scholarly journals A Systematic, Complexity-Reduction Approach to Dissect Microbiome: the Kombucha Tea Microbiome as an Example

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoning Huang ◽  
Yongping Xin ◽  
Ting Lu

One defining goal of microbiome research is to uncover mechanistic causation that dictates the emergence of structural and functional traits of microbiomes. However, the extraordinary degree of ecosystem complexity has hampered the realization of the goal. Here we developed a systematic, complexity-reducing strategy to mechanistically elucidate the compositional and metabolic characteristics of microbiome by using the kombucha tea microbiome as an example. The strategy centered around a two-species core that was abstracted from but recapitulated the native counterpart. The core was convergent in its composition, coordinated on temporal metabolic patterns, and capable for pellicle formation. Controlled fermentations uncovered the drivers of these characteristics, which were also demonstrated translatable to provide insights into the properties of communities with increased complexity and altered conditions. This work unravels the pattern and process underlying the kombucha tea microbiome, providing a potential conceptual framework for mechanistic investigation of microbiome behaviors.

Author(s):  
William Durch ◽  
Joris Larik ◽  
Richard Ponzio

Security and justice are both essential elements in humanity’s quest not only to survive but to thrive with dignity; neither is sustainable alone. Security is merely the appearance of order in a framework of structural violence unless tempered or leavened by concepts of justice that include human rights, human dignity, and other normative limits on the use of power. The pursuit of justice, whether at the personal, community, national, or international level can be crippled if not matched, in turn, by means to sustain security at each level. This complementarity of security and justice—despite their inherent tensions—is the core conceptual framework of the book. Achieving “just security,” we argue, is essential to the success of any global governance enterprise or architecture.


Author(s):  
Jonas Tallberg ◽  
Karin Bäckstrand ◽  
Jan Aart Scholte

Legitimacy is central for the capacity of global governance institutions to address problems such as climate change, trade protectionism, and human rights abuses. However, despite legitimacy’s importance for global governance, its workings remain poorly understood. That is the core concern of this volume, which engages with the overarching question: whether, why, how, and with what consequences global governance institutions gain, sustain, and lose legitimacy. This introductory chapter explains the rationale of the book, introduces its conceptual framework, reviews existing literature, and presents the key themes of the volume. It emphasizes in particular the volume’s sociological approach to legitimacy in global governance, its comparative scope, and its comprehensive treatment of the topic. Moreover, a specific effort is made to explain how each chapter moves beyond existing research in exploring the book’s three themes: (1) sources of legitimacy, (2) processes of legitimation and delegitimation, and (3) consequences of legitimacy.


Legal Theory ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
João Alberto de Oliveira Lima ◽  
Cristine Griffo ◽  
João Paulo A. Almeida ◽  
Giancarlo Guizzardi ◽  
Marcio Iorio Aranha

Abstract At the core of Hohfeld's contribution to legal theory is a conceptual framework for the analysis of the legal positions occupied by agents in intersubjective legal relations. Hohfeld presented a system of eight “fundamental” concepts relying on notions of opposition and correlation. Throughout the years, a number of authors have followed Hohfeld in applying the notion of opposition to analyze legal concepts. Many of these authors have accounted for Hohfeld's theory in direct analogy with the standard deontic hexagon. This paper reviews some of these accounts and extends them employing recent developments from opposition theory. In particular, we are able to extend application of opposition theory to an open conception of the law. We also account for the implications of abandoning the assumption of conflict-freedom and admitting seemingly conflicting legal positions. This enables a fuller analysis of Hohfeld's conceptual analytical framework. We also offer a novel analysis of Hohfeld's power positions.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 226-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sankalp Pratap

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to go beyond the “What to outsource” and “To Outsource or Not” debate. Recognizing outsourcing as a fast growing reality that firms have to depend upon, the paper concerns itself with optimal management of outsourcing arrangements through the practice of “outsourcing capability”. It argues that outsourcing failure can be mitigated if organizations see outsourcing as an “ongoing activity” to be managed as opposed to treating it as a one-time opportunistic “act”. Design/methodology/approach – Based on the review of existing literature and drawing upon recent instances of outsourcing successes and failures, the paper develops a conceptual framework which divides various organizational processes into four different classes. It delineates the varied aspects of “outsourcing capability” that a firm would need to use to manage these varied class of processes as and when they are outsourced. Findings – There is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to managing outsourced processes. Different processes require emphasis on different aspect of outsourcing capability if outsourcing is to deliver the envisaged benefits. Originality/value – The traditional focus in outsourcing literature has been on the core/non-core process with the recommendation to keep core processes in-house and outsource the non-core processes. This distinction can be transitory and hence detrimental in the era of hyper-competition. I argue that firms should instead focus on developing and refining aspects of “outsourcing capability” relevant to the varied class of processes that they wish/need to outsource.


2021 ◽  
pp. 61-87
Author(s):  
Thomas Ryttersgaard

Although other comprehensive income did not exist in the conceptual framework until 2018, it has been a part of IFRS for many years, and it has not been defined based on accounting theory. This paper considers arguments for the current use of other comprehensive income under IFRS and finds that matching and prudence are at the core of other comprehensive income in IFRS despite not being elements of the conceptual framework. This suggests that the concept of other comprehensive income exists because the IFRS standards are founded on a mix of balance sheet-based and income statement-based accounting principles. Based on the characteristics of other comprehensive income and the IASB's arguments for the recognition of gains and losses in other comprehensive income, this paper proposes a definition of other comprehensive income that can be used to ensure a uniform application of the concept across accounting standards and to reduce risks of inconsistency.


Author(s):  
Jirapun Daengdej ◽  
Kitikorn Dowpiset

Every country is currently preparing themselves for the fourth industrial revolution, the environment where innovation is the key concept for survival. Most of the countries have developed framework for their e-government development. Unfortunately, most of these frameworks do not contain adequate details on what are the activities required if big data will be used as a backbone of all services. This research focuses on proposing a conceptual framework for development of e-government in Thailand. The proposed framework explicitly contains all important activities to be completed if big data will serve as the core component of all services for their citizens.


Author(s):  
Christina Eckes

Chapter 1 sets out the conceptual framework for the rest of the book. It first and foremost develops the meaning and relevance of structures of bonding that formally legally connect the Union and its citizens. One prominent example is the European Parliament’s legal mandate to represent EU citizens. The chapter further identifies the autonomy and effectiveness of the EU legal order as the unique features that set it apart from international organizations and international law. The potential of structures of bonding depends on these features. Chapter 1 also develops the mutually dependant relationships of autonomy, effectiveness, structures of bonding, and the legitimacy of the Union and its actions. It identifies different dimensions of legitimacy and emphasizes, drawing on Jürgen Habermas, justifiability or, even more precisely, worthiness of recognition (Annerkennungswürdigkeit) as the core of legitimacy. Justification to individuals, as EU citizens and national citizens, returns in all the following chapters as a necessary precondition for legitimacy and as the core potential of bonding structures.


2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 239-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Duru ◽  
C. Jouany ◽  
X. Le Roux ◽  
M.L. Navas ◽  
P. Cruz

AbstractResearch to understand and manage ecosystems to supply services has recently spurred a functional view of their biodiversity. In particular, approaches based on functional traits rather than species diversity are increasingly used to reflect interactions between organisms and their environment. These approaches bring a functional perspective to the study of community structure responses to disturbances and resources, and of their effects on ecosystem functioning and services. From an academic perspective, we propose a conceptual framework based on species functional traits to better infer how grassland management practices (fertilization, defoliation regime) along with abiotic factors influence plant, animal and microbial community composition and a range of services in grassland ecosystems. The core of the framework relies on combinations of plant functional traits and associated microbial features that specifically respond to environmental and management factors and influence ecosystem services. To overcome stakeholders’ difficulty in applying the concept of functional traits, we propose an operational approach implying the mapping of plant communities distributed into five plant functional types (PFTs). The approach was used for fields in grassland-based livestock farms from two French grassland networks. We evaluated its ability to predict a range of services including forage provision and non-market services according to environmental and management drivers. PFT-based plant community composition predicted forage services reasonably well but responded weakly to environmental gradients. To cope with the observed limitations of current predictive approaches, we suggest including soil microbial functional types and adaptive management rather than using a prescriptive scheme.


2009 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 208-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura J. Shepherd

In this essay I develop a critique of the war/peace dichotomy that is foundational to conventional approaches to IR through a review of three recent publications in the field of feminist security studies. These texts are Cynthia Enloe's (2007) Globalization and Militarism, David Roberts' (2008) Human Insecurity, and Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women's Violence in Global Politics by Laura Sjoberg and Caron Gentry (2008). Drawing on the insights of these books, I ask first how violence is understood in global politics, with specific reference to the gendered disciplinary blindnesses that frequently characterise mainstream approaches. Second, I demonstrate how a focus on war and peace can neglect to take into account the politics of everyday violence: the violences of the in-between times that international politics recognises neither as ‘war’ nor ‘peace’ and the violences inherent to times of peace that are overlooked in the study of war. Finally, I argue that feminist security studies offers an important corrective to the foundational assumptions of IR, which themselves can perpetuate the very instances of violence that they seek to redress. If we accept the core insights of feminist security studies – the centrality of the human subject; the importance of particular configurations of masculinity and femininity; and the gendered conceptual framework that underpins the discipline of IR – we are encouraged to envisage a rather different politics of the global.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Csilla Demeter ◽  
Sarah MacInnes ◽  
Sara Dolnicar

Vacations are assumed to be characterised by enjoyment. More specifically, the level of enjoyment on vacation is assumed to be substantially higher than that of a normal day at home. Yet, this assumption has never been empirically tested. This study provides initial empirical evidence for the fact that all enjoyment-related constructs at the core of positive psychology (hedonic trait and state motivation/orientation and experience, and eudaimonic trait and state motivation/orientation and experience) are significantly higher on vacation than in the normal, everyday home context. To arrive at these empirical findings, the study also introduces to tourism research a conceptual framework that unambiguously defines the most commonly used eudaimonic and hedonic constructs and develops and empirically assesses appropriate single-item measures.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document