scholarly journals Redox Heterogeneity Entangles Soil and Climate Interactions

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (18) ◽  
pp. 10084
Author(s):  
Jared L. Wilmoth

Interactions between soils and climate impact wider environmental sustainability. Soil heterogeneity intricately regulates these interactions over short spatiotemporal scales and therefore needs to be more finely examined. This paper examines how redox heterogeneity at the level of minerals, microbial cells, organic matter, and the rhizosphere entangles biogeochemical cycles in soil with climate change. Redox heterogeneity is used to develop a conceptual framework that encompasses soil microsites (anaerobic and aerobic) and cryptic biogeochemical cycling, helping to explain poorly understood processes such as methanogenesis in oxygenated soils. This framework is further shown to disentangle global carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) pathways that include CO2, CH4, and N2O. Climate-driven redox perturbations are discussed using wetlands and tropical forests as model systems. Powerful analytical methods are proposed to be combined and used more extensively to study coupled abiotic and biotic reactions that are affected by redox heterogeneity. A core view is that emerging and future research will benefit substantially from developing multifaceted analyses of redox heterogeneity over short spatiotemporal scales in soil. Taking a leap in our understanding of soil and climate interactions and their evolving influence on environmental sustainability then depends on greater collaborative efforts to comprehensively investigate redox heterogeneity spanning the domain of microscopic soil interfaces.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Mokter Hossain ◽  
Jarkko Levänen ◽  
Marleen Wierenga

ABSTRACT Firms are often criticized for their reluctance to embrace sustainability in their business strategies. Frugal innovation is a recent concept that represents a new way for firms to serve underserved customers in developing countries while also promoting sustainability. Based on three cases of frugal innovation at the grassroots level in India, this article demonstrates how frugal innovation presents a promising way to tackle some of today's pressing societal problems with new business models. We use a range of parameters for economic, social, and environmental sustainability to strengthen the case for frugal innovation. This article attempts to inspire scholars to consider frugal innovation further in their future research endeavors and encourage firms to integrate it into their existing business models.


2021 ◽  
pp. 014920632199121
Author(s):  
Ruth V. Aguilera ◽  
J. Alberto Aragón-Correa ◽  
Valentina Marano ◽  
Peter A. Tashman

As corporations’ environmental impact comes under greater scrutiny by global financial, regulatory, and societal stakeholders, management scholars have increasingly focused on the role of corporate governance as a tool for driving environmental initiatives. Still, we lack a comprehensive and systematic understanding of this emergent body of inquiry and a holistic agenda for future research. To address this gap, our integrative framework relates the key corporate governance actors to environmental sustainability outcomes from the extant literature and highlights its main methodological approaches and theoretical arguments. Our framework provides a critical analysis of what we know and points to the knowledge gaps around owners, boards of directors, CEOs, top management teams, and employees as corporate governance actors. We then highlight limitations in the existing literature as significant opportunities for further research to resolve its ambiguous conceptualizations of environmental sustainability constructs, various methodological and theoretical challenges, incomplete engagement with the global dimension of environmental sustainability, and limited analysis of how corporate governance actors may interact to shape environmental sustainability outcomes. We conclude by proposing novel approaches for addressing these issues, which we believe could generate a better way forward on studying the corporate governance of environmental sustainability.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 6034
Author(s):  
Ine Hugaerts ◽  
Jeroen Scheerder ◽  
Kobe Helsen ◽  
Joris Corthouts ◽  
Erik Thibaut ◽  
...  

The United Nations (UN) considers sports as an important enabler of sustainable development. The popular and fast-growing Participatory Sports Event (PSE) sector can play an important role in this regard, however, research that measures and reports sustainability in PSEs is scarce. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to construct and validate a research instrument based on the UN’s sustainable development goals, and to examine sustainability in PSEs. To this end, an online survey was administered among a representative sample of 303 PSE organisers, located in Flanders, Belgium. A confirmatory factor analysis affirmed the social, economic and environmental dimensions of the instrument and provided evidence for its validity and reliability. The results reveal significant discrepancies between the three dimensions, with a noticeable lower score for environmental sustainability compared to social and economic sustainability. Furthermore, challenges are highlighted in the field of the civil society sector and in walking sports events. The findings also indicate that large-sized events are more likely to be sustainable. The current study can act as a foundation for future research on sustainability in PSEs and can assist PSE organisers and policymakers to increase the sustainability-related performance of the sector.


Circulation ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 118 (suppl_18) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrizia Camelliti ◽  
Gil Bub ◽  
Daniel J Stuckey ◽  
Christian Bollensdorff ◽  
Damian J Tyler ◽  
...  

Sarcomere length (SL) is a fundamental parameter underlying the Frank Starling relation in the heart, as it offers an absolute representation of myocardial stretch. Previous studies addressed the Frank Starling relation by measuring SL in isolated myocytes or muscle strips. Here, we report first data obtained using a novel technique to measure sub-epicardial SL in perfused hearts. Rat hearts were Langendorff perfused (normal Tyrode solution) at a constant pressure of 90mmHg, labeled with the fluorescent membrane marker di-4-ANEPPS, and then arrested with high-K + Tyrode for either 2-photon microscopy (n=4) or MRI (n=4). Image analysis software was developed to extract SL at the cell level from >1,400 2-photon images (Fig 1 ) and correct for cell angle. SL increased by 10±2 % between 30 and 80 min of perfusion (1.98±0.04 to 2.17±0.03 μm; p<0.05; Fig 1 ). Measurements of left ventricular myocardial volume (LVMV) were made in vivo and in perfused hearts using 3D MRI. LVMV increased by 24±7% from in vivo to 30 min of perfusion, and by 11±3 % between 30 and 90 min (539±35; 664±44; 737±49 mm 3 , respectively; p<0.05; Fig 1 ). We show that SL can be measured in isolated perfused hearts. The method allowed monitoring of changes in SL over time, and showed that SL and LVMV increase to a similar extent during 30–80 min perfusion with crystalloid solution, probably due to tissue oedema. This result, together with the increase in LVMV during the first 30 min, highlights the pronounced differences between in vivo , in situ , and in vitro model systems for studies of cardiac physiology and mechanics. Future research will compare changes in SL in healthy hearts and disease models involving contractile dysfunction. Figure 1: Left: 2-photon microscopy image of di-4-ANEPPS labeled myocardium. Right: SL and LVMV changes over time.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 195-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madeline Judge ◽  
Julian W. Fernando ◽  
Angela Paladino ◽  
Yoshihisa Kashima

What are the consequences of lay beliefs about how things are made? In this article, we describe a Western folk theory of artifact creation, highlighting how intuitive dualism regarding mental and physical labor (i.e., folk psychology) can lead to the perceived transmission of properties from makers to material artifacts (i.e., folk physics), and affect people’s interactions with material artifacts. We show how this folk theory structures the conceptual domain of material artifacts by differentiating the contemporary lay concepts of art/craft and industrial production, and how it influences people’s evaluations of different types of artifacts and their makers. We propose that the folk theory and lay concepts of art/craft and industrial production are best understood within a specific sociohistorical context, and review potential sources of cross-cultural and cross-temporal variation. We conclude by making recommendations for future research and examining the implications for promoting environmental sustainability and social justice in production systems.


Author(s):  
Suleyman Mete ◽  
Faruk Serin

A fundamental problem concerning medical waste disposal is the evaluation of the real and potential risks arising from waste with the focus on the risk of infection. Therefore, the optimization of medical waste routing from collection to disposal center can minimize the risk of infection. The routing of medical waste considers significant to determine potential routes and select the route with minimum distance. The management of the medical waste is important decision for environmental sustainability and includes the collection, transportation and disposal of these materials. In this paper, a geographic information system (GIS) solution approach is proposed to determine the best location of disposal center. Proposed approach is applied to medical waste transportation between 167 health institutions (collection centers) and predetermined 5 disposal centers through TRB1 region in Turkey, which consist of Malatya, Elaz??, Bingöl and Tunceli provinces. The results of case study are examined and suggestions for future research are provided.


Author(s):  
Ali Abbas ◽  
Bilal Bilal ◽  
Ye Chengang ◽  
Shahid Manzoor ◽  
Irfan Ullah ◽  
...  

The world is looking towards organizations for social responsibility to contribute to a sustainable environment. Employees&rsquo; organizational citizenship behavior for the environment (OCBE) is a voluntary environmental-oriented behavior that is important for organizations&rsquo; environmental performance. Based on social learning theory, the study examined the effects of responsible leadership in connection with OCBE by using a sample of 520 employees of manufacturing and service sector including engine manufacturing, petroleum plants banking and insurance sector organizations of China. Further, the role of psychological ownership and employee environmental commitment were used as mediators and moderators simultaneously. The direct, mediation, and moderation model results exposed a positive relationship between responsible leadership and OCBE via employee psychological ownership and employee environmental commitment. The study also revealed that the indirect effect is stronger when employees hold higher employee environmental commitment. The theoretical and practical implications for environmental sustainability in respect of organizations as well as future research directions are discussed.


Author(s):  
Jane Leithead ◽  
Steve Humble

This investigation looks at the antecedents and outcomes of 141 children living in poor informal settlements in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana identifying with global citizenship. It finds that the model of global citizenship devised by Reysen and Katzarska-Miller (2013) is a moderately good fit for this group of children. Structural equation modelling demonstrates that antecedents of global awareness as well as friends and family supporting global citizenship (normative environment) predict the child’s self-identification as a global citizen. This in turn predicts six prosocial traits: intergroup empathy, valuing diversity, social justice, environmental sustainability, intergroup helping and responsibility to act. The research suggests that there may be other elements to a global citizenship model that could be investigated in future research.


AERA Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 233285841984959 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caitlin C. Farrell ◽  
Christopher Harrison ◽  
Cynthia E. Coburn

In research-practice partnerships (RPPs), the line between researcher and practitioner can be blurred, and the roles for everyone involved may be unclear. Yet little is known about how these roles are negotiated and with what consequences for collaborative efforts. Guided by organizational theory, we share findings from a multiyear case study of one RPP, drawing on observations of partnership leadership meetings and interviews with school district leaders and partners. Role negotiation occurred in more than one third of leadership meetings, as evidenced by identity-referencing discourse. When roles were unclear, collaborative efforts stalled; once partners renegotiated their roles, it changed how they engaged in the work together. Several forces contributed to these dynamics, including the partner’s ambitious yet ambiguous identity and the introduction of new members to the group. This study offers implications for those engaged in partnership work and provides a foundation for future research regarding role negotiation in RPPs.


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