Greening in the spotlight:How public inquisitiveness shapes European SMEs' actions in response to climate concerns

We examine greening activities among European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the product and process domains, and argue that greater public climate concern in an SME's home country environment primarily associates with greening in the inherently more visible product domain. Moreover, we introduce the concept of public inquisitiveness and propose that greater inquisitiveness prompts SMEs to also pay attention to less visible process greening activities as a response to public climate pressures. We test our ideas using multilevel regression models on a large representative sample of SMEs from 18 European Union (EU) countries. The study's main ideas are supported by the findings, which point to possible trade-offs between product and process greening among resource-constrained SMEs, and suggest the general public's inquisitiveness indeed plays a key role in preventing under engagement in less outwardly visible greening strategies. We discuss our study's implications for discourse on how and under which conditions normative institutional forces shape firm-level sustainable behavior, as well as for SMEs' pro-environmental stakeholders.</p

On-board Images to Characterize a CubeSat\u27s ADCS

ADCS for nanosatellites in the New Space sector are frequently offered as Commercial-Off-The-Shelves (COTS) systems. However, when the COTS datasheet and the actual performance in flight differ dramatically, there are few means to assess the discrepancies. Here, we update on the current operations with a flying nanosatellite to assess the attitude stability during inertial pointing mode, based on the analysis of on-board images of the sky. The satellite is OPS-SAT, a 3-unit CubeSat owned and operated by ESA. The imager is directed to the -Z longitudinal axis and the star tracker and a Sun sensor are oriented in the transversal (X,Y) plane. After a trial and error process, a complex processing revealed many stars in the captured images, that could also be identified. It demonstrates that the inertial pointing did not reach the expected performance and, moreover, it provides a fine assessment of the actual pointing and its jitter and drift. This information was fundamental in assessing the possible improvements in terms of sensors’ alignments, operations and on-board systems. The latest results are presented, as the operations are still on-going. Such assessments were possible with low-sensitivity sensors and poor stability, demonstrating that a commissioning process of the ADCS in flight is needed and feasible

Case Report Purple Urine Bag Syndrome in Two Elderly Men with Urinary Tract Infection

Purple urine bag syndrome is a rare condition in which purple discoloration of urine inside its collection bag occurs. We describe two illustrative cases. The first patient is an 81-year-old man who was hospitalized for a newly diagnosed lymphoma with acute obstructive renal failure for which a nephrostomy procedure was performed. During the hospitalization, a sudden purple discoloration of the suprapubic catheter urine was noted, while the nephrostomy urine had a normal color. Urine culture from the suprapubic catheter was positive for Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterococcus faecalis; urine from the nephrostomy was sterile. The second case is an 80-year-old man who was admitted for heart failure with cardiorenal dilemma and who was started on intermittent hemodialysis. There was a sudden purple discoloration of the urine in the collection bag from his indwelling catheter. He was diagnosed with an E. coli urinary infection and treated with amoxicillin and removal of the indwelling catheter. These two cases illustrate the typical characteristics of purple urine bag syndrome

The Antifungal Plant Defensin HsAFP1 from Heuchera sanguinea Induces Apoptosis in Candida albicans

Plant defensins are active against plant and human pathogenic fungi (such as Candida albicans) and baker's yeast. However, they are non-toxic to human cells, providing a possible source for treatment of fungal infections. In this study, we characterized the mode of action of the antifungal plant defensin HsAFP1 from coral bells by screening the Saccharomyces cerevisiae deletion mutant library for mutants with altered HsAFP1 sensitivity and verified the obtained genetic data by biochemical assays in S. cerevisiae and C. albicans. We identified 84 genes, which when deleted conferred at least fourfold hypersensitivity or resistance to HsAFP1. A considerable part of these genes were found to be implicated in mitochondrial functionality. In line, sodium azide, which blocks the respiratory electron transport chain, antagonized HsAFP1 antifungal activity, suggesting that a functional respiratory chain is indispensable for HsAFP1 antifungal action. Since mitochondria are the main source of cellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), we investigated the ROS-inducing nature of HsAFP1. We showed that HsAFP1 treatment of C. albicans resulted in ROS accumulation. As ROS accumulation is one of the phenotypic markers of apoptosis in yeast, we could further demonstrate that HsAFP1 induced apoptosis in C. albicans. These data provide novel mechanistic insights in the mode of action of a plant defensin

Recovery From File System Corruption on the OPS-SAT-1 Experimental Processor

Recover from radiation and wear induced faults on a spacecraft’s non-volatile memory: Regain communication with the processing platform. Identify the root cause of the issues. Develop mitigation strategies against further corruption. Return to nominal state

Town of Lisbon, Maine Annual Financial Report For The Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2012

Serum p-cresyl sulfate (PCS) associates with cardiovascular disease in patients with chronic kidney disease. PCS concentrations are determined by intestinal uptake of p-cresol, human metabolism to PCS and renal clearance. Whether intestinal uptake of p-cresol itself is directly associated with cardiovascular disease in patients with renal dysfunction has not been studied to date.status: publishe

Implementing the New CCSDS Housekeeping Data Compression Standard 124.0-B-1 (Based on POCKET+) on OPS-SAT-1

The number of telemetry parameters available in a typical spacecraft is constantly increasing. At the same time, the bandwidth available to download all that information is rather static. Operators must therefore make hard choices between which parameters to downlink or not, in which different situations, and at which sampling rates. This tradeoff is more problematic for missions with higher communication latency beyond LEO. Since 2009, The European Space Agency’s European Space Operations Center (ESA/ESOC) has been promoting the compression of housekeeping telemetry as a solution to this problem. Most spacecraft housekeeping telemetry parameters compress extremely well if they are pre-processed correctly. Unfortunately, most spacecraft record telemetry packets in flat packet stores so accessing different packets within them is too CPU and memory intensive for flight computers. Using traditional compression schemes such as zip or tar are not compatible with the traditional “fire and forget” mode of operation i.e., occasional packet losses are expected. This would render entire compressed files unusable. ESOC invented an algorithm called POCKET+ to solve this problem. It is implemented using very low-level processor instructions such as OR, XOR, AND, etc. This means that it can run with low CPU usage and, more importantly, with a short execution time. It is designed to run fast enough to compress a stream of incoming packets as they are generated by the on-board packetiser. The output is a smaller stream of packets. The compressed packets can be handled by the on-board system in an identical fashion to the original larger uncompressed packets. Robustness with respect to the occasional packet loss is built into the protocol and does not require a back channel. In 2018, POCKET+ was proposed to the CCSDS data compression working group and after extensive research by other agencies the core idea has been Evans 2 36th Annual Small Satellite Conference incorporated into a proposed new standard for “Robust Compression of Fixed Length Housekeeping Data.” The second supporter for the mission is CNES, supported technically by the University of Barcelona (UAB). Both CNES and UAB have suggested changes that make POCKET+ even more powerful. POCKET+ is already flying on OPSSAT, a 3U CubeSat launched by the European Space Agency on December 18th, 2019. The mission has updated the Onboard Software (OBSW) and ground control software to be compliant with the latest POCKET+ standard. The standard is set to be available for an ESA review. This paper describes the latest algorithm and how it is implemented on OPS-SAT, including how the same core software has been successfully deployed in two completely different scenarios/environments. One compresses files offline and then uses a transport protocol with a completeness guarantee; the other compresses a packet stream in real-time and uses the classic transport protocol where completeness is not guaranteed. The results show that compression ratios between eight and ten are usual for the OPSSAT mission. Improvements made during the development of the planned CCSDS standard for “Robust Compression of Fixed Length Housekeeping Data” are also presented

Oxidative stress in autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease: player and/or early predictor for disease progression?

Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD), caused by mutations in PKD1 or PKD2 genes, is the most common hereditary renal disease. Renal manifestations of ADPKD are gradual cyst development and kidney enlargement ultimately leading to end-stage renal disease. ADPKD also causes extrarenal manifestations, including endothelial dysfunction and hypertension. Both of these complications are linked with reduced nitric oxide levels related to excessive oxidative stress (OS). OS, defined as disturbances in the prooxidant/antioxidant balance, is harmful to cells due to the excessive generation of highly reactive oxygen and nitrogen free radicals. Next to endothelial dysfunction and hypertension, there is cumulative evidence that OS occurs in the early stages of ADPKD. In the current review, we aim to summarize the cardiovascular complications and the relevance of OS in ADPKD and, more specifically, in the early stages of the disease. First, we will briefly introduce the link between ADPKD and the early cardiovascular complications including hypertension. Secondly, we will describe the potential role of OS in the early stages of ADPKD and its possible importance beyond the chronic kidney disease (CKD) effect. Finally, we will discuss some pharmacological agents capable of reducing reactive oxygen species and OS, which might represent potential treatment targets for ADPKD