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"Vos, Rob"
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Retooling global development and governance
In Retooling Global Development and Governance a team of UN experts debate new ideas about how to overcome deficiencies in the ongoing process of globalization and in the existing mechanisms for global economic governance. They do not claim to offer a blueprint, rather a set of ideas that could become the basis for a coherent \"toolbox\" designed to guide development policies and international cooperation. Promising directions for reform discussed in the book include: 1. Strengthening government capacities for formulating and implementing national development strategies; 2. New strategies for ensuring that official development assistance is aligned with national priorities; 3. Enhancing international trade and financial systems so that countries with limited capabilities can successfully integrate into the global economy; 4. Creating new mechanisms for dealing with deficiencies, such as specialized multilateral frameworks through which to govern international migration and labour mobility, international financial regulation, multinational corporations and global value chains regulation and sovereign debt workouts. Above all, the book highlights the need for a strong mechanism for global economic coordination to establish coherence across all areas of global economic governance -- P. 4 of cover.
Book
Agricultural subsidies and global greenhouse gas emissions
Agricultural production is strongly affected by and a major contributor to climate change. Agriculture and land-use change account for a quarter of total global emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). Agriculture receives around US$600 billion per year worldwide in government support. No rigorous quantification of the impact of this support on GHG emissions has been available. This article helps fill the void. Here, we find that, while over the years the government support has incentivized the development of high-emission farming systems, at present, the support only has a small impact in terms of inducing additional global GHG emissions from agricultural production; partly because support is not systematically biased towards high-emission products, and partly because support generated by trade protection reduces demand for some high-emission products by raising their consumer prices. Substantially reducing GHG emissions from agriculture while safeguarding food security requires a more comprehensive revamping of existing support to agriculture and food consumption.
Agricultural sectors receive US$600 billion per year in government support, providing incentives for GHG emission-intensive production. Here, the authors show that removing this support will not reduce global GHG emissions by much; rather it will need to be radically redirected to contribute to climate change mitigation.
Journal Article
Technology and innovation for sustainable development
Renowned experts provide a variety of insights about feasible pathways for the required technological transformations. They spell out the behavioral and policy changes that would need to accompany the next green technological revolution, as well as the complexities of undoing locked in technologies and infrastructure in energy systems and agricultural value chains. They conclude that it can all be done, but not without much improved national innovation systems and drastic shifts in incentives and regulatory frameworks to induce the necessary shifts in public and private investment patterns. The macroeconomic costs, they content are quite affordable for societies worldwide.
Book
Cerebral amyloid angiopathy and its relationship to Alzheimer’s disease
Cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) is characterized by the deposition of the amyloid β-protein (Aβ) within cerebral vessels. The involvement of different brain areas in CAA follows a hierarchical sequence similar to that of Alzheimer-related senile plaques. Alzheimer’s disease patients frequently exhibit CAA. The expansion of CAA in AD often shows the pattern of full-blown CAA. The deposition of Aβ within capillaries distinguishes two types of CAA. One with capillary Aβ-deposition is characterized by a strong association with the apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 allele and by its frequent occurrence in Alzheimer’s disease cases whereas the other one lacking capillary Aβ-deposits is not associated with APOE ε4. Capillary CAA can be seen in every stage of CAA or AD-related Aβ-deposition. AD cases with capillary CAA show more widespread capillary Aβ-deposition than non-demented cases as well as capillary occlusion. In a mouse model of CAA, capillary CAA was associated with capillary occlusion and cerebral blood flow disturbances. Thus, blood flow alterations with subsequent hypoperfusion induced by CAA-related capillary occlusion presumably point to a second mechanism in which Aβ adversely affects the brain in AD in addition to its direct neurotoxic effects.
Journal Article
Polarised Asymmetric Inheritance of Accumulated Protein Damage in Higher Eukaryotes
Disease-associated misfolded proteins or proteins damaged due to cellular stress are generally disposed via the cellular protein quality-control system. However, under saturating conditions, misfolded proteins will aggregate. In higher eukaryotes, these aggregates can be transported to accumulate in aggresomes at the microtubule organizing center. The fate of cells that contain aggresomes is currently unknown. Here we report that cells that have formed aggresomes can undergo normal mitosis. As a result, the aggregated proteins are asymmetrically distributed to one of the daughter cells, leaving the other daughter free of accumulated protein damage. Using both epithelial crypts of the small intestine of patients with a protein folding disease and Drosophila melanogaster neural precursor cells as models, we found that the inheritance of protein aggregates during mitosis occurs with a fixed polarity indicative of a mechanism to preserve the long-lived progeny.
Journal Article
Alternative development strategies for the post-2015 era
\"The global economic crisis of 2008-2009 exposed systemic failings at the core of economic policy making worldwide. The crisis came on top of several other crises, including skyrocketing and highly volatile world food and energy prices and climate change. This book argues that new policy approaches are needed to address such devastating global development challenges and to avoid the potentially catastrophic consequences to livelihoods worldwide that are likely to result from present approaches. The contributors to the book are independent development experts, brought together by the UN Commiittee for Development Policy, an advisory body of the Economic and Social Council, to identify a development strategy capable of promoting a broad-based economic recovery and at the same time guaranteeing social equity and environmental sustainability both within countries and internationally. This new development approach seeks to promote the reforms needed to improve global governance, providing a more equitable distribution of global public goods. The contributors offer a critical evaluation of past development experiences and report on their creative search for new and well-thought out answers for the future. They suggest that economic progress, fairer societies and environmental sustainability can be compatible objectives, but only when pursued simultaneously by all.\"--Page 4 of cover.
Book
Reassessment of the homogenization of daily maximum temperatures in the Netherlands since 1901
Abstract In 2016, the Royal Dutch Meteorological Office (KNMI) homogenized the daily temperature records for the Netherlands from 1901 to 1950 to allow a realistic comparison of the temperatures from 1901 to the present. The homogenizations for the main station De Bilt were carried out using a Percentile Matching Method (PMM) with one reference station and a 56-month reference period. In this study, it is shown that the corrections in the number of tropical days (maximum temperature ≥ 30 °C) depend strongly on the choice of the reference station and the length of the reference period. A total of 116 different variants of the homogenization of De Bilt were carried out, using all combinations of five reference stations, five reference periods, two ways to calculate percentiles, and two ways to smooth the data. The parameters used for the KNMI’s current homogenization of De Bilt result in a very sharp decrease of tropical days, which is not replicated by the majority of the 116 variants. Moreover, after homogenization, De Bilt appears to be an outlier compared to the other meteorological stations. Therefore, the current homogenized estimates of tropical days for De Bilt should be treated with considerable caution.
Journal Article
Parkinson’s disease: lesions in dorsal horn layer I, involvement of parasympathetic and sympathetic pre- and postganglionic neurons
Clinical signs frequently recognized in early phases of sporadic Parkinson's disease (PD) may include autonomic dysfunctions and the experience of pain. Early disease-related lesions that may account for these symptoms are presently unknown or incompletely known. In this study, immunocytochemistry for alpha-synuclein was used to investigate the first relay stations of the pain system as well as parasympathetic and sympathetic pre- and postganglionic nerve cells in the lower brainstem, spinal cord, and coeliac ganglion in 100 microm polyethylene glycol embedded sections from six autopsy individuals, whose brains were staged for PD-associated synucleinopathy. Immunoreactive inclusions were found for the first time in spinal cord lamina I neurons. Lower portions of the spinal cord downwards of the fourth thoracic segment appeared to be predominantly affected, whereas the spinal trigeminal nucleus was virtually intact. Additional involvement was seen in parasympathetic preganglionic projection neurons of the vagal nerve, in sympathetic preganglionic neurons of the spinal cord, and in postganglionic neurons of the coeliac ganglion. The known interconnectivities between all of these components offer a possible explanation for their particular vulnerability. Lamina I neurons (pain system) directly project upon sympathetic relay centers, and these, in turn, exert influence on the parasympathetic regulation of the enteric nervous system. This constellation indicates that physical contacts between vulnerable regions play a key role in the pathogenesis of PD.
Journal Article