The treatment of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) as a possible source of micro- and nano-plastics and bioplastics in agroecosystems: a review

Plastics fragmentation into smaller debris, namely, micro- and nano-plastics (MPs and NPs), is a matter of global concern because of their wide distribution in terrestrial and marine environments. The latest research has focused mainly on aquatic ecosystems, and fragmentation of bioplastics into micro- and nano-particles (MBPs and NBPs) is not considered. The distribution, concentration, fate and major source of MPs, NPS, MBPs and NBPs in agroecosystems still need to be understood. The use of composts and sewage sludge from the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) treatment plants as soil amendments is likely to represent a major input of these debris. The present review provides insights into the current evidence of pollution from micro- and nano-particles of both fossil- and bio-origin in the OFMSW treatment, and aims at evaluating if the recycling of organic waste and its application as a soil fertilizer outweigh the risk of pollution in terrestrial environments. Huge unpredictability exists due to the limited numbers of data on their quantification in each source of possible solution. Indeed, the major hurdles arise from the difficult to quantify the micro-, especially the nano-, particles and subsequently assess the concentrations in the environments, as well as bioaccumulation risks, and toxic effects on organisms. Graphical Abstract

Discovery of a New Ozone Hole over the Tropics

This paper reveals a new ozone hole that exists in the lower stratosphere over the tropics (30°N-30°S) across the seasons since the 1980s, where an ozone hole is defined as an area of ozone loss larger than 25% compared with the undisturbed atmosphere. The depth of this all-season tropical ozone hole is comparable to that of the well-known springtime ozone hole over Antarctica, while its area is about seven times that of the latter. At the center of the deepest tropical or Antarctic ozone hole, approximately 80% of the normal ozone value is depleted, whereas annual mean ozone depletion in the lower stratosphere over the tropics due to the coldest temperature is about 1.6 times that over Antarctica and is about 7.7 times that over the Arctic. The whole-year ozone hole over the tropics could cause a serious global concern as it can lead to increases in ground-level ultraviolet radiation and affect 50% of Earth's surface area, which is home to approximately 50% of the world's population. Moreover, since ozone loss is well-known to lead to stratospheric cooling, the presence of the all-season tropical ozone hole and the seasonal polar ozone holes is equivalent to the formation of three ‘temperature holes’ in the global lower stratosphere. These findings will play a far-reaching role in understanding fundamental atmospheric processes and global climate change.

Impact Analysis of COVID 19 Response Measures on Social Media Postings

Declared a pandemic in March 2020, SARS-COVID19 has become a health emergency of global concern. The World Health Organization has directed the countries all over the world to take measures to stop the spread of disease. There was a public outburst for policies like lockdown and a mixed review for Working from Home on social networking platforms. By analyzing this change, we can identify the sentiment of people about different policies. A lot of work has been done on sentiment analysis of Covid19 tweets. This is an in-depth impact analysis of COVID-19 response measures on sentiments of tweets. It can help us understand the social media trends revolving around COVID19. For achieving the goal, Google Mobility Report has been used for obtaining data about the mobility in different countries. A huge collection of tweets is extracted using Twitter API. Both datasets are used to analyze multiple trends over a period of more than a year. This article shows the change in social media sentiments with the evolving state of pandemic and the steps taken by authorities. Although, number of cases have more impact on Sentiments, the impact of changing mobility of residential and non-residential areas is also not negligible because average sentiments have seen significant up and down trends because of changing government policies.

The SARS-CoV-2 infection in Thailand: analysis of spike variants complemented by protein structure insights

Thailand was the first country outside China to officially report COVID-19 cases. Despite the strict regulations for international arrivals, up until February 2021, Thailand had been hit by two major outbreaks. With a large number of SARS-CoV-2 sequences collected from patients, the effects of many genetic variations, especially those unique to Thai strains, are yet to be elucidated. In this study, we analysed 439,197 sequences of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein collected from NCBI and GISAID databases. 595 sequences were from Thailand and contained 52 variants, of which 6 had not been observed outside Thailand (p.T51N, p.P57T, p.I68R, p.S205T, p.K278T, p.G832C). These variants were not predicted to be of concern. We demonstrate that the p.D614G, although already present during the first Thai outbreak, became the prevalent strain during the second outbreak, similarly to what was described in other countries. Moreover, we show that the most common variants detected in Thailand (p.A829T, p.S459F and p.S939F) do not appear to cause any major structural change to the spike trimer or the spike-ACE2 interaction. Among the variants identified in Thailand was p.N501T. This variant, which involves an asparagine critical for spike-ACE2 binding, was not predicted to increase SARS-CoV-2 binding, thus in contrast to the variant of global concern p.N501Y. In conclusion, novel variants identified in Thailand are unlikely to increase the fitness of SARS-CoV-2. The insights obtained from this study could aid SARS-CoV-2 variants prioritisations and help molecular biologists and virologists working on strain surveillance.

The effectiveness of policy communication in promoting #KangPisMan program among university students

This study is aimed at measuring the effectiveness of policy communication in promoting #KangPisMan program among university students. #KangPisMan is a top priority program of Bandung Municipal Government to tackle waste management problem. In this sense, the problem of plastic waste has become a global concern about environment, therefore it is a hope that, by promoting #KangPisMan, a new lifestyle will make people more aware of environmental sustainability. The program was established in 2018, so it is necessary to measure the effectiveness of its communicating strategy. In terms of public communication, the realization of promoting the program should be measured based on its optimal value. The present study seeks to analyse the effectiveness of communication strategy by employing 7C concepts as introduced. The questionnaire was distributed to 300 respondents (based on purposive sampling) which were registered as students of Faculty of Social Sciences Education, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia. Validity of the questionnaire is measured by corrected item-total correlation. The analysis shows that communication strategy in promoting #KangPisMan was relatively effective by considering the lowest scores of continuity and consistency. It shows that the aspect of consistency in promoting the program should be enhanced. Meanwhile, the aspect of credibility had the highest value. Therefore, it is a big capital to promote the program through the role model as reflected by the team. In general, all respondents were satisfied of the communication strategy in promoting the program. However, the effectiveness is still potential to be developed in the upcoming time.

Empowering Theory of Poverty Reduction for Sustainable Development: Does the Welfare of Descendants Matter?

The first Sustainable Development Goal expresses the global concern in poverty eradication. We looked at the theory of poverty reduction with a long-term perspective in mind to confirm the congruence of modern approaches and their compliance with the principles of sustainable development. Despite clear signs of targeting Sustainable development goals to the future, we have found that future poverty needs deep discussion. We researched legal acts, policies and scientific sources to prove the possibility and suitability of recognising future poverty as a valid form of poverty. We considered the main possible difficulties that will challenge initiatives of future poverty exhausting. Finally, we proposed several perspective directions of further research to include the future poverty concept into the agenda of governments and supranational organisations.

Global Public Policy studies

Globalisation has helped to intensify the international flow of people, information and policies. Following this process there has been increasing global concern regarding problems in areas such as immigration, health, poverty, among others. Various agents are transnationally engaged in common responses to these issues. The classic definition of public policies is related to actions undertaken by governments to solve the problems within their jurisdictions. However, often problems do not respect national boundaries. Sometimes, policies need to involve other nations. This article discusses the main issues, concepts and challenges in the study of global public policies.First, the article presents a review of the existing literature. Second, it introduces the key agents and agendas of global public policy. The discussion section focuses on the latest challenges and opportunities for research in Global Public Policy studies. Finally, new avenues of research are introduced, such as the dimension of power, the impact of the far-right and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

An Intelligent Grid Network Based on Cloud Computing Infrastructures

This chapter covers important topics in development of efficient energy girds. Inefficient power generation, unbalanced consumption patterns that lead to underutilization of expensive infrastructure on the one hand, and severe overload on the other, as well as urgent issues of national and global concern such as power system security and climate change are all driving this evolution. As the smart grid concept matures, we'll see dramatic growth in green power production: small production devices such as wind turbines and solar panels or solar farms, which have fluctuating capacity outside of the control of grid operators. Small companies that specialize in producing power under just certain conditions will boom in forthcoming years. Energy is stored in the storage during low-cost periods, and the stored energy is used during high-cost periods to avoid the expensive draw from the grid. The authors evaluate the impact of large-scale energy storage adoption on grid electricity demand.