| 1. |
- Scaini, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Pathways from research to sustainable development: Insights from ten research projects in sustainability and resilience
- 2024
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Ingår i: AMBIO. - : SPRINGER. - 0044-7447 .- 1654-7209.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Drawing on collective experience from ten collaborative research projects focused on the Global South, we identify three major challenges that impede the translation of research on sustainability and resilience into better-informed choices by individuals and policy-makers that in turn can support transformation to a sustainable future. The three challenges comprise: (i) converting knowledge produced during research projects into successful knowledge application; (ii) scaling up knowledge in time when research projects are short-term and potential impacts are long-term; and (iii) scaling up knowledge across space, from local research sites to larger-scale or even global impact. Some potential pathways for funding agencies to overcome these challenges include providing targeted prolonged funding for dissemination and outreach, and facilitating collaboration and coordination across different sites, research teams, and partner organizations. By systematically documenting these challenges, we hope to pave the way for further innovations in the research cycle.
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| 2. |
- Çıdık, Mustafa Selçuk, et al.
(författare)
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Political ecology perspective for a new way of understanding stakeholders and value in infrastructure projects
- 2024
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Ingår i: International Journal of Project Management. - : Elsevier BV. - 0263-7863 .- 1873-4634. ; 42:2, s. 102565-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The long-term goals and objectives that infrastructure projects aim to deliver are contextualised by complex grand challenges, which involve an entanglement of economic, social, and ecological issues. However, there have been criticisms that infrastructure projects fall short of delivering equitable value to effectively address grand challenges. These criticisms underpinned the recent calls for rethinking the purpose and definition of infrastructure projects. This essay argues that adopting a political ecology perspective can be useful to start identifying the limitations of the current understandings of external stakeholders and value in infrastructure projects, which lead to the criticised shortcomings. Political ecology considers social, ecological, and economic issues as an assemblage that manifests through power relations. Thus, for project studies, it implies a reconceptualization of external stakeholders and project value around the notions of agency, vulnerability, and empowerment. This reconceptualization provides new theoretical and practical directions for project formation, stakeholder management and project leadership in the pursuit of rethinking the purpose and definition of infrastructure projects for effectively tackling the grand challenges of our times.
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| 3. |
- Diep, Loan, et al.
(författare)
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Co-building trust in urban nature : Learning from participatory design and construction of Nature-Based Solutions in informal settlements in East Africa
- 2022
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Sustainable Cities. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 2624-9634. ; 4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While the amount of research on NBS is growing rapidly, there is a lack of evidence on community experiences of NBS design and implementation, particularly from low-income and informal settlements of African cities. This article adds new empirical evidence in this space through grounded analysis of NBS "niche" projects co-developed by intermediary organizations and communities in five sites across three settlements in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Findings are organized around four established NBS knowledge gaps: (1) NBS-society relations; (2) Design; (3) Implementation; (4) Effectiveness. We find that across the five studied sites, residents' perceptions and valuation of urban nature has changed through processes of co-design and co-implementation, enabling community ownership of projects, and hence playing a crucial role in NBS effectiveness over time. The integration of gray components into green infrastructure to create hybrid systems has proven necessary to meet physical constraints and communities' urgent needs such as flood mitigation. However, maintenance responsibilities and cost burdens are persisting issues that highlight the complex reality of NBS development in informal settlements. The cases highlight key considerations for actors involved in NBS development to support the replication, scaling up and institutionalization of NBS. These include the need to: (i) develop forms of engagement that align with co-production values; (ii) capture communities' own valuation of and motivations with NBS development for integration into design; (iii) elaborate technical guidance for hybrid green-gray infrastructure systems that can be constructed with communities; and (iv) help define and establish structures for maintenance responsibilities (especially governmental vs. civil society) that will enhance the environmental stewardship of public spaces.
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| 4. |
- Dixon-Suen, Suzanne C, et al.
(författare)
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Physical activity, sedentary time and breast cancer risk : a Mendelian randomisation study
- 2022
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Ingår i: British Journal of Sports Medicine. - : BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. - 0306-3674 .- 1473-0480. ; 56:20, s. 1157-1170
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- OBJECTIVES: Physical inactivity and sedentary behaviour are associated with higher breast cancer risk in observational studies, but ascribing causality is difficult. Mendelian randomisation (MR) assesses causality by simulating randomised trial groups using genotype. We assessed whether lifelong physical activity or sedentary time, assessed using genotype, may be causally associated with breast cancer risk overall, pre/post-menopause, and by case-groups defined by tumour characteristics.METHODS: We performed two-sample inverse-variance-weighted MR using individual-level Breast Cancer Association Consortium case-control data from 130 957 European-ancestry women (69 838 invasive cases), and published UK Biobank data (n=91 105-377 234). Genetic instruments were single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated in UK Biobank with wrist-worn accelerometer-measured overall physical activity (nsnps=5) or sedentary time (nsnps=6), or accelerometer-measured (nsnps=1) or self-reported (nsnps=5) vigorous physical activity.RESULTS: Greater genetically-predicted overall activity was associated with lower breast cancer overall risk (OR=0.59; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.42 to 0.83 per-standard deviation (SD;~8 milligravities acceleration)) and for most case-groups. Genetically-predicted vigorous activity was associated with lower risk of pre/perimenopausal breast cancer (OR=0.62; 95% CI 0.45 to 0.87,≥3 vs. 0 self-reported days/week), with consistent estimates for most case-groups. Greater genetically-predicted sedentary time was associated with higher hormone-receptor-negative tumour risk (OR=1.77; 95% CI 1.07 to 2.92 per-SD (~7% time spent sedentary)), with elevated estimates for most case-groups. Results were robust to sensitivity analyses examining pleiotropy (including weighted-median-MR, MR-Egger).CONCLUSION: Our study provides strong evidence that greater overall physical activity, greater vigorous activity, and lower sedentary time are likely to reduce breast cancer risk. More widespread adoption of active lifestyles may reduce the burden from the most common cancer in women.
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| 5. |
- Drummond, John Amin, et al.
(författare)
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COVID-19 Interventions in an informal settlement : A spatial analysis of accessibility in Kibera, Kenya
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of Transport Geography. - : Elsevier BV. - 0966-6923 .- 1873-1236. ; 113
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper introduces a methodology to explore pedestrian accessibility in informal settlements. This methodology is applied to pandemic intervention sites in Nairobi's Kibera area for 3.5 months (14 April to 31 July 2020) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Freely available transportation network data and open-source GIS software are utilised. Isochrones, areas of equal travel time, are calculated to assess pedestrian accessibility (walk times) from 30,231 Kibera structures to 138 COVID-19 stationary intervention sites. These sites aid in virus control, resource distribution, and COVID-related medical support. Travel times are determined considering different terrain slopes. Unequal access to intervention sites is observed due to indirect routes. Shortest walks (up to 21.5 min) are to handwashing and food distribution points, while longer walks (up to 61.5 min) are to interventions with fewer sites or localised clustering, such as baby product distribution. This simple accessibility analysis helps identify service gaps during crises, aiding planning authorities and communities. Our methodology offers insight into travel patterns in slums and has wider applicability to assess the relationships between transport infrastructure provision and resilience in informal settlements.
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| 6. |
- Elmqvist, Thomas, et al.
(författare)
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Urban tinkering
- 2018
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Ingår i: Sustainability Science. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1862-4065 .- 1862-4057. ; 13:6, s. 1549-1564
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cities are currently experiencing serious, multifaceted impacts from global environmental change, especially climate change, and the degree to which they will need to cope with and adapt to such challenges will continue to increase. A complex systems approach inspired by evolutionary theory can inform strategies for policies and interventions to deal with growing urban vulnerabilities. Such an approach would guide the design of new (and redesign of existing) urban structures, while promoting innovative integration of grey, green and blue infrastructure in service of environmental and health objectives. Moreover, it would contribute to more flexible, effective policies for urban management and the use of urban space. Four decades ago, in a seminal paper in Science, the French evolutionary biologist and philosopher Francois Jacob noted that evolution differs significantly in its characteristic modes of action from processes that are designed and engineered de novo (Jacob in Science 196(4295):1161-1166, 1977). He labeled the evolutionary process tinkering, recognizing its foundation in the modification and molding of existing traits and forms, with occasional dramatic shifts in function in the context of changing conditions. This contrasts greatly with conventional engineering and design approaches that apply tailor-made materials and tools to achieve well-defined functions that are specified a priori. We here propose that urban tinkering is the application of evolutionary thinking to urban design, engineering, ecological restoration, management and governance. We define urban tinkering as:A mode of operation, encompassing policy, planning and management processes, that seeks to transform the use of existing and design of new urban systems in ways that diversify their functions, anticipate new uses and enhance adaptability, to better meet the social, economic and ecological needs of cities under conditions of deep uncertainty about the future.This approach has the potential to substantially complement and augment conventional urban development, replacing predictability, linearity and monofunctional design with anticipation of uncertainty and non-linearity and design for multiple, potentially shifting functions. Urban tinkering can function by promoting a diversity of small-scale urban experiments that, in aggregate, lead to large-scale often playful innovative solutions to the problems of sustainable development. Moreover, the tinkering approach is naturally suited to exploring multi-functional uses and approaches (e.g., bricolage) for new and existing urban structures and policies through collaborative engagement and analysis. It is thus well worth exploring as a means of delivering co-benefits for environment and human health and wellbeing. Indeed, urban tinkering has close ties to systems approaches, which often are recognized as critical to sustainable development. We believe this concept can help forge much-closer, much-needed ties among engineers, architects, evolutionary ecologists, health specialists, and numerous other urban stakeholders in developing innovative, widely beneficial solutions for society and contribute to successful implementation of SDG11 and the New Urban Agenda.
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| 7. |
- Escala-Garcia, Maria, et al.
(författare)
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A network analysis to identify mediators of germline-driven differences in breast cancer prognosis
- 2020
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Ingår i: Nature Communications. - : NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP. - 2041-1723. ; 11:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Identifying the underlying genetic drivers of the heritability of breast cancer prognosis remains elusive. We adapt a network-based approach to handle underpowered complex datasets to provide new insights into the potential function of germline variants in breast cancer prognosis. This network-based analysis studies similar to 7.3 million variants in 84,457 breast cancer patients in relation to breast cancer survival and confirms the results on 12,381 independent patients. Aggregating the prognostic effects of genetic variants across multiple genes, we identify four gene modules associated with survival in estrogen receptor (ER)-negative and one in ER-positive disease. The modules show biological enrichment for cancer-related processes such as G-alpha signaling, circadian clock, angiogenesis, and Rho-GTPases in apoptosis.
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| 8. |
- Jiao, Xiang, et al.
(författare)
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PHIP - a novel candidate breast cancer susceptibility locus on 6q14.1
- 2017
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Ingår i: Oncotarget. - : IMPACT JOURNALS LLC. - 1949-2553. ; 8:61, s. 102769-102782
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Most non-BRCA1/2 breast cancer families have no identified genetic cause. We used linkage and haplotype analyses in familial and sporadic breast cancer cases to identify a susceptibility locus on chromosome 6q. Two independent genome-wide linkage analysis studies suggested a 3 Mb locus on chromosome 6q and two unrelated Swedish families with a LOD > 2 together seemed to share a haplotype in 6q14.1. We hypothesized that this region harbored a rare high-risk founder allele contributing to breast cancer in these two families. Sequencing of DNA and RNA from the two families did not detect any pathogenic mutations. Finally, 29 SNPs in the region were analyzed in 44,214 cases and 43,532 controls from BCAC, and the original haplotypes in the two families were suggested as low-risk alleles for European and Swedish women specifically. There was also some support for one additional independent moderate-risk allele in Swedish familial samples. The results were consistent with our previous findings in familial breast cancer and supported a breast cancer susceptibility locus at 6q14.1 around the PHIP gene.
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| 9. |
- Juma, B., et al.
(författare)
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Analysis of rainfall extremes in the Ngong River Basin of Kenya : Towards integrated urban flood risk management
- 2020
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Ingår i: Physics and Chemistry of the Earth. - : Elsevier. - 1474-7065 .- 1873-5193.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Extreme rainfall events are a major cause of highly disruptive flooding in small urban watersheds with limited flood risk management systems. In the Ngong River Basin of Kenya, such floods affect more than 0.5 Million residents within the Kibera informal settlements of Nairobi. However, there is paucity of information about the characteristics of the extreme rainfalls to support flood risk management. This study investigated the best-fit probability distribution models for the extreme rainfalls of the Ngong Basin using Block Maxima approach as a basis for anticipatory flood risk management. Daily rainfall data for the period between 1968 and 2017 were acquired from the existing two rainfall stations to support the analysis at monthly, seasonal and annual timescales. The Gamma, Pearson Type III, Gumbel and Generalized Extreme Value distributions were selected and applied to each timescale. Parameters of the distributions were determined using the Maximum-Likelihood estimator. The validity of the fitted probability models was tested using the Kolomogorov- Smirnov, Anderson-Darling and Cramer von Misses measures for Goodness of Fit. The best-fit probability distributions were subsequently used to establish the rainfall frequencies and return levels at annual timescales. The results show that Pearson Type III provided the best fit at monthly timescales during the dry spell months, while the Generalized Extreme Value distribution provided best results during the wet periods. At seasonal timescales, the Gamma distribution was noted to be the best-fit model. The return levels developed could essentially support the design of urban flood control structures for appropriate flood risk management.
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| 10. |
- Juma, Benard, et al.
(författare)
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Flooding in the urban fringes : Analysis of flood inundation and hazard levels within the informal settlement of Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya
- 2023
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Ingår i: Physics and Chemistry of the Earth. - : Elsevier BV. - 1474-7065 .- 1873-5193. ; 132, s. 103499-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Overlapping conditions of rapid urbanisation and climate change across developing countries are threatening the capacity of cities to manage climate risks, especially in the flood-exposed low-income peripheral areas. Limited studies have applied hydrodynamic flood models in ascertaining flooding conditions, supportive of risk-informed decisions in such urban fringes. Against this backdrop, we assessed plausible flooding and hazard conditions in the low-lying villages of Lindi and Silanga in Kibera informal settlement. The coupled one-dimensional and two-dimensional hydrodynamic model, customised from the Hydrological Engineering Centre's River Analysis System (HEC-RAS) was parameterised for flood simulation under different hydrological regimes and scenarios associated with flooding in Kibera. Volumetric flow estimates and a computed energy slope were used to define the upstream and downstream modelling boundary conditions respectively. Trial-and-error adjustment of the flow resistance coefficients from land-use features was applied in model calibration, and the results compared to the surveyed flood of 23rd April 2019. Results show that proximal areas to the Ngong River and Nairobi dam face high flood risks. A flood volume of 11.7×105m3 from a 2.5h, 50 mm rainfall could potentially inundate about 2.0% and 8.3% of areas in Lindi and Silanga respectively, while a volume of 48.9×105m3 from a 100-year storm of 172 mm could inundate about 10.6% of Lindi and 29.1% of Silanga. Upstream steeply sloping topographies of the villages increase flood velocities and risk of drowning, while the lower reaches at relatively flatter topographies, experience attenuated flow and rapid accumulation of flood waters, hence, higher flood depths. These results can support policy interventions for integrated flood risk management in Kibera, as a way of mainstreaming the underserved urban communities in climate risk management.
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