Municipal authorities' climate change adaptation plans: Barriers to the inclusion of intensified needs of vulnerable populations

Climate Adaptation Plans (CAPs) usually include a section on urban resilience, in which policymakers are expected to address human needs created or exacerbated by climate-related emergency events. However, the urban resilience sections of CAPs tend to remain under-developed, with welfare-related risks often overlooked. Until recently, there has been limited acknowledgement of the barriers preventing the positioning of human need at the core of CAPs. To conceptualize and understand the impact of such barriers, this study used an agenda-setting approach. We examined the incorporation of vulnerable populations' needs into CAPs drawn up by municipal authorities in Israel, using the COVID-19 pandemic as a prompt for the assessment of barriers to agenda setting and lessons learned. Drawing on twenty interviews with senior administrators in Israeli municipal authorities, we identified three administrative barriers hindering the integration of vulnerable populations' intensified needs into CAPs. The barriers were created by disparities between confidence in their succeesful emergency management and their knowledge of unmet needs;between acceptance of responsibility and access to training, resources or impact;and between local initiatives and reliance on national funds. Overlooking administrative barriers is bound to leave scholarly understanding of the slow pace at which CAPs translate lessons learned from human crises into policy, limited or lacking. © 2023 Elsevier B.V.

Communities’ Lockdown and the Challenge of Keeping Children Safe: What Have We Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic?

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a worldwide health and socio-economic crisis (Thompson and Rasmussen 2020), and various UNICEF (2020a, b) reports published throughout the pandemic highlight the dangers communities face due to COVID-19. The pandemic and its accompanying social isolation alongside the shutdown of schools and other community services might have severe effects on communities worldwide. Specifically, the efforts to limit the spread of the virus, mainly through lockdowns and social distancing, might have acted as barriers to the community’s ability to support families and protect children from maltreatment (Nay 2020). Using COVID-19 as a case study, the current chapter investigates the ways in which global crises might affect communities and their roles in child protection. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

A new translocation partner for CBFB in acute myeloid leukemia, t(10;16)(p13;q22)

Cytogenetic abnormalities involving chromosome 16 are found in 5– 8% of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). These are typically a pericentric inversion inv(16)(p13.1q22) or a translocation, t(16;16)(p13.1;q22), involving the MYH11 and CBFB genes localized to chromosome 16p13.1 and 16q22, respectively. In addition, less common rearrangements include deletion of the long arm of chromosome 16, del(16) (q22), and cryptic insertions involving the MYH11 and the CBFB genes with otherwise normal karyotypes. In this report, we present the first AML case with a new translocation involving the CBFB gene. The more common CBFB - MYH11 fusion product resulting from the inversion and/or translocation of chromosome(s) 16 leads to an AML with monocytic and granulocytic differentiation and abnormal eosinophil component with large, purple to violet color eosinophilic granules. This entity typically corresponds to the adult AML-M4Eo in French-American- British (FAB) Classification and now called AML with inv(16)(p13.1q22) or t(16;16)(p13.1;q22);CBFB-MYH1 in the new 2017 WHO Classification. Patients may present with myeloid sarcoma at initial diagnosis or at relapse. We present a case of an 80-year-old male with a history of prostate cancer post radiotherapy who was referred for COVID-19 testing. A complete blood count with differential revealed neutropenia and a macrocytic anemia. A bone marrow biopsy and a bone marrow aspirate confirmed a diagnosis of AML with 33% blasts including myeloblasts and promonocytes. Interphase fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis with a break-apart probe for CBFB showed an abnormal hybridization pattern consistent with rearrangement of CBFB in 66% of nuclei. Chromosome analysis revealed an abnormal karyotype with two related clones: 47,XY, t(10;16)(p13;q22),+22[4]/48,idem,+8[16]. Sequential GTG-FISH confirmed that the 3’ region of CBFB was translocated to 10p13 in the t(10;16) and the 5’ region remained on 16q. Based on the karyotype, the patient’s bone barrow exhibits clonal evolution having acquired additional chromosome abnormalities (trisomy 22 and trisomy 8). Molecular studies by next generation sequencing showed NRAS p.Gln61Lys mutation with a VAF of 11.21%. No genomic alterations were detected in KIT, KRAS or FLT3 genes. AML with inv(16)(p13.1q22) or t(16;16)(p13.1;q22) is associated with a high rate of complete remission and favorable overall survival when treated with intensive consolidation therapy. However, their prognostic advantage may be affected by additional cytogenetic abnormalities and/or other gene mutations. Specifically, trisomy 22, is a frequent abnormality additional to inv(16) detected as a secondary finding which has been associated with an improved outcome when compared to the prognosis associated with inv(16) alone. Furthermore, KIT (in 30–40%), FLT3 (in 14%), NRAS (in 45%) and KRAS (in 13%) mutations are common in this AML type. The prognostic implications of KIT mutation (especially involving exon 8) do not appear to be significantly poor prognostic compared to other AML types. On the other hand FLT3-TKD mutations and trisomy 8 are associated with a worse outcome. The patient is currently receiving Vidaza 75 mg/m2, days 1–7 of a 28 days cycle with Venetoclax mg daily of a 28-day cycle and his clinical prognosis is currently unclear. Further analysis by DNA sequencing may help to characterize the molecular nature of the fusion gene product resulting from the novel t(10;16)(p13;q22). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported case of an AML patient with translocation t(10;16)(p13;q22) involving the CBFB gene. Given the rarity and lack of additional information regarding the effects of this abnormality, the prognosis and survival cannot be predicted.

“We Have Been Part of the Response”: The Effects of COVID-19 on Community and Allotment Gardens in the Global North

Throughout history, urban agriculture practitioners have adapted to various challenges by continuing to provide food and social benefits. Urban gardens and farms have also responded to sudden political, economic, ecological, and social crises: wartime food shortages;urban disinvestment and property abandonment;earthquakes and floods;climate-change induced weather events;and global economic disruptions. This paper examines the effects on, and responses by, urban farms and gardens to the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper is based on data collected in the summer of 2020 at the onset of the pandemic when cities were struggling with appropriate responses to curb its spread. It builds on an international research project (FEW-meter) that developed a methodology to measure material and social benefits of urban agriculture (UA) in five countries (France, Germany, Poland, UK and USA) over two growing seasons, from a Food-Energy-Water nexus perspective. We surveyed project partners to ascertain the effects of COVID-19 on those gardens and farms and we interviewed policy stakeholders in each country to investigate the wider impacts of the pandemic on UA. We report the results with respect to five key areas: (1) garden accessibility and service provision during the pandemic;(2) adjustments to operational arrangements;(3) effects on production;(4) support for urban farms and gardens through the pandemic;and (5) thoughts about the future of urban agriculture in the recovery period and beyond. The paper shows that the pandemic resulted in multiple challenges to gardens and farms including the loss of ability to provide support services, lost income, and reductions in output because of reduced labor supply. But COVID-19 also created several opportunities: new markets to sell food locally;more time available to gardeners to work in their allotments;and increased community cohesion as neighboring gardeners looked out for one another. By illustrating the range of challenges faced by the pandemic, and strategies to address challenges used by different farms and gardens, the paper illustrates how gardens in this pandemic have adapted to become more resilient and suggests lessons for pandemic recovery and longer-term planning to enable UA to respond to future public health and other crises. © Copyright © 2021 Schoen, Blythe, Caputo, Fox-Kämper, Specht, Fargue-Lelièvre, Cohen, Poniży and Fedeńczak.