold modifier-1 (Ufm1) and its conjugation pathway in trypanosomatid parasite Leishmania donovani. LdUfm1 is activated by E1-like enzyme LdUba5. LdUfc1 (E2) specifically interacted with LdUfm1 and LdUba5 to conjugate LdUfm1 to proteinaceous targets. Mass spectrometry analysis revealed that LdUfm1 is conjugated to Leishmania protein targets that are associated with mitochondria. Immunofluorescence experiments showed that Leishmania Ufm1, Uba5 and Ufc1 are associated with the mitochondria. The demonstration that all the components of this system as well as the substrates are associated with mitochondrion suggests it may have physiological roles not yet described in any other organism. Overexpression of a non-conjugatable form of LdUfm1 and an active site mutant of LdUba5 resulted in reduced survival of Leishmania in the macrophage. Since mitochondrial activities are developmentally regulated in the life cycle of trypanosomatids, Ufm1 mediated modifications of mitochondrial proteins may be important in such regulation. Thus, Ufm1 conjugation pathway in Leishmania could be explored as a potential drug target in the control of Leishmaniasis