Evaluating the aerobic xylene-degrading potential of the intrinsic microbial community of a legacy BTEX-contaminated aquifer by enrichment culturing coupled with multi-omics analysis: uncovering the role of Hydrogenophaga strains in xylene degradation

To develop effective bioremediation strategies, it is always important to explore autochthonous microbial community diversity using substrate-specific enrichment. The primary objective of this present study was to reveal the diversity of aerobic xylene-degrading bacteria at a legacy BTEX-contaminated site where xylene is the predominant contaminant, as well as to identify potential indigenous strains that could effectively degrade xylenes, in order to better understand the underlying facts about xylene degradation using a multi-omics approach. Henceforward, parallel aerobic microcosms were set up using different xylene isomers as the sole carbon source to investigate evolved bacterial communities using both culture-dependent and independent methods. Research outcome showed that the autochthonous community of this legacy BTEX-contaminated site has the capability to remove all of the xylene isomers from the environment aerobically employing different bacterial groups for different xylene isomers. Interestingly, polyphasic analysis of the enrichments disclose that the community composition of the o-xylene-degrading enrichment community was utterly distinct from that of the m- and p-xylene-degrading enrichments. Although in each of the enrichments Pseudomonas and Acidovorax were the dominant genera, in the case of o-xylene-degrading enrichment Rhodococcus was the main player. Among the isolates, two Hydogenophaga strains, belonging to the same genomic species, were obtained from p-xylene-degrading enrichment, substantially able to degrade aromatic hydrocarbons including xylene isomers aerobically. Comparative whole-genome analysis of the strains revealed different genomic adaptations to aromatic hydrocarbon degradation, providing an explanation on their different xylene isomer-degrading abilities.

Packaging research artefacts with RO-Crate

An increasing number of researchers support reproducibility by including pointers to and descriptions of datasets, software and methods in their publications. However, scientific articles may be ambiguous, incomplete and difficult to process by automated systems. In this paper we introduce RO-Crate, an open, community-driven, and lightweight approach to packaging research artefacts along with their metadata in a machine readable manner. RO-Crate is based on Schema.org annotations in JSON-LD, aiming to establish best practices to formally describe metadata in an accessible and practical way for their use in a wide variety of situations. An RO-Crate is a structured archive of all the items that contributed to a research outcome, including their identifiers, provenance, relations and annotations. As a general purpose packaging approach for data and their metadata, RO-Crate is used across multiple areas, including bioinformatics, digital humanities and regulatory sciences. By applying “just enough” Linked Data standards, RO-Crate simplifies the process of making research outputs FAIR while also enhancing research reproducibility. An RO-Crate for this article11 https://w3id.org/ro/doi/10.5281/zenodo.5146227 is archived at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5146227.

Urban Flood Management Under Changing Climate

Climate change and the associated phenomenon have put major cities and their surroundings at multi-dimensional risk patterns because of hazards, with flooding being a major hazard in the Asian Peninsula. With authorities such as National Disaster Management Authority, India reporting multiple urban local bodies to be under flood risk, it is essential to prioritize flood risk management in the urban planning process in India. Kochi, the commercial capital of Kerala, India has been frequently affected by flooding events. Various factors have been attributed to the flood risk of Kochi Corporation, which requires validation. Against this backdrop, the study focuses on comprehending significant factors attributed to the vulnerability of settlements in the study region and promoting a way forward based on lessons learned and good practices across the world. This is achieved by analyzing significant databases and computations using GIS. The research outcome would help define strategies for sustainable land-use-based development, promoting effective flood management in the Kochi urban area.

Constant Communication for Community Engagement Through Responsible Leadership to Manage the Pandemic

The aim of this research was to study how community engagement using constant communication can be utilized to manage pandemic though responsible leadership. This study focuses on India's experience of community engagement and responsible leadership demonstrated by national leaders, especially Prime Minister (PM) Mr. Narendra Modi using his constant communication as one of the strategies. Data of Indian citizens through various online communities has been analyzed through qualitative analysis called netnography, which is an extension of ethnography. Based on this methodology, thematic analysis has been carried out. Constant communication as one of the themes helps responsible leaders in managing pandemic-level crises. This research also develops conceptual model as a research outcome to be more specific in terms of communication among communities through a leader. Nations struggling to manage pandemic can get more social and economic relief if such crises could have been managed through responsible leadership through his constant communication.

The Phenomenon of the 18th Century Institutional Printing House of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: The Case of the Franciscans

Many of the printing houses in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania that operated during the 17th-18th centuries belonged to institutions the biggest part of which consisted of Catholic monk monasteries. Despite belonging to one group, the development path of each printing house and its contribution to book culture has unique features. Of the four institutional prin­ting houses operating in the 18th century in Vilnius, the printing house of the Franciscan Conventuals Monastery was the first to be closed and its operations terminated. The purpose of the article is to identify the following causes behind the issues and eventual closure of this printing house. Based on the expenses and income book of this printing house for the period 1752–1769 (it is preserved at the Department of Manuscripts of Vilnius University Library,) this paper examines various aspects of the Vilnius Franciscan Conventuals monastery printing house: funds, sources of equipment and paper, building location, relations with employees and hired craftsmen, orders, sources of income, profitability. In order to better understand the specificity of the institutional press, an effort was made to establish a link between the research outcome and the wider context by addressing the question of the impact of both the society of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Franciscan Order itself on the destiny of the printing house. In addition, the book of expenses and income reveals new biographical data about Vilnius engraver Franciszek Balcewicz.

Accountability through Sustainability Data Governance: Reconfiguring Reporting to Better Account for the Digital Acceleration

Accountability assessment is a highly relevant challenge for companies nowadays. The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a digital acceleration in business environments, which in turn brought more focus on sustainability practices that could help organizations better demonstrate their accountability, thus making them more resilient to the ever-changing socio-economic context. Therefore, this paper aims to evaluate how to further improve corporate accountability (on a strategic and operational level), taking advantage of the digitalization changes that companies are being forced to go through and applying them to the sustainability evaluation process, including the reporting as its final output. The first research outcome is a combined framework, based on data governance and sustainability literature models, seeking to optimize the manageability of sustainability data. The second outcome is a matrix, based on a content analysis of 20 sustainability reports, representing eight possible types of behavior that companies adopt when integrating digitalization practices into their sustainability evaluation process. The aim is to explore how the communication of digital activities could refine the diligence of the sustainability assessment process, with disclosure representing its last step. Finally, the ‘leading’ case was broken down into the general strategic components that could potentially be included in a balanced data-sustainability reporting strategy.

The Grid of Burnout, Engagement and Job Satisfaction: a Case Study in Greece

Work engagement’s relation with burnout intensively concerns the research community. A plethora of works has tried to interpret the kind of correlation of the above structures with reference to their structural elements and phenomena deriving from their common causal network. Therefore, in this research, the correlation between work engagement and burnout is investigated via their main structural elements and on the basis of job satisfaction’s interpretive role. For this purpose, the responses of 561 employees from various economic sectors in Greece, were analyzed using path analysis after the data had first been approached via item response theory. Job satisfaction’s interpretive role appeared to be of importance in regards to the positive sign of the correlation between work engagement and burnout as emerged in this work. The intrinsic job satisfaction’s positive effect on both constructs that is burnout and work engagement, also arose as a research outcome, while the extrinsic job satisfaction appeared to operate positively to work engagement and negatively to burnout, regulating in this way the overall correlation exerted, therefore giving rise to theoretical and practical implications.

“Get Your Teeth Fixed Before You Go on TV”: Online Discussions of Reality Television as the Hegemonic Gaze Pointed at Socially Unacceptable “Others”

The article is engaged with the question of how viewers of Czech reality television programmes negotiate the social status of low-income participants in online discussions. The analysis is triggered by an enquiry into practices of stigmatisation and the processes of drawing, maintaining, and shifting boundaries between the normalised, well-ordered “self” and the poverty-stricken, socially unacceptable “other”. The public judgement of people lacking economic and cultural capital is analysed using Internet and social network debates related to the Czech adaptations of the reality TV programmes Výměna manželek (Wife Swap, TV Nova, 2005-present) and Prostřeno (Come Dine with Me, TV Prima, 2010-present). This method provides insight into the creation of consensual meaning, and allows the analysis of the positions, claims and arguments adopted by online discussants. The research outcome showed some important differences between the evaluations offered by the producers of programmes and those accepted by viewers.

Metadata Schema for Managing Digital Data and Images of Thai Human Skulls

This research was aimed at developing metadata that meets international standards for the purpose of managing digital data and images of Thai human skulls for medical studies. The research was conducted by applying the Metadata Lifecycle Model of the Metadata Architecture and Application Team. The model comprises four steps: requirement assessment and content analysis, identification of metadata requirements, metadata schema development, and metadata service and evaluation. The research outcome was a metadata schema composed of four modules, seven data element sets, and 29 pieces of data, each of which had six sets of property descriptions. Metadata evaluation conducted by three specialists in the field of anatomy and forensic medicine and three experts in the field of information science and metadata through free retrieval based on the Continuum of Metadata Quality in four aspects revealed that the experts were satisfied with the quality of metadata at a very high level: 100% for completeness, accuracy, and accessibility, and 94% for conformance to expectations. The developed metadata contain details that can be used to describe the characteristics of human skulls, with consideration taken in the development of the language used, retrieval, access, data exchange, and sharing. Thus, this novel metadata schema can be of use in management of digital data and images of human skulls for the purposes of medical studies, i.e., human anatomy and forensic anthropology.

A Direction and Principles for the Reshaping the Government's Climate Change Communications and Engagement Strategy

<p>Climate change is a global challenge that requires immediate individual and collective action. The self-evident fact that information alone is unable to motivate action suggests that effective communications and engagement will be critical in stimulating the required response. This research project explores how strategic thinking can be employed to support the New Zealand Government's climate change communication and engagement objectives. Strategic thinking is the active and deliberate pursuit of synthesising evidence with a creative anticipation of what might be possible. Rather than work within parameters set by precedent and convention, it represents the deliberate intent to question, disrupt and design new courses of action. This research explores the inertia in mainstream attitudes and behaviours towards climate change; relevant communications and social science best practice and theory; recent trends in New Zealand; and views and opinions from a diverse range of experts. The research outcome is a set of interconnected and interdependent principles that serve to inform and lead the development of a national climate change communications and engagement strategy.</p>