There is a growing recognition that a transition to a sustainable low-carbon society is urgently needed. This transition takes place at multiple and complementary scales, including bottom-up approaches such as community-based initiatives (CBIs). However, empirical research on CBIs has focused until now on anecdotal evidence and little work has been done to quantitatively assess their impact in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In this paper, we analyze 38 European initiatives across the food, energy, transport, and waste sectors to address the following questions: How can the GHG reduction potential of CBIs be quantified and analyzed in a systematic manner across different sectors? What is the GHG mitigation potential of CBIs and how does the reduction potential differ across domains? Through the comparison of the emission intensity arising from the goods and services the CBIs provide in relation to a business-as-usual scenario, we present the potential they have across different activities. This constitutes the foundational step to upscaling and further understanding their potential contribution to achieving climate change mitigation targets. Our findings indicate that energy generation through renewable sources, changes in personal transportation, and dietary change present by far the highest GHG mitigation activities analyzed, since they reduce the carbon footprint of CBI beneficiaries by 24%, 11%, and 7%, respectively. In contrast, the potential for some activities, such as locally grown organic food, is limited. The service provided by these initiatives only reduces the carbon footprint by 0.1%. Overall, although the proliferation of CBIs is very desirable from a climate change mitigation perspective it is necessary to stress that bottom-up initiatives present other important positive dimensions besides GHG mitigation. These initiatives also hold the potential of improving community resilience by strengthening local economies and enhancing social cohesion.

Cognitive representations and beliefs are what comprise an individual’s self-concept. A positive self-concept is related to and influences academic achievement, and the relationship between a domain-specific self-concept and achievement in the same domain is positive and strong. However, insufficient attention has been paid to these issues among multilingual children. More importantly, since instruction strongly contributes to the development of metacognition and executive functions (EFs), and since the bilingual advantage hypothesis holds that the constant management of multiple languages entails benefits for EF, we bring together these important issues in the present study. We examine the relationship between domain-specific self-concepts and standardized assessment of reading and spelling competences against the background of potential differences in self-concept between monolingual and multilingual German children. While between-group comparisons revealed no significant differences for self-concept nor reading competency, monolinguals outperformed multilinguals in spelling. Correlations between domain-specific self-concepts and academic achievement in reading comprehension, reading fluency, and spelling were positive and significant for both groups. Regardless of language background, children’s evaluations of their academic achievement (reading and spelling) were realistic. We argue, on a theoretical basis, that metacognition and EFs could facilitate a bilingual advantage and improve educational outcomes.

An essential, respected, and critical aspect of the modern practice of science and scientific publishing is peer review. The process of peer review facilitates best practices in scientific conduct and communication, ensuring that manuscripts published are as accurate, valuable, and clearly communicated. The over 216 papers published in Tectonics in 2018 benefit from the time, effort, and expertise of our reviewers who have provided thoughtfully considered advice on each manuscript. This role is critical to advancing our understanding of the evolution of the continents and their margins, as these reviews lead to even clearer and higher-quality papers. In 2018, the over 443 papers submitted to Tectonics were the beneficiaries of more than 1,010 reviews provided by 668 members of the tectonics community and related disciplines. To everyone who has volunteered their time and intellect to peer reviewing, thank you for helping Tectonics and all other AGU Publications provide the best science possible.

We investigated inflow of a wastewater treatment plant and sediment of an urban lake for the presence of Clostridioides difficile by cultivation and PCR. Among seven colonies we sequenced the complete genomes of three: two non-toxigenic isolates from wastewater and one toxigenic isolate from the urban lake. For all obtained isolates, a close genomic relationship with human-derived isolates was observed. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In der vorliegenden Studie wurde die Prävalenz der Besiedlung mit multiresistenten Keimen an 155 Patienten aus der onkologischen und 157 Patienten aus der kardiologischen Rehabilitation mittels mikrobiologischen Screenings untersucht. Dabei zeigten 4,5% der onkologischen und 4,5% der kardiologischen Rehabilitationspatienten eine Besiedlung mit multiresistenten Erregern. Am häufigsten wurden 2-MRGN und ESBL (2,9%) nachgewiesen. Onkologische Rehapatienten zeigten doppelt so hohe Prävalenzraten für 3-MRGN im Vergleich zu kardiologischen (2,6 und 1,3%). Insgesamt zeigen onkologische und kardiologische Rehabilitationspatienten vergleichsweise niedrige Prävalenzraten für multiresistente Krankenhauskeime.