Policy Transfer through Research Networks – the Example of Urban Road Pricing

Stadtverkehrspolitik, Verkehrswissenschaft, Politikberatung, Straßenbenutzungsgebühr, EU-Verkehrspolitik, EU-Staaten, Urban transport policy, Transport research, Policy advisory service, Road pricing, Common transport policy, EU countries

Paleohydrological Changes in Jura (France), and Climatic Oscillations around the North Atlantic from Allerød to Preboreal

Regional palaeohydroiogical changes recorded in the Jura lakes, France, have led to a tentative reconstruction of a fine-scale pattern of climatic changes from Allerød to the early Holocene. The Younger Dryas (YD) can be subdivided into three parts: after a first wet phase, this cool period was characterized by increasing dryness; a short rise in lake level developed during its last part. Moreover, the YD was preceded and followed by two short rises in lake-level, which interrupted the lake-level lowerings developing during the Allerød and the Preboreal. Climatic oscillations reconstructed in Jura appear to be in phase with glacier and tree-limit movements in the Alps, with fluctuations in oxygen-isotope records from the Swiss lakes and the Greenland ice sheet, and with climatic oscillations recorded in the Norwegian Sea. Other correlations between (1) these climatic oscillations, (2) 14C plateaux recorded in Swiss lake sequences, and (3) fluctuations in the residual ∆14C, support a correlation between regional palaeohydroiogical changes defined in Jura and broad-scale climatic oscillations; they also support the existence of a link between climatic changes in Western and Central Europe and oceanic circulation. Moreover, as working hypothesis, these correlations suggest high-precision timing for the climatic and environmental changes occurring during the early Holocene.Les changements paléohydrologiques enregistrés dans les remplissages des lacs du Jura permettent de proposer une reconstitution détaillée des oscillations climatiques de I'Allerød aux débuts de l'Holocène. Trois phases sont distinguées à l'intérieur du Dryas récent : une phase à bilan hydrique déficitaire encadrée par deux phases humides. D'autre part, deux courtes phases de hausse du niveau des lacs surviennent avant et après le Dryas récent, interrompant momentanément la baisse des plans d'eau qui se développe pendant I'Allerød et le Préboréal. Ces oscillations climatiques reconstituées dans le Jura apparaissent en phase avec les mouvements des glaciers et de la limite supérieure de la forêt dans les Alpes, avec les stratigraphies isotopiques établies dans les lacs suisses et au Groenland ainsi qu'avec des oscillations climatiques enregistrées en mer de Norvège. D'autres corrélations entre ces oscillations climatiques, les plateaux du radiocarbone repérés dans les lacs suisses et les fluctuations du residual ∆14C résiduel indiquent l'existence d'une corrélation entre les changements paléohydrologiques reconnus dans le Jura et des oscillations plus globales du climat. Elles renforcent aussi l'idée d'un lien entre la circulation océanique et les changements climatiques affectant alors l'Europe occidentale et centrale. Enfin, elles permettent de proposer des références chronologiques de haute précision pour les changements climatiques et environnementaux survenant au début de l'Holocène.In den Juraseen festgestellte régionale palaohydrologische Veranderungen erlaubten eine vorlàufige detaillierte Rekonstruktion der klimatischen Wechsel vom Allerod bis zum frùhen Holozàn. Die jùngere Dryaszeit kann in drei Phasen unterteilt werden: nach einer ersten feuchten Phase, charakterisierte sich die darauffolgende kalte Période durch zunehmende Trockenheit; wàhrend der letzten Phase entwickelte sich eine kurze Anhebung des Seenniveaus. AuBerdem gab es zwei kurze Anhebungen des Seenniveaus, eine vor und eine nach der Dryaszeit, welche die Senkungen des Seenniveaus, die wàhrend des Allerod und dem frùhen Holozàn auftraten, unterbrachen. Die im Jura rekonstruierten klimatischen Schwankungen scheinen mit den Gletscherund Baumgrenze-Bewegungen in den Alpen zeitlich ùbereinzustimmen, wie auch mit den Fluktuationen in den Sauerstoffisotopenbelegen von Schweizer Seen und der Gronland-Eisdecke, und mit den im norwegischen Meer festgestellten Klimaschwankungen. Andere Korrelationen zwischen (1) diesen Klimaschwankungen, (2) C Plateaux, die in Schweizer Seen-Sequenzen festgestellt wurden und (3) Fluktuationen im residual ∆14C Rùckstand, stùtzen eine Korrelation zwischen den im Jura festgestellten regionalen palàohydrologischen Veranderungen und globaleren Klimaschwankungen; sie stùtzen auch die Annahme einer Beziehung zwischen den Klimawechseln in Westund Zentraleuropa und der Ozean-strômung

Functional characterisation of pncr003;2L, a small open reading frame gene conserved from drosophila to humans

Small open reading frame genes (smORFs) are a new class of genes, which emerged from the revision of the idea that open reading frames have to be longer than 100 codons to be protein coding and functional. Although bio-informatics evidence suggests that thousands of smORF genes could exist in any given genome, proof of their functional relevance can only be obtained through their functional characterization. This work represents such a study for a Drosophila smORF (pncr003;2L), which was initially misannotated as a non-coding RNA because of its lack of a canonical long open reading frame. Here I show that pncr003;2L codes for two small peptides of 28 and 29 aa, expressed in somatic and cardiac muscles. After generating a null condition for this gene, I use the adult Drosophila heart as a system to assess the function of pncr003;2L. With this system, I show that the small pncr003;2L peptides regulate heart contractions by modulating Ca2+ cycling in cardiac muscles, with either lack or excess of function of these peptides leading to cardiac arrhythmias, and abnormal calcium dynamics. Finally, through an extensive homology study, I show that these small peptides share a great amount of structural and functional homology with the peptides encoded by the vertebrate smORFs sarcolipin (sln) and phospoholamban (pln), which act as major regulators of the Sarco-Endoplasmic Reticulum Calcium ATPase (SERCA), the channel responsible for calcium uptake into the ER following muscle contraction. These results highlight the importance of the pncr003;2L smORF and the Drosophila system, for the study of cardiac pathologies, but most importantly, they show that this family of peptides, conserved across evolution, represent an ancient system for the regulation of calciumtrafficking in muscles. This work corroborates the prevalence, and relevance of this novel class of genes, and shows that closer attention should be given to smORFs in order to determine the full extent of their biological contributio

Terrestrial climate variability and seasonality changes in the Mediterranean region between 15 000 and 4000 years BP deduced from marine pollen records

Pollen-based climate reconstructions were performed on two high-resolution pollen marines cores from the Alboran and Aegean Seas in order to unravel the climatic variability in the coastal settings of the Mediterranean region between 15 000 and 4000 years BP (the Lateglacial, and early to mid-Holocene). The quantitative climate reconstructions for the Alboran and Aegean Sea records focus mainly on the reconstruction of the seasonality changes (temperatures and precipitation), a crucial parameter in the Mediterranean region. This study is based on a multi-method approach comprising 3 methods: the Modern Analogues Technique (MAT), the recent Non-Metric Multidimensional Scaling/Generalized Additive Model method (NMDS/GAM) and Partial Least Squares regression (PLS). The climate signal inferred from this comparative approach confirms that cold and dry conditions prevailed in the Mediterranean region during the Oldest and Younger Dryas periods, while temperate conditions prevailed during the Bølling/Allerød and the Holocene. Our records suggest a West/East gradient of decreasing precipitation across the Mediterranean region during the cooler Late-glacial and early Holocene periods, similar to present-day conditions. Winter precipitation was highest during warm intervals and lowest during cooling phases. Several short-lived cool intervals (i.e. Older Dryas, another oscillation after this one (GI-1c2), Gerzensee/Preboreal Oscillations, 8.2 ka event, Bond events) connected to the North Atlantic climate system are documented in the Alboran and Aegean Sea records indicating that the climate oscillations associated with the successive steps of the deglaciation in the North Atlantic area occurred in both the western and eastern Mediterranean regions. This observation confirms the presence of strong climatic linkages between the North Atlantic and Mediterranean regions

Du climat à l'homme : Dynamique holocène de l'environnement dans le jura et les alpes Actes du colloque GDR JURALP organisé à Aix-en-Provence les 15 et 16 novembre 2007

L'éditeur autorise la diffusion de ce numéro dans une archive ouverte.Ce volume constitue les actes de la table ronde qui s'est tenue les 15 et 16 novembre 2007 à la Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences de l'Homme d'Aix-en-Provence, et qui a été organisée dans le cadre du GDR 2992 du CNRS, JurAlpes, sur le thème " Dynamique holocène de l'environnement dans le Jura et les Alpes : du climat à l'homme ". Les dix huit contributions rassemblées dans cet ouvrage couvrent un large éventail de champs disciplinaires et de méthodes d'étude. Après les deux premiers chapitres dédiés successivement aux reconstitutions des fluctuations des glaciers des Alpes occidentales depuis 5000 ans (P. Deline et M. Le Roy) et à l'usage des spéléothèmes en tant que proxy de la variabilité climatique annuelle (Y. Perrette), les cinq contributions suivantes s'appuient sur l'analyse de séquences sédimentaires lacustres (E. Chapron et al. ; M. Magny et al. ; L. Millet et al. ; F. Arnaud et al. ; A. Leroux et al.). Les lacs étudiés sont des lacs d'altitude (lac de Joux dans le Jura, lacs d'Anterne, de Bramant, de Blanc Huez et de Dessus-Verney dans les Alpes), ou des grands lacs de vallées (lacs du Bourget et de Constance, ou Bodensee). Suivent quatre chapitres qui s'intéressent aux vecteurs fluviatiles, de la vallée du Rhône (J.-P. Bravard et al. ; J.-F. Berger et al.), au bassin de la Durance (C. Miramont et al.) jusqu'au delta du Rhône (C. Vella et al.). Viennent ensuite trois contributions qui sont plus particulièrement centrées sur l'histoire du couvert végétal et de la pédogénèse dans les zones d'altitude des Alpes en s'appuyant sur des données anthracologiques (B. Talon), dendrochronologiques (J.-L. Edouard et A. Thomas) et pédo-sédimentaires (B. Moulin et P.-J. Rey). Enfin, les quatre dernières contributions portent sur l'histoire de l'anthropisation des Alpes (P.J. Rey et al. ; P. Bintz et al. ; A. Marguet et al. ; F. Mocci et al.) et du Jura (E. Gauthier et H. Richard)

Ceramics as indicators of Late Bronze Age environments at Zürich-Alpenquai (Switzerland).

yesLake-dwellings in the northern Alpine region are renowned for their extraordinary organic preservation. In addition to organic remains, thousands of ceramic sherds are also recovered. This paper addresses ceramic sherds from the Late Bronze Age site Zürich-Alpenquai, and assesses over 2000 sherds for indications of erosion and abrasion in addition to quantifying sherd size and plotting the spatial distribution of these factors. Recording such wear patterns can provide indications of deposition practices in addition to environmental conditions pre- and post-deposition. In this manner the study of ceramic remains from wetland sites for abrasion can complement environmental studies addressing conditions at the time of artefact deposition, and contribute to discussions of influences for lake-settlement abandonment

Aspectos técnicos e operacionais de desmontes com explosivo na mineração artesanal subterrânea

In the world today, due to the current high price of gold, thousands of artisanal small-scale mines operate without the financial or technical capacity to upgrade their production methods, often using equipment and working methods that were forsaken decades ago in the conventional mining industry. This article illustrates, with a practical example, that it is possible to achieve the modern requirements of quality, safety and productivity, while operating with mining equipment that basically possesses the same characteristics as that employed in the 1950s. The operation involved the excavation of a 6 meter long tunnel and over 25 stoping sections in both rock and concrete by drilling and blasting in an underground gold mine. The article describes how the main operational problems were overcome. An effective drilling pattern was designed in order to be easily achievable with the limited local equipment. The behavior of the local nitrate explosive was effectively predicted and managed. The interaction with the drilling teams was managed in order to determine a meeting point between their traditional working methods and the scientific view of the engineer. At the end of the article some general guidelines are proposed for the management of similar situations, in order to improve the efficiency, productivity and safety of drill and blast operations in small-scale mines