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Rain-fed granite rock pools are geological landforms with a worldwide distribution. However, their role as habitats for microorganisms has been barely explored. We carried out a detailed morphological inventory of the ciliated protists in the sediments of three granite rain-fed rock pools from a Spanish National Park. The ciliate seed bank in the rock pools comprised 54 morphospecies. The species number inferred for each pool by rarefaction analysis was similar to that observed by microscopy. The most representative species were small bacterivorous ciliates, although the distribution of ciliate groups was significantly different in each rock pool. Testate amoebae were also found to be rich in species. This study demonstrates the existence of a diverse ciliate community adapted to persist in these ephemeral and extreme rock pool habitats through species resistance structures, many of which have not been described previously. The presence of competitive species in dormant stages prevents local extinctions through a sequential excystation over time. Our results provide a benchmark for studying protist and microbial biodiversity within rain-fed granite rock pools, a unique habitat that merits bio- and geo- conservation.

Background: Living in the digital era where the information and communication technologies (ICTs) have extensively changed the way of teaching, language instructors, in particular, should be computer literate to put their technical knowledge into practice in such a way they effectively integrate technology into language learning classrooms. Methodology: The research contextualizes teachers’ beliefs and competencies of using the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) in teaching English as a foreign language. The study is an extension of previous research carried out by Tovar et at., (2019), and Tovar (2019). It applied a survey-based questionnaire, an unstructured interview, and classroom observations for data collection. The assessment instruments were administrated to EFL language instructors, who work in the Language Center at the Technical University of Cotopaxi. Findings: Results revealed that a high percentage of the EFL language instructors are not familiar with the use of the TPCK model and its integration into their classroom practices. This support the claim that teachers probably have technological knowledge, but they are not well-prepared to combine teaching resources and appropriate pedagogical methods for language teaching and learning. Conclusions: The study hopes that research outcomes arise linguistic implications and pedagogical applications for developing teachers’ TPCK competencies when integrating technology in EFL classroom settings. Limitations, as well as considerations for further research, are discussed.

Rain fed granite rock basins are ancient geological landforms of worldwide distribution and structural simplicity. They support habitats that can switch quickly from terrestrial to aquatic along the year. Diversity of animals and plants, and the connexion between communities in different basins have been widely explored in these habitats, but hardly any research has been carried out on microorganisms. The aim of this study is to provide the first insights on the diversity of eukaryotic microbial communities from these environments. Due to the ephemeral nature of these aquatic environments, we predict that the granitic basins should host a high proportion of dormant microeukaryotes. Based on an environmental DNA diversity survey, we reveal diverse communities with representatives of all major eukaryotic taxonomic supergroups, mainly composed of a diverse pool of low abundance OTUs. Basin communities were very distinctive, with alpha and beta diversity patterns non-related to basin size or spatial distance respectively. Dissimilarity between basins was mainly characterised by turnover of OTUs. The strong microbial eukaryotic heterogeneity observed among the basins may be explained by a complex combination of deterministic factors (diverging environment in the basins), spatial constraints, and randomness including founder effects. Most interestingly, communities contain organisms that cannot coexist at the same time because of incompatible metabolic requirements, thus suggesting the existence of a pool of dormant organisms whose activity varies along with the changing environment. These organisms accumulate in the pools, which turns granitic rock into high biodiversity microbial islands whose conservation and study deserve further attention.

Age‐related increased adiposity is an important contributory factor in the development of insulin resistance (IR) and is associated with metabolic defects. Caloric restriction (CR) is known to induce weight loss and to decrease adiposity while preventing metabolic risk factors. Here, we show that moderate 20% CR delays early deleterious effects of aging on white and brown adipose tissue (WAT and BAT, respectively) function and improves peripheral IR. To elucidate the role of CR in delaying early signs of aging, young (3 months), middle‐aged (12 months), and old (20 months) mice fed al libitum and middle‐aged and old mice subjected to early‐onset CR were used. We show that impaired plasticity of subcutaneous WAT (scWAT) contributes to IR, which is already evident in middle‐aged mice. Moreover, alteration of thyroid axis status with age is an important factor contributing to BAT dysfunction in middle‐aged animals. Both defects in WAT and BAT/beige cells are ameliorated by CR. Accordingly, CR attenuated the age‐related decline in scWAT function and decreased the extent of fibro‐inflammation. Furthermore, CR promoted scWAT browning. In brief, our study identifies the contribution of scWAT impairment to age‐associated metabolic dysfunction and identifies browning in response to food restriction, as a potential therapeutic strategy to prevent the adverse metabolic effects in middle‐aged animals., This work was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (BFU2013‐47384‐R, BFU2016‐78951‐R to G.M.G., SAF2012‐32491 to M.J.O., SAF2015‐71026‐R to M.L., BFU2015‐70454‐REDT, and BFU2017‐90578‐REDT (ADIPOPLAST) to G.M.G. and M.L.) and grant form Community of Madrid (S2010/BMD‐2433 and B2017BMD‐3684) to G.M.G. European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007‐2013) under grant agreement no 281854 the ObERStress project (M.L.); Xunta de Galicia (M.L.: 2015‐CP079). IG‐G is a recipient of a fellowship from Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte (FPU12/01827). CIBER de Fisiopatología de la Obesidad y Nutrición is an initiative of ISCIII.

Pregnancy requires adaptation of maternal energy metabolism, including expansion and functional modifications of adipose tissue. Insulin resistance (IR), predominantly during late gestation, is a physiological metabolic adaptation that serves to support the metabolic demands of fetal growth. The molecular mechanisms underlying these adaptations are not fully understood and may contribute to gestational diabetes mellitus. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) controls adipogenesis, glucose and lipid metabolism and insulin sensitivity. The PPARγ2 isoform is mainly expressed in adipocytes and is thus likely to contribute to adipose tissue adaptation during late pregnancy. In the present study, we investigated the contribution of PPARγ2 to the metabolic adaptations occurring during the late phase of pregnancy in the context of IR. Using a model of late pregnancy in PPARγ2 knockout (KO) mice, we found that deletion of PPARγ2 exacerbated IR in association with lower serum adiponectin levels, increased body weight and enhanced lipid accumulation in the liver. Lack of PPARγ2 provoked changes in the distribution of fat mass and preferentially prevented expansion of the perigonadal depot while at the same time exacerbating inflammation. Pregnant PPARγ2KO mice presented adipose tissue depot-dependent decreased expression of genes involved in lipid metabolism. Collectively, these data indicate that PPARγ2 is essential in promoting healthy adipose tissue expansion and immune and metabolic functionality during pregnancy, contributing to the physiological adaptations that lead gestation to term., This work was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness: BFU2012-33594 and BFU2013-47384-R to GMG; SAF2015-64287-R to M. Ricote; and SAF2014-56671-R to MPR; predoctoral fellowship BES-2010-038107 to YV; and grants S2010/BMD-2423 from the Community of Madrid to MPR and GMG.

The original version of this article contained an erratum of omission in the Acknowledgments section.

There have been recent calls for a shift to an evidence-based paradigm in environmental management, grounded in systematic monitoring and evaluation, but achieving this will be complex and difficult. Evaluating the educational components of environmental initiatives presents particular challenges, because these programs often have multiple concurrent goals and may value 'human outcomes', such as value change, which are intangible and difficult to quantify. This paper describes a fresh approach based on co-creating an entirely new values-based assessment framework with expert practitioners worldwide. We first discuss the development of a generic framework of 'Proto-Indicators' (reference criteria constituting prototypes for measurable indicators), and then demonstrate its application within a reforestation project in Mexico where indicators and assessment tools were localized to enhance context-relevance. Rigorously derived using unitary validity, with an emphasis on relevance, practicability and logical consistency from user perspectives, this framework represents a step-wise advance in the evaluation of non-formal EE/ESD programs. This article also highlights three important principles with broader implications for evaluation, valuation and assessment processes within environmental management: namely peer-elicitation, localizability, and an explicit focus on ethical values. We discuss these principles in relation to the development of sustainability indicators at local and global levels, especially in relation to post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals.

This paper argues that the need for a core “fourth pillar” of sustainability/sustainable development, as demanded in multiple arenas, can no longer be ignored on the grounds of intangibility. Different approaches to this vital but missing pillar (cultural-aesthetic, religious-spiritual, and political-institutional) find common ground in the area of ethical values. While values and aspects based on them are widely assumed to be intangible and immeasurable, we illustrate that it is possible to operationalize them in terms of measurable indicators when they are intersubjectively conceptualized within clearly defined practical contexts. The processes require contextual localization of items, which can nonetheless fit into a generalizable framework. This allows useful measurements to be made, and removes barriers to studying, tracking, comparing, evaluating and correlating values-related dimensions of sustainability. It is advocated that those involved in operationalizing sustainability (especially in the context of creating post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals), should explore the potential for developing indicators to capture some of its less tangible aspects, especially those concerned with ethical values.

A novel toolkit has been developed, using an original approach to develop its components, for the purpose of evaluating 'soft' outcomes and processes that have previously been generally considered 'intangible': those which are specifically values based. This represents a step-wise, significant, change in provision for the assessment of values-based achievements that are of absolutely key importance to most civil society organisations (CSOs) and values-based businesses, and fills a known gap in evaluation practice. In this paper, we demonstrate the significance and rigour of the toolkit by presenting an evaluation of it in three diverse scenarios where different CSOs use it to co-evaluate locally relevant outcomes and processes to obtain results which are both meaningful to them and potentially comparable across organisations. A key strength of the toolkit is its original use of a prior generated, peer-elicited 'menu' of values-based indicators which provides a framework for user CSOs to localise. Principles of participatory, process-based and utilisation-focused evaluation are embedded in this toolkit and shown to be critical to its success, achieving high face-validity and wide applicability. The emerging contribution of this next-generation evaluation tool to other fields, such as environmental values, development and environmental sustainable development, shared values, business, education and organisational change is outlined.

A collaborative partnership is developing a values-based indicator framework for use by civil society organizations (CSOs). A key sub-study on the relevance and usability of such indicators was carried out through an action research process with a CSO and it was found that: 1) it was, indeed, possible to develop useful and relevant indicators for the presence of CSO values; 2) it was not useful to tie each indicator to only one value; 3) the indicators were more ‘universal’ than the values for which they had been derived; 4) these indicators were not considered valid by the user CSO without being ‘localized’; 5) the use of our values-based framework caused substantive transformational learning within this CSO. The importance of these findings to studies on values and to design issues central to formal values-based measurement work, such as face validity and catalytic validity, is drawn out. The principles of emancipatory action research used are shown to be key to the results, which themselves form foundational elements that led to key and significant understandings and modifications of the values-based framework.

Summary Individuals with metabolic syndrome are at high risk of developing chronic kidney disease (CKD) through unclear pathogenic mechanisms. Obesity and diabetes are known to induce glucolipotoxic effects in metabolically relevant organs. However, the pathogenic role of glucolipotoxicity in the aetiology of diabetic nephropathy is debated. We generated a murine model, the POKO mouse, obtained by crossing the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma 2 (PPARγ2) knockout (KO) mouse into a genetically obese ob/ob background. We have previously shown that the POKO mice showed: hyperphagia, insulin resistance, hyperglycaemia and dyslipidaemia as early as 4 weeks of age, and developed a complete loss of normal β-cell function by 16 weeks of age. Metabolic phenotyping of the POKO model has led to investigation of the structural and functional changes in the kidney and changes in blood pressure in these mice. Here we demonstrate that the POKO mouse is a model of renal disease that is accelerated by high levels of glucose and lipid accumulation. Similar to ob/ob mice, at 4 weeks of age these animals exhibited glomerulomegaly, an increased urinary albumin:creatinine ratio and significantly increased blood pressure, but in contrast showed a significant increase in the renal hypertrophy index and an associated increase in p27Kip1 expression compared with their obese littermates. Moreover, at 4 weeks of age POKO mice showed insulin resistance, an alteration of lipid metabolism and glomeruli damage associated with significantly increased transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ) and parathyroid hormone-related protein (PTHrP) expression. At this age, levels of proinflammatory molecules, such as monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1), and fibrotic factors were also increased at the glomerular level compared with levels in ob/ob mice. At 12 weeks of age, renal damage was fully established. These data suggest an accelerated lesion through glucolipotoxic effects in the renal pathogenesis in POKO mice.

This descriptive report outlines an innovative project in which Earth Charter International is actively involved. The project aims to develop approaches, indicators and tools for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to be able to measure values-based aspects and impacts of their work at the project level. Many CSOs have an intuitive feeling that their projects are more successful when there is a resonance of values with those involved; this project aims to make such aspects tangible, measurable and transferable to other CSOs. The two year, EU-funded project called ESDinds is characterised by a collaborative partnership between a geographically and culturally diverse consortium consisting of four CSOs (including the Earth Charter International Secretariat) and two universities. The research design takes an iterative, grounded research approach to indicator development.

As the nineteenth century approached its term, Nietzsche's madman was pondering the death of God, and coming face to face with the awesome puzzle of its aftermath: "Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained this earth from its sun? Wither is it moving now? Wither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left?" (142).His lone, demented voice had in fact vis ione d the shape of things to come: "For some time now we have realized it," Italo Calvino adverts,[T]he storeroom of humanity's accumulated materials - mechanisms, machines, merchandises, markets, institutions, documents, poems, emblems, photograms, opera pieta, arts and trades, encyclopedias, cosmologies, grammars, topoi and figures of speech, ties of kinship, tribe and enterprise, myths and rituals, operational models - no way remains to keep them in order. ... all the parameters, the categories, the antitheses, that had served to imagine, classify, and project the world, are up for discussion. And not only those closest to historic attributions of values: the rational and the mythic, to work and to exist, masculine and feminine, and even the poles of more elementary topologies, like affirmation and negation, the tall and the short, the living and the thing.It should not surprise that such conditions should have had a profoundly destabilizing effect not only on our societies but on our very notions of self, engendering what Appadurai describes as a "new order of instability in the production of modern subjectivities" (4). Baha'u'llah Himself had prefigured this development, declaring with the tongue of prophecy in richly symbolic language: "The heaven of every religion hath been rent, and the earth of human understanding been cleft asunder. . . . The mountains have passed away, and the heavens have been folded together. . . . Every woman that hath had a burden in her womb hath cast her burden. We see men drunken in this Day, the Day in which men and angels have been gathered together" (Gleanings 45).On the one hand, such processes, such collapses, such implosions of seemingly reified schemas, disclose possibilities for more inclusive and harmonious interpretations of the grand narratives that ordered for centuries our sense of ourselves and of others, enabling unprecedented degrees of cross-cultural insight and participation in shared meaning. On the other hand, the selfsame speed and nature of these changes furnishes fresh incentives for cultural conflict, for entrenchment in ever-hardening identities to serve as barricades to hold the tide of cultural relativism, "where meanings, in a chaotic pattern rather than neatly ordered, are of necessity relativized to one another."1 This is perhaps nowhere more so than in the religious sphere, as the Universal House of Justice most recently highlighted, "The greater part of organized religion stands paralyzed at the threshold of the future, gripped in those very dogmas and claims of privileged access to truth that have been responsible for creating some of the most bitter conflicts dividing the earth's inhabitants. The consequences, in terms of human well-being, have been ruinous. It is surely unnecessary to cite in detail the horrors being visited upon hapless populations today by outbursts of fanaticism that shame the name of religion" ("Religious Leaders").Faced with such politics of difference, grounded and legitimated in the religious sphere on the basis of conflicting claims and narratives that the attentive reader soon discovers within and between the sacred texts of the world's religions, it becomes clear that a full reappraisal of the doctrinal and philosophical underpinnings of interreligious conflict is a matter as challenging as it is urgent. "What cannot be morally justified," in the words of the Universal House of Justice, "is the manipulation of cultural legacies that were intended to enrich spiritual experience, as a means to arouse prejudice and alienation. …

In this paper, we explore the way in which institutional contexts mediate values-focused behaviour change, with potential design implications. We use concepts taken from training research, where “learning transfer” refers to the translation into practice of the learning acquired during training: it is considered necessary to generalize it for the job context and for it to be maintained over a period of time on the job. In this paper, we analyse the example of one education for sustainable development (ESD) intervention that is already established as pedagogically effective when it is deployed in diverse institutional environments worldwide—the Youth as Agents of Behaviour Change program of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). This allows an opportunity to consider variations in learning transfer due to distinctive moderating institutional features, which can now be understood in terms of varying transfer climates, levels of leadership support and opportunities to practice. Additional barriers of tokenistic consultation, lack of role clarity and perverse effects of increased distance between trainees and their colleagues on return were also seen. ESD programs intending to bridge the values-action gap could benefit from not focusing only on the training content, but pre-planning organisational support for returning trainees and including in the training ways for them to assess and plan to overcome such difficulties.

In the discussion that follows, I propose to inquire into some of the assumptions that may underlie the disciplinary paradigm of Middle Eastern, and particularly Iranian, studies, making this an interpretive essay on a neglected aspect of the field, rather than a research article as such. Nevertheless, I harbor hopes of stimulating discussion and bringing something of a fresh perspective to bear on a subject which, it is generally acknowledged, lies at the very edge of the Persianate tradition of religious innovation, and consequently at the margins of the academic efforts to understand and explain it: the life and legacy of the Iranian prophet-founder of the Bahā'í faith, Mirza Huseyn Ali “Bahā'u'llāh” (1817-92). The questions I will pose are in essence three: why is the religious innovation wrought by Bahā'u'llāh considered marginal by the majority of scholars of the Islamicate world? What does this attitude tell us about the conceptual boundaries within which these same scholars labor? And do these boundaries reflect the limits imposed by the evidence itself or do they reflect the limitations of the contemporary disciplinary paradigm?

Background The progression towards type 2 diabetes depends on the allostatic response of pancreatic beta cells to synthesise and secrete enough insulin to compensate for insulin resistance. The endocrine pancreas is a plastic tissue able to expand or regress in response to the requirements imposed by physiological and pathophysiological states associated to insulin resistance such as pregnancy, obesity or ageing, but the mechanisms mediating beta cell mass expansion in these scenarios are not well defined. We have recently shown that ob/ob mice with genetic ablation of PPARγ2, a mouse model known as the POKO mouse failed to expand its beta cell mass. This phenotype contrasted with the appropriate expansion of the beta cell mass observed in their obese littermate ob/ob mice. Thus, comparison of these models islets particularly at early ages could provide some new insights on early PPARγ dependent transcriptional responses involved in the process of beta cell mass expansion Results Here we have investigated PPARγ dependent transcriptional responses occurring during the early stages of beta cell adaptation to insulin resistance in wild type, ob/ob, PPARγ2 KO and POKO mice. We have identified genes known to regulate both the rate of proliferation and the survival signals of beta cells. Moreover we have also identified new pathways induced in ob/ob islets that remained unchanged in POKO islets, suggesting an important role for PPARγ in maintenance/activation of mechanisms essential for the continued function of the beta cell. Conclusions Our data suggest that the expansion of beta cell mass observed in ob/ob islets is associated with the activation of an immune response that fails to occur in POKO islets. We have also indentified other PPARγ dependent differentially regulated pathways including cholesterol biosynthesis, apoptosis through TGF-β signaling and decreased oxidative phosphorylation.

In the last few decades a change in lifestyle has led to an alarming increase in the prevalence of obesity and obesity-associated complications. Obese patients are at increased risk of developing hypertension, heart disease, insulin resistance (IR), dyslipidemia, type 2 diabetes and renal disease. The excess calories are stored as triglycerides in adipose tissue, but also may accumulate ectopically in other organs, including the kidney, which contributes to the damage through a toxic process named lipotoxicity. Recently, the evidence suggests that renal lipid accumulation leads to glomerular damage and, more specifically, produces dysfunction in podocytes, key cells that compose and maintain the glomerular filtration barrier. Our aim was to analyze the early mechanisms underlying the development of renal disease associated with the process of lipotoxicity in podocytes. Our results show that treatment of podocytes with palmitic acid produced intracellular accumulation of lipid droplets and abnormal glucose and lipid metabolism. This was accompanied by the development of inflammation, oxidative stress and endoplasmic reticulum stress and insulin resistance. We found specific rearrangements of the actin cytoskeleton and slit diaphragm proteins (Nephrin, P-Cadherin, Vimentin) associated with this insulin resistance in palmitic-treated podocytes. We conclude that lipotoxicity accelerates glomerular disease through lipid accumulation and inflammation. Moreover, saturated fatty acids specifically promote insulin resistance by disturbing the cytoarchitecture of podocytes. These data suggest that renal lipid metabolism and cytoskeleton rearrangements may serve as a target for specific therapies aimed at slowing the progression of podocyte failure during metabolic syndrome.