Collective stewardship and pathways to change: understanding pro-social values, connectedness to nature and empathic capacity to cultivate ecocentrism in rural communities of North Sulawesi, Indonesia

Drawing from multiple research traditions, I investigated pro-social and pro-environmental behaviours and assessed potential of behaviour change strategies, focusing on addressing hunting as a practice. An immersive 14-month ethnographic study involving participant observations, interviews, and focus groups explored the cognitive, social, and spiritual histories of four rural communities in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Particular attention was paid to the individualistic elements of attitudes, values, and beliefs, along with the social norms and perceived behavioural control governing these variables. My research revealed highly pro-social communities, with empathic tendencies and care-giving values, demonstrating latent potential for conservation advocacy. Expression of these values is dependent on several loci of control, particularly normative pressures of close communal living and religious doctrine. Land stewardship through participation in resource management initiatives generates responsibility toward wildlife and natural areas. I discovered the heterogenization of old and new belief systems toac have major implications for control and acceptance of behaviours and how likely people partake in practices related to the environment. Next, a strong affinity for nature was recorded, demonstrated by preferences for natural settings, awe and wonder of nature, human-animal relations including expression of empathic and compassionate predispositions. I noted a growing phenomenon of cultural erosion and loss of traditional ecological knowledge. A call for preservationism reflected the wish to avert breakdown of ancient cultural roots and identities, and the wisdom which connects people to the natural world. Finally, I experienced emergent environmental identities and openness to change, with a transition toward pride over exploitation of native wildlife, suggesting potential pathways to ecocentrism and thus more sustainable lifestyles. I distilled these insights into a strategic theory of change. This includes developing campaign messages which promote pro-sociality and environmental citizenship; working within the governing structures of societal control, particularly belief systems; and speaking to pre-existing communal values and social norms surrounding the acceptance of exploitative practices related to the natural world. Emergent from this research is a nuanced understanding of cultural dynamism and the links between pro-social and pro-environmental behaviours, which may help to normalise more harmonious relationships between people and nature

Wirtschaftswachstum und nachhaltige Entwicklung - ein Widerspruch? Fallbeispiele Länder des südlichen Afrikas

Nachhaltige Entwicklung ist im 21. Jahrhundert zu einem Schlüsselbegriff im Sprachgebrauch der internationalen Staatengemeinschaft und Entwicklungszusammenarbeit geworden. Strittig ist dabei, in welchem Verhältnis nachhaltige Entwicklung zu Wirtschaftswachstum steht bzw. ob Wirtschaftswachstum und eine nachhaltigen Entwicklung vereinbar sind. Nachdem in der vorliegenden Arbeit in einem ersten Teil ein dogmenhistorischer Überblick über die Veränderung des Entwicklungsleitbildes der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung hin zu dem Entwicklungsleitbild der nachhaltigen Entwicklung gegeben wird sowie Wirtschaftswachstum und nachhaltige Entwicklung operationalisiert werden, wird im zweiten Teil der Arbeit anhand von empirischen Zeitreihendaten untersucht, in welcher Beziehung das Wirtschaftswachstum der Länder des südlichen Afrikas und Indikatoren einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung ex post stehen. Als Indikatoren nachhaltiger Entwicklung werden die Bilanzierung der Biokapazität und des Ökologischen Fußabdrucks, die Adjusted Net Savings sowie der Sustainable Society Index ausgewählt. Als Ergebnis zeigt sich, dass für das südliche Afrika die empirische Evidenz fehlt, die sowohl eine Vereinbarkeit als auch einen Widerspruch von Wirtschaftswachstum und nachhaltiger Entwicklung anhand statistischer Analysen eindeutig bestätigt

Towards the Design of Metamorphic Proteins using Ensemble-Based Energetic Information

Miralles, Enric; Tagliabue, BenedettaPrimer pla d'una part del Parc de Diagonal-Mar. Es pot veure el paisatge del parc, realitzat amb estructures d'acer i elements de trencadís ceràmic. Al fons, es veuen uns edificis de gran alçada

Gestión de inventarios para la mejora de la Productividad en el almacén de productos terminados en la empresa CIPSA, Ate, 2018

La presente investigación titulada “Gestión de inventarios para la mejora de la Productividad en el almacén de productos terminados de la empresa CIPSA, Ate, 2018”, tiene como objetivo general determinar como la Aplicación de la Gestión de inventarios mejora la Productividad en el área de almacén de productos terminados, en respuesta al problema planteado: ¿Cómo la aplicación de la gestión de inventarios mejora la Productividad en el almacén de productos terminados de la empresa CIPSA, Ate, 2018?. La metodología empleada es por su naturaleza cuantitativa y por su finalidad aplicada, el Diseño de la Investigación es Cuasi Experimental. La población al igual que la muestra está constituida por 8 meses de estudio, donde se analizaron los ingresos, despachos y stock del almacén de productos terminados para atender la necesidad de productos y/o servicios para asegurar y garantizar que se atiendan los despachos en los tiempos establecidos por la Empresa. La validación de los instrumentos se generó utilizando el juicio de expertos ingenieros de la escuela de Ing. Industrial. Se aplicó la técnica de observación Experimental, de campo y el análisis documental, siendo los instrumentos utilizados la Hoja de Registro, Archivos y base de datos de la empresa (kardex). Los datos recolectados fueron procesados y analizados

Exploring allosteric coupling in the α-subunit of Heterotrimeric G proteins using evolutionary and ensemble-based approaches

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Allosteric coupling, which can be defined as propagation of a perturbation at one region of the protein molecule (such as ligand binding) to distant sites in the same molecule, constitutes the most general mechanism of regulation of protein function. However, unlike molecular details of ligand binding, structural elements involved in allosteric effects are difficult to diagnose. Here, we identified allosteric linkages in the α-subunits of heterotrimeric G proteins, which were evolved to transmit membrane receptor signals by allosteric mechanisms, by using two different approaches that utilize fundamentally different and independent information.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We analyzed: 1) correlated mutations in the family of G protein α-subunits, and 2) cooperativity of the native state ensemble of the Gαi1 or transducin. The combination of these approaches not only recovered already-known details such as the switch regions that change conformation upon nucleotide exchange, and those regions that are involved in receptor, effector or Gβγ interactions (indicating that the predictions of the analyses can be viewed with a measure of confidence), but also predicted new sites that are potentially involved in allosteric communication in the Gα protein. A summary of the new sites found in the present analysis, which were not apparent in crystallographic data, is given along with known functional and structural information. Implications of the results are discussed.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>A set of residues and/or structural elements that are potentially involved in allosteric communication in Gα is presented. This information can be used as a guide to structural, spectroscopic, mutational, and theoretical studies on the allosteric network in Gα proteins, which will provide a better understanding of G protein-mediated signal transduction.</p

Predicting the Energetics of Conformational Fluctuations in Proteins from Sequence: A Strategy for Profiling the Proteome

SUMMARY The abundance of dynamic and disordered regions in proteins suggests that structural determinants alone may not be sufficient to describe function. Instead, descriptors that account for the dynamic features of the energy landscape populated by the protein ensemble may be required. Here, we show that the thermodynamics of the dynamical complexity that imparts biological function can be largely reconstructed using sequence information alone, allowing thermodynamic characterization of entire proteomes without the need for structural analysis. We show that this tool can be used to analyze conserved energetic signatures within classes of proteins, as well as to compare the thermodynamic character of different proteomes

Investigating Homology between Proteins using Energetic Profiles

Accumulated experimental observations demonstrate that protein stability is often preserved upon conservative point mutation. In contrast, less is known about the effects of large sequence or structure changes on the stability of a particular fold. Almost completely unknown is the degree to which stability of different regions of a protein is generally preserved throughout evolution. In this work, these questions are addressed through thermodynamic analysis of a large representative sample of protein fold space based on remote, yet accepted, homology. More than 3,000 proteins were computationally analyzed using the structural-thermodynamic algorithm COREX/BEST. Estimated position-specific stability (i.e., local Gibbs free energy of folding) and its component enthalpy and entropy were quantitatively compared between all proteins in the sample according to all-vs.-all pairwise structural alignment. It was discovered that the local stabilities of homologous pairs were significantly more correlated than those of non-homologous pairs, indicating that local stability was indeed generally conserved throughout evolution. However, the position-specific enthalpy and entropy underlying stability were less correlated, suggesting that the overall regional stability of a protein was more important than the thermodynamic mechanism utilized to achieve that stability. Finally, two different types of statistically exceptional evolutionary structure-thermodynamic relationships were noted. First, many homologous proteins contained regions of similar thermodynamics despite localized structure change, suggesting a thermodynamic mechanism enabling evolutionary fold change. Second, some homologous proteins with extremely similar structures nonetheless exhibited different local stabilities, a phenomenon previously observed experimentally in this laboratory. These two observations, in conjunction with the principal conclusion that homologous proteins generally conserved local stability, may provide guidance for a future thermodynamically informed classification of protein homology