Targeting Epigenetic Mechanisms in Vascular Aging

Environment, diseases, lack of exercise, and aged tendency of population have becoming crucial factors that induce vascular aging. Vascular aging is unmodifiable risk factor for diseases like diabetes, hypertension, atherosclerosis, and hyperlipidemia. Effective interventions to combat this vascular function decline is becoming increasingly urgent as the rising hospitalization rate caused by vascular aging-related diseases. Fortunately, recent transformative omics approaches have enabled us to examine vascular aging mechanisms at unprecedented levels and precision, which make our understanding of slowing down or reversing vascular aging become possible. Epigenetic viz. DNA methylation, histone modifications, and non-coding RNA-based mechanisms, is a hallmark of vascular aging, its deregulation leads to aberrant transcription changes in tissues. Epigenetics mechanisms by mediating covalent modifications to DNA and histone proteins, consequently, influence the sensitivity and activities of signaling pathways in cells and tissues. A growing body of evidence supports correlations between epigenetic changes and vascular aging. In this article, we will provide a comprehensive overview of epigenetic changes associated with vascular aging based on the recent findings with a focus on molecular mechanisms of action, strategies to reverse epigenetic changes, and future perspectives.

Teaching Collective Action: Strategies for Fostering Racial and Social Justice

Universities teach students about social problems but provide few concrete tools for acting to promote social change. Teaching about challenges but not about possible solutions can be potentially disempowering and may reduce civic agency. This chapter discusses the development of a required class on community organizing and civil resistance that provides students with specific strategies for engaging in collective action. The author explores a range of tensions involved in teaching this class: making it experiential without forcing students to work on issues or take steps they might not agree with, providing multiple traditions of social action so they do not get the sense that there is one “right” way, working with students whose perspectives might differ from ones he sees as legitimate, and teaching a class that some outside the institution might see as beyond the purview of a university. Ultimately, he argues that it is incumbent upon universities to provide concrete skills for social action, because failing to do so restricts their capacity to become effective civic actors in our democracy.

Fluvial Resources and Recreational and Sports Activities

This research aims to reflect on the importance of inland surface waters for the development of local communities and their potential to foster tourism and leisure activities, promoting differentiated tourism products that project this inland tourist destination. It seeks to inquire into new business opportunities, while simultaneously reflecting on ways of controlling uses and issues of preservation and environmental sustainability. The study is developed in the Serra da Estrela territory, framing the destination and establishing an approach to the evolution of recreational fishing and its contributions to the strengthening of tourism and leisure, given the exceptional conditions of water mass supply and its environmental value for an activity that has an intense relationship with nature. The purpose is also to establish lines of research to be followed and methodologies to be implemented for a better knowledge of this activity and identify action strategies for the future.

Big Data at the Service of the Public Health Systems

The great differential of organizations has been the strategic innovation through the best way to manage existing knowledge. The management of information and knowledge generated in the health area is no different, as is the case with the pharmaceutical sector. The major challenge of public health research is to promote the use of scientific and technological knowledge produced in more effective health policy and action strategies in order to provide effective health gains. New technologies are promising tools to support public health management. The current scenario, in which the world has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, has reinforced this understanding. This chapter aims to highlight the importance of using big data tools to make public health policies more effective. Examples of successful cases in different areas of Brazilian public management will be presented, aiming to reinforce the relevance of these tools for public health systems.

Power Struggles in the Implementation of Gender Equality Policies: The Politics of Resistance and Counter-resistance in Universities

This article develops an analytical framework to study the power struggles between status quo and gender equality actors underpinning the implementation of gender equality policies. While resistance to gender equality policies in different institutions has received considerable scholarly attention, examining this struggle in light of a multifaceted concept of power that encompasses both domination and individual and collective empowerment, we argue, offers a more accurate account of the possibilities of a feminist politics of implementation. Our analytical framework also accounts for the factors that enable resistance by dominant actors and counter-resistance by gender equality actors and the informal rules that are being upheld or challenged, respectively. Applying our framework to the study of Spanish universities, we identify both the forms and types of resistance that hinder gender reform efforts in higher education institutions and the counter-action strategies that seek to drive implementation forward and achieve institutional change.

Migrations and the environment – selected legal aspects

The article analyses the environmental aspects of migration in the context of their environmental causes and effects, focusing, however, on the effects. It was recognized that negative changes in the environment are becoming a more and more frequent cause of migration and may lead to a very wide range of migration, which would be very difficult to control. This will, among other things, have environmental effects in countries targeted by migrants. These effects are considered, using the example of Poland and the need to provide migrants with appropriate living conditions, based on legal regulations relating to the provision of drinking water, sewage disposal and municipal waste management. Such situations should be considered by the state by preparing appropriate action strategies, determining the sources of their financing, and introducing the necessary legislative changes.

Perceptions and Challenges Regarding Cyberbullying during the Covid-19 Pandemic

The increased use of the Internet and digital communication platforms has facilitated the emergence and development of the phenomenon known in the literature as cyberbullying. This research aims to examine the perception of the interviewees about the phenomenon of cyberbullying in the period marked by the Covid 19 pandemic. In this research the method of sociological survey based on questionnaire was used. The research was attended by 541 people, mostly young people (83.5% of the interviewees are under 30 years old). The findings showed that the interviewees know to a large extent the phenomenon of cyberbullying; respondents believe that this phenomenon spread during the Covid 19 pandemic; half of those surveyed witnessed the phenomenon of cyberbullying, while 44.7% say they know people who have been victims of cyberbullying. The present study analyzes the way in which the interviewees position themselves in relation to different acts specific to cyberbullying. The study also highlights the opinions of the interviewees on effective action strategies to combat cyberbullying.

Partecipazione e approccio ai nuovi paesaggi: percezione del verde pensile come opportunità di rigenerazione dell’ecosistema urbano

Landscape is the result of the reciprocal transformative relationship between humans and the places where they live. In recent decades, this relationship has been weakening, especially in urban areas, where the quality of life is decreasing due to the accelerating decay and the environmental crisis. Within this context, action strategies that create new landscapes planted in a city run the risk of being rejected by the inhabitants. An iconic case is the one of the roof garden, whose reputation, distorted by greenwashing operations, is far from achieving its full potential. Therefore, it is important to implement a systemic strategy whereby the green roof redefines the urban landscape together with the people living there.

Evaluation of Ecosystem Service Changes due to Land Use and Land Cover Dynamics in Cham Chu Nature Reserve

Assessment of ecosystem services is vital for successful natural resource allocation; however, these have been less studied within Vietnam. This study estimated the ecosystem services value (ESV) and its change in Cham Chu nature reserve, Vietnam using a benefit transfer method. Ecosystem service values estimation and trend analyses were carried out based on land use and land cover datasets from 1986, 1998, 2007, and 2017, with their corresponding global value coefficients. The results revealed that the total value of ecosystem services in Cham Chu was approximately 64.4, 63.9, 60.7, and 63.4 million USD in 1986, 1998, 2007, and 2017, respectively. Changes have also occurred in the values of individual ecosystem service functions. From 1986 to 2017, ecosystem service functions showed significant decreases in gas regulation, pollination, biological control, water regulation, water supply, and food production of 62.9%, 51.2%, 44.4%, 24.7%, 23.1%, and 13.0%, respectively. We conclude that the loss of ESV is a result of ecological deterioration in the studied landscape, and we propose further research to examine future solutions and establish action strategies. In summary, the research approach methodology developed can be used by land managers and planners in Vietnam as a guideline to estimate the importance of ecosystem services in Vietnam.