ORCID Profile
0000-0003-3878-4034
Current Organisation
University of Amsterdam
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Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2015
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 17-09-2019
DOI: 10.1057/S41599-019-0318-6
Abstract: The quantity and complexity of scientific and technological information provided to policymakers have been on the rise for decades. Yet little is known about how to provide science advice to legislatures, even though scientific information is widely acknowledged as valuable for decision-making in many policy domains. We asked academics, science advisers, and policymakers from both developed and developing nations to identify, review and refine, and then rank the most pressing research questions on legislative science advice (LSA). Experts generally agree that the state of evidence is poor, especially regarding developing and lower-middle income countries. Many fundamental questions about science advice processes remain unanswered and are of great interest: whether legislative use of scientific evidence improves the implementation and outcome of social programs and policies under what conditions legislators and staff seek out scientific information or use what is presented to them and how different communication channels affect informational trust and use. Environment and health are the highest priority policy domains for the field. The context-specific nature of many of the submitted questions—whether to policy issues, institutions, or locations—suggests one of the significant challenges is aggregating generalizable evidence on LSA practices. Understanding these research needs represents a first step in advancing a global agenda for LSA research.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2023
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 22-06-2022
DOI: 10.3389/FCLIM.2022.929313
Abstract: Evidence-based decision-making has been a focus of academic scholarship and debate for many decades. The advent of global, complex problems like climate change, however, has focused the efforts of a broader pool of scholarship on this endeavor than ever before. The “linear model” of expertise, despite obvious problems, continues to be a touchstone for many policy practitioners as well as for academic understandings of evidence development and use. Knowledge co-production, by contrast, is increasingly proposed as both the antithesis and the solution to the linear model's difficulties. In this paper I argue that, appropriately considered, both models have their uses for understanding evidence for policy, yet neither adequately accounts for the political contexts in which expert knowledge has often been asserted to address climate change. The paper proposes that the difficulty with both models lies in lingering assumptions about the information value of evidence for decision-making, the sensitivity of decision-making to scientific expertise, and the assumed mendacity or irrationality of decision-makers when they seem to fail to heed expert advice. This paper presents a model of evidence use that incorporates the aspirations of linear and co-production frameworks, while providing appropriate guidance for evaluating the role of expert knowledge in climate change policy-making.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 28-06-2009
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 07-10-2019
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2014
DOI: 10.1016/J.ENVRES.2014.05.032
Abstract: To examine the short-term effects of ambient temperature on respiratory symptoms for school children with asthma across Australia. A panel of 270 children (7-12 years) with asthma was recruited from six Australian cities. They were asked to record their respiratory symptoms every day in the morning (for night-time symptoms) and evening (for daytime symptoms) for four weeks. Daily ambient temperature, relative humidity and air pollution data were obtained from fixed monitors nearby. A mixed logistic regression model was used to examine the effects of ambient temperature on respiratory symptoms adjusted for children's sex, age, standing height, weight and air pollution. Subjects were specified as random effects. The relationships between ambient temperature and respiratory symptoms were linear. Increasing temperatures induced the risks of children's asthmatic symptoms, especially for "wheeze/chest tightness" and to a lesser extent for "cough hlegm". The effects were acute and lasted for four days (lag 0-3) in general. With increasing ambient temperature, boys were more at risk than girls. High ambient temperature is a risk factor for respiratory symptoms in children with asthma. As ambient temperature increases, policies and strategies for rising temperatures will be necessary to protect asthmatic children.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2016
DOI: 10.1016/J.ENVPOL.2015.09.041
Abstract: We estimated net annual temperature-related mortality in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne in Australia using 62 global climate model projections under three IPPC SRES CO2 emission scenarios (A2, A1B and B1). In all cities, all scenarios resulted in increases in summer temperature-related deaths for future decades, and decreases in winter temperature-related deaths. However, Brisbane and Sydney will increase the net annual temperature-related deaths in the future, while a slight decrease will happen in Melbourne. Additionally, temperature-related mortality will largely increase beyond the summer (including January, February, March, November and December) in Brisbane and Sydney, while temperature-related mortality will largely decrease beyond the winter in Melbourne. In conclusion, temperature increases for Australia are expected to result in a decreased burden of cold-related mortality and an increased burden of heat-related mortality, but the balance of these differences varied by city. In particular, the seasonal patterns in temperature-related deaths will be shifted.
Publisher: Routledge
Date: 28-07-2017
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2013
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 12-08-2021
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2017
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 08-2021
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 11-03-2015
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 08-06-2020
DOI: 10.1002/EET.1893
Abstract: This paper presents a comparative analysis of catchment management dams in Cork, Ireland and Brisbane, Australia to demonstrate how interactions between municipal government and expert advisors for public infrastructure administration can constrain community climate adaptation. The analysis highlights how neoliberal economic rationalism can appropriate public value choice under the guise of technocratic expertise. Experts are often considered responsible agents for the effective administration of public infrastructure, even when ostensibly technical decisions concerning infrastructure management seem to demand normative, political input. Technocratic administration arising from economic rationalist priorities can thereby exacerbate the hazards presented by climate variability and advancing climate change. Climate risk managers in both cases over‐relied on operating protocols and the expertise of engineers to administer public infrastructure in pursuit of economic priorities. When operating protocols proved insufficient in the face of climate extremes, however, blame was assigned to experts despite their making all available attempts to avert disaster. Through analysis of these cases, the paper discusses the need for normative transparency in expert‐led public administration and better integration of multi‐level governance for climate resilience when pursuing economic rationalist imperatives.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 09-09-2017
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2016
DOI: 10.1016/J.SCITOTENV.2015.09.132
Abstract: Limited studies have examined the associations between air pollutants [particles with diameters of 10 μm or less (PM10), sulphur dioxide (SO2), and nitrogen dioxide (NO2)] and fasting blood glucose (FBG). We collected data for 27,685 participants who were followed during 2006 and 2008. Generalized Estimating Equation models were used to examine the effects of air pollutants on FBG while controlling for potential confounders. We found that increased exposure to NO2, SO2 and PM10 was significantly associated with increased FBG levels in single pollutant models (p<0.001). For exposure to 4 days' average of concentrations, a 100 μg/m(3) increase in SO2, NO2, and PM10 was associated with 0.17 mmol/L (95% CI: 0.15-0.19), 0.53 mmol/L (95% CI: 0.42-0.65), and 0.11 mmol/L (95% CI: 0.07-0.15) increase in FBG, respectively. In the multi-pollutant models, the effects of SO2 were enhanced, while the effects of NO2 and PM10 were alleviated. The effects of air pollutants on FBG were stronger in female, elderly, and overweight people than in male, young and underweight people. In conclusion, the findings suggest that air pollution increases the levels of FBG. Vulnerable people should pay more attention on highly polluted days to prevent air pollution-related health issues.
Publisher: Bristol University Press
Date: 2019
DOI: 10.1332/174426419X1557747600211
Abstract: Risk-based decision-making is widely considered to be the best means of presenting the science of climate change and for developing and presenting climate change evidence for policymaking. This paper examines some of the justifications provided by climate and decision scientists for their preferred approach, and argues that, although risk-based approaches are indeed analytically and instrumentally helpful, they may not always provide the most politically appropriate framework for resolving the politics of evidence-based policymaking. Decision scientists still promote risk-based decision-making under erroneous ideals of linear-instrumental-rationality, even if they have become more circumspect concerning the worst excesses of past technocratic linear-rationality. Moreover, decision scientists have provided very shallow justification to date for ‘risk’ as default decision framework. A reasonable analysis of the general suitability of risk would include comparative analysis with alternative conceptual frames, not simply in terms of their analytical power, but also their political acceptability in constituencies where particular evidence-frames may be challenged on the basis of their premises, rather than their conclusions. br / Key messages br / Risk-based decision guidance does not fully account for the politics of evidence-based policy. br / Decision scientists should avoid conflating the heuristic and prescriptive worth of policy models. br / Risk-based approaches should be justified from political analysis with alternate conceptual frames. br / Context-appropriate decisions demand context-sensitive conceptual frames for policy-evidence.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 27-07-2015
Abstract: This paper presents a comparative analysis of the use of climate science for adaptation policy in Queensland, Australia and the UK. We examine policy players’ perceptions of climate science alongside prevailing political influences on evidence-based policy making. In Queensland, the evidence-based mandate has been weakened by partisan politics so that the political acceptability of evidence is a foremost concern for policy makers. In the UK, the evidence-based mandate is enshrined in the Climate Change Act (2008), yet here too political forces have sought to limit the acceptable use of climate science for policy making. Both cases reveal normative and political tensions in the interpretation and use of climate science, suggesting that important political challenges must be overcome by the scientific community to ensure the ongoing utility of climate science for policy making.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 22-02-2019
DOI: 10.1038/S41467-019-08812-Y
Abstract: β-Mannans are plant cell wall polysaccharides that are commonly found in human diets. However, a mechanistic understanding into the key populations that degrade this glycan is absent, especially for the dominant Firmicutes phylum. Here, we show that the prominent butyrate-producing Firmicute Roseburia intestinalis expresses two loci conferring metabolism of β-mannans. We combine multi-“omic” analyses and detailed biochemical studies to comprehensively characterize loci-encoded proteins that are involved in β-mannan capturing, importation, de-branching and degradation into monosaccharides. In mixed cultures, R. intestinalis shares the available β-mannan with Bacteroides ovatus , demonstrating that the apparatus allows coexistence in a competitive environment. In murine experiments, β-mannan selectively promotes beneficial gut bacteria, exemplified by increased R. intestinalis , and reduction of mucus-degraders. Our findings highlight that R. intestinalis is a primary degrader of this dietary fiber and that this metabolic capacity could be exploited to selectively promote key members of the healthy microbiota using β-mannan-based therapeutic interventions.
No related grants have been discovered for Peter Tangney.