Models in evolutionary economics and environmental policy: Towards an evolutionary environmental economics

In this paper we review evolutionary economic modelling in relation to environmental policy. We discuss three areas in which evolutionary economic models have a particularly high added value for environmental policy-making: the double externality problem, technological transitions and consumer demand. We explore the possibilities to apply evolutionary economic models in environmental policy assessment, including the opportunities for making policy-making endogenous to environmental innovation. We end with a critical discussion of the challenges that remain.

Vortices in the SU(2)-Higgs model -- Vortices and the covariant adjoint Laplacian

Vortices in the SU(2)--Higgs model: The presence of a fundamental Higgs in the SU(N)-Higgs model yields color screening at some finite distance. Whereas the transition to the Higgs "phase" is accompanied by a suppression of projected center vortices, there is nearly no influence of color screening on the vortex properties in the confined "phase". Hence the behavior of the Wilson loop can be described in both phases within the vortex picture of confinement. Vortices and the covariant adjoint Laplacian: Laplacian center gauge is a method to localize center vortices in SU(N) gauge theory. We show that the eigenvectors of the covariant adjoint Laplacian identify vortices for a special class of gauge field configurations. However, for Monte Carlo generated configurations, modified approaches are required.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures; Lattice2001(confinement

Waarom de energietransitie van de woningsector niet opschiet

De woningsector kent een grote milieudruk. Dit geldt in het bijzonder voor energieverbruik en daarmee de uitstoot van broeikasgasemissies. Juist omdat de milieudruk van deze sector zo groot is, bestaat er veel ruimte voor verduurzaming. Niettemin zijn er veel obstakels die vooruitgang op dit gebied hinderen. In dit artikel richten wij ons specifiek op de identificatie van deze barrieres en de wijze waarop zij energetische verduurzaming in de woningsector bemoeilijken. Wij analyseren de barrieres vanuit een co-evolutionair analytisch raamwerk, en nemen daarmee zowel de bestaande woningvoorraad als nieuwbouw van woningen in ogenschouw

Conclave: secure multi-party computation on big data (extended TR)

Secure Multi-Party Computation (MPC) allows mutually distrusting parties to run joint computations without revealing private data. Current MPC algorithms scale poorly with data size, which makes MPC on "big data" prohibitively slow and inhibits its practical use. Many relational analytics queries can maintain MPC's end-to-end security guarantee without using cryptographic MPC techniques for all operations. Conclave is a query compiler that accelerates such queries by transforming them into a combination of data-parallel, local cleartext processing and small MPC steps. When parties trust others with specific subsets of the data, Conclave applies new hybrid MPC-cleartext protocols to run additional steps outside of MPC and improve scalability further. Our Conclave prototype generates code for cleartext processing in Python and Spark, and for secure MPC using the Sharemind and Obliv-C frameworks. Conclave scales to data sets between three and six orders of magnitude larger than state-of-the-art MPC frameworks support on their own. Thanks to its hybrid protocols, Conclave also substantially outperforms SMCQL, the most similar existing system.Comment: Extended technical report for EuroSys 2019 pape

Semi-analytic modeling of the EBL and consequences for extragalactic gamma-ray spectra

Attenuation of high-energy gamma rays by pair-production with UV, optical and IR extragalactic background light (EBL) photons provides a link between the history of galaxy formation and high-energy astrophysics. We present results from our latest semi-analytic models (SAMs), which employ the main ingredients thought to be important to galaxy formation and evolution, as well as an improved model for reprocessing of starlight by dust to mid- and far-IR wavelengths. These SAMs are based upon a Lambda-CDM hierarchical structural formation scenario, and are successful in reproducing a large variety of observational constraints such as number counts, luminosity and mass functions, and color bimodality. Our fiducial model is based upon a WMAP5 cosmology, and treats dust emission using empirical templates. This model predicts a background flux considerably lower than optical and near-IR measurements that rely on subtraction of zodiacal and galactic foregrounds, and near the lower bounds set by number counts of resolvable sources at a large number of wavelengths. We also show the results of varying cosmological parameters and dust attenuation model used in our SAM. For each EBL prediction, we show how the optical depth due to electron-positron pair-production is affected by redshift and gamma-ray energy, and the effect of gamma-ray absorption on the spectra of a variety of extragalactic sources. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our work, comparisons to other models and key measurements of the EBL and a discussion of how the burgeoning science of gamma-ray astronomy will continue to help constrain cosmology. The low EBL flux predicted by our fiducial model suggests an optimistic future for further studies of distant gamma-ray sources.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables, accepted by MNRAS; this preprint matches accepted versio

Political innovation as ideal and strategy: the case of aleatoric democracy in the City of Utrecht

Political innovations aim to strengthen democracy but few connect well to the institutionalized democratic context. This paper explores how political innovations can be successfully embedded in existing democratic systems. It builds upon both the literature on political innovation and on new democratic arrangements and studies a practice of aleatoric democracy – using the lottery instead of elections to select representatives – in the Dutch City of Utrecht. The case study shows how the idealist logic of improving democracy and the realist logic of realizing specific political goals intertwine to get the political innovation accepted by the institutionalized democratic system

Hypoxia induces a glycolytic complex in intestinal epithelial cells independent of HIF-1-driven glycolytic gene expression

The metabolic adaptation of eukaryotic cells to hypoxia involves increasing dependence upon glycolytic adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production, an event with consequences for cellular bioenergetics and cell fate. This response is regulated at the transcriptional level by the hypoxia-inducible factor-1(HIF-1)-dependent transcriptional upregulation of glycolytic enzymes (GEs) and glucose transporters. However, this transcriptional upregulation alone is unlikely to account fully for the levels of glycolytic ATP produced during hypoxia. Here, we investigated additional mechanisms regulating glycolysis in hypoxia. We observed that intestinal epithelial cells treated with inhibitors of transcription or translation and human platelets (which lack nuclei and the capacity for canonical transcriptional activity) maintained the capacity for hypoxia-induced glycolysis, a finding which suggests the involvement of a nontranscriptional component to the hypoxia-induced metabolic switch to a highly glycolytic phenotype. In our investigations into potential nontranscriptional mechanisms for glycolytic induction, we identified a hypoxia-sensitive formation of complexes comprising GEs and glucose transporters in intestinal epithelial cells. Surprisingly, the formation of such glycolytic complexes occurs independent of HIF-1-driven transcription. Finally, we provide evidence for the presence of HIF-1α in cytosolic fractions of hypoxic cells which physically interacts with the glucose transporter GLUT1 and the GEs in a hypoxia-sensitive manner. In conclusion, we provide insights into the nontranscriptional regulation of hypoxia-induced glycolysis in intestinal epithelial cells.</p

Farnesoid X receptor and bile acids regulate vitamin A storage

The nuclear receptor Farnesoid X Receptor (FXR) is activated by bile acids and controls multiple metabolic processes, including bile acid, lipid, carbohydrate, amino acid and energy metabolism. Vitamin A is needed for proper metabolic and immune control and requires bile acids for efficient intestinal absorption and storage in the liver. Here, we analyzed whether FXR regulates vitamin A metabolism. Compared to control animals, FXR-null mice showed strongly reduced (>90%) hepatic levels of retinol and retinyl palmitate and a significant reduction in lecithin retinol acyltransferase (LRAT), the enzyme responsible for hepatic vitamin A storage. Hepatic reintroduction of FXR in FXR-null mice induced vitamin A storage in the liver. Hepatic vitamin A levels were normal in intestine-specific FXR-null mice. Obeticholic acid (OCA, 3 weeks) treatment rapidly reduced (>60%) hepatic retinyl palmitate levels in mice, concurrent with strongly increased retinol levels (>5-fold). Similar, but milder effects were observed in cholic acid (12 weeks)-treated mice. OCA did not change hepatic LRAT protein levels, but strongly reduced all enzymes involved in hepatic retinyl ester hydrolysis, involving mostly post-transcriptional mechanisms. In conclusion, vitamin A metabolism in the mouse liver heavily depends on the FXR and FXR-targeted therapies may be prone to cause vitamin A-related pathologies

The rat androgen receptor gene promoter

The androgen receptor (AR) is activated upon binding of testosterone or dihydrotestosterone and exerts regulatory effects on gene expression in androgen target cells. To study transcriptional regulation of the rat AR gene itself, the 5' genomic region of this gene was cloned from a genomic library and the promoter was identified. S1-nuclease protection analysis showed two major transcription start sites, located between 1010 and 1023 bp upstream from the translation initiation codon. The area surrounding these start sites was cloned in both orientations in a CAT reporter plasmid. Upon transfection of the constructs into COS cells, part of the promoter stimulated transcription in an orientation-independent manner, but the full promoter showed a higher and unidirectional activity. In the promoter/reporter gene constructs, transcription initiated from the same positions as in the native gene. Sequence analysis showed that the promoter of the rat AR gene lacks typical TATA and CCAAT box elements, but one SP1 site is located at about 60 bp upstream from the major start site of transcription. Other possible promoter elements are TGTYCT sequences at positions -174 to -179, -434 to -439., -466 to -471, and -500 to -505, resembling half-sites of the glucocorticoid-responsive element (GRE). Furthermore, a homopurine stretch containing a total of 8 GGGGA elements and similar to sequences that are present in several other GC-rich promoters, is located between -89 and -146 bp upstream from the major start site of transcriptio

The androgen receptor: Functional structure and expression in transplanted human prostate tumors and prostate tumor cell lines

Abstract The growth of the majority of prostate tumors is androgen-dependent, for which the presence of a functional androgen receptor is a prerequisite. Tumor growth can be inhibited by blockade of androgen receptor action. However, this inhibition is transient. To study the role of the androgen receptor in androgen-dependent and androgen-independent prostate tumor cell growth, androgen receptor mRNA expression was monitored in six different human prostate tumor cell lines and tumors, which were grown either in vitro or by transplantation on (male) nude mice. Androgen receptor mRNA was clearly detectable in three androgen-dependent (sensitive) tumors and absent or low in three androgen-independent tumors. Growth of the LNCaP prostate tumor cell line can be stimulated both by androgens and by fetal calf serum. In the former situation androgen receptor mRNA expression is downregulated, whereas in the latter no effect on androgen receptor mRNA levels can be demonstrated. Sequence analysis showed that the androgen receptor gene from LNCaP cells contains a point mutation in the region encoding the steroid-binding domain, which confers an ACT coVon encoding a threonine residue to GCT, encoding alanine