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A household's vulnerability to energy poverty is socially and spatially variable. Efforts to measure energy poverty, however, have focused on narrow, expenditure-based metrics or area-based targeting. These metrics are not spatial per se, because the relative importance of drivers does not vary between neighborhoods to reflect localized challenges. Despite recent advancements in geographically weighted methodologies that have the potential to yield important information about the sociospatial distribution of vulnerability to energy poverty, the phenomenon has not been approached from this perspective. For a case study of England, global principal component analysis (PCA) and local geographically weighted PCA (GWPCA) are applied to a suite of neighborhood-scale vulnerability indicators. The explicit spatiality of this methodological approach addresses a common criticism of vulnerability assessments. The global PCA reaffirms the importance of well-established vulnerabilities, including older age, disability, and energy efficiency. It also demonstrates striking new evidence of vulnerabilities among precarious and transient households that are less well understood and have become starker during austerity. In contrast, rather than providing a single estimate of propensity to energy poverty for neighborhoods based on a national understanding of what drives the condition, the GWPCA identifies a diverse array of vulnerability factors of greatest importance in different locales. These local results destabilize the geographical configurations of an urban-rural and north-south divide that typify understandings of deprivation in this context. The geographically weighted approach therefore draws attention to vulnerabilities often hidden in policymaking, allowing for reflection on the applicability of spatially constituted methodologies to wider social vulnerability assessments. Key Words: energy poverty, geographically weighted PCA, GIS, spatial analysis, vulnerability.

Introduction: Integrated health and social care is at present part of the health and social care delivery model in many countries, and developing in others. Therefore, health and social care inspectorates and regulators are facing a major challenge; not only should they look at the quality of individual health and social care services, but also at how these services work together to meet the needs of people using these services. Doing so, regulators and inspectorates can play a significant role in supporting the aim of adopting integrated care policy and practice, and of encouraging improvement in this area. Policy context and objective: The aim of regulating and inspecting integrated care is relatively new. Currently, only in a few countries regulators/inspectorates are known to have ‘hands-on’ experience in regulating or inspecting integrated care. To enable knowledge development and shared learning on this approach, the Special Interest Group regulating and inspecting integrated care was born at ICIC18, creating a basis for collaboration. The scope of this new Special Interest Group (SIG) is on regulating/inspecting the integrated provision of health and social care. At ICIC19 the SIG will provide a workshop for members and supporters of this SIG. Target audience: The target audience for this workshop would be professionals working in or representing organisations that have a remit or operate as regulators, inspectors, auditors or quality assessors in the health, youth and social domain with an interest in regulating/inspecting integrated care. Highlights: The object and details of this workshop will be specified at the first face-to-face meeting of the SIG in November 2018 in Edinburgh. A more detailed and outlined abstract will be drawn up and send afterwards.

RNA interference (RNAi) is a powerful tool that is being increasingly utilized for crop protection against viruses, fungal pathogens, and insect pests. The non-transgenic approach of spray-induced gene silencing (SIGS), which relies on spray application of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) to induce RNAi, has come to prominence due to its safety and environmental benefits in addition to its wide host range and high target specificity. However, along with promising results in recent studies, several factors limiting SIGS RNAi efficiency have been recognized in insects and plants. While sprayed dsRNA on the plant surface can produce a robust RNAi response in some chewing insects, plant uptake and systemic movement of dsRNA is required for delivery to many other target organisms. For example, pests such as sucking insects require the presence of dsRNA in vascular tissues, while many fungal pathogens are predominately located in internal plant tissues. Investigating the mechanisms by which sprayed dsRNA enters and moves through plant tissues and understanding the barriers that may hinder this process are essential for developing efficient ways to deliver dsRNA into plant systems. In this review, we assess current knowledge of the plant foliar and cellular uptake of dsRNA molecules. We will also identify major barriers to uptake, including leaf morphological features as well as environmental factors, and address methods to overcome these barriers.

Exploiting the RNA interference (RNAi) gene mechanism to silence essential genes in pest insects, leading to toxic effects, has surfaced as a promising new control strategy in the past decade. While the first commercial RNAi-based products are currently coming to market, the application against a wide range of insect species is still hindered by a number of challenges. In this review, we discuss the current status of these RNAi-based products and the different delivery strategies by which insects can be targeted by the RNAi-triggering double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) molecules. Furthermore, this review also addresses a number of physiological and cellular barriers, which can lead to decreased RNAi efficacy in insects. Finally, novel non-transgenic delivery technologies, such as polymer or liposomic nanoparticles, peptide-based delivery vehicles and viral-like particles, are also discussed, as these could overcome these barriers and lead to effective RNAi-based pest control.

Fusarium fungi are a pervasive threat to global agricultural productivity. They cause a spectrum of plant diseases that result in significant yield losses and threaten food safety by producing mycotoxins that are harmful to human and animal health. In recent years, the exploitation of the RNA interference (RNAi) mechanism has emerged as a promising avenue for the control of Fusarium‐induced diseases, providing both a mechanistic understanding of Fusarium gene function and a potential strategy for environmentally sustainable disease management. However, despite significant progress in elucidating the presence and function of the RNAi pathway in different Fusarium species, a comprehensive understanding of its individual protein components and underlying silencing mechanisms remains elusive. Accordingly, while a considerable number of RNAi‐based approaches to Fusarium control have been developed and many reports of RNAi applications in Fusarium control under laboratory conditions have been published, the applicability of this knowledge in agronomic settings remains an open question, and few convincing data on RNAi‐based disease control under field conditions have been published. This review aims to consolidate the current knowledge on the role of RNAi in Fusarium disease control by evaluating current research and highlighting important avenues for future investigation. We review biotechnology‐based crop protection against Fusarium diseases with novel RNA delivery technologies and RNA active ingredients.

Summary Gene silencing exists in eukaryotic organisms as a conserved regulation of the gene expression mechanism. In general, small RNAs (sRNAs) are produced within the eukaryotic cells and incorporated into an RNA‐induced silencing complex (RISC) within cells. However, exogenous sRNAs, once delivered into cells, can also silence target genes via the same RISC. Here, we explored this concept by targeting the Cellulose synthase A3 (CesA3) gene of Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis (Hpa), the downy mildew pathogen of Arabidopsis thaliana. Hpa spore suspensions were mixed with sense or antisense sRNAs and inoculated onto susceptible Arabidopsis seedlings. While sense sRNAs had no obvious effect on Hpa pathogenicity, antisense sRNAs inhibited spore germination and hence infection. Such inhibition of infection was not race‐specific, but dependent on the length and capping of sRNAs. Inhibition of infection by double stranded sRNA was more efficient than that observed with antisense sRNA. Thus, exogenous sRNA targeting conserved CesA3 could suppress Hpa infection in Arabidopsis, indicating the potential of this simple and efficient sRNA‐based approach for deciphering gene functions in obligate biotrophic pathogens as well as for R‐gene independent control of diseases in plants.

This article draws on critical geographic engagements with policing and race and geographic information systems (GIS) to investigate the implications that predictive crime mapping has for racialized modes of urban policing. Focusing on the Chicago Police Department (CPD), it analyzes collaborations between geographic information scientists, crime experts, and police who have recently begun integrating temporal data into GIS-based maps to predict when and where future crimes will occur. The article builds the case that predictive crime mapping further entrenches and legitimizes racialized policing as it (1) rearticulates police data sets as scientifically valid and (2) correlates those data with other geocoded information to create new rationalizations for controlling racialized districts through differential policing practices. The article uses a mixed-methods approach that includes analysis of open-ended interviews with computer scientists involved with the CPD's Predictive Analytics Group and city technical documents to explain the recursive relation between GIS-based knowledge production and racialized policing. The article casts into relief the central role that the production of geographic information plays in current modes of racialized policing and how this contributes to the ongoing racial differentiation of urban geographies.

Combating climate change by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has become an obligation for countries that ratified the Paris Agreement. Saudi Arabia, as a member of the Paris Agreement, pledged to achieve net zero emissions (NZE) by 2060. This endeavor is challenging for all countries. This paper provides an analysis and assessment of the Saudi measures to achieve NZE by 2060. The analysis reveals that Saudi Arabia will reduce the total net emissions to 49.67 Mt of CO2eq, whereas under a business-as-usual scenario, the emissions would reach 1.724 million tons (Mt) of CO2 equivalent (CO2eq). The study reveals that sectors conducting environmental, social, and governance ratings (ESG) and those where the government is a stakeholder are on the right track and will facilitate the government’s efforts in reaching NZE. The gap in reaching NZE will be mainly due to the Saudi steel and cement industries.

Under natural conditions, plants are always associated with a well-orchestrated community of microbes—the phytomicrobiome. The nature and degree of microbial effect on the plant host can be positive, neutral, or negative, and depends largely on the environment. The phytomicrobiome is integral for plant growth and function; microbes play a key role in plant nutrient acquisition, biotic and abiotic stress management, physiology regulation through microbe-to-plant signals, and growth regulation via the production of phytohormones. Relationships between the plant and phytomicrobiome members vary in intimacy, ranging from casual associations between roots and the rhizosphere microbial community, to endophytes that live between plant cells, to the endosymbiosis of microbes by the plant cell resulting in mitochondria and chloroplasts. If we consider these key organelles to also be members of the phytomicrobiome, how do we distinguish between the two? If we accept the mitochondria and chloroplasts as both members of the phytomicrobiome and the plant (entrained microbes), the influence of microbes on the evolution of plants becomes so profound that without microbes, the concept of the “plant” is not viable. This paper argues that the holobiont concept should take greater precedence in the plant sciences when referring to a host and its associated microbial community. The inclusivity of this concept accounts for the ambiguous nature of the entrained microbes and the wide range of functions played by the phytomicrobiome in plant holobiont homeostasis.

Transcriptional Gene Silencing (TGS) is an essential process in plants for development, gene regulation, defense against viruses, and genome integrity. TGS is predominantly established by RNA-directed DNA methylation (RdDM), a self-reinforcing mechanism in which sRNAs guide transcriptional suppressors to target genomic loci by sequence complementarity, and methylated DNA in turn facilitates sRNA genesis. Recently, exogenous application of promoter targeting long dsRNAs was associated with promoter methylation without any detectable gene silencing. A plethora of sRNAs of different sizes and types form as cleavage products of precursor dsRNAs such as pre-miRNAs, inverted-repeats, viral replication intermediates, or exogenous dsRNAs. Due to the complexity of sRNA products, the features of the sRNAs, which trigger de novo RdDM, remain enigmatic. Here, we demonstrated that in planta delivery of chemically synthesized 24-nucleotide(nt) small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), targeting the 35S promoter of GFP-expressing Nicotiana benthamiana (Nb) 16c line, was sufficient to induce RdDM, H3K9me2 deposition, and also TGS. Using CRISPR/Cas-mediated gene editing, we showed that exogenous 24nt siRNA-triggered TGS is dependent on ARGONAUTE 4A (NbAGO4A) but not on NbAGO4B. Exogenously administered 24nt siRNAs could provide the means to investigate such initiation events, while allowing functional dissection of siRNA classes and their modifications in planta .