Extracellular ATP drives systemic inflammation, tissue damage and mortality

Systemic inflammatory response syndromes (SIRS) may be caused by both infectious and sterile insults, such as trauma, ischemia-reperfusion or burns. They are characterized by early excessive inflammatory cytokine production and the endogenous release of several toxic and damaging molecules. These are necessary to fight and resolve the cause of SIRS, but often end up progressively damaging cells and tissues, leading to life-threatening multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS). As inflammasome-dependent cytokines such as interleukin-1 beta are critically involved in the development of MODS and death in SIRS, and ATP is an essential activator of inflammasomes in vitro, we decided to analyze the ability of ATP removal to prevent excessive tissue damage and mortality in a murine LPS-induced inflammation model. Our results indeed indicate an important pro-inflammatory role for extracellular ATP. However, the effect of ATP is not restricted to inflammasome activation at all. Removing extracellular ATP with systemic apyrase treatment not only prevented IL-1 beta accumulation but also the production of inflammasome-independent cytokines such as TNF and IL-10. In addition, ATP removal also prevented systemic evidence of cellular disintegration, mitochondrial damage, apoptosis, intestinal barrier disruption and even mortality. Although blocking ATP receptors with the broad-spectrum P2 purinergic receptor antagonist suramin imitated certain beneficial effects of apyrase treatment, it could not prevent morbidity or mortality at all. We conclude that removal of systemic extracellular ATP could be a valuable strategy to dampen systemic inflammatory damage and toxicity in SIRS

Stakeholders perception of attitudes towards major landscape changes held by the public: the case of greenhouse clusters in Flanders

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A Different Perspective on Garden Grabbing: Mapping the Adaptive Capacity of Home Food Production

Current trends in urban development strive for the densification of existing urban areas. This densification can be operationalized by the decrease and intake of domestic garden area. Yet, such densification projects may result in potential losses with regards to the support of ecosystem services and the safeguarding of urban adaptive capacity. The manifold of multifunctional garden spaces present worldwide offers for example interesting perspectives for food provisioning. By developing a theoretical model to capture, quantify and interrelate the most relevant variables and constraints of potential food production in domestic gardens, insight is gained in the food production potential of domestic gardens. Also the influence of utility on the household's decision on how much space and time to devote to food production was incorporated. The model development was fostered by quantitative and qualitative data collection for the case study Flanders. These data allowed to gain insights in the current food production and potential for food production in Flemish domestic gardens. Such insights allow the exploration of spatial and temporal constraints of individual domestic gardens for food production. This contributes to a better understanding of the adaptive capacity of garden space interwoven within the urban fabric. As such, the qualities and potentials enclosed within the existing garden area can be put next to the benefits of building these areas. Moreover, insights are gained in points of attention when private garden areas would be addressed for food provisioning

Governance of planning processes in peri-urban landscapes : a comparison of three 'good examples'

In metropolitan areas are experiencing an increasing competition for land. Besides urbanisation, this competition is due to new societal expectations of the countryside such as space for housing, commercial activities, nature and recreational areas. As a consequence, rural spatial planning processes must attempt to balance the expectations and goals of a variety of stakeholders. Developing a well-balanced, fair and participatory rural planning process appears to be difficult. Previous research has shown that spatial planning processes often lead to resentment among the involved actors and the implementation of the planning goals often lags behind. The objective of our research is to get a better grasp of these decentralised, participatory planning processes. By getting insight into the success and failure-factors of past planning processes we hope to formulate policy guidelines for the governance of rural planning processes. Within this research, we focus on cases in which the stakeholders were satisfied with the course of the planning process. Furthermore we focus on cases in which agricultural land is lost at the expense of other functions. In the highly urbanized region of Flanders, agricultural land is vulnerable and under a continuous pressure. Within our cases we therefore focus on planning processes in which agricultural land is taken over by other functions (e.g. nature or industrial developments). Insight in the governance of such planning processes should provide guidance to policymakers and practitioners in Flanders and other countries with similar planning challenges. With this contribution we want to present the results of a first case in which agricultural land is lost in order to build a new motor-way. The majority of the involved actors indicated that they had a positive perception on the process and its outcomes. By making a qualitative analysis of a series of in-depth interviews we were able to define success factors for rural planning that exceed the particularities of the case-study

Social justice-oriented narratives in European urban food strategies : bringing forward redistribution, recognition and representation

More and more cities develop urban food strategies (UFSs) to guide their efforts and practices towards more sustainable food systems. An emerging theme shaping these food policy endeavours, especially prominent in North and South America, concerns the enhancement of social justice within food systems. To operationalise this theme in a European urban food governance context we adopt Nancy Fraser's three-dimensional theory of justice: economic redistribution, cultural recognition and political representation. In this paper, we discuss the findings of an exploratory document analysis of the social justice-oriented ambitions, motivations, current practices and policy trajectories articulated in sixteen European UFSs. We reflect on the food-related resource allocations, value patterns and decision rules these cities propose to alter and the target groups they propose to support, empower or include. Overall, we find that UFSs make little explicit reference to social justice and justice-oriented food concepts, such as food security, food justice, food democracy and food sovereignty. Nevertheless, the identified resources, services and target groups indicate that the three dimensions of Fraser are at the heart of many of the measures described. We argue that implicit, fragmentary and unspecified adoption of social justice in European UFSs is problematic, as it may hold back public consciousness, debate and collective action regarding food system inequalities and may be easily disregarded in policy budgeting, implementation and evaluation trajectories. As a path forward, we present our plans for the RE-ADJUSTool that would enable UFS stakeholders to reflect on how their UFS can incorporate social justice and who to involve in this pursuit

An Analytical Framework to Study Multi-Actor Partnerships Engaged in Interactive Innovation Processes in the Agriculture, Forestry, and Rural Development Sector

Communities of practice (CoPs) interact with a range of external stakeholders who collectively influence the direction of the community and the achievement of its goals. In the case of multi-actor co-innovation partnerships, which are perceived as a type of combination between a community of practice and innovation network in this paper, internal and external interactions consequently influence the ability of these partnerships to co-innovate. The aim of this contribution is to develop an analytical framework to understand the factors and processes that enable or hinder interactions, both within and external to multi-actor co-innovation partnerships. The analytical framework was built around interactions with funding mechanisms, external stakeholders, the context/environment, and societal challenges, along with interactions within the partnership. Each of these five interactions is influenced by structures and capacity, along with how these combine to overcome the challenges faced by the partnership. For this study, 30 case study multi-actor co-innovation partnerships from across Europe were selected and analysed according to the framework. The results show that interactions with funding bodies can lead to partnerships adapting to what they perceive to be the goals of the funding body, and sometimes to the overpromising of expected outputs in an effort to win scarce funding. The reflection of societal needs in the goals of funding bodies could thereby capitalize on the motivations and aspirations of partnerships to combine socio-economic and environmental benefits at both individual and societal levels. Factors that enable partnerships to achieve their own goals are commonly based around the inclusion or recruitment of experienced partners with existing networks, in which the partnership may be embedded, that can facilitate internal collaboration and navigate the external environments, such as political structures and market condition

Inverted orbital polarization in strained correlated oxide films

Manipulating the orbital occupation of valence electrons via epitaxial strain in an effort to induce new functional properties requires considerations of how changes in the local bonding environment affect the band structure at the Fermi level. Using synchrotron radiation to measure the x-ray linear dichroism of epitaxially strained films of the correlated oxide CaFeO3, we demonstrate that the orbital polarization of the Fe valence electrons is opposite from conventional understanding. Although the energetic ordering of the Fe 3d orbitals is confirmed by multiplet ligand field theory analysis to be consistent with previously reported strain-induced behavior, we find that the nominally higher energy orbital is more populated than the lower. We ascribe this inverted orbital polarization to an anisotropic bandwidth response to strain in a compound with nearly filled bands. These findings provide an important counterexample to the traditional understanding of strain-induced orbital polarization and reveal a new method to engineer otherwise unachievable orbital occupations in correlated oxides