Formation Of Communities Research Articles

Spatiotemporal dynamics of bacterioplankton communities in the estuaries of two differently contaminated coastal areas: Composition, driving factors and ecological process

Seasonal variations of environmental parameters usually lead to considerable changes in microbial communities. Nevertheless, the specific response patterns of these communities in coastal areas subjected to different levels of contamination remain unclear. Our results revealed notable fluctuations in the bacterioplankton community both seasonally and spatially, with seasonal variations being particularly significant. The diversity and composition of bacterioplankton communities in the estuaries varied significantly across seasons and between seas. Some bacterial phyla that were highly abundant in the dry season (e.g., Patescibacteria and Epsilonbacteraeota) were almost absent in the wet season. Furthermore, the network analysis revealed that the bacterioplankton networks were more complex during the wet season than in the dry season. In the wet season, the estuarine bacterioplankton network in the Yellow Sea region was more complex and stable, while the opposite was true in the dry season. According to the neutral community model, stochastic processes played a more significant role in the formation of bacterioplankton communities during the wet season than during the dry season. Estuarine bacterioplankton communities in the Yellow Sea region were more affected by stochastic processes compared to those in the Bohai Sea. In summary, in the estuaries of two differently contaminated coastal areas, the seasonal increase in nutrient levels enhanced the deterministic processes and network complexity of the bacterioplankton communities.

Exploring the role of palliative care occupational therapists in supporting compassionate communities in end-of-life care.

The compassionate communities' movement is a public health approach to end-of-life care that emphasises the integral role of communities in supporting and caring for dying persons and their informal carers. Although occupational therapists have well-established roles in palliative care teams, little is known about their potential in assisting in the formation and maintenance of compassionate communities. Data were gathered via semi-structured interviews with nine Australian occupational therapists with experience in specialist palliative care. Interview questions were based around the British Columbia Compassionate Community Ideal framework. Key themes were derived through qualitative descriptive analysis, blending deductive, and inductive reasoning. Interviewees indicated that occupational therapists have a role in supporting compassionate communities that centres on the facilitation of networks and connections between palliative care professionals and in the promotion of informal care networks. The importance of education and awareness raising were also discussed as valuable to the development of community capacity. It was also suggested that occupational therapists have important skills to support dying persons and their caregivers to remain engaged and safe in their homes and communities, in a meaningful and sustainable way. However, many interviewees maintained a profession-centric view on control within compassionate communities, as opposed to approaches that are community led. Findings offer early insights into the promise and potential of occupational therapists in supporting the compassionate communities' movement. However, education regarding the ethos of the compassionate communities' movement so as to facilitate a shift away from professionally oriented modes of practice may be needed to maximise success.

The Evolution and Driving Mechanisms of the Blue-Green Space Publicness Pattern in Changsha, China

Urban blue-green space (UBGS), where public life occurs, is vital for social interaction, social cohesion, public spirit cultivation, and community formation. UBGS publicness reflects whether it supports and facilitates community formation. From the perspective of the man–land relationship, UBGS with high publicness should have three significant characteristics: accessibility of elements, functional selectivity, and structural connectivity and shareability. This study took Changsha as the case study and evaluated its UBGS publicness in 2012, 2016, and 2020. We analyzed the evolution of the UBGS publicness pattern, and the results indicated the following: (1) The elements accessibility indicator showed a decreasing trend year by year and maintained the pattern of low in the city center and high in the suburban area; (2) the functional diversity indicator changed from a monocentric polarized spatial pattern to a polycentric and balanced spatial pattern; (3) the structural connectivity indicator generally improved and showed the core-edge pattern; and (4) the comprehensive indicator showed that the pattern developed from the core edge to the core edge as the primary focus with fan-shaped expansion supplemented. Based on this, combined with Changsha’s urban development history, environmental, policy, economic, and social factors supported, led, promoted, and guided the formation and evolution of the UBGS publicness pattern. This study improved the theoretical foundation of UBGS publicness, provided ideas and methods for the UBGS publicness evaluation on the urban scale, and may provide a reference for the construction of livable and sustainable cities.

The evolution of home‐state positions towards diaspora formation: Israel and its two diasporas

AbstractHow do home‐state elites react to emigrants who form diaspora communities abroad, and how do these attitudes change over time? The article explores these questions through an analysis of the discourse and policies of Israeli elites towards emigrants who created distinct diaspora communities and established ties with local Jewish diaspora communities between 1977 and 2023. The article highlights the important role that ethnic and national identities and the prospects of emigrants’ eventual return play in such attitudinal shifts. The home state may initially see diaspora formation as harmful for precipitating emigration and obstructing repatriation and ethnic immigration. However, when it becomes clear that the return of many emigrants is unlikely, home‐state elites may come to support and even promote the formation of new diaspora communities and their ties with older diaspora communities to offset emigrants’ assimilation into their host society and increase their attachment to the home state.

Роль вузов в сохранении языкового и культурного многообразия регионов Российской Федерации (на примере деятельности Ассоциации финно-угорских университетов)

The purpose of this article is to determine the role of regional universities that are members of the Association of Finno-Ugric Universities and participants in the Strategic Academic Leadership Program "Priority 2030" in preserving the linguistic and cultural diversity of the Russian Federation. The article describes the main activities aimed at the development of the Mordovian, Mari, and Udmurt languages, as well as identifies the conditions for their implementation. The scientific novelty lies in defining the pedagogical potential of activities aimed at preserving the linguistic and cultural diversity of Russia for the development of the higher education system. Additionally, for the first time, an analysis is conducted on the influence of the Strategic Academic Leadership Program "Priority 2030" on the functioning of the Mordovian, Mari, and Udmurt languages. The research revealed that the implementation of the Strategic Academic Leadership Program "Priority 2030" enables regional universities to intensify their efforts to preserve the linguistic and cultural diversity of Russia through processes of digitalization, the creation of scientific innovations, and the formation of network communities for workforce preparation. The main conditions for the effective implementation of such programs can include long-term planning, an ethno-cultural approach, and interdisciplinarity. The activities focused on preserving the linguistic and cultural diversity of the country within the scientific, educational, and upbringing system of a university harmonize the process of forming national-cultural identity and intercultural tolerance of modern students.

Posting the Journey to Juquila: Pilgrimage, Digital Devotion, and Social Media in Mexico

Abstract At the crossroads of scholarship scrutinizing digital religion and pilgrimage, this article analyzes the use of Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram by devotees of Our Lady of Juquila, a Marian image in Oaxaca, Mexico. It combines the close reading of content and descriptive online ethnography with web scraping and data analysis. The article sketches these platforms’ role in pious expression, virtual community building, pilgrimage group communication, and devotional marketing, tracking closely the intertwining of religion and commerce, particularly religious tourism promotion. The data reveal that Facebook serves as the most popular platform for Juquila’s devotees, thanks to its open, pro-sharing design and flexibility regarding group formation. As a result, it has become the essential hub of devotee expression. YouTube, thanks to its particular affordances, has become an ideal niche for narrating travel to Juquila’s shrine and a showcase of the networked nature of devotion as users borrow tools, tropes, and expressive techniques from many sources, religious and secular. Instagram is the least popular platform among devotees because its design is less open and amenable to group communication. It does, however, facilitate both smaller, more intimate community formation, as well as shallow but significant community building on popular public pages run by religious tourism promoters hosting attractive, easily sharable, free stockpiles of images, memes, and devotional slogans. In the end, social media use appears to be stoking pilgrimage in Mexico and setting the stage for significant cultural change in the future as new tools, emerging shared devotional aesthetics, and media logics reshape religious expression and devotee communication. It is also becoming an unparalleled historical archive of popular religious culture.

The Origins of the Generic Mapping Tools: From Table Tennis to Geoscience

AbstractThe Generic Mapping Tools (GMT) is one of the most used toolsets in the Earth, Ocean, and Planetary sciences, originating as far back as the 1980s. It is an early example of an open‐source software code modeled after contemporaneous UNIX tools, and it was one of the first to employ PostScript as its graphics language and netCDF for binary files to ensure portability across different computing platforms. Here I trace the origin and evolution of GMT to the present day. The additions of MATLAB, Python, and Julia wrappers around the GMT C Application Program Interface (API) are now introducing GMT to numerous new and younger users and the platform shows no sign of diminishing after almost 40 years; in fact, usage continues to expand. Pursuing GMT for fun (and funding) has positively affected other areas of my scientific interests, and my new research modules continue to be added to GMT. The future holds many promises but will require formation and leadership of communities to steer and maintain the essential science tools that have served us well for many decades.

Diasporas of Ethnic Minorities in the Towns of Tobolsk Governorate in the Late XIX - Early XX Century: Demographic and Social Features

The authors present a comparative description, some socio-demographic features and migration processes of the ethnic groups of the Tobolsk Governorate in order to assess the level of the formation of ethno-confessional communities and diasporas there, to determine strategies for their adaptation and/or integration with local urban society at the turn of the XX century. Special attention is paid to representatives of the Jewish, Polish and German populations. The sources of the study are both the published results of the 1897 First General Census of the Russian Empire for the Tobolsk Governorate and census forms. Using the comprehensive analysis of personal data, there was obtained a sample based on the criterion of native language (Polish, Jewish, German) which included 308 Germans, 1840 Poles and 1876 Jews. The authors come to the conclusion that the number of local natives, the registered population, the structure of their families, and the religious buildings indicate the presence of Jewish and Polish diasporas in Tobolsk, a Jewish community in Yalutorovsk, and a Polish community in Ishim. At the same time, it was established that the German population in the towns was sparse; the Jewish community was the most closed one; mixed marriages were more common in the Polish and German communities and they were actively replenished by immigrants from the Kingdom of Poland and Baltic provinces.

The Views of Representatives of the Party and Political Activists of the Kursk Province on the Change in the Social Structure of the Urban Population (1918–1921)

Relevance. At the present stage of development of the Russian Federation, the preservation of historical truth is one of the main directions of state policy. Statements about the need to return the state ideology allow us to judge the relevance of referring to the experience of the early Soviet period, when communist doctrine became the basis for the formation of a new model of the state, which subsequently achieved considerable success on the world stage in various fields. The urban population has become a pillar for revolutionary transformations, which arouses interest in studying the views of representatives of regional authorities on the problems of the development of the social structure of society.The purpose – to reveal the specifics of the evolution of the public views of the party and political activists of the region on the social composition of the urban population of the Kursk province from 1918 to 1921.Objectives: based on the analysis of archival documents, to identify general trends in the formation of the social structure of the urban population of the Kursk province.Methodology. In the process of working on the research, the basic principles of historical science were used: historicism, objectivity and consistency. General scientific methods were also applied (analysis, synthesis, induction and deduction, analytical method), special historical methods: historical-genetic, comparative-historical.Results. Based on the analysis of archival documents, the peculiarities of the formation of views on the image of the social composition of the Kursk province in the views of the Kursk communists of the first years of Soviet power are revealed.Conclusion. The political basis of the social structure of the urban population of the region was recognized by the proletarians, who were the mainstay in the revolutionary transformations of all spheres of public life. The party activists of the Kursk province perceived the provisions of the communist teachings as a key model for the formation of an urban community. The semi-proletariat, the petty bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia, in the opinion of party leaders, should become part of the working people as the sole bearer of power. For the first time, women were considered as an equal part of the urban community in the field of state building.

The complex relationships between diatoms, bacterial communities, and dissolved organic matter: Effects of silicon concentration

Complex relationships exist between diatoms, bacterial communities and dissolved organic matter in aquatic ecosystems. Clarifying their relationships is essential to reveal biogeochemical cycles. In this study, the diatom Cyclostephanos invisitatus was cultured in standard silicon (SS), no silicon (NS), and excessive silicon (ES). Integrated 16S rDNA high-throughput sequencing and excitation-emission matrix parallel factor analysis (EEM-PARAFAC) were used to investigate diatom growth, bacterial community and dissolved organic matter (DOM) characteristics. It was found that the abundance of diatoms decreased in no silicon and excessive silicon conditions. Further, the composition and function of the associated bacterial communities were affected. The Proteobacteria and Cyanobacteria were more highly represented in the attached bacteria, whereas the Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes were more highly represented in the free-living bacteria. Alpha diversity showed different trends with incubation time in all treatments. Moreover, genes (K01995 to K01998) involved in environmental information processing were more abundant in diatoms during the stationary phase in attached bacterial community. Stochastic processes play a key role in the formation of bacterial communities, both for attached and free-living bacteria. In addition, the differences in fluorescence components (protein and humic-like) and spectral indices (fluorescence index, biological index, freshness index, and humification index) revealed intricate relationship between microalgae and bacteria. Overall, this work confirmed the importance of silicon concentration in regulating diatom-associated bacterial communities and DOM characteristics.

The Archaeology of Awe: Monumental Architecture, Communal Ritual, and Community Formation at Poverty Point, USA

The Archaeology of Awe: Monumental Architecture, Communal Ritual, and Community Formation at Poverty Point, USA

Existence of the Superior Village Chicken Breeders Community Group (Master Pitung) Kendal Regency

Shared interests (hobbies) are one of the factors that encourage the formation of certain communities. Some communities formed from shared interests even have strategic economic potential. One of them is the association of free-range chicken breeders in Kendal district, Central Java province. Currently, the community has a clear goal. However, awareness of the group’s legality does not appear to have been formed. This service program aims to socialize the importance of group legality. The method of service carried out is through group discussion forums. The result of the service program is an increase in the awareness of each member to form a group legally in accordance with applicable legal provisions. The result of the service program is an increase in the awareness of each group member to legalize the association under the name “Master Pitung” or the community of superior village chicken breeders.
 Keywords: joint business group, superior village chicken breeders

Divine Power and Fluid Bodies: Tirunaṅkais in Tamil Nadu

This article analyzes the complex ways in which religious practices influence the formation of identity and community among tirunaṅkais, male-to-female transgender people in Tamil Nadu. I argue that tirunaṅkais draw on longstanding religious resources to enact nonnormative identities that operate outside of the secular constructions of the modern subject that undergird governmental “uplift” efforts as well as the liberatory projects of Western feminist scholars such as Judith Butler. I focus in particular on three arenas in which tirunaṅkais negotiate their identities in specific religious and social contexts: the kinship network, the annual Kūttāṇṭavar festival, and public rituals associated with Hindu goddesses in Tamil Nadu. The tirunaṅkai kinship network deploys multiple religious rituals while at the same time transcending boundaries of religion, caste, and class in its inclusivity. The enactment of marriage and widowhood at the annual festival to Kūttāṇṭavar foregrounds the divinity of the male-female form that tirunaṅkais emulate. Serving as vehicles of the divine who embody particular goddesses through ritual possession in public temple spaces provides affirmation of their ritual efficacy and power to mediate between the human and divine worlds.

Outlier Detection and Prediction in Evolving Communities

Community detection in social networks is of great importance and is used in a variety of applications such as recommendation systems and targeted advertising. While detecting dense groups with high levels of connectivity and similar interests between their members is the main target of traditional network analysis, finding network members with quite different behavior than the majority of nodes is important as well. These nodes are known as outliers, and their accurate detection can be very useful; when outliers are marked as noisy nodes, their early exclusion from analysis can lead to high computational profits. On the other hand, they can represent interesting components that call for further investigation to find the reasons for their outlying behavior and possible ways to include them in a neighboring community. Both community and outlier detection are challenging in temporal environments where changes occur in real time; thus, dynamic methods need to be deployed rather than to static methods. In our work, we take into account the content of the network, in contrast to most of related studies, where only the network’s structure contributes to community formation. We define an adaptive outlier score to be assigned to each node in order to quantify its outlierness, and introduce a complete online community detection algorithm that analyzes both the network’s structure and content while at the same time detecting community outliers. To evaluate our method, we retrieved and processed two real datasets regarding social networks with temporal and content information. Experimental results show that our method is capable of detecting outliers in real-time evolving communities and provides an outlier score which is a better metric of each node’s outlierness compared to widely used metrics. Finally, experimental results indicate that our method is suitable for predicting the status of future nodes based on their current outlier score.

Tinjauan Literatur Transformasi Sosial dalam Era Virtual

Social transformation in the virtual era has become an increasingly relevant research subject with the expanding penetration of digital technology in human life. Recent literature studies reveal various aspects related to virtual sociology, including the formation of online communities, the role of technology in identity formation, and the impact of social media on culture and public opinion. This research aims to compile a comprehensive literature review on social transformation in the virtual era, identifying current trends, important findings, and recent developments in virtual sociology studies. Additionally, this study aims to investigate the social impacts arising from changes in social interaction and culture in the digital world. Employing a comprehensive literature review approach, this research gathers and evaluates various relevant literary sources, including journal articles, books, research reports, and other information sources related to social transformation in the virtual era. The findings of this research provide a deeper understanding of social dynamics in the virtual era, including the formation of online communities, digital identity, and the role of social media in shaping public opinion. The information obtained from this literature review can serve as a reference for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in addressing challenges and opportunities arising from social changes driven by digital technology. The social transformation in the virtual era plays a significant role in shaping the dynamics of modern society. Studies on virtual sociology offer valuable insights into how digital technology influences human behavior, interaction, and social structures in the virtual world.

Oxy-biodegradable plastics in freshwater environments: degradation and biofouling

Growing concern about the impact of plastic pollution on the environment has led to the creation of global public policies and the consumption of “environmentally friendly” products, such as oxy-biodegradable plastics. In this context, “greenwashing” practices can arise, i.e., the product promises more environmental benefits than it actually offers, which can lead to superfluous use, inappropriate disposal, and the generation of microplastics (MPs). However, the scientific literature lacks studies that evaluate the behavior of oxy-biodegradable plastic when exposed to the freshwater environment. In this respect, the aim of the current study was to evaluate the degradation process of oxy-biodegradable plastic bags made from high-density polyethylene (HDPE) in river water. To this end, the current study aimed to assess whether these bags actually meet the label information (which corresponds to the complete degradation of material) or whether they correspond to greenwashing practices. The physical and chemical alterations, and the formation of biological communities that occurred on the surface of the plastic material when exposed to natural aging and submerged in freshwater were monitored using mid-infrared absorption spectroscopy with attenuated total reflectance (FTIR-ATR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The characterization of the samples after 180 days of exposure showed that the oxy-biodegradable bags were not completely degraded, with only fragmentation of the material and generation of MPs. In addition, it was also observed that microorganisms present in the water easily colonized the plastic surface from the start of the experiment. In this way, the oxy-biodegradable bags analyzed correspond to a greenwashing practice, which is extremely harmful, since it can influence the increase in consumption of these products, generating greater improper disposal of these materials, and consequently the generation of MPs and the formation of biofilms, which can carry pathogenic microorganisms to the aquatic biota and to humans.

Online University Students’ Perceptions of institution and Program Community and the Activities that Support Them

The forty-item, Sense of Online Community Scale was completed by 293 online students at a mid-sized southeastern United States university to ascertain community importance and activities associated with its formation and maintenance. A large majority of these students believed that a sense of community was important and that a sense of belonging, affiliation, and trust were valuable for community formation. Participants also believed that program and institutional activities, both academic and social, played key roles in community formation. However, academic activities (e.g., advising, program milestones, writing centers, library support) were rated as more influential than social activities (e.g., get-togethers, online games, institution sporting events). When demographic characteristics were considered, non-White participants rated their sense of affiliation with their program/institution higher than White participants. Participants who lived within a one-hour commute to campus (51% of our sample) rated institutional social activities higher than those who lived farther out. Doctoral students rated program activities as more conducive to community formation than masters, and graduate certificate students and undergraduate students rated affiliation to their program/institution higher than masters and graduate certificate students.

Neutrophils seeking new neighbors: radiotherapy affects the cellular framework and the spatial organization in a murine breast cancer model

Neutrophils are known to contribute in many aspects of tumor progression and metastasis. The presence of neutrophils or neutrophil-derived mediators in the tumor microenvironment has been associated with poor prognosis in several types of solid tumors. However, the effects of classical cancer treatments such as radiation therapy on neutrophils are poorly understood. Furthermore, the cellular composition and distribution of immune cells in the tumor is of increasing interest in cancer research and new imaging technologies allow to perform more complex spatial analyses within tumor tissues. Therefore, we aim to offer novel insight into intra-tumoral formation of cellular neighborhoods and communities in murine breast cancer. To address this question, we performed image mass cytometry on tumors of the TS/A breast cancer tumor model, performed spatial neighborhood analyses of the tumor microenvironment and quantified neutrophil-extracellular trap degradation products in serum of the mice. We show that irradiation with 2 × 8 Gy significantly alters the cellular composition and spatial organization in the tumor, especially regarding neutrophils and other cells of the myeloid lineage. Locally applied radiotherapy further affects neutrophils in a systemic manner by decreasing the serum neutrophil extracellular trap concentrations which correlates positively with survival. In addition, the intercellular cohesion is maintained due to radiotherapy as shown by E-Cadherin expression. Radiotherapy, therefore, might affect the epithelial–mesenchymal plasticity in tumors and thus prevent metastasis. Our findings underscore the growing importance of the spatial organization of the tumor microenvironment, particularly with respect to radiotherapy, and provide insight into potential mechanisms by which radiotherapy affects epithelial–mesenchymal plasticity and tumor metastasis.

Research of plant resources of the European North of the USSR in the first half of the twentieth century.

The problem of providing the European north of Russia with food and fodder worsened after the civil War in the process of a significant increase in the population when solving national economic tasks for the development of the territory. The article aims to show the main directions of research and pedagogical activity of corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR geobotanist Alexander Petrovich Shennikov on the study of plant resources of the modern Komi Republic, the creation of the herbarium of the Institute of Biology of the Komi Scientific Center of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the education of highly qualified specialists. The object of the study is the personality of the scientist, the subject is the representation of personality through the analysis of the content of the documents of the Scientific Archive of the Federal Research Center "Komi Scientific Center of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences" introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The appearance in Syktyvkar of the reporting documents of Shennikov and his young colleagues on geobotanical expeditions of the 1920s-1930s was explained by the evacuation of the Northern Base of the USSR Academy of Sciences from Arkhangelsk to Syktyvkar at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. The documents testify to the established scientific and organizational authority of Shennikov by the time of participation in the Pechora Brigade of the Polar Commission of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1933) and the formation of the scientific community of geobotanists under his leadership. The post-war letters of the scientific consultant of the Komi branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences A.P. Shennikov and his wife Maria Mikhailovna reflect the pedagogical and scientific principles of the professor as an educator of researchers; show how the herbarium of the modern Institute of Biology of the Komi Scientific Center of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences was formed; prove the long-term creative cooperation with the botanists of Syktyvkar.

Resurgence of African Spiritualities in the New Prophetic Churches

The current developments in New Prophetic Churches (NPCs) raise the necessity for theological research. There are some practices within these formations, similar to African spiritualities. Spirituality is defined and some reflections on African spiritualities highlighted. This article identifies the NPCs and African spiritualities and how the two converge towards spiritual formation for Christians in these churches. Literature review and social media are used to research and conclude the research question, which is the resurgence of African spiritualities in faith formation of this faith community. Justification for this resurgence is based on both theological and etymological analyses of features, especially occultism and deliverance. Research finding is that many believers abandon Christian faith or opt to be opponents of the Gospel when promised prophecies are not fulfilled. Hence a conclusion is arrived at as an appeal for the return to Christian apologetics and vivacious socio-cultural contextual studies in the church. Robust dialogue with NPC leaders is long overdue, as at the end the local pastors are the ones engaged with damage control after the prophet has passed. Minimum standards should be suggested to minimize emotional damage in individuals and communities of faith, and discipleship into Christian faith needs to be heightened.