Microbiologically Influenced Corrosion of Iron by Nitrate Reducing Bacillus Sp

Iron has played a crucial role in the human ecosystem currently in transportation, manufacturing, and infrastructure. Iron oxide is known as rust, usually the reddish-brown oxide formed by iron and oxygen reactions in moisture from water or air. Microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC) is a significant problem to the economic damage, especially in industrial sectors and its direct presence with nitrate/iron-reducing bacteria. This paper aims to explore the MIC of iron by nitrate-reducing Bacillus sp. including the redox reaction occurs, microbiologically influenced corrosion, iron/nitrate-reducing and mechanisms of microbial iron/nitrate reduction.

Neighborhood environment — formation of a health-saving human ecosystem

See “Neighborhood environment: the impact of alcohol and tobacco outlets availability on health of people living in a certain area” Antsiferova A. A., Kontsevaya A. V., Mukaneeva D. K., Drapkina O. M. in Review articles, pp. 84-91.

Tackling COVID-19 through the One Health Approach

The Covid-19 pandemic is currently ravaging the globe with enormous morbidity and mortality. This pandemic, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 started from China and has spread across the globe. Initial reports indicated that the SARS-CoV-2 initially emerged among animals from where they transfer to humans. Different strategies deployed to curtail the pandemic have yielded little result. Therefore, the One-Health concept may compliment existing strategies. The One Health places emphasis on the between the animal-human-ecosystem interface and how this can be used to tackle public health problems, including the COVID-19 pandemic. One Health Surveillance will involve tracking viral pathogens in animals to access risk of transfer to humans. It will also stimulate targeted approaches for prevention and treatment of viral zoonotic infections. There should be an integrated and interdisciplinary One-Health surveillance that should incorporate veterinary, medical or public health and environmental scientists to synergise surveillance effort to track emergence of infectious diseases in the future.

Book culture: The dialectic of the static and the dynamic

The integrity of book culture is examined from the viewpoint of dialectical unity of the dynamic and the static: what ensures reader interest and long life of printed books in the historical time and what makes the mobile superstructure adapting the book culture to the changing environment and expanding its life. The author emphasizes that the book culture subject-object and subject categories, i.e. the humans and books/documents, take up the more stable and static positions. The book culture stability is manifested through its autonomy and persistence within the changing historical and cultural landscape (homeostasis, autopoiesis, and self-referencing). The dynamics is manifested in the processes of organization, disorganization and self-reorganization. The author substantiates that the World Wide Web enforces the fundamentals of the printed books and printed word; the functionality of libraries is to change in the future as they will be functioning both offline and online. These factors will influence the book culture and give rise to its new forms and contents. The technological era challenges the human ecosystem. The deep processes have been changing the book culture. However, the inevitability of the process must not be overestimated. Being analyzed and interpreted, the process can be managed.

Multiscale Free Energy Analysis of Human Ecosystem Engineering

Unlike ecosystem engineering by other living things, which brings a relatively limited range of sensations that are connected to a few enduring survival preferences, human ecosystem engineering brings an increasing variety and frequency of novel sensations. Many of these novel sensations can quickly become preferences as they indicate that human life will be less strenuous and more stimulating. Furthermore, they can soon become addictive. By contrast, unwanted surprise from these novel sensations may become apparent decades later. This recognition can come after the survival of millions of humans and other species has been undermined. In this paper, it is explained that, while multiscale free energy provides a useful hypothesis for framing human ecosystem engineering, disconnects between preferences and survival from human ecosystem engineering limit the application of current assumptions that underlie continuous state-space and discrete state-space modelling of active inference.

Revitalized Karuk and Yurok cultural burning to enhance California hazelnut for basketweaving in northwestern California, USA

Background Karuk and Yurok tribes in northwestern California, USA, are revitalizing the practice of cultural burning, which is the use of prescribed burns to enhance culturally important species. These cultural burns are critical to the livelihoods of indigenous peoples, and were widespread prior to the establishment of fire exclusion policies. One of the major objectives of cultural burning is to enhance California hazelnut (Corylus cornuta Marsh var. californica) basketry stem production for Karuk and Yurok basketweavers. To evaluate cultural burning as a form of human ecosystem engineering, we monitored hazelnut basketry stem production, qualities, and shrub density in 48 plots (400 m2) within two prescribed and 19 cultural burn sites. Socio-ecological variables that were analyzed included burn frequency, burn season, overstory tree (≥10 cm diameter at breast height) basal area, ungulate browse, and aspect. We also observed basketry stem gathering to compare travel distances, gathering rates, and basketweaver preferences across sites with different fire histories and land tenure. Results Hazelnut shrubs, one growing season post burn, produced a 13-fold increase in basketry stems compared with shrubs growing at least three seasons post burn (P < 0.0001). Basketry stem production and stem length displayed negative relationships with overstory tree basal area (P < 0.01) and ungulate browse (P < 0.0001). Plots burned at high frequency (at least three burn events from 1989 to 2019) had 1.86-fold greater hazelnut shrubs than plots experiencing less than three burn events (P < 0.0001), and were all located on the Yurok Reservation where land tenure of indigenous people is comparatively stronger. Basketweavers travelled 3.8-fold greater distance to reach gathering sites burned by wildfires compared with those that were culturally burned (P < 0.01). At cultural burn sites, wildfire sites, and fire-excluded sites, mean gathering rates were 4.9, 1.6, and 0.5 stems per minute per individual, respectively. Conclusions Karuk and Yurok cultural fire regimes with high burn frequencies (e.g., three to five years) promote high densities of hazelnut shrubs and increase hazelnut basketry stem production. This improves gathering efficiency and lowers travel costs to support the revitalization of a vital cultural practice. Our findings provide evidence of positive human ecosystem engineering, and show that increasing tribal sovereignty over fire management improves socio-economic well-being while at the same time supports measures of ecosystem structure and function.

Digital Nomads

Digital nomads are knowledge workers who actively seek a lifestyle of freedom, using technology to perform their work remotely, traveling far and wide, and moving as often as they like. They have left their local coffee shops behind and now proudly post their “office of the day” photos from exotic locales, but what do their lives really look like? This book takes readers into an expatriate digital nomad community in Bali, Indonesia, and presents new manifestations of classic questions about community, creativity, and the role of place in the modern human ecosystem. It explains why digital nomads leave their creative class cities behind, arguing that creative class workers, though successful, often feel that their “world class cities” and desirable jobs are anything but paradise. This book follows nomads’ work transitions into freelancing, entrepreneurship, and remote jobs. Then, it explains how digital nomads create a fluid but intimate place-based community abroad in the company of like-minded others. It shows why and how individuals blend in-person and online activity in their pursuit of community and freedom. This book provides insights into individuals’ efforts to live lives and create work identities that balance freedom, community, and creative fulfillment in the digital age, and it provides insights into a larger cultural discourse about the future of cities, work, and community.