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End date: 2022 × Start date: 2022 × Publisher: Lausanne : Frontiers Media × WGL Institute: PIK ×

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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Climate mobilities, rights and justice: Complexities and particularities
    (Lausanne : Frontiers Media, 2022) Farbotko, Carol; Thornton, Fanny; Mayrhofer, Monika; Hermann, Elfriede
    Climate mobility revolves around issues of justice and human rights, whether this be concerning its causes, expression or handling. This paper examines the justice-rights nexus as it relates to climate mobility, highlighting how the two spheres converge and diverge. It works with four case studies exploring the complexity of rights and justice in the climate mobility context. Our case studies are diverse, in terms of the mobility types concerned and the rights and justice-based issues involved. We show that conceptualizing or achieving just or righteous outcomes is neither certain nor a uniform pursuit when it comes to climate mobility. Rather, there are many divergences–by those who claim rights or justice, and those asked to respond. We present a complex and contested space, highlight the importance of approaching justice and rights matters contextually, and with special attention to particularities when climate mobility is at issue.
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    The future is now: Climate displacement and human rights obligations—a note on recent developments in the UN Human Rights Committee
    (Lausanne : Frontiers Media, 2022) Thornton, Fanny
    Although climate litigation—or the pursuit of legal resolve of matters stemming from anthropogenic climate change—has been growing around the world, climate mobility is seldom at the heart of relevant case law. It is human rights law bodies, in particular, which have nevertheless begun to progress legal developments in the sphere of climate mobility. This note looks at a 2022 determination by the UN Human Rights Committee concerning the habitability of a small island setting—Australia's Torres Strait Islands—under climate change conditions and the legal responsibilities of nation states to abide by their international human rights obligations in implementing timely adaptation measures now which could help to ensure continued habitation.
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    Predicting the data structure prior to extreme events from passive observables using echo state network
    (Lausanne : Frontiers Media, 2022) Banerjee, Abhirup; Mishra, Arindam; Dana, Syamal K.; Hens, Chittaranjan; Kapitaniak, Tomasz; Kurths, Jürgen; Marwan, Norbert
    Extreme events are defined as events that largely deviate from the nominal state of the system as observed in a time series. Due to the rarity and uncertainty of their occurrence, predicting extreme events has been challenging. In real life, some variables (passive variables) often encode significant information about the occurrence of extreme events manifested in another variable (active variable). For example, observables such as temperature, pressure, etc., act as passive variables in case of extreme precipitation events. These passive variables do not show any large excursion from the nominal condition yet carry the fingerprint of the extreme events. In this study, we propose a reservoir computation-based framework that can predict the preceding structure or pattern in the time evolution of the active variable that leads to an extreme event using information from the passive variable. An appropriate threshold height of events is a prerequisite for detecting extreme events and improving the skill of their prediction. We demonstrate that the magnitude of extreme events and the appearance of a coherent pattern before the arrival of the extreme event in a time series affect the prediction skill. Quantitatively, we confirm this using a metric describing the mean phase difference between the input time signals, which decreases when the magnitude of the extreme event is relatively higher, thereby increasing the predictability skill.
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    Music improves the therapeutic effects of bevacizumab in rats with glioblastoma: Modulation of drug distribution to the brain
    (Lausanne : Frontiers Media, 2022) Semyachkina-Glushkovskaya, Oxana; Diduk, Sergey; Anna, Eroshova; Elina, Dosadina; Artem, Kruglov; Khorovodov, Alexander; Shirokov, Alexander; Fedosov, Ivan; Dubrovsky, Alexander; Blokhina, Inna; Terskov, Andrey; Navolokin, Nikita; Evsukova, Arina; Elovenko, Daria; Adushkina, Viktoria; Kurths, Jürgen
    Background: The development of new methods for modulation of drug distribution across to the brain is a crucial step in the effective therapies for glioblastoma (GBM). In our previous work, we discovered the phenomenon of music-induced opening of the blood-brain barrier (OBBB) in healthy rodents. In this pilot study on rats, we clearly demonstrate that music-induced BBB opening improves the therapeutic effects of bevacizumab (BZM) in rats with GBM via increasing BZM distribution to the brain along the cerebral vessels. Methods: The experiments were performed on Wistar male rats (200-250 g, n=161) using transfected C6-TagRFP cell line and the loud rock music for OBBB. The OBBB was assessed by spectrofluorometric assay of Evans Blue (EB) extravasation and confocal imaging of fluorescent BZM (fBZM) delivery into the brain. Additionally, distribution of fBZM and Omniscan in the brain was studied using fluorescent and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), respectively. To analyze the therapeutic effects of BZM on the GBM growth in rats without and with OBBB, the GBM volume (MRI scans), as well as immunohistochemistry assay of proliferation (Ki67 marker) and apoptosis (Bax marker) in the GBM cells were studied. The Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test was used for all analysis, the significance level was p < 0.05, n=7 in each group. Results: Our finding clearly demonstrates that music-induced OBBB increases the delivery of EB into the brain tissues and the extravasation of BZM into the brain around the cerebral vessels of rats with GBM. Music significantly increases distribution of tracers (fBZM and Omniscan) in the rat brain through the pathways of brain drainage system (perivascular and lymphatic), which are an important route of drug delivery into the brain. The music-induced OBBB improves the suppressive effects of BZM on the GBM volume and the cellular mechanisms of tumor progression that was accompanied by higher survival among rats in the GBM+BZM+Music group vs. other groups. Conclusion: We hypothesized that music improves the therapeutic effects of BZM via OBBB in the normal cerebral vessels and lymphatic drainage of the brain tissues. This contributes better distribution of BZM in the brain fluids and among the normal cerebral vessels, which are used by GBM for invasion and co-opt existing vessels as a satellite tumor form. These results open the new perspectives for an improvement of therapeutic effects of BZM via the music-induced OBBB for BZM in the normal cerebral vessels, which are used by GBM for migration and progression.