Mediterranean agriculture under climate change: adaptive capacity, adaptation, and ethics

In the coming decades, the Mediterranean region is expected to experience various climate impacts with negative consequences on agricultural systems and which will cause uneven reductions in agricultural production. By and large, the impacts of climate change on Mediterranean agriculture will be heavier for southern areas of the region. This unbalanced distribution of negative impacts underscores the significance and role of ethics in such a context of analysis. Consequently, the aim of this article is to justify and develop an ethical approach to agricultural adaptation in the Mediterranean and to derive the consequent implications for adaptation policy in the region. In particular, we define an index of adaptive capacity for the agricultural systems of the Mediterranean region on whose basis it is possible to group its different sub-regions, and we provide an overview of the suitable adaptation actions and policies for the sub-regions identified. We then vindicate and put forward an ethical approach to agricultural adaptation, highlighting the implications for the Mediterranean region and the limitations of such an ethical framework. Finally, we emphasize the broader potential of ethics for agricultural adaptation policy.

Food restriction reverses the hyper-muscular phenotype and force generation capacity deficit of the myostatin null mouse

Food restriction has a great impact on skeletal muscle mass by inducing muscle protein breakdown to provide substrates for energy production through gluconeogenesis. Genetic models of hyper-muscularity interfere with the normal balance between protein synthesis and breakdown which eventually results in extreme muscle growth. Mutations or deletions in the myostatin gene result in extreme muscle mass. Here we evaluated the impact of food restriction for a period of 5 weeks on skeletal muscle size (i.e., fibre cross-sectional area), fibre type composition and contractile properties (i.e., tetanic and specific force) in myostatin null mice. We found that this hyper-muscular model was more susceptible to catabolic processes than wild type mice. The mechanism of skeletal muscle mass loss was examined and our data shows that the myostatin null mice placed on a low calorie diet maintained the activity of molecules involved in protein synthesis and did not up-regulate the expression of genes pivotal in ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation. However, we did find an increase in the expression of genes associated with autophagy. Surprisingly, the reduction on muscle size was followed by improved tetanic and specific force in the null mice compared to wild type mice. These data provide evidence that food restriction may revert the hyper-muscular phenotype of the myostatin null mouse restoring muscle function.

Institutional capacity and implementation issues in farmers' rights

Armed with the ‘equity’ and ‘conservation’ arguments that have a deep resonance with farming communities, developing countries are crafting a range of measures designed to protect farmers’ access to innovations, reward their contributions to the conservation and enhancement of plant genetic resources and provide incentives for sustained on-farm conservation. These measures range from the commericialization of farmers’ varieties to the conferment of a set of legally enforceable rights on farming communities – the exercise of which is expected to provide economic rewards to those responsible for on-farm conservation and innovation. The rights-based approach has been the cornerstone of legislative provision for implementing farmers’ rights in most developing countries. In drawing up these measures, developing countries do not appear to have systematically examined or provided for the substantial institutional capacity required for the effective implementation of farmers’ rights provisions. The lack of institutional capacity threatens to undermine any prospect of serious implementation of these provisions. More importantly, the expectation that significant incentives for on-farm conservation and innovation will flow from these ‘rights’ may be based on a flawed understanding of the economics of intellectual property rights. While farmers’ rights may provide only limited rewards for conservation, they may still have the effect of diluting the incentives for innovative institutional breeding programs – with the private sector increasingly relying on non-IPR instruments to profit from innovation. The focus on a rights-based approach may also draw attention away from alternative stewardship-based approaches to the realization of farmers’ rights objectives.

When consent doesn't work: a rights-based case for limits to consent’s capacity to legitimise

Consent's capacity to legitimise actions and claims is limited by conditions such as coercion, which render consent ineffective. A better understanding of the limits to consent's capacity to legitimise can shed light on a variety of applied debates, in political philosophy, bioethics, economics and law. I show that traditional paternalist explanations for limits to consent's capacity to legitimise cannot explain the central intuition that consent is often rendered ineffective when brought about by a rights violation or threatened rights violation. I argue that this intuition is an expression of the same principles of corrective justice that underlie norms of compensation and rectification. I show how these principles can explain and clarify core intuitions about conditions which render consent ineffective, including those concerned with the consenting agent's option set, his mental competence, and available information.

Dietary quebracho tannins are not absorbed, but increase the antioxidant capacity of liver and plasma in sheep

A total of sixteen lambs were divided into two groups and fed two different diets. Of these, eight lambs were fed a control diet (C) and eight lambs were fed the C diet supplemented with quebracho tannins (C+T). The objective of the present study was to assess whether dietary quebracho tannins can improve the antioxidant capacity of lamb liver and plasma and if such improvement is due to a direct transfer of phenolic compounds or their metabolites, to the animal tissues. Feed, liver and plasma samples were purified by solid-phase extraction (SPE) and analysed by liquid chromatography–MS for phenolic compounds. Profisitinidin compounds were identified in the C+T diet. However, no phenolic compounds were found in lamb tissues. The liver and the plasma from lambs fed the C+T diet displayed a greater antioxidant capacity than tissues from lambs fed the C diet, but only when samples were not purified with SPE. Profisetinidin tannins from quebracho seem not to be degraded or absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract. However, they induced antioxidant effects in animal tissues.

A case study to investigate the life cycle carbon emissions and carbon storage capacity of a cross laminated timber, multi-storey residential building

Forests are a store of carbon and an eco-system that continually removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. If they are sustainably managed, the carbon store can be maintained at a constant level, while the trees removed and converted to timber products can form an additional long term carbon store. The total carbon store in the forest and associated ‘wood chain’ therefore increases over time, given appropriate management. This increasing carbon store can be further enhanced with afforestation. The UK’s forest area has increased continually since the early 1900s, although the rate of increase has declined since its peak in the late 1980s, and it is a similar picture in the rest of Europe. The increased sustainable use of timber in construction is a key market incentive for afforestation, which can make a significant contribution to reducing carbon emissions. The case study presented in this paper demonstrates the carbon benefits of a Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) solution for a multi-storey residential building in comparison with a more conventional reinforced concrete solution. The embodied carbon of the building up to completion of construction is considered, together with the stored carbon during the life of the building and the impact of different end of life scenarios. The results of the study show that the total stored carbon in the CLT structural frame is 1215tCO2 (30tCO2 per housing unit). The choice of treatment at end of life has a significant effect on the whole life embodied carbon of the CLT frame, which ranges from -1017 tCO2e for re-use to +153tCO2e for incinerate without energy recovery. All end of life scenarios considered result in lower total CO2e emissions for the CLT frame building compared with the reinforced concrete frame solution.

An analytical method for capacity dimensioning of WCDMA with high speed wireless link

Capacity dimensioning is one of the key problems in wireless network planning. Analytical and simulation methods are usually used to pursue the accurate capacity dimensioning of wireless network. In this paper, an analytical capacity dimensioning method for WCDMA with high speed wireless link is proposed based on the analysis on relations among system performance and high speed wireless transmission technologies, such as H-ARQ, AMC and fast scheduling. It evaluates system capacity in closed-form expressions from link level and system level. Numerical results show that the proposed method can calculate link level and system level capacity for WCDMA system with HSDPA and HSUPA.

Fibroblast growth factor 2 maintains the neurogenic capacity of embryonic neural progenitor cells in vitro but changes their neuronal subtype specification

Many in vitro systems used to examine multipotential neural progenitor cells (NPCs) rely on mitogens including fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) for their continued expansion. However, FGF2 has also been shown to alter the expression of transcription factors (TFs) that determine cell fate. Here, we report that NPCs from the embryonic telencephalon grown without FGF2 retain many of their in vivo characteristics, making them a good model for investigating molecular mechanisms involved in cell fate specification and differentiation. However, exposure of cortical NPCs to FGF2 results in a profound change in the types of neurons generated, switching them from a glutamatergic to a GABAergic phenotype. This change closely correlates with the dramatic upregulation of TFs more characteristic of ventral telencephalic NPCs. In addition, exposure of cortical NPCs to FGF2 maintains their neurogenic potential in vitro, and NPCs spontaneously undergo differentiation following FGF2 withdrawal. These results highlight the importance of TFs in determining the types of neurons generated by NPCs in vitro. In addition, they show that FGF2, as well as acting as a mitogen, changes the developmental capabilities of NPCs. These findings have implications for the cell fate specification of in vitro-expanded NPCs and their ability to generate specific cell types for therapeutic applications. Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest is found at the end of this article.

Demand side response: patterns in Europe and future policy perspectives under capacity mechanisms

Demand Side Response (DSR) has been slow to emerge in European electricity markets. This paper aims to both examine the reasons for low levels of DSR in Europe and reflect on factors that might affect the participation of DSR in capacity mechanisms. It relies on available evidence from the literature, secondary data on existing DSR programmes and energy aggregator's data from industries participating in DSR. Findings show that changes to the duration of contracted loads under existing or new programmes might increase the penetration of DSR. The introduction of capacity mechanisms may increase DSR from demand turn down if longer response times were available.

Enrichment and stability: a phenomenological coupling of energy value and carrying capacity

Simple predator–prey models with a prey-dependent functional response predict that enrichment (increased carrying capacity) destabilizes community dynamics: this is the ‘paradox of enrichment’. However, the energy value of prey is very important in this context. The intraspecific chemical composition of prey species determines its energy value as a food for the potential predator. Theoretical and experimental studies establish that variable chemical composition of prey affects the predator–prey dynamics. Recently, experimental and theoretical approaches have been made to incorporate explicitly the stoichiometric heterogeneity of simple predator–prey systems. Following the results of the previous experimental and theoretical advances, in this article we propose a simple phenomenological formulation of the variation of energy value at increased level of carrying capacity. Results of our study demonstrate that coupling the parameters representing the phenomenological energy value and carrying capacity in a realistic way, may avoid destabilization of community dynamics following enrichment. Additionally, under such coupling the producer–grazer system persists for only an intermediate zone of production—a result consistent with recent studies. We suggest that, while addressing the issue of enrichment in a general predator–prey model, the phenomenological relationship that we propose here might be applicable to avoid Rosenzweig’s paradox.

Sensitivity of a coupled climate model to canopy interception capacity

The canopy interception capacity is a small but key part of the surface hydrology, which affects the amount of water intercepted by vegetation and therefore the partitioning of evaporation and transpiration. However, little research with climate models has been done to understand the effects of a range of possible canopy interception capacity parameter values. This is in part due to the assumption that it does not significantly affect climate. Near global evapotranspiration products now make evaluation of canopy interception capacity parameterisations possible. We use a range of canopy water interception capacity values from the literature to investigate the effect on climate within the climate model HadCM3. We find that the global mean temperature is affected by up to -0.64 K globally and -1.9 K regionally. These temperature impacts are predominantly due to changes in the evaporative fraction and top of atmosphere albedo. In the tropics, the variations in evapotranspiration affect precipitation, significantly enhancing rainfall. Comparing the model output to measurements, we find that the default canopy interception capacity parameterisation overestimates canopy interception loss (i.e. canopy evaporation) and underestimates transpiration. Overall, decreasing canopy interception capacity improves the evapotranspiration partitioning in HadCM3, though the measurement literature more strongly supports an increase. The high sensitivity of climate to the parameterisation of canopy interception capacity is partially due to the high number of light rain-days in the climate model that means that interception is overestimated. This work highlights the hitherto underestimated importance of canopy interception capacity in climate model hydroclimatology and the need to acknowledge the role of precipitation representation limitations in determining parameterisations.

Resilience as transformative capacity: exploring the quadripartite cycle of structuration in a Mozambican resettlement programme

The concept of resilience has emerged out of a complex literature that has sought to make sense of an increasingly interconnected world that appears ever more beset by crises. Resilience’s appeal is reflected by the burgeoning mass of literature that has appeared on the subject in the past five years. However, there is ongoing debate surrounding its usage, with some commentators claiming that the term is inherently too conservative a one to be usefully applied to situations of vulnerability in which more radical social change is required. This article extends existing efforts to formulate more transformative notions of resilience by reframing it as a double-edged outcome of the pre-reflective and critical ways in which actors draw upon their internal structures following the occurrence of a negative event, thus reproducing or changing the external structural context that gave rise to the event in the first place. By employing a structuration-inspired analysis to the study of small-scale farmer responses to a flood-induced resettlement programme in central Mozambique, the article presents a systematic approach to the examination of resilience in light of this reframing. The case study findings suggest that more attention should be paid to the facilitative, as well as constraining, nature of structures if vulnerable populations are to be assisted in their efforts to exert transformative capacity over the wider conditions that give rise to their difficulties.