Cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) is a major contributor to stroke, cognitive impairment and dementia with limited therapeutic interventions. There is a critical need to provide mechanistic insight and improve translation between pre-clinical research and the clinic. A 2-day workshop was held which brought together experts from several disciplines in cerebrovascular disease, dementia and cardiovascular biology, to highlight current advances in these fields, explore synergies and scope for development. These proceedings provide a summary of key talks at the workshop with a particular focus on animal models of cerebral vascular disease and dementia, mechanisms and approaches to improve translation. The outcomes of discussion groups on related themes to identify the gaps in knowledge and requirements to advance knowledge are summarized.

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Welcome to the UK-RAS White Paper Series on Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS). This is one of the core activities of UK-RAS Network, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). By bringing together academic centres of excellence, industry, government, funding bodies and charities, the Network provides academic leadership, expands collaboration with industry while integrating and coordinating activities at EPSRC funded RAS capital facilities, Centres for Doctoral Training and partner universities.

Failure has become an increasingly important theme of debate in the literature on neoliberal natures. In this article we take up this topic with respect to ecological offsetting, often regarded as an exemplar of market-oriented conservation. Comparing the case of species banking which emerged in California in the 1990s with frustrated efforts to implement a biodiversity offsetting programme in England beginning in 2010, we develop a novel analytical framework for explaining why this kind of environmental market-making may or may not be successful in different contexts. Drawing on work in geography on the neoliberalisation of nature and insights from economic sociology, we characterise ecological offsetting as ‘command-and-commodify’ regulation: a peculiar form of hybrid ecological regulation which depends on an institutional mix of ‘authoritative’ and ‘economic’ power to function. In California, these kinds of environmental markets initially emerged at a moment of compromise, contingent on an embrace of ‘market’ solutions to environmental problems on the one hand, and a somewhat paradoxical expansion of authoritative power to ecologically regulate land development, on the other. In England, by contrast, deep fiscal austerity and deregulatory zeal, combined with resistance from nearly every quarter, initially undermined the possibility of balancing economic and authoritative power, which we argue is necessary for the construction of viable ecological offsetting. Reflecting on themes in the wider literature, we conclude by questioning whether the English experience is indicative of sharpening tensions between economy and ecology in the late neoliberal era.

In contrast to their use in warfare and surveillance, there is growing interest in the potential of "drones for good" to deliver societal benefits, for example by delivering medical products and other essential goods. Yet development of medical and commercial delivery has been limited globally by restrictive regulation to protect airspace safety and security. In this paper we examine how certain African countries have become testbeds for new forms of drone infrastructure and regulation, driven by the overlapping interests of governments, drone operators, and international development agencies. In particular we explore the factors that have led to the development of an advanced medical delivery network in Rwanda and contrast that with the closing down of airspace for drones in Tanzania. The paper makes a distinctive contribution to research on the ongoing constitution of dronespace as a sphere of commercial and governmental activity. Rwanda's drone delivery system is seen as the forerunner for the wider enclosure and parcelling up of the lower atmosphere into designated drone corridors that limit the democratic and disruptive potential of drone activity in line with prevailing logics of airspace regulation.