The holocene climatic history of the Circum-icelandic oceanic realms

One of the achievements of the IPY was to foster an unprecedented amount of research initiatives aiming at studying recent (Holocene) changes in ocean circulation and climate in the subarctic and arctic domains. Paleo-investigations offer invaluable information on natural environmental changes at decadal to millennial scale, as well as on the processes driving them. We hereby present some recent results based on proxy records from circum Icelandic areas

Pacific Islands in the face of sea level rise: some reflections from an international law perspective

Because they are at the frontline of climate change, Pacific islands’ governments and populations have early alerted on effects of sea level rise, a phenomenon that raises an urgent and existential threat in this part of the world. Among the legal questions emerging from that emergency, consequences on territorial integrity and sovereignty, State continuity, permanence of maritime limits and boundaries, as well as protection of human rights, are of crucial importance. Pacific islands’ representatives pushed for more awareness on those issues, and they are also actively participating to the construction of legal responses, particularly in the framework of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF). This article proposes an analysis of consequences of sea level rise from an international law perspective, focusing on Pacific States and territories. Effects of sea level rise being more present and documented in Oceania than in any other area in the world, a regional approach deserves specific attention and can usefully serve a general reflection on these challenges. The text thus aims to study impacts of sea level rise on territorial integrity and human rights at a regional scale, and to address more general prospects on development of international law.Por estar en primera línea del cambio climático, los gobiernos y las poblaciones de las islas del Pacífico han contribuido tempranamente a alertar sobre los efectos de la subida del nivel del mar, un fenómeno que plantea una amenaza urgente y existencial en esta parte del mundo. Entre las cuestiones jurídicas que se derivan de esa emergencia, son de crucial importancia las consecuencias sobre la integridad territorial y la soberanía, la continuidad de los Estados, la permanencia de los límites y las fronteras marítimas, así como la protección de los derechos humanos. Los representantes de las islas del Pacífico no sólo han puesto de relieve estas cuestiones, sino que también participan activamente en la elaboración de respuestas jurídicas, en particular en el marco del Foro de las Islas del Pacífico. Este artículo propone un análisis de las consecuencias de la subida del nivel del mar desde la perspectiva del derecho internacional, centrándose en los Estados y territorios del Pacífico. Dado que los efectos de la subida del nivel del mar están más presentes y documentados en Oceanía que en cualquier otra zona del mundo, un enfoque regional merece una atención específica y puede servir para una reflexión general sobre estas cuestiones. El texto pretende, pues, analizar los impactos de la subida del nivel del mar sobre la integridad territorial y los derechos humanos a escala regional, y abordar perspectivas más generales sobre el desarrollo del derecho internacional.

Interactive and Long-term Effects of Yolk Androgens and Antioxidants in Birds

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from OUP via the DOI in this recordPoster abstract - Annual Meeting of the Society-for-Integrative-and-Comparative-Biology (SICB), 4-8 January 2017, New Orleans, US

Physiological Correlates of Urbanization in a Desert Songbird

Rapid worldwide urbanization is creating novel environments to which animals must adapt, a topic of growing interest for biologists. Studies of how organisms are affected by cities historically centered on large-scale censusing of populations, but recent investigations have considered finer-scaled, urban-rural differences among individuals and species in their behavior, morphology, and physiology, specifically as they relate to urban stress. A number of factors (e.g., corticosterone (CORT)-related stress response) may contribute to the degree of stress experienced by animals living under urban versus natural conditions, but several physiological variables have yet to be considered together in a large-scale assessment. Here, in a widespread species of desert passerine (the house finch, Haemorhous mexicanus), we quantified variation in plasma oxidative stress, plasma concentrations of vitamins and carotenoids, and body-mass of males in three successive seasons (winter, spring, and late summer/early fall) along an urban-rural gradient in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. We found that degree of urbanization was: (1) negatively related to circulating vitamin A concentrations in winter, (2) positively correlated with body-mass during spring, and (3) negatively associated with plasma concentrations of two carotenoids: zeaxanthin (during breeding) and 3-hydroxy-echinenone (3HE) (during molting). The striking link between 3HE levels and urbanization is consistent with previous research showing that urban songbirds have lower carotenoid levels and faded plumage; our finding is the first to implicate specific effects on a metabolically derived carotenoid for coloration. The fact that we observed only season-specific links between urbanization and indicators of quality in finches suggests that (at least for these metrics) there are no strong, lasting urban pressures imposed on finch physiology over the year. Interestingly, we found that a metric of plasma oxidative stress (lipid peroxidation) was positively correlated with levels of two carotenoids (lutein during breeding and 3HE during molting), which is consistent with a prior study of ours showing that finches with redder plumage deposit higher levels of CORT in their feathers; taken together, our studies suggest complex associations between carotenoids and stres

Performativity, economics and politics: an overview

Presenting the theme of performativity in a journal named the Journal of Cultural Economy makes the role performativity plays in the economy a logical place to start and the debt to Michel Callon (1998) an obvious one to acknowledge. Callon’s idea was that ‘economics does not describe an existing external ‘‘economy’’, but brings that economy into being: economics performs the economy, creating the phenomena it describes’ (MacKenzie & Millo 2003, p. 108). This idea is now recognized by many authors as one of the major contributions to economic sociology (see, e.g., Barry & Slater 2002; Holm 2007; MacKenzie & Millo 2003; MacKenzie 2004, 2007) and has been accompanied by vivid debates across the social sciences about the actual influence of economics and economists over economic practices (e.g. Miller 2000; Callon 2005, 2007; Ferraro et al. 2005; Ghoshal 2005; MacKenzie et al. 2007 and more generally over society and political processes (see, e.g., Bazerman & Malhotra 2006; Fourcade 2001, 2006)

Diet, cancer, and the lipidome.

International audienceThe potential for dietary fat to interfere with the development of breast cancer by delaying its occurrence makes the identification of defined molecules a mandatory step in cancer prevention. In order to circumvent the limitations and/or bias of dietary exposure assessment tools, biomarkers of past lipid intake such as the fatty acid composition of white adipose tissue have been used. When considered separately, candidate fatty acids identified as favorable on the basis of their association with breast cancer risk have usually led to inconsistent results in animal intervention studies. This inconsistency indicates that any approach based on a single fatty acid should be abandoned for an integrated view over the complex lipid interactions which finally determines the lipidome, the lipid profile that is found in individuals. This article presents a reappraisal of the role of the lipid profile through a comprehensive reanalysis of adipose tissue fatty acid composition obtained in patients with benign or malignant breast tumors as well as in experimental animals during dietary interventions. Rather than a single fatty acid, a composite indicator combining elevated monounsaturates and low omega6/omega3 fatty acid ratio was associated with breast cancer protection. This lipidome may become the template for identifying breast cancer risk related to diet, and for designing proper dietary modifications to delay the occurrence of breast cancer, although the universality of the findings cannot be assessed from a single study

From digital drawing to dissemination of the collected data, reflections on the virtual creative process

[EN] The research presented here focuses on the understanding of the act of drawing not only as a means of restitution of the architectural survey but also considering the modernization of the representation techniques. This must be considered as a first step for the creation of virtual environments capable of offering advanced methodologies for the dissemination of the collected data. Expanding the techniques that can be referred to drawing will not only be a necessary process, and one that is already underway, but it will have to strengthen the intrinsic potential of representation. The aim is to communicate and record information with common codes facilitating reading and dissemination. Central to this is the use of drawing as a means of connection between different figures researching a topic. Drawing must be interpreted as the restitution and result of processes of elaboration and codification of the information collected with the survey, that leads us to the modeling and realization of exhaustive elaborations, containing the greatest amount of information useful for the dissemination of the existing architectural heritage and beyond. Its digital evolution, an opportunity to increase the potential and strength of the scientific dissemination of knowledge.This research has been developed as a personal subject by the authors, tools and software used for it are licensed or property of the Didalabs system, Dipartimento di Architettura, University of Florence. The authors would like to thank Professor Giorgio Verdiani for his valuable support, professor Alessandro Camiz and Tom Rankin for sharing their contents, research and experience.Ricci, Y.; Pasquali, A.; Giraudeau, S. (2021). From digital drawing to dissemination of the collected data, reflections on the virtual creative process. EGE Revista de Expresión Gráfica en la Edificación. 0(14):114-124. https://doi.org/10.4995/ege.2021.15650OJS114124014Addison, A.C. 2000. "Emerging trends in virtual heritage." IEEE multimedia, vol. 7(2), pp. 22-25. https://doi.org/10.1109/93.848421Baecker, R.M., Grudin, J., Buxton, W.A.S., Greenberg, S. 1995. Readings in Human-Computer Interaction: Toward the Year 2000, Second Edition, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Burlington, Massachusetts, USA.Cioli, F., Ricci, Y. 2020. "L'Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella. From the point cloud to the virtual reality." Proceedings of the 42th International Conference of Representation Disciplines Teachers. https://doi.org/10.3280/oa-548.107Fazal, S., 2008. GIS Basics, New Age International Pvt Ltd Publishers, India.Guidi G., Russo M., Beraldin J.A. 2010. Acquisizione 3D e modellazione poligonale. Milano: Mcgraw Hill.Pescarmona G. 2020. Augmented Reality and Renaissance Painting - An AR Experience for the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Kultur und Informatik: Extended Reality.Ricci Y., Pasquali A., Giorgio Verdiani G. 2019. "A Petrified Petrifying Eyesight: A Story for the Medusa's Heads from Istanbul, Turkey." Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Cultural Heritage and New Technologies 2018.Rickman G., 1971. Roman granaries and store buildings. Cambridge University Press.Sutherland, I.E. 1980. Sketchpad: A Man-Machine Graphical Communication System, Garland Publishers, New York, USA.Verdiani G. 2010. Il ritorno all'immagine, nuove procedure image based per il Cultural Heritage. Lulu.com, USA

Do telomeres influence pace-of-life-strategies in response to environmental conditions over a lifetime and between generations?

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this recordEuropean Union Horizon 2020Estonian Research Counci

Long-term effect of yolk carotenoid levels on testis size in a precocial bird

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the Royal Society via the DOI in this record.Conditions experienced during prenatal development can have long-lasting organizational effects on offspring. Maternal carotenoids deposited in the eggs of birds and other oviparous species play an important role during fast embryonic growth and chick development through their antioxidant properties. However, the long-term consequences of variation in maternal carotenoid transfer for the offspring have seldom been considered. Since plasma carotenoid levels at adulthood are known to influence testis size and yolk carotenoid levels influence the ability to extract carotenoids later in life, we hypothesized that maternally transmitted carotenoids might influence gonad size at adulthood. Here, we showed that male Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) originating from a carotenoid-enriched egg had smaller testes than control individuals at adulthood. This result shows that yolk carotenoids have long-term organizational effects. In addition, given that carotenoid intake at sexual maturity increases sperm quality and that a decreased testis size is associated with a lower sperm production, we propose that carotenoid exposure during embryo development might influence a trade-off between ejaculate size and sperm quality.The study was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (PP00P3_128386 and PP00P3_157455) and the Fonds zur Förderung des akademischen Nachwuchses