Managing Complexity Through Methodic Participation: The Case of Air Quality in Santiago,Chile

Three concrete results have been achieved over a 5-year period in Santiago, Chile, in a process addressed to managing through participation the difficult air quality situation of this 5-million-person metropolis: (1) a highly complex problem has become manageable, (2) a legitimate and effective Prevention and Decontamination Plan is in operation, and (3) citizens and the government are mutually committed to this process. This paper describes how these results have been achieved by applying Innovative Development, a social systems methodology developed by the author and co-workers and applied in many fields over the last 20 years. Following a review of the problem and results that have been achieved, an explanation is offered for why a participative methodology is necessary for dealing with a highly complex problem like the current one. The fourth section provides a brief outline of the Innovative Development methodology. The last section presents the case itself, describing three stages. In the short space available we have tried to balance the practical, methodological, and conceptual issues of this case and this approach.     

Tumour biology: senescence in premalignant tumours

Oncogene-induced senescence is a cellular response that may be crucial for protection against cancer development, but its investigation has so far been restricted to cultured cells that have been manipulated to overexpress an oncogene. Here we analyse tumours initiated by an endogenous oncogene, ras, and show that senescent cells exist in premalignant tumours but not in malignant ones. Senescence is therefore a defining feature of premalignant tumours that could prove valuable in the diagnosis and prognosis of cancer.     

XPF nuclease-dependent telomere loss and increased DNA damage in mice overexpressing TRF2 result in premature aging and cancer

TRF2 is a telomere-binding protein that has a role in telomere protection. We generated mice that overexpress TRF2 in the skin. These mice had a severe phenotype in the skin in response to light, consisting of premature skin deterioration, hyperpigmentation and increased skin cancer, which resembles the human syndrome xeroderma pigmentosum. Keratinocytes from these mice were hypersensitive to ultraviolet irradiation and DNA crosslinking agents. The skin cells of these mice had marked telomere shortening, loss of the telomeric G-strand overhang and increased chromosomal instability. Telomere loss in these mice was mediated by XPF, a structure-specific nuclease involved in ultraviolet-induced damage repair and mutated in individuals with xeroderma pigmentosum. These findings suggest that TRF2 provides a crucial link between telomere function and ultraviolet-induced damage repair, whose alteration underlies genomic instability, cancer and aging. Finally, we show that a number of human skin tumors have increased expression of TRF2, further highlighting a role for TRF2 in skin cancer.     

Ligand effects on the structure and vibrational properties of the thiolated Au18 cluster

Most of the studies devoted to thiolated gold clusters suppose that their core and Au-S framework do not suffer from distortion independently of the protecting ligands (-SR) and it is assumed as correct to simplify the ligand as SCH3. In this work is delivered a systematic study of the structure and vibrational properties (IR and Raman) of the Au18(SR)14 cluster. The pursued goal is to understand the dependency of the displayed vibrational properties of the thiolated Au18 cluster with the ligands type. A set of six ligands was considered during calculations of the vibrational properties based on density functional theory (DFT) and in its dispersion-corrected approach (DFT-D).     

Activity patterns and habitat use of pudu deer (Pudu puda) in a mountain forest of south-central Chile

The pudu (Pudu puda) is a small, endemic deer, and the only native ungulate found in Chilean and Argentinean temperate forests. Its ecology, including its double role as an herbivore and as a prey, is poorly known. Therefore, it is pressing to gain a better understanding of the pudu given that its habitat is being transformed rapidly by anthropogenic causes. On a coastal mountain range in south-central Chile, we conducted a habitat use study and examined the activity patterns of the pudu using camera traps. The study area was a large native forest patch, surrounded by commercial plantations which would not constitute a habitat for this deer. Using a sampling effort of 7559 camera days, we found that this deer was largely nocturnal with little activity during daytime. The pudu selected Araucaria forests, and avoided Nothofagus forests. These behaviours suggest that the pudu traded off habitat use patterns and activity time to avoid predation, mainly by puma which is the top predator in the rich local community of carnivores occurring in the latter habitat.     

Genome-wide association study identifies multiple loci influencing human serum metabolite levels

Nuclear magnetic resonance assays allow for measurement of a wide range of metabolic phenotypes. We report here the results of a GWAS on 8,330 Finnish individuals genotyped and imputed at 7.7 million SNPs for a range of 216 serum metabolic phenotypes assessed by NMR of serum samples. We identified significant associations (P < 2.31 × 10(-10)) at 31 loci, including 11 for which there have not been previous reports of associations to a metabolic trait or disorder. Analyses of Finnish twin pairs suggested that the metabolic measures reported here show higher heritability than comparable conventional metabolic phenotypes. In accordance with our expectations, SNPs at the 31 loci associated with individual metabolites account for a greater proportion of the genetic component of trait variance (up to 40%) than is typically observed for conventional serum metabolic phenotypes. The identification of such associations may provide substantial insight into cardiometabolic disorders.     

Range expansion of the western gray squirrel ( Sciurus griseus ) in northeastern California

We report the first records of the western gray squirrel ( Sciurus griseus ) from Modoc County and eastern Lassen County in northeastern California. Specimens from Modoc County represent the first records of the species from the Great Basin geographic province. We conclude that these records represent a range expansion based upon previous fieldwork that did not report the species in the region.