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chaoticallysapphic · 3 years

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the great trial part three

summary: This was meant to be the easy part. The part filled with brightness and love. The war was over and you had the love of your life all to yourself. No more Baatar, no more secrecy and no more lies. But with the calm comes the realization as all the adrenaline finally leaves you. Now you know, this is the hard part.

a/n: shit’s getting interesting as ruins of the empire comes into play. I’m sure it’s not gonna go how some of you may want but this was necessary to help with somethings (which I am totally down to chat about via my inbox after you read this). As always thank you @medeliadracon and @ladyxffandoms !

word count: 5k

The next day Korra returns with a look of defeat, she has a device in her hand and papers that Kuvira must sign in order to leave, all of which state she won’t run away, and if she does they will forcefully detain her and lock her up in prison. You think it’s kind of dumb to have her sign this, a contract won’t stop her if she does decide to escape.

“I’m going with,” you say with your arms crossed. Kuvira immediately straightens up, handing the pen back over to Korra.

“No you're not, you're staying here where it’s safe,” she stares you down as you glare right back. Flashes of that day outside of Zaofu keep her up at night and haunt her dreams. She’s actually glad you’re on house arrest because at least you're tucked away and out of harm's way

“You don’t control me anymore. He’s not here for you to hold above my head, so I am going with you and you can’t stop me.”

“Uhm…” Korra starts, looking between the two of you, “I’m only authorized to take Kuvira.” The poor Avatar has no clue what you're talking about, she’s heard a few rumors from Bolin and even Lin, but she’s too afraid to ask either of you. She wouldn’t be surprised if one of you slapped the other right now.

“But I know Commander Gu-”

“He doesn’t respect you, he tried to treat you like a waitress last time he saw you. If you're there it will make me look weak like I need someone by my side and…” Kuvira squeezes her eyes shut before reopening them. “You almost died last time you were involved with empire business.”

“Oh, so we’re back to worrying about appearances, spirits. I thought those sessions were helping in some way.” You spit out before storming off to the bedroom, slamming the door shut. You hear the sound of them talking as you sit on the edge of the bed, your head in your hands.

That small voice inside your head still rooting for her, the one that still believes in Kuvira is scolding you for snapping but you can’t help yourself. It seems that all the words inside of you meant for her have rotted and turned into venom. A few minutes go by before there’s a gentle knock at the door, you find yourself frozen, unable to move.

“I’m…” Kuvira audibly sighs, “I’m leaving, I’ll be back in a few days most likely…” She waits for you to respond, you want to say something so bad, you want to beg for her to stay but it feels like your mouth has been sewn shut. “I love you.”

The sounds of her footsteps receding before the front door gently clicks shut pulls you out of your frozen state, you race out of the bedroom and into the apartment with some kind of childish hope that she’s still there. But it’s empty, she’s gone.

The rest of the day is spent sitting on the couch with your knees tucked close to your chest, watching the door. You couldn’t talk to her or look at her but the knowledge that she was nearby always helped you in some way. But now she’s gone and it wouldn’t surprise you if she did try to run off, it’s not like there’s anything pleasant waiting for her back at home. You made sure to destroy any type of happiness left in this apartment after that first night.

You eat dinner with the radio turned on to fill the house up with some form of life, stabbing at your piece of fish with a frown. You know what’s going to happen next and you're terrified of how it’ll go. Washing the few dishes in the sink you let out a defeated sigh before heading to the bathroom for a long hot shower to prolong the inevitable. Once done you take your time applying lotion and taking care of your hair before locking up the apartment for the night.

Standing in the bedroom doorway you stare at the empty bed with a pounding in your chest. You can do this, you can sleep without her and live without her. Most likely you will end up living without her if she does what you think she’ll do so you need to get used to the lack of her in your life.

You change into your pajamas before crawling into bed and when you turn on your side to face the wall of pillows you created. Tears gather in your eyes. What are you meant to do without her?

You fall asleep a few hours later after calming down but don’t stay asleep for long, soon enough, like always, you're up and crying as you clutch at the blankets surrounding you. She’s left you once and for all, one final punishment to shut you up for life. It feels like the air is being squeezed out of your lungs as you choke on another sob, images of life without her playing through your mind, and suddenly you're reminded of how much you truly need her.

At some point a few hours later you end up passing out in an uncomfortable position sprawled out across the bed with a pillow clutched to your chest. When you wake up your head is pounding from crying and your throat is dry, you feel like shit. You’ll have to accept that this is your life now.

Dr. Hanika arrives a few days later, news of Kuvira’s temporary release must have its way around the city because she already knows. You’re aware that you look like shit with bags under your eyes and that certain hollowness that has filled you with her absence. The house is a mess as well, dishes left in the sink, dirt smeared on the floors from your garden. You're in three-day-old pajamas and haven’t brushed your hair recently.

“Today I think we should talk about the codependency that is very much present in your relationship, I think addressing this issue and working out a few exercises to help you in the future will benefit you greatly.”

You never really thought your relationship was codependent before, then again most people probably don’t fall apart with the absence of their partner so you can’t argue with her. Even if you wanted to, you don’t have the energy.

And so she helps you make a plan, a list of things that may help you. When she tells you that it’s just trial and error at this point your shoulders sag.

That night you try the first option, soothing yourself to sleep, you light a stick of lavender incense and attempt to meditate which ends up being unsuccessful, but you power through and keep trying before finally giving up and going to sleep.

Option number one does not work.

So it’s time for option number two, you grab a heated water bottle and try to make a makeshift Kuvira out of some pillows before placing that on the bottom to keep them warm. It’s meant to imitate her and trick your mind into thinking she’s here, but when you wake up in the middle of the night reaching out for her because the warmth has since left her side of the bed, you realize it won’t work.

Option number two does not work.

There are a million little things on the list, all of which seem like they won’t work so when your eyes land on ‘get a pet’ a little bit of hope springs to life in your heart. Your dad is thrilled, you tell him a medium dog would most likely be best, so he rents a jeep and drives to the nearest town that has a kennel.

You spend the day as you always do, tending to your garden and trying to distract yourself from the deafening silence. You guys didn’t talk anymore but the sound of her pencil meeting paper or cooking helped fill the air with the perfect amount of white noise.

The sun is high in the sky when your dad barges into the living room as you're eating a buttered roll, in tow is a medium-sized hound with droopy eyes and long, floppy ears. He has bags in his hands full of supplies with the biggest grin you’ve seen from him in a while. The dog begins to curiously sniff the furniture, it’s red fur standing out from the rest of the house. “I saw her and knew she was a keeper.”

He sets the supplies onto the dining room table and begins to slowly unload the bags. He ends up pulling out two dog bowls, kibble, some treats, toys, and a white-collar for her. The hound walks up to the table, her nose peeking out over the top as she sniffs the bag of treats.

“I heard someone in town mention that Kuvira is back in Zaofu, where is she?” his brows pinch together as he looks around the apartment. Your heart drops as your grip on the roll tightens, she’s here, but she’s not here. Did she take your statement to heart and go back to him?

Is she currently wrapped tight in an intimate embrace with him, begging him to forgive her? Have they kissed yet? Is that stupid ring back on her finger? Your mind clouds with angry shouts of ‘you’ve finally done it, you’ve pushed her away and now she’s gone for life.’

“W-What?” The tone of your voice must be enough to let your dad know that she is, in fact, not here because he walks up and pulls you into his arms. You don’t even realize you’re crying or that you’ve dropped your food, which the hound happily snaps up.

“She’s probably just going through some kind of inspection before they let her come back here,” he says in a reassuring tone. You nod. It feels like you’ve floated out of your body as he directs you to the couch where he sits you down before going to make you some tea.

The hound jumps up beside you and rests her head on your lap. She lets out a deep groan before closing her eyes, you're so out of it that you keep your hands tucked on your lap despite it being slightly uncomfortable with her head nudging your arm.

Congratulations, something vicious says within you, you’ve lost her for good. Your dad stays for dinner, he makes dumplings and patiently waits to see if the magic within them works, you offer a forced smile to try and placate him, but he can tell it's not genuine. When he leaves you stand utterly still in the living room, what do you do now?

The hound, which your father suggested naming Lily after the flower Panda Lily, shoves her cold, wet nose into your hand and sniffs. It pulls you out of your self-deprecating thoughts and you robotically move your feet to the dreaded bedroom. Without instruction Lily jumps up onto the bed, wagging her tail as she waits for you to climb in with her. When you tug the blankets up to your chest she flops down beside you and presses her body against your chest. You wrap an arm around her middle and force your eyes shut, this is going to be the norm now.

Two days later the bags under your eyes are gone, surprisingly Lily works. Her body heat tricks your mind into thinking it’s Kuvira and so each morning instead of bolting awake with a sense of dread filling you, Lily wakes you up with a lick on your cheek and a bark.

You fall into a slightly altered routine, now when you're tending to your vegetable garden in the yard Lily joins you, she tries to bite the leaves and even manages to dig a hole that has you laughing for the first time in months. When you eat she lays by your feet and watches with this adorable look that warms your heart and when you read she lays her head on your lap.

You still think about her, but now you think about her a little less. Now you can get through the day without crying.

It’s that evening on the third night of owning Lily that the front door opens, you have your back turned as you do the dishes, but she alerts you that someone is here with her bark. When you look over your shoulder your whole body freezes up at the sight of a bewildered Kuvira as Lily jumps up to try and give her some form of a hug.

“What the fuck.” Lily licks her hand, trying to bite at the wrapped stems which has her yanking it out of the dog's reach. Your eyes land on what's in her hand, it’s a bouquet of sunflowers wrapped in white tissue paper. Your heart skips a beat at the sight. “Why is this dog here?”

Her question rips you out of your frozen state, you turn the water off and wipe your hands with a kitchen towel. “Uhm… Dad got her for me, well for us.”

She seems surprised by your willingness to talk to her. Part of her wants to argue that such a decision should have been made together, but she’s just so happy that you aren’t yelling or saying anything snide. “I got you these,” her voice is quiet and hesitant as she walks over to hand the flowers over to you.

You try to fight the smile threatening to pull your lips up but you can’t stop it, only minimize it into something small, but she still notices. “Thank you,” you reply in a soft, appreciative tone.

“They reduced my sentence to two years instead of three.” Your eyebrows shoot up in surprise as you look into her eyes, willingly. “I missed you.”

Your grip on the bouquet tightens at her confession. “I…” Letting out a deep sigh, you continue, “I missed you too.” Part of you wants to take the four steps it’d take to be close enough to pull her into your arms. But you don’t think you're ready for that just yet.

She stands so still you think she may have turned into a statue. Inside her mind is practically shutting down, your words have caused some kind of momentary outage as she thinks of these last few months. Spirits these last few days were hell, the way things were left ate her up inside. It didn’t help that Bolin treated her just as badly as you did and while she didn’t like the man she knew you two were friends.

“She deserves better,” he spat out the second he saw Kuvira. He was right, you do, but Kuvira is too selfish to leave, to give you a chance at a better life. One where you wake up next to someone who’d never hurt you the way she did, who would never force you to hide or become someone you weren’t. Someone your mother could stand to look at.

More snide comments from the lava bender were sent her way during the trip but the one that stuck out the most was one said right before everything went to shit. “She was willing to die for you but you couldn’t even remember her birthday.”

At least you have a friend, one who hates her guts but one who will stand up for you. At least you had someone to turn to because she knows she never let herself be an option.

“I missed you too,” is all she can come up with and a soft laugh leaves you. Spirits what did she do to deserve hearing that?

“You already said that.”

“Oh.” Kuvira can’t find it in herself to be embarrassed, she’s too focused on you and that small smile, the way you softly touch some flower petals with such gentle and attentive care.

“I haven’t forgiven you, but I’m willing to start trying.” That is more than enough for now. This magnificent feeling in her heart is perfect and the way that you smile at the flowers makes it all worth it.

Time slowly eases on, the pillows stay erected at the center of the bed, and whilst you still won’t touch her, you both slowly begin to talk again. She goes back to making the meals except now you try to help from time to time. You begin to slowly talk to her again during the day, it starts with a simple “How are you?” and has escalated into full-blown conversations.

Working with Dr. Hanika is grueling on both ends. You talk to her about slowly opening back up again but also about your fears, about how you feel bad for holding back because you can see how much she’s trying but you can’t help it. To which she always replies “you’ve been hurt by her, it’s okay to take your time and if anything it’s best to not rush any of this. I’m sure Kuvira understands.”

Kuvira talks to her about many things, mostly about you but also about her trip. Suyin forgives her, sort of. She told her that she’ll always have a family with the Beifongs and admitted she let her down. It was a relief to hear that and it made her feel slightly less awful about herself. Apologizing to Baatar Jr. was hard and incredibly awkward. At first, he wouldn’t look at her and even threw a tantrum about working alongside her but, after she willingly let him test the machine on her, something eased between them.

After admitting how awful she was to him and how sorry she is the hostility between the two washed away. The only problem is it gave him the confidence to try and convince her that what they had was real. When she shot him down for what felt like the millionth time, irritation slowly started to rise within her, she may have snapped and said she only loved you and has only ever loved you. Unfortunately, that made her apology useless, he stormed off, and she hasn’t seen him since.

Korra made her uncomfortable. Apparently, she had recently found out that Asami was the one, and had asked her a few questions about… well loving another woman. She may have even tried to pry and get information on the current state of your relationship, mentioning something about it feeling off at the apartment.

She had to admit these therapy sessions helped because a few months ago she would have ended Korra for bringing you up. All the breathing exercises she was taught were used throughout that whole trip and every time a negative comment was thrown her way she had to remind herself that she was different than before. That the Kuvira they all witnessed last summer is long gone and replaced with one desperately trying to make things right.

Leaves begin to slowly turn orange and fall to the ground in a heap. You begin to spend the days bundled up as you prepare your garden for next spring. It’s been a month and a half since Kuvira’s return, that’s eight sessions and eight weeks of slowly getting used to communicating again.

Both of you are given different tasks on how to properly talk to one another. Dr. Hanika makes you realize that running from your problems won’t help, that shutting Kuvira out will only make things worse. She has you ask Kuvira to do small things for you, nothing extravagant but enough to help show you that she’s trying and enough to show her that you (healthily) depend on her to some small degree.

Kuvira is given the task of making sure to do something with you every day. It’s kind of a task for the both of you but she gets to choose what it is and plans it out herself. The one activity you both end up enjoying is making dinner together, sometimes you’ll chat while skewering meat onto the kebab sticks and sometimes it’ll be spent in total silence, simply enjoying one's company whilst working together to make something.

The one task that has you shying away is touch. Nothing major, just a simple touch on the shoulder, perhaps gently bumping your hip against her own when making dinner or touching her arm to catch her attention. Nothing romantic, just simple and friendly. Something you’d be willing to do to a friend. The first time you do it is after the sun goes down. Kuvira is engrossed in her art and had asked you to tell her when you were done in the shower, so she could hop in.

She doesn’t realize it but you’re standing behind her clenching as anxiety wells up inside of you. It’s stupid and childish but it’s been so long and it’s meant to be small. You think of the simple touches at the beginning of your relationship, her hands brushing your hips to guide you in place or her fingertips ghosting over your bare shoulder. Even then it was romantic.

Releasing your fists you take a step forward before gently laying a hand on her shoulder to help rip her focus away from her sketchbook. The action does work in redirecting her attention but it also has her jumping in surprise, her charcoal pencil swerving across the page as it ruins whatever was being created. She doesn’t even realize it as her body whips around to see who it is. Even though she’s by the front door and therefore would know if anyone else was around, it shocks her to find you there.

You with your oversized sleep shirt and baggy pajama pants with damp hair clinging to your neck. In an act of reflex, you pull your hand back, your eyes wide at her reaction. Neither of you speaks for a moment.

“Uhm…” You bite your lip, “I’m done in the shower.” She opens her mouth to reply but nothing comes out. You touched her. It’s been months of no contact and yet your hand was just on her shoulder, suddenly she’s angry at herself for wearing a long-sleeved shirt despite the slight chill, wanting to have felt your skin against her own. “I’m sorry I sho-”

“No it’s…” Her throat feels so dry. Lily trots up to lick away a water droplet on your arm, you look down at the hound as you gently pull your arm away. She huffs before climbing onto the couch. “Uhm it’s fine.”

Kuvira repeatedly blinks, it’s such a small action (except it’s not) and her mind feels like it’s splitting in half at it.

“Is your drawing okay? It looked like…” At your words, she peeks behind her shoulder, it’s ruined. The uniformed, perfect lines to create a rough sketch resembling a large metal flower has a large swerve of black across the page.

“It’s okay,” she lies. You’ll feel bad and then maybe you won’t touch her again and Kuvira does not want that to happen. “Thanks, I’ll… Go, y’know.”

Spirits if past her could see herself right now she’d be cringing. It’s not that hard to speak! ‘Go shower’ is what she meant to say, but she forgets the word. You nod in understanding as you grip the bottom of your shirt.

“Okay, I’ll… I’m going to sleep.” This entire situation is awkward and you practically race out of there to get away. You're embarrassed and you don’t know why. Once in bed, you mentally berate yourself for being so stupid.

An hour goes by, her showers don’t usually take this long and you're about to get up to check on her when she enters. She’s in her usual long-sleeved dark gray sleep shirt and sweatpants that hang low on her hips. She doesn’t make eye contact with you when she crawls into bed, to be honest, she kind of zoned out in the shower as she replayed that simple moment that hardly lasted three seconds.

It’s silent for a few beats before you break the silence. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I’m sorry.”

Kuvira’s eyes widen at your words, her head turns to look over at you, but not only is it pitch black, but the wall of pillows also keeps you out of sight. “You didn’t… I’m not uncomfortable.”

“You’re not?”

“No, I was just surprised.” It’s quiet again, so she continues, “please, if you want you can touch me in any way you want whenever.” She cringes, that sounded kind of sexual.

You stare up at the ceiling as you grip the blankets. “Okay, that’s good to know.”

You both go to sleep smiling.

The herb garden you have growing inside is coming along beautifully and now you guys can take small clippings from it for meals. Summer has long since passed and autumn is nearly over, it doesn’t get freezing here during the winter but it’s cold enough to destroy any crops that try to spring to life outside and so your time gardening is limited to the shelves inside.

A couple of weeks have gone by since that shoulder tap and each day you’ve mentally psyched yourself up into touching her again in some way. Kuvira has to use all of her self-control to keep from touching you back, this is meant to be at your pace and unless you ask her to, she will keep her hands to herself.

You get a bit bolder, your touches lasting a little longer and the anxiety slowly lessens as the days go on. Now when cooking dinner if you need to brush past her, you might place a hand on her back to let her know you're behind her. Three days ago you pushed back a stray strand of hair for her while she had her hands dirty with oil and herbs as she prepared the duck for dinner. She might have tightly squeezed the raw meat to keep from leaning into your touch but you don’t seem to notice.

This morning you woke up with a thought on your mind, a desire to try something that has you bouncing your leg throughout breakfast. Lily sits under the table in hopes of food to drop as you push your eggs around your plate. Kuvira watches you with a raised brow, a pit is growing in her stomach as she watches you stare down at your plate.

“How’d you sleep?”

Your head whips up at her words, brows pinched together. It takes you a second to register her words before quickly replying “good, great.”

Something’s wrong. Spirits did she say something in her sleep? She feels warmth flood her at the bits and pieces she remembers from her dream, none of it was currently possible with your situation, but she swears your lips on her skin felt real. She probably did say something, she’s made you uncomfortable and now you won’t want to be around her anymore.

Breakfast continues in silence as you both mentally freak out over very different things. When you both decide to get up and start the day you go to grab her plate for her just as she’s picking it up. Your fingers touch and she’s waiting for you to flinch away in disgust but you don’t.

“I got it,” your voice is soft and devoid of anger. In her stunned state, you're able to take her plate and carry it to the sink. You decide you’ll clean them up later after setting them down and take a deep breath. Now or never, you think. Walking back over to Kuvira who has since snapped out of her daze, you stand in front of her. Both of you stand stone still, just staring at one another. The prolonged eye contact seems too much so you rip your gaze away before clearing your throat.

“Please, if you want you can touch me in any way you want whenever.”

Remembering her words from a few weeks ago, you wrap your arms around her waist and pull her into a gentle hug. You don’t squeeze and give her room to pull away if she wants to. For a minute it’s just you hugging her as she stares down in surprise, you’ve since laid your cheek against her chest and closed your eyes. Your hair is a bit of a mess from sleeping and neither of you has gotten dressed for the day but this feels picture-perfect. She slowly wraps her arms around you, hugging you back.

You both stand like that for a while as the morning light shines through the windows and casts a sort of warm glow on the room. You close your eyes and slowly relax in her arms, she’s warm and cozy, by being locked in here her muscles have slowly started to fade which you sort of miss but you don’t mind. This is friendly, right? You’ve hugged friends before, you hug your parents and Bolin and you’ve hugged Suyin. Zhu Li hugged you in the hospital and thanked you for helping her out.

To Kuvira this feels amazing, her heart pounds away as she squeezes her eyes shut. It feels like a million years since having you in her arms. She doesn’t think she ever appreciated it enough, sure she loved it and craved your touch back then, but she didn’t know what it was like to lose you. To have you despise her and not able to stand the sight of her, let alone her touch.

She never wants to let go.

For a good portion of the morning, you both just stand there in each other's arms. At some point tears begin to cascade down your cheeks, this is a small step forward. You're proud of yourself for this and are so happy to be taking a step forward. There’s a lot more to go but you decide not to dwell on that as you simply bask in each other's presence.

#kuvira #kuvira x reader #kuvira fanfic #kuvira/reader #lok fanfic #lok #legend of korra #tgt #the great trial

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softtofustew · 3 years

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an odyssey | afterword

rating: T

pairing: Hwang Hyunjin/Han Jisung

summary: Somewhere in the galaxy of the Stella Primum, Lieutenant Han is the best fighter on his team, a real ace shooter, with five gold stars to show. Too bad Second Lieutenant Hwang is not only great at battling the Ordinem, he’s also got disgustingly perfect looks to match, and now Jisung’s stuck in the same spaceship with him for possibly the most impossible task of their lives. Or the one where a rivalry is brewed across the skies and stars, until Jisung realises what there is to flying beside Hyunjin on a mission to save the galaxy.

if you haven’t read it yet, read here.

this is an afterword to ‘an odyssey’, where i write about the origin of the story, the characters, and my struggles of writing :’)

(i) The Origin

I’ve had this work in my WIPs since, believe it or not, January of this year. I’ve had this idea for so, so long. I wrote it intermittently throughout this year, with a scene or two in September, then October.

Due to my exams, though, I couldn’t write as much as I wanted to. That’s why I only really started writing ‘an odyssey’ back in mid-November. The good thing was that I had more time to plan this out, because frankly, this is perhaps the heaviest fic I’ve written in terms of plot so far.

I can’t for the life of me remember where this story idea planted itself in my head. All I knew was that I like space AUs, I adore Hyunjin and Jisung’s friendship, and I love enemies to lovers. Realising there weren’t any fics out there that combined the three, I knew it was my time to shine. Or something.

(ii) The Plot

The plot was the trickiest to pull off. I’ve written an urban fantasy here and there, but I’m pretty sure if I reread them thoroughly, I’m bound to find a couple of plot holes.

There were a lot of elements to cover: the Prophecy. The five gems. The push-pull relationship between Jisung and Hyunjin. The journey to discovering the whereabouts of the last Gemma. The last boss fight with a Governor who could wield the Force. There was!!!! So!!!! Much!!!! Going!!!! On!!!!!

Perhaps if I reread ‘an odyssey’, I might find another plot hole or two; who knows? For now, though, I feel quite contented with this work of mine. Considering it’s my first time writing something as long as this (50K+ are you kidding me?), I feel this is a first step for me to continue expanding my horizons when it comes to writing, to continue to challenge myself to write something different, something bold. Something new.

(iii) The Characters

I rewatched the Two Kids Room and One Kid Room episodes so many times, over and over again. There’s a reason why this story is centred around Jisung and Hyunjin, and why it’s written from Jisung’s perspective.

Their relationship is, after all, something coherently interesting. They really said “enemies to friends but make it irl”. I guess I took that concept and sort of exaggerated the extent of their ‘hate’ for each other, which isn’t exactly hate to begin with. The further you read on, the more you’ll realise that they don’t exactly hate each other — they just got off on the wrong footing, and have never tried turning back to start over once more.

It’s written from Jisung’s perspective because personally, I wanted the story to be told from the eyes of someone who was prideful, who was eager and determined, and who wanted to show his worth to everyone else. I feel like perhaps I didn’t expand on characterising Jisung to the fullest advantage possible, though, which remains a slight regret of mine.

Another reason why I wanted this to be written from Jisung’s POV is because we can find out how Jisung feels about Hyunjin throughout the story. When he realises whose son Hyunjin is, he’s torn between wanting to pity Hyunjin and keeping things between them the same as they always have. (If I were in his position, though, I don’t know what I would have done lol.) It was hard to try and interpret his emotions, but there’s that.

Someone commented once asking if we’d ever get Hyunjin’s POV. Sadly, one of my biggest turn-offs is the switching of POVs in stories when it’s not entirely necessary haha. As much as I would want to know what Hyunjin is thinking when they’re arguing, or when they’re fighting, I like to keep on the suspension line. It gives you the feeling of immersing yourself as the Jisung in the story, of only seeing things from one perspective.

As for the other characters, there wasn’t enough time to expand on all of them (for example, I mentioned Seungmin several times throughout the story, but really, he speaks only once haha). And as your fellow StayDay, it was definitely fun for me to include a few members of Day6. (please don’t ask me why I thought of ‘PJ and Honey’ while writing. I was probably hungry.)

I don’t know if I’ll continue to expand on the characters in this same universe, but it would be fun to think of the other relationships, for example Chan and Felix, or Changbin with Minho and Seungmin. (someone please save the seungbinho tag!!!!!!)

As far as characterisation goes, I’ve still got so much to learn. For now, though, I hope you enjoyed the dynamics between the characters and how Jisung and Hyunjin learnt to grow within a span of six chapters.

(iv) The Writing Process

Granted, the writing bit was a little easier in the beginning, but as I delved myself deeper into the story, I found it harder and harder to express the emotions I wanted to deliver in the story. One of the hardest chapters for me to write by far was the last chapter. I wrote two versions of the last chapter, simply because I felt the first version was too lacklustre for the ending of such a long story haha.

I had a clear outline of my story, but I did end up extending it from the initial 5 chapters to 6. For the first time, though, I didn’t add any random elements to the story, unlike how i wrote this story last year haha. The lesson I’ve learnt is that I should ALWAYS have a brief outline of the plot — detailed enough to cover the entire story, but brief enough to give me some creative freedom mid-writing.

The excitement of writing honestly wore off near the last few chapters. I’ve realised the importance of reading unfinished works in this way. Writers really need some form of motivation to keep them writing their chaptered works. So if you’re one of the real ones who started reading this even before it was completed, kudos to you. I really appreciate it.

Overall, writing this was fun. Hopefully I don’t need to do this again though; I absolutely hate writing chaptered fics because of all the time and effort put into them. I’d much rather be a ‘One-Shot Hotshot’ lol.

(v) The End (?)

I left a bit of wondering for the readers in the last chapter. If Atkins was able to wield the Force despite the false pretence that there was no longer any Force-wielders left in the universe, how many more of them could there be?

That leaves an opening for me if I ever wish to return to this alternate universe sometime in the future. The Universe is ever-expanding, and so is our imagination.

(vi) The Inspiration

Obviously, I need to thank Star Wars. I also need to apologise because I absolutely butchered their universe. Fun fact: there was one huge plot hole I had to cover up halfway through writing.

If you’re observant, you might remember the scene where Hyunjin asks Jisung why they didn’t just jump into hyperspace to reach Ilsanis. That’s because I was watching an episode of The Mandalorian where the Mando was forced to fly a ship without a hyperdrive engine, and I almost freaked out right there in the middle of the living room realising how weird that would be if I left the issue unattended in my own work (yikes).

Long story short, I drew elements from the Star Wars universe and created a story of my own. I’ve been asked how I came up with the idea of the Prophecy. Frankly, I don’t know. My brain farts sometimes, I guess. Brain Farts = weird ideas that somehow make sense sometimes.

(vii) Lastly

If you have any more questions you’d like to ask (or plot holes to tell me about *shudders*), do leave me a question in my CC, or holler at me on Twitter (I’m hardly alive here on Tumblr haha). To anyone and everyone who has read ‘an odyssey’, I thank you.

This year has been a funky year, and even worse, it’s the year I had to take my IGCSEs. Writing has always been a way for me to create my own universe and release my tension and emotions, so not being able to write as much as I used to was a little tough.

Writing will continue to be a medium for me to express my emotions and my thoughts while creating stories of my own, so simply by giving my fics a read, you’ve already fuelled my reason to continue to write. Thank you for all the support in ‘an odyssey’!

(why did i write this entire monologue like i’m giving a speech at the Oscars or something lol im so dramatic :”))

#mycommentary

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aymansadiq29 · 3 years

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Why Do You Want To Get A Farm For Sale In Costa Rica?

Farm For Sale Costa Rica: Things You Need To Know!

Discover everything about buying a farm for sale Costa Rica!

Have you ever thought of owning a beautiful Costa Rica farm?

Costa Rica is a beautiful country located in Central America and known for its peace, mountains, and beaches. San Jose is the country’s capital. It is famous for tourism and generates an income of over 1.7 billion USD per year.

Buying a farm for sale Costa Rica is an attractive investment for many foreigners to own a farm in the country. Many foreigners have never visited Costa Rica. However, they are interested in buying land in Costa Rica for lower costs and taxes there.

But before you apply for an ad saying ‘farm for sale Costa Rica,’ you need to know few things about owning a property in the country. In this blog, we will help you understand real estate in the land of beaches and pineapples. After reading it, you will make a well-informed decision when dealing in Costa Rica real estate.

Few Things About Costa Rica

Costa Rica is a small country neighboured by Nicaragua and Panama. It is a favorite place for many Canadian, European, and United States citizens. Many of them come to explore the beaches of Playa and mountains covered with rainforests.

The currency of Costa Rica is Colon, and 1 Colon has 100 centimos. Residents of the United States, Canada, Europe, and Great Britain can visit Costa Rica for up to 90 days without a visa. The country is full of mountains, active volcano hills, green valleys, coral reefs, and white sand beaches.

The agricultural profile of the country is also rich, with pineapple being the honor for the country. Every 2 out of 3 pineapples supplied in the world are produced in large farms of Costa Rica.

If talking about the country’s weather, most of the areas except Guanacaste are humid, hot, and covered with rainforests.

If you’re wondering why foreigners have an interest in Costa Rica real estate, here is the answer:

Probably one of the biggest reasons is the low cost of real estate. Secondly, the state of Costa Rica allows foreigners to buy properties for sale in Costa Rica.

Now let’s move to the buying process in Costa Rica. We will also talk about benefits and challenges when looking for a farm for sale Costa Rica.

How To Look For A Farm For Sale Costa Rica

Why Do You Want To Get A

Farm For Sale Costa Rica

Before you decide about a perfect location for buying a property in Costa Rica, you must answer a few questions for yourself and your real estate agent. You cannot expect to easily get the ideal location to purchase the property by just deciding to get a piece of land.

Ask yourself,

Why do you want to get a farm for sale Costa Rica? Do you have any expected budget? Are you conscious of ocean views? How large a farm are you looking for?

Once you have answered these questions, your journey of purchasing land in Costa Rica with beautiful views around will become easy.

You can answer all the questions based on your choice. However, to answer the purpose of purchasing the land, you must become familiar with the kinds of farms in Costa Rica.

Different Kinds Of Farm For Sale Costa Rica

More than a dozen types of farms for sale in Costa Rica exist. With 763 miles long Pacific coastline in the country, the investors and buyers enjoy a wide choice of land for sale in Costa Rica. But, we will divide them into few major categories. You can choose a farm for sale Costa Rica from the following categories:

Commercial Development Farms

The commercial development farm is a development land for sale in Costa Rica that is most suitable for housing buildings.

Big investors purchase such farms to develop residential buildings, commercial properties, or a gated community with smaller residential houses. Commercial development farms can be sub-divided into:

hotel development farms

For hotel development, the land for sale with beautiful views and ocean views are generally preferred. If we talk about Costa Rica, you can purchase land for sale with ocean views or valley views for this purpose.

It is an excellent investment as the country attracts around two million tourists every year. Therefore, you can purchase a development farm for building a hotel.

residential communities

Buying land for residential buildings is another option you can capitalize on as an investor. Investing in residential development farms is fruitful in Costa Rica for large-scale projects.

The ideal property is located along the country’s North, South, and Central Pacific coast for development farms.

Agriculture Farms

Agriculture farm for sale Costa Rica or pasture lands is abundant. But, we can divide them into land for industrial farming and medium-sized farming. We will discuss each type of agriculture farm for sale in Costa Rica.

industrial farming

Costa Rica is famous for many crops, including banana, pineapple, arabica coffee, etc. For this reason, many investors show interest in starting industrial farming to take advantage of the fertile land of Costa Rica.

For industrial farming, the growers need flat land for sale. Otherwise, production costs will become high. For such lands are best for growing large quantities of different crops. But getting large farms in plain areas is fairly hard in Costa Rica.

And in case you are looking for an industrial farm over 3000 acres, it might become a mission impossible due to only 19700 square miles of land area in the country.

Large-scale producers can grow sugar cane farming and bean farming in the plain areas of Guanacaste. As you move toward San Carlos, pineapple, milk, various ornamental plants, and teak can be grown.

Medium-Sized Farm For Sale Costa Rica

For medium-sized farming, Costa Rica is an ideal location. The country has microclimates, small areas with diverse climate conditions. So you can buy land for sale in an area of your choice, depending on what you want to grow.

There are plenty of options for medium-sized farms as well.

Vegetable farms are a suitable option in cold areas of the country. These areas include Turrialba, Los Santos Valley, Cartago mountains, La Fortuna, and Sarapiqui. You can grow tomatoes, mushrooms, avocados, potatoes, and many other vegetables.

Coffee Farms are another specialty of Costa Rica; more specifically, Arabica coffee. Los Santos, Cartago, and the Southern Zone of Costa Rica favor the growth of coffee.

Fruit farms of corn, melon, mango, papaya, etc., grow well in the country. So, a buyer can buy a farm in Orotina for growing mangoes. Look in la Cruz de Guanacaste and Upala for citrus farm for sale Costa Rica.

Animal Farms

Cattle and chicken farms drive 12% of employment in Costa Rica and cover 35.5% of land area. Buyers have the option to look for chicken, dairy, beef, cattle, horse, or fish farm from 45000 livestock farms in the country

Understanding Costa Rica Real Estate

Understanding Costa Rica real estate before getting a farm for sale in Costa Rica is essential. So we have outlined important points of Costa Rica property selling and buying.

Taxes

Fortunately, buyers enjoy low taxes in Costa Rica. So if you’re already considering getting a farm for sale in Costa Rica, it will not cost a lot. In general, the property tax in Costa Rica is 0.25% of the property value. However, the owners of luxury homes will have a slightly higher tax rate of o.55%. According to tax regulations in 2020, luxury property is a house with greater than 234000 USD.

Titled Property

Once you start learning about the property system in Costa Rica, you might get confused. Here is the explanation of the most common types of land in Costa Rica.

public land

Any piece of land within the first fifty meters of the high tide line comes under the definition of public land. Therefore, it cannot be owned by any person or group of persons.

concession land

The second zone of property is concession land. It is also known as a maritime zone.

After the public land, the next 150 meters area comes under concession land. Basically, it can also not be owned by any person. But the state issues lease of the land. If you are a foreigner, you cannot fully own land in a maritime zone.

Instead, you will have to partner with a resident. A foreigner cannot have more than 50% ownership rights.

titled property

Titled property, often referred to as a simple fee, is any land for sale in Costa Rica owned by any person or individual. Foreigners are also not restricted from buying the titled property in Costa Rica.

Title Insurance

As a foreigner or a local buyer, you must understand title insurance. Title insurance works in the interest of the buyer of the property to protect his financial interests. Having title insurance gives you protection against and title defects or public record matters.

As a matter of fact, it is a new concept in Costa Rica real estate. Besides, title insurance is expensive, so you should consider your real estate agent.

No MLS System

MLS or Multiple listing service is a real estate term. It means an organization that lists all the property for sale within an area. Any interested buyer can publicly assess the prices. Unfortunately, you will have to struggle a bit more to buy a farm for sale in Costa Rica.

Also, there is no certification for real estate agents in Costa Rica. You might fall prey to a fake real estate agent pretending to be real. So whenever you want to buy a farm for sale in Costa Rica, the bar of due diligence is on you. Ask the real estate agent about his testimonials, try to find previous clients, and ask about his reputation.

The Purchase Process: Farm For Sale Costa Rica

Once you’ve found a good broker, it’s time to take ownership of the farm for sale in Costa Rica.

Generally, the potential buyer checks out different properties. Once he finds something, he will ask the agent to proceed with the purchase. Buyers and sellers negotiate the price. However, having clear expectations about the purchase process is necessary.

If you’re buying a farm for sale Costa Rica, don’t expect the matter to close within days. It might take longer. After several sessions of negotiation, a deal is made. Your real estate attorney that can be a real estate association or agent, will write the agreement.

The buyer makes a 10% initial deposit to the seller’s account as regulations in Costa Rica. The next step is closing the deal. For that purpose, it takes 30 to 60 days from signing the sales agreement. In Costa Rica, the buyer is the one who pays the closing costs.

Your closing costs can be around 5 to 10% of the purchase price. On the other hand, the seller pays around the same percentage of real estate commission. So, it won’t be wrong to say that closing costs are shared by buyer and seller for a farm for sale in Costa Rica.

In A Nutshell,

Costa Rica foreign direct investment has been award-winning in the past. It resulted in a lot of foreign citizens purchasing land for sale in Costa Rica. Costa Rica is also a favorite of retiring people from Northern and Southern America. You can also leverage the opportunity to buy land in Costa Rica and build up your dream villa in heart of beautiful Costa Rica.

#farm for sale costa rica buy farm costa rica

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irispublishersagriculture · 3 years

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World Journal of Agriculture and Soil Science (WJASS)

New Trends of the Polysaccharides as a Drug

Authored by Ebtsam M El Kady

Introduction

Polysaccharides (PSs) are a high molecular weight polymer, consisting of at least ten monosaccharides mutually joined by glyosidic linkages. The glycosyl moiety of hemiacetal or hemiketal, together with the OH group of another sugar unit, formed the glyosidic linkages [1]. Unlike protein and nucleic acid, the structure of PSs is far more complicated based on the differences in (i) composition of monosaccharide residues, (ii) glyosidic linkages, (iii) sequence of sugar units, (iv) degrees of polymerization, and (v) branching point. Apart from those, other factors, such as differences of cultivars, origins, and batches, or even extraction methods and fraction procedures are evidenced to have significant influence on the physicochemical and structural properties of PSs. Owing to the rapid development of modern analytical techniques; the identification of PSs structures is becoming more and more feasible and convenient [1]. In recent years, researches have confirmed that PSs from natural products possess wide-ranging beneficial therapeutic effects and health-promoting properties. Specifically, seaweed derived PSs, such as alginate, fucoidan, carrageenan, laminaran, and agar [2], are widely distributed in biomedical and biological applications [3-7], for example, tissue engineering, drug delivery, wound healing, and biosensor due to their biocompatibility and availability.

Fungal PSs, derived from Grifola frondosa, Lentinula edodes, oyster mushroom, as well as Ganoderma, Flammulina, Cordyceps, Coriolus, and Pleurotus, and so forth, are demonstrated to have multiple bioactivities [8-11], including immunomodulating, anticancer, antimicrobial, hypocholesterolemic, and hypoglycemic effects. Bacterial extracellular PSs, loosely associated with bacterium, capsular PSs, tightly bound to bacteria surface, and lipopolysaccharides, always anchored to cell surface by lipid, are nontoxic natural biopolymers and provide extensive applications in areas such as pharmacology, nutraceutical, functional food, cosmeceutical, herbicides, and insecticides [12].

If PSs contains only one kind of monosaccharide molecule, it is known as a homopolysaccharide, or homoglycan, whereas those containing more than one kind of monosaccharide are heteropolysaccharides. The most common constituent of PSs is glucose, but fructose, galactose, galactose, mannose, arabinose, and xylose are also frequent [13,14]. PSs are structurally diverse classes of macromolecules able to offer the highest capacity for carrying biological information due to a high potential for structural variability [15]. Whereas the nucleotides and amino acids in nucleic acids and proteins effectively, interconnect in only one way, the monosaccharide units in PSs can interconnect at several points to form a wide variety of branched or linear structures [16]. This high potential for structural variability in PSs gives the necessary flexibility to the precise regulatory mechanisms of various cell-cell interactions in higher organisms. The PSs of mushrooms occurs mostly as glucans. Some of which are linked by β-(1---3), (1---6) glycosidic bonds and α-(1---3)-glycosidic bonds but many are true heteroglycans. Most often there is a main chain, which is either β-(1---3), β-(1---4) or mixed β-(1---3), β-(1---4) with β-(1---6) side chains. Hetero-β-D-glucans, which are linear polymers of glucose with other D-monosaccharides, can have anticancer activity but α-D-glucans from mushroom usually lack anticancer activity [15]. Heteroglucan side chains contain glucuronic acid, galactose, mannose, arabinose or xylose as a main component or in different combinations

The number of potential PSs structures is almost limitless but in practice many such polymers are unlikely to possess useful physical properties. Even now it is difficult to relate the chemical structure elucidated for any specific PSs to its physical functionality [17]. Currently only a small number of biopolymers are produced commercially on a large scale. However, this limited group of products exhibits an extensive range of physical properties and also provides several models for study by microbiologists, carbohydrate and physical chemists and molecular biologists.

PSs widely exist in the animals, plants, algae and microorganism. Together with proteins and polynucleotides, they are essential biomacromolecules in the life activities and play important roles in cell–cell communication, cell adhesion, and molecular recognition in the immune system [18]. In recent years, some bioactive PSs isolated from natural sources have attracted much attention in the field of biochemistry and pharmacology. They exhibit various biological activities affected by different chemical structures. Suarez et al. [19] reported that the immunostimulatory activity of arabinogalactans extracted from Chlorella pyrenoidosa cells depended on their molecular weights. The higher molecular weight arabinogalactans exhibited immunostimulatory activity, but the lower molecular weight fractions did not. Further researches show that the activities of PSs are not only dependent on their chemical structures, but also are related to their chain conformations [20]. It is known that the anti-tumor activities may be related to the triple helical conformation of the β-D-(1---3)-glucan backbone chain for some PSs, such as lentinan from Lentinus edodes [19,21] and schphylizophyllan from Schizophyllum commune [22,23]. In view of the fact that, Sakurai and Shinkai [24] were the first to find that schizophyllan may form a helical complex with single stranded homopolynucleotides, many works about preparing a complex of schizophyllan and DNA or RNA for a nontoxic gene delivery system have been developed [25-32]. Generally, it is interesting and important to elucidate the relation among chemical structures, chain conformations of PSs and their biological activities. However, PSs are usually composed of various monosaccharides linked with different glucoside bonds. Some PSs has hyperbranched structures. Moreover, PSs often has high molecular weights, and tends to form aggregates in solution that can mask the behavior of individual macromolecules. In consequence, to characterize the chemical structures and chain conformations of PSs is not an easy task.

The chemical structures were analyzed by FTIR, NMR, GC, GC– Mass and HPLC. The chain conformations of PSs in solutions were investigated using static and dynamic light scattering.

PSs already proved to have several important properties [33- 43]. However, the attempts to establish a relationship between the structures of the PS and their bioactivities/actions have been a challenge due to the complexity of this type of polymers. In fact, aside from the homogalactan from Gyrodinium impudicum [44], the β-glucan from Chlorella vulgaris [45] and the PSs from a few species of algae, most of these carbohydrates are highly branched hetero polymers with different substituents in the various carbons of their backbone and side sugar components. Additionally, the monosaccharide composition and distribution within the molecule, and the glyosidic bonds between monosaccharides can be very heterogeneous, which is a real impairment for the study of their structures. Moreover, this heterogeneity also depends on the species, between strains of the same species, and on the time and place of harvest. Nevertheless, there are always some similarities between the PSs from each group of seaweeds: often, fucoidans are extracted from brown algal species, agaroids and carrageenans come from red algae, and ulvans are obtained from green algae. Regarding cyanobacteria and as far as we know, there are not common names for their PSs, to the exception of spirulan from Arthrospira platensis. There are species that, besides producing large amounts of these useful polymers, they secrete them out into the culture medium and these polymers are easily extracted [38]. Both algae are cyanobacteria excellent sources of PSs, most of them being sulfated (S-PSs). They are associated with several biological activities and potential health benefits, making them interesting compounds for the application in pharmaceuticals, therapeutics, and regenerative medicine. Some of the beneficial bioactivities demonstrated by the crude PSs and their derivatives, either in-vitro or in-viv, upon various kinds of cell-lines and animal models, include anticoagulant and/or antithrombotic properties, immunomodulatory ability, anti-tumor and cancer preventive activity. They are also good antidislipidaemic and hypoglycaemic agents, and can be powerful antioxidants, antibiotics and antiinflammatory. The S-PSs from Enteromorpha and Porphyridium have demonstrated strong antitumor and immunomodulating properties [46-48] those from Caulerpa cupressoides and Dyctiota menstrualis are good antinociceptive agents [49,50], and the S-PSs from Cladosiphon okaramanus showed angiogenic, gastro- and cardioprotective bioactivities [33,51,52].

Some Structural Characteristics of Polysaccharides from Algae

The chemical structure of PSs from algae may significantly determine their properties, namely physico-chemical and biochemical, and reflect their physical behavior and biological activities.

Macroalgae

Macroalgae who’s PSs have been studied more often; belong to the group’s brown algae (Phaeophyceae) green algae (Chlorophyta) and red macroalgae (Rhodophyta). Brown algae usually contain fucoidans; the oligosaccharides obtained from the hydrolysis of fucoidans may often contain galactose, glucose, uronic acids, and/or other monosaccharides, linked together and to the main chain by different types of glycosidic bonds. This is the case, for example, for the laminaran from E. bicyclis, or the galactofucan from Sargassum sp., and the fucan from P. tetrastromatica. However, the structure complexity of these fucoidans makes difficult to establish a relationship between the PS-chains/composition and their biological actions, and/or some kind of protocols to design universal pharmaceuticals or other drug-like substances to prevent and/ or cure specific diseases [53]. The monosaccharide composition, the linkage types, the overall structure of fucoidans, and some of their di- and oligosaccharides were well explored by Li et al. [54], Ale et al. [55] and Fedorov et al. [35]. Ale et al. [55] showed the difference between S-PSs from three species of Fucus by focusing on the various substituents at C-2 and C-4 carbons, despite the similarities of their backbones; they also highlighted the possible structures of fucoidans from two species of Sargassum [56,57]. Among them are the schemes for the components of the main chain showing either the (1---3)-, and (1---3)- and (1---4)-linked fucose residues or some di- and trisaccharide repeating units for A. nodosum, C. okamuranus, L. saccharina and some species of Fucus. On the other hand, Fedorov et al. [35] focused on the structures and bioactivities of different S-PSs, such as galactofucan from Laminaria and laminarans from E. bicyclis. Red algae contain large amounts of S-PSs, mostly agaroids and carrageenans, with alternating repeating units of α-(1---3)-galactose and β-D-(1---4)-galactose [58], and/or (3---6)-anhydrogalactose [59]. Substituents can be other monosaccharides (mannose, xylose), sulfate, methoxy and/or pyruvate groups and the pattern of sulfation dividing carrageenans into different families, for example, in C-4 for κ-carrageenan, and in C-2 for λ-carrageenan. In addition, the rotation of galactose in 1,3-linked residues divides agaroids from carrageenans [60]. Apart from agarans [60], found in species of Porphyra, Polysiphonia, Acanthophora, Goiopeltis, Bostrychia or Cryptopleura are also good sources of κ-carrageenan (E. spinosa and K. alvarezii), λ-carrageenan (Chondrus sp, G. skottsbergii and Phillophora) [61], I-carrageenan (E. spinosa) [62], and other heterogalactans with mannose and/ or xylose building up their backbones. Among these, we may find xylogalactans in N. fastigiata and xylomannans in S. polydactyla [63,64].

Regarding green algae, the information on their structures and applications is scarce. Wangs et al. [41] has made an excellent overview on those properties for the S-PSs from several genera of green algae. These S-PSs are very diverse and complex, with various types of glycosidic bonds between monomers, and include galactans (Caulerpa spp.), rhamnans (C. fulvescens and Enteromorpha), arabino- and pyruvylated galactans (Codium spp.), and the most known ulvans from Ulva spp and E. prolifera. Wang et al. [41] also included some repeating aldobiuronic di-units for the backbone of ulvans, containing aldobiouronic acid or glucouronic acid (U. armoricana and U. rigida, respectively), disaccharides sulfated xylose-sulfated-rhamnose, and a trisaccharide unit composed by 1,4-linked glucouronic acid, glucouronic acid and sulfatedrhamnose. The backbone of rhamnans seems to be somewhat simpler, but other types of glycosidic bonds can also appear. Four repeating disaccharide units were indicated for the homo polymer of M. latissimum [65]. Species from Codium are very interesting: their S-PSs may include different percentages of arabinose and galactose, giving place to arabinans (C. adhaerens [66], galactans (C. yezoense) [67], arabinogalactans [41]. Pyruvylated galactans were also identified in C. yezoense [67], C. isthmocladium [68] and C. fragile [69]. Some other species of Codium present other PS-types such as β-D-(1---4)-mannans in C. vermilara [70], or the rare β-D- (1---3)-mannans in C.

An overview on the antiviral activity against several kinds of virus and retrovirus, enveloped or naked was well documented by Carlucci et al. [96] & Wijesekara et al. [2]. These reviews focused on the HIV type 1 and type 2, the human papilloma virus (HPV), the encephalo-myocarditis virus, the hepatitis virus type A and type B and the dengue and yellow fever virus. The inhibition of infection by most of these viruses was explained by the action of S-PSs, which might block the attachment of visions to the host cell surfaces [97,98]. Another way of exerting their activity is by inhibiting the replication of the enveloped virus, such as the HIV, the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) and the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) [60,66,99], either by inhibiting the virus adsorption or the entry into the host cells. Some of the S-PSs are effective only if applied simultaneously with the virus or immediately after infection [60]. Another mechanism of action of fucoidans and other S-PSs is through the inhibition of the syncytium formation induced by viruses [2,100]. Some sulfated-xylomannans were reported to present antiviral sulfate-dependent activity, as it was the case of PSs from S. polydactyla and S. latifolium, which inhibited the multiplication of HSV-1 in Vero-cells [1,101]. Additionally, the molecular weight (MW) seems to play an important role in the antiviral properties of the S-PSs, the effect increasing with the molecular weight [60]. However, other structural features can be co-responsible for the reinforcement of the antiviral effectiveness, like sulfation patterns, composition and distribution of sugar residues along the backbone, and the complexity of the polymers [60,64,83,90]. Further, the fucoidans from L. japonica already proved their effectiveness in fighting both RNA and DNA viruses [54], such as poliovirus III, adenovirus III, ECHO6 virus, coxsackie B3 and A16 viruses. Moreover, these S-PSs can protect host cells by inhibiting the cytopathic activity of those viruses [102].

In addition to their virucidal activity against HIV and other viruses associated to sexually transmitted diseases (STD) [103], including HPV, some carrageenans might find application as vaginal lubricant gels and coatings of condoms, with microbicidal activity, for they do not present any significant anticoagulant properties or cytotoxicity [104,105]. Furthermore, some fucoidans, apart from inhibiting attachment of virus particles to host cells, were able to inhibit the attachment of human spermatozoids to the zona pellucida of oocytes [106]; this property could be used for the development of a contraceptive gel with microbicidal characteristics [40]. The PSs from some algae, and which may be released into the culture medium, showed antiviral activity against different kinds of viruses, such as the HIV-1, HSV-1 and HSV-2, VACV and Flu-A, as described by Raposo et al. [72] S-PSs, in particular, proved to increase the antiviral capacity [107]. In fact, the antiviral activity of the PSs may depend on the culture medium, algal strain and cell line used for testing, but also on the methodology, and the degree of sulfation, as is the case of PSs from P. cruentum [108,72]. Despite the slight toxicity that some PSs may present, they could be safely applied in in vivo experiments, decreasing the replication of the virus VACV, for instance [109]. The mechanisms involved in the antiviral activity of S-PSs may be understood analyzing what happens when cells are infected by a virus. Just before infection, viruses have to interact with some glycosaminoglycan receptors (GAG), such as heparin sulphate (HS) [110]. The GAG to which a protein can be covalently bound are part of the target cell surface and can also be found in the intracellular matrix of various connective and muscle tissues. S-PSs may impair the attachment of the virus particles by competing for those GAG-receptors, as they are chemically similar to HS [96,111], most of them having a covalently linked core protein [112,113].

Besides, as it happens with GAG, S-PSs are negatively charged and highly sulfated polymers [96,114,115], whose monosaccharide distribution pattern might influence the specificity of the bound protein, determining several biological functions [110]. For viruses to attach to the host cell surface, the linkage between the basic groups of the glycoproteins of the virus and the anionic components of the PSs (sulfate) at the cell surface must be established [83]. In fact, whichever the algal PSs are, either from algae, by mimicking this GAG, they may induce the formation of a virus-algal PSs complex, thus, impairing the cell infection by blocking the interaction virus-host cell receptor. Hidari et al. [114], for instance, showed that dengue virus (DENV) establishes an exclusive complex with fucoidan, and viral infection is, therefore, inhibited. They suggested that arginine-323 had a high influence on the interaction between the DENV-2 virus and the fucoidan, in an in-vitro experiment with BHK-21 cells. These researchers also found that glucuronic acid seems to be crucial since no antiviral activity was observed when this compound was reduced to glucose. Sulfated polysaccharides from algae, such as alginates, fucoidans and laminaran appear to have antibacterial activity against E. coli and species from Staphylococcus. A fucoidan from L. japonica and sodium alginate were found to inhibit E. coli [116], for example, by adhering to bacteria and killing those microorganisms [103], thus showing bactericidal properties. This type of PS is also a good antibacterial agent against Helicobacter pylori, eradicating their colonies, restoring the stomach mucosa, in clinical trial studies, and regenerating biocenosis in the intestines [117]. Laminaran from Fucus, Laminaria, A. nodosum and U. pinnatifida demonstrated to have an effect on pathogenic bacteria [118] as well, with the advantage of being unable to promote blood coagulation [119]. In contrast, the carrageenans from some seaweeds [120] and the S-PSs from the red algae Porphyridium cruentum, despite the higher concentration used [72], showed a significant inhibitory activity against S. enteritidis. In fact, some PSs from microalgae, such as A. platensis, may present antibacterial properties against some specific bacteria, the activity depending on the solvent used to extract the polymer [38]. By stimulating the production and/or expression of ILs, dectin-1 and toll-like receptors-2 on macrophages and dendritic cells, respectively, (1---3)-β-glucans from C. vulgaris, and laminarans, also induced antifungal and antibacterial responses in rats [121], and some resistance to mammal organisms towards infections by E. coli [122]. Therefore, these types of PSs promise to be good antimicrobial agents.

Anti-Inflammatory and immunomodulatory activities

PSs from algae have long demonstrated to have biological and pharmaceutical properties, such as anti-inflammatory and immunomodulation [81,123,72]. Nevertheless, the antiinflammatory properties may be shown in several ways, depending on the PSs, its source and type/site of inflammation. There is growing evidence that S-PSs are able to interfere with the migration of leukocytes to the sites of inflammation. For example, the heterofucan from D. menstrualis decreases inflammation by directly binding to the cell surface of leukocytes, especially polymorphonuclear cells (PMNs). It completely inhibits the migration of the leukocytes into the peritoneal cavity of mice where the injured tissue was after being submitted to simulated pain and inflammation, without the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines [49]. Every so often, the recruitment of these PMNs shows to be dependent on P- and/or L-selectins, as it was demonstrated for fucoidans of some brown algae [33,124]. Some other studies refer the association of the anti-inflammatory activity with the immunomodulatory ability. This seems to be the case in the work by Kang et al. [125] who simulated an inflammation process in RAW 264.7 cells induced by lipopolysaccharides (LPS). They found that the fucoidan from E. cava inhibited, in a dose-dependent manner, the enzyme nitric oxide synthase induced by LPS (iNOS) and the gene expression for the enzyme cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and, as a consequence, the production of nitric oxide (NO) and prostaglandin E2 (PGL2). Li et al. [65] confirmed the anti-inflammation mechanism in vivo via the immunomodulatory system in-vivo, since the fucoidan from L. japonica reduced the inflammation of rats’ myocardium damaged cells, by inactivating the cytokines HMG B1 and NF-κB, two groups of proteins secreted by the immune cells during inflammatory diseases. These protective and regenerative effects of fucoidans, via the immunomodulatory system, were also verified in the destruction/proteolysis of connective tissue by Senni et al. [126]. These researchers referred to the fact that severe inflammation and the subsequent excessive release of cytokines and matrix proteinases could result in rheumatoid arthritis or chronic wounds and leg ulcers, which could be treated with fucoidans [126].

In addition to the SPs from Ulva rigida, green algae [127], the S-PSs p-KG03 from the marine dinoflagellate G. impudicum, also activates the production of nitric oxide and immunostimulates the production of cytokines in macrophages [128]. The enhancement of the immunomodulatory system by some S-PSs from marine algae is also a way for S-PSs to suppress tumour cells growth and their proliferation, and to be natural neoplastic-cell killers. Studies with arabinogalactan and other fucoidans revealed them to be immunostimulators by activating macrophages and lymphocytes, which suggests their effectiveness in the immuno-prevention of cancer [43,129]. The PSs from U. pinnatifida was also suggested to treat/relieve the symptoms of pulmonary allergic inflammation as it suppresses the activity of Th2 immune responses [130]. On the other hand, fucoidan activated macrophages and splenocytes to produce cytokines and chemokines [131]. PSs from algae, such as Porphyridium, Phaeodactylum, and C. stigmatophora, showed pharmacological properties, such as anti-inflammatory activity and as immunomodulatory agents, as reported by Raposo et al. [72]. Some of these S-PSs, for example, the ones from C. stigmatophora and P. tricornutum, have revealed anti-inflammatory efficacy in vivo and in vitro [132]. The mechanisms underlying the anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory activities may be understood by making some considerations at the molecular level. On one side, the protein moiety that is covalently bound to most PSs seems to play a critical role in the activation of NF-κB and MAPK pathways involved in the macrophage stimulation [133,113]. This was evidenced in an in vitro experiment performed by Tabarsa et al. [113]. They showed that the PSs from C. fragile was not able to stimulate RAW264.7 cells to produce NO and the protein alone was also unable to induce NO release, but the complex S-PS-protein did inhibit the inflammatory process. On the other side, several other researchers found that proteins were not essential or responsible for the immunostimulatory responses of the cells [134,127]. Additionally, Tabarsa et al. [135] confirmed that the sulfate content and the MW were not crucial for the stimulation of murine macrophage cells. In fact, both desulfated and LMW-PS derivatives of C. fragile produced immunomodulatory responses similar to the ones of the original PSs. In contrast, the S-PSs from U. rigida induced a strong sulfatedependent release of NO [127], thus, the sulfate content showing to be essential for the stimulation of macrophages.

These researchers mentioned the possibility of the sulfate interfering in the interaction PS-cell surface receptors. The interaction of algal S-PSs with the complement system suggests that they might influence the innate immunity to reduce the proinflammatory state [91,81]. In addition, algal polysaccharides have been shown to regulate the innate immune response directly by binding to pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) [136]. For example, λ-carrageenan stimulated mouse T cell cultures in a tolllike receptor-4 (TLR4) [138]. Different effects were observed in other types of S-PSs: Zhou et al. [137] proved that carrageenans from Chondrus with LMW s better stimulated the immune system. The same trend was verified for the S-PSs from the red algae Porphyridium [139], a 6.53 kDa LMW-fragment at 100 μg/mL presenting the strongest immunostimulating activity. It is worth remarking that carrageenans from red seaweeds are recognized for triggering potent inflammatory and carcinogenic effects either in rats or mice cells [111]. However, while some carrageenans stimulate the activity of macrophages, others inhibit macrophage activities [2]. While PSs from various algae do not show anticoagulant and/or antithrombotic activities, attention should be paid to the anticoagulant properties of some PSs, since their use could cause severe bleeding complications.

Anti-proliferative, tumour suppressor, apoptotic and cytotoxicity activities

The current understanding of the anti-cancer and immunomodulating effects of PSs are as follows: (i) prevention of onset of cancer by oral consumption of mushrooms or their preparations; (ii) direct inhibition of growth of various types of cancer cells; (iii) immunostimulating activity against cancers in combination with chemotherapy; (iv) preventive effect on spreading or migration of cancer cells in the body [15]. On the whole, the indirect anti-cancer as well as immunostimulatory effects of lentinan is attributed to the activation of many immune cells. Lentinan can activate them to modulate the release cell signal messengers such as cytokines. The increases in cytokine production in immune cells have been studied in mice and in humans [140,141].

Because of the growing number of individuals suffering from different types of cancer and the secondary effects of synthetic chemicals and other types of treatment used against tumour damages, research was driven towards demand for natural therapeutics with bioactive compounds. In this context, S-PSs from both macro algae and micro algae already proved to have antitumor biological activities. A sulfated-fucoidan from C. okamuranus exhibited anti-proliferative activity in U937 cells by inducing cell apoptosis following a pathway dependent of Caspases-3 and -7 [142]. In another study, conducted by Heneji et al. [143], a similar fucoidan induced apoptosis in two different leukaemia cell lines. These results indicate that fucoidans might be good candidates for alternative therapeutics in treating adult T-cell leukaemia [43]. Sulfated-fucoidans from E. cava also seem to be promising to treat other types of human leukaemia cell-lines [144]. There was some evidence that the fucoidan from L. guryanovae inactivated the epidermal growth factor (tyrosine kinase) receptor (EGFR), which is greatly involved in cell transformation, differentiation and proliferation [145,146]. Therefore, this kind of S-PSs could be used as anti-tumor and anti-metastatic therapeutical/preventing agent, which might act either on tumour cells or by stimulating the immune response [147]. Further, the S-PSs from E. bicyclis and several other algae have demonstrated their potent bioactivity against different kinds of tumours, including lung and skin, both invitro and in-vivo [55,148-150] causing apoptosis in various tumour cell-lines [151,55,152].

The mechanisms involved in this antitumor activity might be associated again with the production of pro-inflammatory interleukins IL-2 and IL-12 and cytokine interferon-gamma (INF-γ) by the immune-stimulated macrophages, together with the increase of the activity of the natural killer cells (NK cells) and the induction of apoptosis [55,21]. NK cells can also upregulate the secretion of IFN-γ, which can activate either the T-cells for the production of IL-2 or the macrophages, which, after being activated, keep on producing IL-12 and activating NK cells [153,154]. The enhancement of the cytotoxicity of these NK cells (lymphocytes and macrophages) can be stimulated by other S-PSs such as fucoidans and carrageenans from other algae [129,137]. PSs can also activate some signaling receptors in the membranes of macrophages, such as Toll-like receptor-4 (TLR-4), cluster of differentiation 14 (CD14), competent receptor-3 (CR-3) and scavenging receptor (SR) [155]; these are also activated by other intracellular pathways, involving several other protein-kinases, that enhance the production of NO, which, in turn, plays an important role in causing tumour apoptosis [155]. These immunomodulation properties of S-fucoidans could be used for the protection of the damaged gastric mucosa as it was already demonstrated by using rat-models [156]. More information on the pathways and mechanisms responsible for the immune-inflammatory activities, including the involvement of the complementary system, may be found [60]. The anti-adhesive properties of some S-PSs, especially fucoidans might also explain their anti-metastatic activity, both in-vitro and in-vivo, in various animal models [157,33], as they can inhibit the adhesion of tumour cells to platelets, thus decreasing the possibilities of proliferation of neoplastic cells. The mechanisms by which fucoidans and other S-PSs exert their anti-adhesive ability were well documented by Li et al. [54]. Some researchers also highlighted the mitogenic properties and the cytotoxicity and tumoricidal activity of some arabinogalactans and fucoidans as well [129,158], either in different cell-lines or various animal models.

The anti-adhesive properties of algal S-PSs may also be relevant as these polymers can block the adhesion of tumour cells to the basal membrane, thus demonstrating to impair implantation of tumour cells and metastatic activity by binding to the extracellular matrix [159]. For example, the S-PSs from Cladosiphon were shown to prevent gastric cancer in-vivo, since it inhibited the adhesion of H. pylori to the stomach mucosa of gerbils [160]. Metastasis appearance could also be reduced in vivo by sulfated-laminaran, a (1---3): (1---6)-β-D-glucan, because this compound inhibited the activity of heparanase, an endo-β-D-glucuronidase involved in the degradation of the main PSs component in the basal membrane and the extracellular matrix. The expression of this enzyme is known to be associated with tumour metastasis [161]. These anti-tumor properties may also be found in some PSs from platensis, which are inhibitors of cell proliferation [78]. Other S-PSs, such as S-PSs p-KG03 from G. impudicum, has also anti-proliferative activity in cancer cell lines and inhibitory activity against tumour growth [128,162,163]. Other PSs from algae, such as C. vulgaris, and S-PS or LMW-derivatives of S-PS from P. cruentum, for example, are described as having similar properties [38]. In some research work, the immunomodulatory activity was associated to the ability of inhibiting carcinogenesis. Jiao et al. [47] found that a sulfated-rhamnan and some derivatives from the green seaweed E. intestinalis suppressed tumour cell growth in-vivo, but they did not show any toxicity against tumour cells in-vitro.

The oral administration of the S-PSs to mice enhanced the spleen and thymus indexes, and also induced the production of TNF-α and NO in macrophages, increased lymphocyte proliferation, and enhanced TNF-α release into serum. The degree of sulfation may play some role in the carcinogenesis process, although the action of the S-PSs may also depend on the type of tumour. In fact, an over S-PSs demonstrated the capacity of inhibiting the growth of L-1210 leukaemia tumour in mice, but, on the other hand, it was unable to inhibit the growth of Sarcoma-180 tumour in mice [149,123]. In addition to the sulfation level, MW may also influence the anticancer activity. For instance, LMW-PS derivatives showed to enhance anti-tumor activity [164]. On the other hand, the increment in the anticancer activity greatly depends on the conditions of the PSs depolymerisation [165]. Kaeffer et al. [82] suggested that the in-vitro anti-tumor activity of LMW-PS sulfated or not, against cancerous colonic epithelial cells might be associated with the inhibition of tumour cells proliferation and/or differentiation.

Lentinan can also increase engulfing ability of certain immune cells to search and destroy migratory cancer cells in the human body [166,167]. Treatment with lentinan can also enhance production of chemical messenger such as nitric oxide to stimulate the immune system [140,168]. In addition, the immune-activating ability of lentinan may be linked with its modulation of hormonal factors, which are known to play a role in cancer growth. The anticancer activity of lentinan is strongly reduced by administration of hormones such as thyroxin orhydrocortisone [169]. Moreover, lentinan can also enhance the immune response to the presence of cancer cells in the body by triggering cancer-specific reactions to fight against them. The mechanism of anti-cancer activity of lentinan is summarized in Figure (1) [170]. Overall, lentinan can suppress the growth and even kill cancer cells directly via multiple pathways involving activation of human immune system by different mechanisms such as stimulation of various immune cells and production of cell signal messengers [171].

Anticoagulant and antithrombotic activities

There are several studies on the anticoagulant properties of PSs isolated from algae, presented in a recent review [72] by different researchers: Cumashi et al. [33], Athukorala et al. [172], Costa et al., [68], Wijesekara et al., [42] and Wang et al. [41]. The main sources of the S-PSs from green algae with anticoagulant properties are Codium and Monostroma [143,144]. Some of the PSs, such as S-rhamnans, showed their action by extending the clotting time via the intrinsic and extrinsic pathways [174]. In fact, Codium spp present strong anticoagulant effects [175,176], but other species from Chlorophyta also contain S-PSs (native, LMW or otherwise modified) with anticoagulant properties. The mechanism of action of the referred PSs is mostly attributed to either a direct inhibition of thrombin or by enhancing the power of antithrombin III [177,178]. Some other PSs from green seaweeds also showed potent anticoagulant properties but their mechanisms of action are associated not only to a direct increase in the clotting time (APTT assays) by inhibiting the contact activation pathway, but also by inhibiting the heparin cofactor II-mediated action of thrombin [179,180] thus showing a potent antithrombotic bioactivity. In addition to their anticoagulant properties demonstrated in-vitro by APTT and TT tests, several S-PSs from algae of different groups present antithrombotic qualities in-vivo [181,50] by increasing the time of clot formation. In fact, Wang et al. [41] published an exhaustive work on this issue by including a summary table with 24 references about both the anticoagulant, and anti-and prothrombotic activities of several S-PS from various green algae.

In two other studies, Costa et al. [68] & Wijesekara et al. [42] also included the S-PS from brown and red algae that present effects on the blood clotting time. Wijesekara et al. [42] referred to the fact that there are few reports on the interference of PSs from algae on the PT (prothrombin) pathway, meaning that most of the marine S-PSs may not affect the extrinsic pathway of coagulation [42]. As a matter of fact, Costa et al. [68] did not detect any inhibition in the extrinsic coagulation pathway (PT test), for the concentrations used; only C. cupressoides increased the clotting time. Also, they found no anticoagulant properties (APTT and PT assays) in the S-PS from S. filipendula (brown algae) and G. caudate (red algae). Additional, in our laboratory we found no anticoagulant properties in the S-PSs from different strains of the red algae P. cruentum, despite the high content in sulfate and molecular weight. As Costa et al. [68] observed this could be due to the absence of sulfate groups in the monosaccharides at the non-reducing ends of the branches, which impaired the interaction between target proteases and coagulation factors. Nishino et al. [87] & Dobashi et al. [182] defended that there might be no effect above an upper limit for the content in sulfate, since the difference in the anticoagulant and antithrombotic activities decreased with the increase of the sulfate content. It seems that some of the chemical and structural features of the S-PSs may have some influence on their anticoagulant and/ or antithrombotic activities. The degree and distribution pattern of sulfate, the nature and distribution of monosaccharides, their glycosidic bonds and also the molecular weight showed to play some role on the coagulation and platelet aggregation processes induced by sulfated-galactans and sulfated-fucoidans [68,183,184]. In fact, at least for some fucoidans, the anticoagulant properties are related to the content in C-2 and C-2, 3 di-sulfates, this last feature being usually common in these PSs [185,186,131]. Several other studies documented the anticoagulant activity and inhibition of platelet aggregation [54,111,43], supplying more information on the mechanisms of different S-PSs for these biological activities. HMW-PS usually presents stronger anticoagulant activity [187] and if PSs has a more linear backbone, a longer polymer is required to accomplish the same anticoagulant effects [88]. On the other hand, both the native PSs and LMW-derivatives of M. latissimum presented strong anticoagulant activities [188]. Nishino and colleagues also observed that HMW fucans (27 and 58 kDa) showed greater anticoagulant activity than the ones with LMW (~10 kDa) [189].

They found that a higher content of fucose and sulfate groups coincided with higher anticoagulant activities of fractions from E. kurome [189]. However, despite its high sulfation level, the galactofucan from U. pinnatifida lacks significant anticoagulation activity [159]. In addition, a sulfated-galactofucan from schröederi did not present any anticoagulant properties in-vitro but demonstrated a strong antithrombotic activity when administered to an animal model during an experimental induced venous thrombosis, this effect disappearing with the desulfation of the polymer [190]. As for other PSs, the anticoagulant properties of the PSs from marine algae may not only depend on the percentage of sulfate residues, but rather on the distribution/position of sulfate groups and, probably, on the configuration of the polymer chains [72]. Spirulan from A. platensis is one of the PSs from microalgae that strongly interfere with the blood coagulation-fibrinolytic system and exhibits antithrombogenic properties [97], then, promising to be an anti-thrombotic agent in clots’ breakdown, although care should be taken regarding hemorrhagic strokes [38].

Figure (4) summarizes the preponderant target sites for the S-PSs from marine organisms on the coagulation system. Blue and red arrows indicate anticoagulant and pro-coagulant effects, respectively. (+) indicates activation and (−) indicates inhibitory effects. Anticoagulant effect: SG and FCS inhibit the intrinsic tenase and prothrombinase complexes [202,203]. It is still unclear if sulfated fucans (SF) have similar effects. These PS also potentiate the inhibitory effect of antithrombin (AT) and/or heparin cofactor II (HCII) on thrombin [199,204]. Their effects on factor Xa are very modest. The serpin-independent action preponderates on the plasma system. Pro-coagulant effect: SG and FCS activate factor XII [205,206]. This effect may result in severe hypotension (due to bradykinin release) and pro-coagulant (pro-thrombotic) action. It is unclear if SF activates factor XII. SF inhibits Tissue Factor Protease Inhibitor (TFPI), a specific inhibitor of the extrinsic tenase complex. So, SF has a pro-coagulant effect [207,208]. Of course, further studies are necessary to investigate whether this distinct mechanism of action may confer favorable effects to the PSs for the prevention and treatment of thromboembolic events. In particular, it is necessary to clarify which one of the two mechanisms (serpindependent or serpin-independent) is more favorable for an antithrombotic therapy.

Antilipidaemic, hypoglycemic and hypotensive activities

S-PSs from algae are potent inhibitors of human pancreatic cholesterol esterase, an enzyme that promotes its absorption at the intestinal level; this inhibitory effect is enhanced by higher molecular weights and degree of sulfation [2]. A sulfated-ulvan from U. pertusa in an in-vivo study using mice models regulated the ratio HDL/LDL-cholesterol and reduced the levels of triglycerides (TG) in serum [209]. On the other hand, in another experiment with rats and mice, using native ulvans from the same species, the animals experienced a hypocholesterolaemic effect but no reduction in the TG profile [210]. An opposite reaction was observed when the PSs was acetylated and over sulfated, as TG levels were normalized. It seems that the ability to sequester bile extracts may be involved [210]. The contents in sulfate and acetylate groups play important roles during the dislipidaemia process [211,212]. Ulvans from Ulva spp also showed antiperoxidative properties, preventing liver tissues from hyperlipidaemia, including that induced by toxic chemicals and protecting the injured tissue from the oxidative stress [213], and improving antioxidant performance of the animal models. In fact, these S-PSs regulated superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase, increased vitamins E and C, and reduced glutathione, and had some role in reducing the levels of aspartate and alanine transaminases in the rats’ liver [214,209]. Additionally, the S-PSs from M. nitidum also demonstrated hepatoprotective activity by increasing the expression of liver detoxifying enzymes, and, therefore, showed to be good agents for chemoprevention medicine [215].

The activity of these PSs may be related to their uronic acid and sulfate content, which are able to sequester and bind to bile acids [216], reducing their levels. Other S-PSs from green algae also revealed hypolipidaemic properties, such as that from E. prolifera. These PSs regulated the lipidic profile both in plasma and liver, increasing HDL-cholesterol, in rats [217]. Fucoidans from L. japonica, the native or LMW-derivate, have hypolipidaemic effects, decreasing total and LDL-cholesterol in the serum and TG in rats [218], and they prevented hyperchole-sterolaemia in mice [133]. Another mechanism to reduce blood cholesterol in humans by S-PSs is associated to their high capacity to inhibit pancreatic cholesterol esterase, which is responsible for the absorption of cholesterol and fatty acids at the intestine [2]. It seems that the presence of sulfate at the C-3 position of the sugar residues greatly enhances that inhibition [2]. Porphyran from P. yezoensis has antihyperlipidaemic properties [219,220] by reducing the release of apolipoprotein-B100 (apoB100) and decreasing the synthesis of lipids in human liver cultured cells [221]. By reducing the secretion of apoB100, porphyran has the potential to be used as a therapeutic agent to treat CVD. Additionally, some types of carrageenans have already proved to decrease blood cholesterol in humans [222] and in rats fed on a diet enriched with a mixture of κ/λ- carrageenans from G. radula [223]. Most of the PSs from marine algae are naturally highly sulfated, with high molecular weights, making them not easily absorbable and thus enabling them to be used as anticholesterolaemic agents. Few studies were carried out in this area, namely focusing on Porphyridium, P. cruentum, R. reticulata [224-227], but these suggest a strong potential of S-PSs from unicellular algae to be used as hypolipidaemic and hypoglycaemic agents, and as promising agents for reducing coronary heart disease, due to their hypocholesterolaemic effects [72]. As far as we know, scarce research was performed on the mechanisms underlying the antihyper-lipidaemic activity. However, the sequestration and disruption of the enterophatic circulation of the bile acids may be involved [209,228,229]. Ulvans and their LMW-derivatives, and also the S-PSs from Porphyridium showed to increase the excretion of bile [230,210]. Another explanation for the antihyperlipidaemic activity of S-PSs may be associated to the fact that they can effectively increase the anionic charges on the cell surface, which improve the removal of cholesterol excess from the blood, thus, resulting in a decrease of serum cholesterol [54]. In addition, most PSs have ion exchange capacity, such as those from Porphyridium and Rhodella [231], and they can function as dietary fibres. This could also explain the ability to lower down cholesterol [232]. PSs may act as dietary fibres, immunostimulating the goblet cells in the intestine to increase the release and effects of mucin [233]. Moreover, the administration of PSs may increase the viscosity of the intestinal contents, interfering with the formation of micelles and nutrient absorption, thus, lowering lipid absorption, and reducing gastrointestinal transit time (GTT) [230,57]. Other PSs have the ability to inhibit the enzyme α-glucosidase, thus improving the postprandial hyperglycaemia [234], and another can also reduce the blood pressure by inhibiting the release of plasma angiotensin II [235].

Wound healing and wound dressing

Due to their inherent biocompatibility, low toxicity, and pharmaceutical biomedical activity, various PSs, suchas chitin, chitosan, cellulose, hyaluronan, and alginate, have been widely used to prepare wound healing materials [236,142,237]. Hyaluronan, a major extracellular component with unique hygroscopic, rheological, and viscoelastic properties, has been extensively developed for tissue repair purposes due to its physicochemical properties and specific interactions with cells and extracellular matrix. It is generally accepted that hyaluronan plays multifaceted roles in the mediation of the tissue repair process and is involved in all the stages of wound healing, i.e. inflammation, granulation tissue formation, reepithelialization, and remodeling. Derivatives of hyaluronan, such as cross-linked, esterified or other chemically modified products have also been developed for tissue repair or wound healing purposes [238,239]. Remarkably, wound healing promoting activity of the materials is also important in the designing of materials for tissue engineering. All-natural composite wound dressing films prepared by dispersion and encapsulation of essential oils in sodium alginate matrices have been reported to show remarkable antimicrobial and antifungal properties and may find applications disposable wound dressings [240].

Chitosan/silk fibroin blending membranes crosslinked with dialdehyde alginate have been developed for wound dressing and the membranes were found to promote the cell attachment and proliferation, which suggests a promising candidate for wound healing applications [241]. Blending aqueous dispersions of sodium alginate and povidone iodine (PVPI) complex was prepared as free standing NaAlg films oras Ca2+ cross-linked alginate beads. These products were demonstrated to show antibacterial and antifungal activity and controlled release of PVP Iinto open wounds when the composite films and beads were brought into direct contact with water or with moist media [240]. This proved that they could be suitable for therapeutic applications such as wound dressings. In situ injectable nano-composite hydrogels composed of curcumin, N, O-carboxymethyl chitosan, and oxidized alginate as a novel wound dressing was successfully developed for dermal wound repair application [139]. In-vitro release, in-vivo wound healing, and histological studies all suggested that the developed nanocurcumin/ N, O-carboxymethyl chitosan/ oxidized alginate hydrogel as apromising wound dressing might have a potential application in the wound healing. Silver nanoparticles containing polyvinyl pyrrolidone and alginate hydrogels were synthesized using gamma radiation and showed the ability of preventing fluid accumulation in exudating wound [242]. The incorporation of nanosilver particles provided as trong antimicrobial effect and therefore made such polyvinyl pyrrolidone/alginate hydrogels suitable for use as wound dressing. Except the alginate and its various derivatives, other natural PSs such as cellulose, chitin, chitosan, and hyaluronic acid have also been explored for wound dressingor wound healing applications [243-245].

Antioxidant activity

Oxidation is an essential process for all living organisms for the production of energy necessary for biological processes [246]. In addition, oxygen-centered free radicals are involved in development of a variety of diseases, including cellular aging, mutagenesis, carcinogenesis, coronary heart disease, diabetes and neurodegeneration [247]. Though almost all organisms possess antioxidant defense and repair systems to protect against oxidative damage, these systems are often insufficient to prevent the damage entirely [98]. Recently, much attention was paid to screening natural biomaterials in the case of several clinical situations since use of synthetic antioxidants is restricted due to their carcinogenicity [135]. Among various natural antioxidants, PSs in general has strong antioxidant activities and can be explored as novel potential antioxidants [248,249]. Recently, PSs isolated from fungal, bacterial and plant sources were found to exhibit antioxidant activity and were proposed as useful therapeutic agents [250,251].

essential process for all living organisms for the production of energy necessary for biological processes [246]. In addition, oxygen-centered free radicals are involved in development of a variety of diseases, including cellular aging, mutagenesis, carcinogenesis, coronary heart disease, diabetes and neurodegeneration [247]. Though almost all organisms possess antioxidant defense and repair systems to protect against oxidative damage, these systems are often insufficient to prevent the damage entirely [98]. Recently, much attention was paid to screening natural biomaterials in the case of several clinical situations since use of synthetic antioxidants is restricted due to their carcinogenicity [135]. Among various natural antioxidants, PSs in general has strong antioxidant activities and can be explored as novel potential antioxidants [248,249]. Recently, PSs isolated from fungal, bacterial and plant sources were found to exhibit antioxidant activity and were proposed as useful therapeutic agents [250,251]. The main mechanism by which S-PSs from green algae exert their primary antioxidant action is by scavenging free-radicals (DPPH-radicals) or by inhibiting their appearance [251]. They also demonstrated to have total antioxidant capacity, and a strong ability as reducing agents and as ferrous chelators [251]. However, some S-PSs, such as sulfated-heterogalactan from C. cupressoides do not show a good scavenging power, but they are rather powerful against reactive oxygen species (ROS) [252]. It is interesting to note that fucoidans from brown algae seem to exert a reducing power bigger than the S-PSs from other groups [68]; the PSs from S. filipendula has an effect even stronger than vitamin C. Moreover, the fucoidan from L. japonica has a great potential to be used in medicine in order to prevent free-radical mediated diseases, as it successfully prevented peroxidation of lipids in plasma, liver and spleen in-vivo, despite showing no effects in-vitro

The S-PSs from S. fulvellum has shown a NO scavenging activity higher than some commercial antioxidants [253]. In addition, the S-PSs from the red algae P. haitanensishas demonstrated to decrease antioxidant damages in aging mice [254]. It seems that LMWS- PS may present higher antioxidant activity than the native polymers, as it was verified with the PSs from U. pertusa and E. prolifera [255,256]. It is probably related with the ability of PSs to be incorporated in the cells and to donate protons [42]. As noted by Raposo et al. [72], S-PSs produced and secreted out by marine algae have shown the capacity to prevent the accumulation and the activity of free radicals and reactive chemical species. Hence, S-PSs might act as protecting systems against these oxidative and radical stress agents. The S-PSs from Porphyridium and Rhodella reticulata exhibited antioxidant activity [257,258], although some research revealed no scavenging activity and no ability to inhibit the oxidative damage in cells and tissues for the crude S-PSs with high molecular weight from P. cruentum, while the PS-derived products after microwave treatment showed antioxidant activity [259].

In all cases, the antioxidant activity was dose dependent. PSs from A. platensis also exhibit a very high antioxidant capacity [260]. Due to their strong antioxidant properties, most of the S-PSs from marine algae are promising since they may protect human health from injuries induced by ROS, which can result in cancer, diabetes, some inflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases, and some other aging-related disorders, such as Alzheimer and CVD. The influence of sulfate content on the antioxidant activity depends rather on the origin of the PSs. For example, the PS from U. fasciata and other algae with lower sulfate content demonstrated a strong antioxidative power [261,262,258,259], while the antioxidant activity observed in PSs from E. linza and other seaweeds showed to be sulfate-dependent [263,264]. Furthermore, high sulfated PSs were shown to have an enhanced scavenging power [251,265], this property being also dependent on the sulfate distribution pattern [68]. It seems, in addition, that the protein moiety of PSs may play some role on the antioxidative power. For example, Tannin-Spitz et al. [258] reported a stronger antioxidant activity for the crude PSs of Porphyridium than for the denatured PSs. Zhao et al. [266] found that the antioxidant activity of S-PSs was apparently related, not only to MW and sulfated ester content, but also to glucuronic acid and fructose content. This antioxidant activity seems to be attributable to metal chelating, free radical and hydroxyl radical scavenging activities of the S-PSs.

Toxicity of polysaccharides

The toxicity of polysaccharide is very crucial to the development of any product for the medical treatments. An animal experiment was conducted to evaluate the toxicity of polysaccharide and the results found that no toxicity was exhibited to the liver, kidney, heart, thymus or spleen of the mice which were fed with the polysaccharide conjugate and none of the mice died throughout the period of the experiment. There was no significant difference between the thymus index, spleen index and liver index of the mice from the test and control groups. It might be a candidate of dietary supplements besides the bioactivities as a polysaccharide [267- 293].

To read more about this article: https://irispublishers.com/wjass/fulltext/new-trends-of-the-polysaccharides-as-a-drug.ID.000572.php

Indexing List of Iris Publishers: https://medium.com/@irispublishers/what-is-the-indexing-list-of-iris-publishers-4ace353e4eee

Iris publishers google scholar citations: https://scholar.google.co.in/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=irispublishers&btnG=

#Agriculture and Soil Science #Animal Sciences #Food science #Soil Science #Inter National Agriculture Science

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interimmanagement01 · 3 years

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Business Companion Singapore

HR Generalists currently performing a conventional HR position, with three-5 years of experience in a supervisory or managerial capability, transiting into a HR Business Partner function. In current years Michael labored in China for Marriott to open new properties and a few of its flagship resorts.

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Michael additionally labored as an impartial advisor handling several pre-opening and restructuring projects. Elsie has labored in various multi-national and local SMEs and in several sectors similar to manufacturing, electronics, construction, engineering and oil & gasoline. Her span of duty and experience are spent in varied regional and leadership roles across totally different regions in ASEAN, Australia, China and Middle East.

Regional experiences within the same or associated business will placed you a league above the remainder. You shall be someone with excellent individuals expertise when it comes to staff’ related issues and being adaptable to modifications.

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interim management Cambodia will also support the senior management in worth-added reports focused on business metrics, month-to-month outcomes and P&L reviews. You will work intently with the regional accounting groups which helps the finance operations.

An thrilling HR Business Partner (six-month contract) job has simply turn out to be out there at a world agency based in Singapore. This role supports the Head of HR in partnering with the enterprise to make sure that the appropriate level of HR support and service is offered to them in accordance with their enterprise necessities in Southeast Asia and Australia.

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emunenen · 3 years

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Makao Bora

New Post has been published on https://wp.me/paK8na-3Ww

When Nairobi was born and named ‘Enkare Nyrobi’, Maasai for “cool water”

Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The city and its surrounding area also form the Nairobi County. The name “Nairobi” comes from the Maasai phrase ‘Enkare Nyrobi’, which translates to “cool water”.

The area Nairobi currently occupies was essentially uninhabited swamp until a supply depot of the Uganda Railway was built by the British in 1899 linking Mombasa to Uganda. The location of the camp was chosen due to its central position between Mombasa and Kampala. It was also chosen because its network of rivers could supply the camp with water and its elevation would make it cool enough for residential purposes for not only the thousands of Indian laborers who came to Kenya seeking to be employed to work on the railway line, but also for the British settlers. With such an apt location, it had soon grown big enough to become the railway headquarters.

The Ngong hills from Nairobi in the early 1900′s

The city was first incorporated in 1900 as the Township of Nairobi. The regulations governing it were published on the 16th April, 1900 under the powers vested in Sir Arthur Hardinge, H M Commissioner at Zanzibar by Article 45 of the East Africa Order-in-Council. The regulations defined the township of Nairobi as “the area comprised within a radius of one-mile-and-a-half from the present office of H.M. Sub-Commissioner in Ukamba” and authorized the Sub-Commissioner to nominate annually a number of the leading residents or merchants to act with him as a Committee.

(Biashara street) in 1906

On 24th of July a Five Man Committee met in the Sub Commissioner’s office to tackle the problem of the town ranging from:- a myriad of bazaars, no street lighting, unplanned shops going up daily, no proper streets, no conservancy, no refuse collection, no police and no money.

The committee obtained its plans, marked out plots and roadways in the commercial area and sought Government’s permission to cut wood for scantlings to build the new shops and other necessary establishments.

The Nairobi Club was formed in January in 1901 and a racecourse came up at about the same time. There was only one school at the time but the Roman Catholics were busy with the construction of a church and a school beside the railway line. In December of 1901 the committee was given the rights to make new by-laws “for the preservation of the public health and good order within the township” and prescribing penalties for breach of their observance.

By 1903 the use of the railway as a medium of exporting produce as well as importing equipment had become noticeable, and there was some talk of finding permanent markets in South Africa. Nairobi was growing at a fast pace and new people arrived with every ship that docked at Mombasa. There was a little post-office halfway down Government Road, near the new municipal offices, which had been opened the previous year, these offices were grandly known as “Town Hall.”

The Indian bazaar in Nairobi pictured around the late 1890s.

They proposed to have the Bazaar properly laid out and have the buildings assessed to enable a rate of taxation to be fixed, funds procured would go towards forming a police force, a system of street lighting and conservancy purposes. Nairobi continued to flourish as there was an impressive array of commerce and growth at the Bazaar as hotels, banks and Trading Centers were established. National Bank of India was the first to be established, next was Heubner & Company.

Two Kikuyu women deep in conversation (Bazaar Street)

In 1905, Nairobi replaced Mombasa as capital of the British protectorate, and the city grew around administration and tourism, initially in the form of big game hunting. As the British occupiers started to explore the region, they started using Nairobi as their first port of call. They were encouraged to settle in the country, and Nairobi was their natural choice due to its cool climate and fertile soils. British authorities hoped the Settlers would develop a modern economic sector.

In 1919, the Nairobi Township community formally became the Nairobi Municipal Council. Its boundary was extended to include surrounding part-urban settlements. The boundary was again extended in 1927 to cover 30 square miles.

In July 1920 it was proposed that a more distinctive title be adopted for the chief of the municipality of Nairobi the capital of the protectorate. The title Mayor was suggested. It was not until 1923 that the title was officially applied.

A mounted police constable

In the early years the growth of the Town had been controlled only by economic forces with no coordination of development. In an attempt to order the situation, a Town Planning Consultant was appointed in 1926.

Jacaranda Jim Jameson from Kimberly also submitted his town planning report in 1926; he had a great quickness for planting Jacaranda trees for the beautification of the town.

With the expansion and rapid growth of African wage earners there arose the problem of housing them. This was tackled as energetically as strained wartime resources would allow. Ziwani was a Municipal Housing experiment; Starehe, a Government Staff Housing venture and finally Kaloleni.

The development of Local Government in the Town was determined by racial considerations. Thus membership in the Town Council was dominated by Europeans, followed by Asians. It was not until July 1946, that the first African Councilors, Muchohi Gikonyo and Khamisi took their seats. It was as the Mayor remarked an historic occasion in East African Local Government.

In April of the same year, the Council’s attention had been directed to the fact that in 1950 Local government in Nairobi would be fifty years old. The council gave some thought to the form that suitable celebrations might take and it was suggested by Alderman Vasey that the town should seek the status of a City.

In due course a petition was addressed to His Majesty the King. The Council was anxious that a Royal Charter of incorporation should be granted. Shortly afterwards His Excellency Sir Philip Mitchel the Governor announced that the King had been graciously pleased to consent to the Council’s request and that His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester, would be charged by His Majesty to present the letters patent in person. He indicated that the Kenya Government would present a mace to Nairobi and basic design was prepared by a member of the Council staff.

Now the task of arranging the charter ceremonies began in earnest.It was decided that a memo be addressed to the Earl Marshall seeking the grant of the new Arms to the City to either use a badge or roundel

The golden-crested cranes of the old roundel were retained as supporters in the new Armorial bearings. The motto remained the same, while the Maasai shield was incorporated in the crest. On it also, was a golden lion symbolizing the peace bringing character of British rule. The central shield was a new addition. It lay on a field quartered green and gold to represent the mineral and agricultural wealth of the Kenyan colony. The central motif in the form of a heraldic fountain, was in commemoration of the swamp that once inundated the Nairobi area and from which it received its Maasai name ‘the place of the cool waters’.

In March 1950, Nairobi Municipality became a City by the Royal Charter of Incorporation.

Most railway workers lived in tents as seen from the picture below.

Nairobi Railway Station in the early 1900’s

Government Buildings in 1906

One of Nairobi’s first general stores located on Victoria Street.

One of the first motorized taxis to operate in the streets of Nairobi

Government Road (Now Moi Avenue) in the direction of the Railway station (1900’s)

Government Road in 1927

The first Stanley hotel opened on Victoria Street.

Building of the new Stanley hotel in 1912

After independence the City of Nairobi elected its first indigenous Mayor in 1964 and the first female Mayor in 1975. In 1984 the Nairobi City Council was dissolved to pave way for the Nairobi City Commission which governed the city up to 1992 when the Nairobi City Council was reconstituted and the first multi-party Mayor elected. With the promulgation of the constitution of Kenya 2010, Nairobi elected the first Governor under this constitution.

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sprlonline · 3 years

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Bulk SMS Provider|SMS Marketing Service|in Bangalore

As a promoting tool, SMS has very grownup in stature, in recent years businesses have found the simplest way to adapt SMS and optimize SMS to be used as a service tool. within the main, due to its several advantages.

Using SMS text electronic messaging for your business will help to:

Increase client retention

Develop bigger whole loyalty

Provide immediate communication

Attract new customers

Increase overall sales

Provide a profitable ROI

How will SMS text electronic messaging work as a service?

For those customers World Health Organization opt-in to your services and supply a mobile range, you'll use that detail as a communication and selling medium. For many programs run through service suppliers, you'll assign keywords, in addition to a set of keywords to any explicit client in your info. you'll conjointly section these customers into teams, by product, or interest, etc. Contacts will then opt-in to receive specific messages from your organization. Text message selling reduces prices because SMS is digital info, it will be analyzed in huge detail. Providing you've got segmental your communications effectively, as an example, service texts, promotion texts, news-related texts, etc. Then all SMS messages sent to your client will be:

Stored

Tracked

Analyzed

Measured This kind of analytical detail, that's conjointly pretty instant! permits your selling department to ascertain what’s operating, and leverage successes additional simply, refinement electronic messaging till it’s optimized to realize the widest sales opportunities and bigger ROI.

Benefits of SMS for business

So let’s dive into our reasons you must begin mistreatment SMS text electronic messaging for your business, then we’ll press on to inform you the way you'll simply integrate this platform aboard your different existing communication platforms to make an associate omnichannel approach to mating your customers. 1.Immediate deliveryAs so much as delivery goes, SMS is pretty fast, and it’s conjointly economical – taking solely seconds to succeed in an enormous audience. It’s rare to urge such quick associated fast customized message to an audience therewith reasonably speed.

2. Immediate results

You will instantly be ready to see those that have received it, in conjunction with different analytical information like those that have opened it, scan it, and in fact, the necessary one, that is those that have responded.

3. Personal

Because it’s directly sent to every individual consumer, SMS may be a terribly personal message. Mobile phones are terribly personal devices, therefore folks can typically respond with additional personal immediacy. you'll improve this still additional by delivering it as a private message to every individual. this can be absolute to grab their attention. 4. EfficientText messages are low cost particularly if you purchase them in bulk. No different selling technique provides such reasonable results, notably if compared with ancient selling strategies, such as TV, radio, or medium.

5. Easy and straightforward

Due to its simplicity and reach, SMS has become a globally adopted communicating. everybody is aware of the way to open, scan and text a message. Moreover, due to the limitation of long (160 characters), messages are tiny, direct, concise, and go straight to the purpose. And World Health Organization doesn’t adore it sweet & simple?

6. World selling

Text messages are designed to succeed in anyone World Health Organization features a fairly fashionable mobile device and a mobile phone signal. therefore you'll reach innumerable folks in a second, anytime, anywhere. It’s calculable there are up to seven billion mobile phones in daily use nowadays, therefore SMS is one amongst the few technologies that are universally synced between all of the world's mobile operators. you'll reach the planet with text electronic messaging.

7. Direct delivery

SMS is among the foremost direct ways of human action with shoppers, besides meeting face-to-face and immediate telephony. Since the opposite a pair of will be sophisticated, long, and pricy, it’s clear who’s the winner!

8. Precise

Once you've got your audience segmental, then you'll accurately target teams of shoppers with a range of promoting messages. Understanding what works and what doesn’t suggests that you'll refine your approach to maximize sales potential.

9. Efficient

The ability to schedule text messages means you'll save time in designing your campaign, you don’t ought to write every message one by one, therefore teams of individuals will be targeted with regular texts. This then provides longer to pay on different areas of the business, or indeed, managing the majority of sales opportunities which will return from your SMS delivery terribly shortly when causation.

10. Traceable and Analytics

SMS will simply be traceable too, most suppliers provide delivery reports which might be a good supply for interrogating what successes you’ve had along with your SMS deliveries, therefore you'll absolutely and accurately rate the success of your campaigns. you'll then take lessons learned into a successive campaign.

11. Reliable

Mobile phones don’t usually go with a spam filter, including a spam box. largely as mobile SMS messages are usually safer than email which might deliver all types of shady attachments. Plus, delivery happens among a forty-eight-hour amount to permit for phones being transitioned or out of the vary of a proof. So, for the foremost half, you recognize delivery by SMS may be a reliable style of inboxing your customers. At worst, you may get your telephone number blocked. on the other hand which will be right down to your message and your audience.

12. SMS vs email

SMS text messages have a so much higher “open rate” than email. Plus, with email, you may be causation your emails to shoppers that long allotted your name to the junk box. If your text messages aren’t delivered, then there's feedback on it through the medium, and for best service

https://insprl.com/page/sms-marketing

#smsmarketing #bulk sms #text marketing #emailmarketing #email verification #url shortener

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homespork-review · 4 years

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Homespork Act 2: The Racism of the Conductor’s Baton (Part 5)

TIER: Meanwhile, minutes in the future, a new character wanders about the desert wasteland. A PEREGRINE MENDICANT.

CHEL: This character resembles WV, except plain white in colour and noticeably taller, also wrapped in rags and pushing what appears to be a shopping trolley full of mailboxes.

WV heads for the passageway outside, the door to the bunker slamming shut behind him and glowing with a touchscreen; interacting with that causes the antechamber to spin around and a door to open into a new room, containing more computers. One of the two screens depicts Earth, while the other shows four spirographs orbiting around a fifth spirograph, with one set of two dots (one large, one small) next to the centre and another set of dots outside the orbit range. Looks familiar? A smaller screen below shows coordinates and times.

The room also contains a meter stick, which WV considers combining with his knife (really a strip of rusty metal) and a strip of rag to form a spear, but he hasn’t got his knife with him, and a bizarre contraption which looks like a ray gun pointing at a circular platform. When WV presses the big blue button on the console, the machine is proved to be an APPEARIFYER, which produces a pumpkin apparently out of thin air. Closer examination proves it to have taken the pumpkin from the coordinates entered on the console; there is a symbol carved on the pumpkin in the shape of what appears to be a pointy-eared animal’s face.

WV experiments a bit more with the machine, successfully summoning his knife back and using it to cut open the pumpkin (we are spared the apparently gruesome sight of him devouring the innards messily). The spirograph switch is immovable without a key. WV is also able to rescue the firefly from within the amber chunk, and this being a cartoon the firefly is miraculously alive and very happy about this! Awww.

TIER: The APPEARIFYER seems to be capable of grabbing thing from anywhere and anywhen, as long as doing so doesn't create a time paradox of all things. Attempting to do so causes the machine to activate a failsafe that turns whatever someone tried to get into a pile of paradox slime.

CHEL: With seconds to spare and dramatic music playing, WV appearifies the grate over the entrance to provide himself with an exit route, then scrambles around cramming all his cans and equipment into the hollow pumpkin, much to the consternation of the firefly, now named Serenity (of course). Frantically, he rushes up the ladder towards outside and safety… only to slip and fall back down at the last second, cans landing all over him, cutting to a scene reading “PSYCHE?” The next page states simply “UNPSYCHE”, the text beneath declaring a failure of the rare and highly dangerous 5X CLIFFHANGER COMBO, and we lead into another animation.

WV makes it to the top of the ladder just as the countdown finishes. Fortunately, the explosion doesn’t kill him; instead, it turns out to be the starting of rocket engines which propel the entire bunker into the air, setting it flying westward. Cut to John’s suburb, noted to be A CONTINENT WESTWARD AND YEARS IN THE PAST (BUT NOT MANY), where a meteor plummets to Earth, destroying all life and construction around it. Wind fills up the crater with soil again and a large white tree sprouts in its centre over a time period then revealed to be the years between its destruction and WV’s arrival.

Meanwhile, Peregrine Mendicant pushes their cart full of mailboxes along in the desert, oblivious to the bunker which is heading right overhead. WV observes, and the camera pans out to show PM’s outside another bunker with the same green house symbol on it. AN OCEAN WESTWARD AND YEARS IN THE PAST, but not “not many” this time, a spirograph opens up in space, shooting out a meteor, which crashes beside an active volcano. Millennia pass; the volcano dies, the crater fills up with greenery, and a tall building of green stone with a frog statue on the top is erected by unseen beings. As water levels rise, the building is covered almost completely and the volcano becomes an ocean island. Pterosaurs fly past, so we can presume the building was not made by humans.

Cut to Rose, cornered by the fire, frantically hitting and screaming at the generator until a flaming tree falls, shattering the generator and forcing Rose to leap to safety - or not safety, as the fire is still surrounding her. Mom Lalonde observes from the window of the house and presses a button on a keypad, opening up a secret passage in the mausoleum, leading downwards.

In a mysterious purple tower, Dad Egbert is handcuffed and hurried along by two imps, until he breaks free of the cuffs and attacks with cake and shaving cream. (If you pay close attention, you'll discover the cuffs were the trick ones from John's chest, according to another reader - I never did notice.) Atop another tower, this one Dave’s apartment building, Dave faces down Bro and Cal under a bright orange sky, and we finally see Bro Strider in non-silhouette. He bears a striking resemblance to the photo of the GameBro writer, right down to the popped collar. I don’t know if he’s actually supposed to be said writer, though.

Finally, WV’s flying bunker comes to a gentle stop in the middle of another desert, and he finds himself at the foot of a third tower, this one the remains of the frog-topped building, the ocean now long dry. The animation ends, and the curtains close on Act 2.

Now this is how to get across a lot of information fast! Much better. Very little text needed (in fact, what is there might not be strictly necessary, though it’s useful for immediately parsing what’s shown), no messing about. It’s a sharp improvement over sylladex shenanigans.

Okay, what do you guys think of Act 2? What does it do better than Act 1, or worse? Do you think it’s doing a good job of storytelling?

TIER: The pacing has improved.

CHEL: Technically speaking there are more instances of GET ON WITH IT (five to Act 1’s three), but this act is also longer and some of those instances were unnecessary single pages and not endless faffing about like in Act 1, so yes, that’s getting better. I think Hussie now knows better where his plot is going, and I don’t know if he originally did in the early stages of Act 1, so he’s better able to stick to a route to the goal.

FAILURE ARTIST: It is interesting seeing Rose’s and Dave’s home situation in light of later developments. I don’t think Hussie intended any deep commentary on child abuse when he wrote those scenes. I think it was edgy humor.

I hadn’t paid much attention to Rose’s FAQ or Sassacre’s book and I am disappointed by the racism in the excerpts. Worse, I know Hussie reuses the ethnic wedding metaphor later.

But on a positive note, the walkabout game is a cool new use of the medium.

BRIGHT: There’s a lot more meat to this act. More things happen, we get introduced to some of the background characters and find out more about how the game is set up. We also have more characterisation, which is a definite plus.

CHEL: So, for our hypothetical rewrite, removing the racism is obvious. “Edgy” humour was in at the time of writing, but even with that excuse, this is icky. It doesn’t really have the self-awareness of the awfulness of, say, Something Positive, it’s just a guy saying offensive things and it’s not quite clear how aware he is that they’re offensive.

Also obvious is removing the redundancy. I’d also add in a better reaction for John learning that Earth is doomed. I considered possibly moving that part of the reveal to a later point when it could be explored a bit more, but it does work nicely as a wham line with little info given yet. Also, figure out what the fuck we should be going for with Rose’s and Dave’s parental figures and stick to it. I could certainly see it being possible to lull the reader into falsely thinking of awful situations as funny in context and slowly revealing ways it fucked the kids up as we go, but in HS it’s handled clumsily, and there’s far too much going on already for an idea like that to have space to do it justice, I think. Oh, also, if John’s dream sequence was necessary, I’d have had it with him being knocked out, not just randomly deciding to nap while still surrounded by monsters. That was just kind of weird, especially since his friend is still in danger at that point.

Anything else you all can think of, readers? I don’t think we have any huge holes in the plot yet or anything. It’s certainly still much better than most of the works sporked here, but we'd appreciate it if you point out anything we missed.

COUNTS ALL THE LUCK: 0 ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 6 CALL CPA PLEASE: 2 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 6 GET ON WITH IT!: 8 GORE GALORE: 0 HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 13 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 3 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 0 RELATIONSHIP GOALS?: 0 SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER: 0 SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS: 0 WHAT IS HAPPENING??: 1 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 6 TOTAL: 45

#Homespork #homestuck #homestuck review #homestuck meta #homestuck reread #let's read homestuck #literary critique #sporking

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alittlebitsupergirl · 4 years

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A review of the literature on environmental innovation management in SMEs: implications for public policies

Jesu ́s A ́ ngel del Brıo, Beatriz Junquera ∗

Facultad de Ciencias Econo ́micas y Empresariales, Avda. del Cristo, s/n 33071 Oviedo, Asturias, Spain

Abstract

The aim of this article is to collect and make up the most important contributions in the economic literature in relation to the special characteristics of the management of the environmental innovation in the SMEs. Specifically, we want to show their strengths and weaknesses in order to make up the main conclusions of these analyses with the literature in relation to the way Public Administrations face this situation. The scarce development in the SMEs in respect to their environmental strategy may be a consequence of the links among some of the following factors: limited financial resources, the type of organizational structure, a little influence of the strategic adaptation competence against the changes in the SMEs, the managers’ scarce environmental training and short term orientation, the staff’s scarce environmental awareness and training, the status of the environmental issues in the company, the SMEs’ lower ability to obtain highly radical innovations, the scarce influence of manufacturing process flexibility in the most advanced states of the environmental strategy in the SMEs and their lack of relation ability with external stakeholders— very important in the success of the most advanced environmental approaches. Besides, the lack of regulation neutrality must be added as a key difference among companies of different sizes. So specific actions seem be necessary, such as technological advice and awareness, and training programs in order to cooperate with external stakeholders.  2002 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: SMEs; Environmental management; Public administrations

1. Introduction

In the last few years a lot of prominence has been attached to the analyses related to the companies’ environmental management, considering its multiple dimensions. However, studies of this sort, specifically in relation to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), are very scarce, practically non-existent. On the other hand, with respect to the demands made by their environment, it seems as if these types of companies enjoyed a privilege or ‘bull’.

Nevertheless, some events are fostering a change in this situation precisely in the most demanding area of the planet in environmental matters: the European Union. It all started in the Informal Environment Council, which

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 98510 4972; fax: +34 98510 3708.E-mail address: [email protected] (B. Junquera).

was held in April 1997 under Danish chairmanship, and which addressed the problem of environmental manage- ment in SMEs.

This report concluded that SMEs are an important driving force for economic growth and employment throughout the European Union. But, on the other hand, it is observed that they generate a great deal of the environmental contamination. As a consequence, the requisites demanded of them should be related to the nature and magnitude of the environmental contami- nation, and not to the company’s size (Berends et al., 2000). This is not a novelty, since previous positions of the Council had shown its concern about this issue, expressing, in any case, the need to simplify the environ- mental legislation regarding these companies.

However, these observations of the Council are not supported by objective information, since not even in the European Union are data available of the pollution produced by SMEs. In any case, the recent regulations about Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control

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(IPPC) (European Union, 1996) have among their objec- tives, the carrying out of a pollution record.

Thus, and taking into account the predictability of a stronger environmental requirement, it is necessary to determine the SMEs’ peculiarities in their determination to face the environmental management problems, as well as to suggest useful mechanisms for it. However, the literature on business management has not cared much about this question (Noci and Verganti, 1999), due to the limited demand perceived from the SMEs with respect to their environmental duties. In fact, it has been observed that the strategic management literature is concerned about the analysis of large companies and rejects analy- sis of the SMEs’ peculiarities (Noci and Verganti, 1999). Even so, some writers already mention this area specifi- cally and brand it as a research priority (Alberti et al., 2000).

Therefore, this work intends, in the first place, to col- lect and integrate the most relevant contributions of the economic literature with respect to the peculiarities of the SMEs’ management (specifically, to analyse its strengths and weaknesses faced with the need to put into practice new environmental approaches). Subsequently, we will analyse the literature concerning the way the Public Administrations may respond to such a situation. Finally, the integration of both types of research will lead to drawing practical implications for managers and Public Administrations, as well as to the discovery of new methods of research.

2. SMEs’ environmental strategy alternatives

The strategic consideration of the environmental issues can be carried out on the basis of the concept of corporate environmentalism, defined as the process by which companies manage environmental issues and develop environmental management strategies (Banerjee, 2001). However, such processes differ sub- stantially among companies.

There exist numerous classifications of environmental strategies. They run from the more reactive, whose only aim is to comply with the legislation, through, to the more proactive, which perceive environmental conser- vation as a source of opportunities rather than a problem to be faced at minimum cost. Some companies do not even respond in any way from an environmental point of view, sometimes because they do not feel external pressures.

Nevertheless, in this work we are interested in delimiting the environmental strategies characteristic of SMEs, since some analyses suggest that the company’s size is a factor that may influence its environmental option (Azzone et al., 1997b). There are various studies concerning this aspect. Thus, Florida (1996) and Bianchi and Noci (1998) find out, by means of a classification

of the companies, that the SMEs are the less environ- mentally advanced. In the same way, Remmen (2001) verifies that most Danish companies are SMEs and that, even though the external pressures increase progress- ively, their environmental strategy continues to be merely a compliance strategy. In general, most empirical studies agree with Remmen (2001) and suggest that the SMEs’ environmental approaches are characterised by their limited development. In fact, the strategic environ- mental management literature is based on models that predict that the environmental factor does not represent an important guide for strategic changes in SMEs, and neither will it in the future. Only environmental regu- lation, and the ecological market, together with other external forces, exercise pressure, so that the companies adopt adequate environmental approaches (Azzone and Noci, 1998a; Noci and Verganti, 1999).

Nevertheless, we can distinguish degrees within this situation. For example, Brockhoff et al. (1999) carried out a typology in relation to their environmental strategy among 106 German and North American companies. When they established the different groups’ profiles, they found that SMEs usually adopt strategies they call escapist, in the sense that when environmental press- ures—regulatory or provoked by stakeholders or environmentally aware groups inside, but mainly, out- side the company—become stronger, these SMEs are forced to enter new markets. Other studies, although inside this same trend, characterise the SMEs by slightly more advanced strategies. Azzone et al. (1997a,b), for a small group of companies, as well as Azzone and Noci (1998a)—in an intensive analysis of 15 companies— found out that SMEs still adopt reactive strategies. They include, above all, reactions to external stimuli from ‘green’ movements, governments, regulators or other companies, especially other SMEs that operate in sectors where they only receive weak signals of the environmen- tal requirements expected of the market. Sroufe et al. (2000) also showed, by means of a case analysis, that SMEs were far behind, reactive and had as their aim compliance with regulations more frequently than the larger companies. Another case analysis (Noci and Ver- ganti, 1999) show that the SMEs’ environmental action determinants are external factors (all types of regu- lation—and not only direct regulation—the social con- sciousness, the clients, the suppliers, the competitors, as well as other diverse groups). As their determinants are not explicit, and are generally intermingled with the cli- ents’ demands, the environment is not a strategic issue for them, although on some occasions it has an impact on the economy and the company’s forces and, in other cases, constitutes its long-term means of survival.

In fact, North (1992) suggests different environmental strategy solutions according to the company’s size, also considered valuable by other writers (Russo and Fouts, 1997; Arago ́n, 1998). In this respect, it is argued that

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the large company has more resources and higher econ- omy of scale, which favours the search for innovations in the environmental field (Greening and Gray, 1994; Russo and Fouts, 1997), apart from the fact that it is possible that society may observe them with greater attention (Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978; Scott, 1992; Greening and Gray, 1994). The result is that they have more favourable effects on the achievement of competi- tive advantages. In accordance with this, Marcus (1984) defends that action differences according to size are due to the fact that large companies usually have the neces- sary resources to adapt to pressures, while SMEs ignore or conceal the environmental effects of their activity.

The basic question on this point is what will happen when SMEs also have to face the environmental chal- lenge at the same level as large companies, as seems to be the immediate intention of some Public Adminis- trations (Berends et al., 2000). Then, two answers will be basically possible. The first of them is that of non- compliance due to incapacity, assuming the conse- quences such a position may bring with it, bearing in mind that it could even mean the momentary or defini- tive closing down of the company’s installations. The second position would be to face the challenges, but for this the SME must have a series of resources. Therefore, it is essential to recognise the SMEs’ environmental weaknesses, as well as possible action paths internal and external to the companies. In order to know those spe- cific circumstances, first, we will define them.

3. Determining factors of the environmental strategy in SMEs

Some writers have shown in their work how the attempts to incorporate the biophysical environment in the theory of the organisation come basically from two areas of research (Banerjee, 2001; Sarkis, 2001). The first of them is based on a cross-disciplinary approach and analyses the paradigmatic implications of including the dynamics of the biophysical environment in the tra- ditional economic and management paradigms. Refer- ences to works of this sort appear in Jacobs (1994), Gladwin et al. (1995), Purser et al. (1995), Starik and Rands (1995) and Egri and Pinfield (1996). However, Newton and Harte (1997) brand this type of approach ‘evangelic rhetoric’, since they consider that such man- agement attitudes do not mean in practice real transform- ation of the companies’ environmental strategies. Thus, they support the approach of a second course of research, which examines the strategic implications of the environmental issues for the organisations, addressing the study to the competitive advantage which can be derived from integrating the environmental issues into the business strategy. In this line are included works like those by Hart (1995), Porter and van der Linde (1995);

Russo and Fouts (1997) or Sharma and Vredenburg (1998).

Thus, the latter is the predominant position among researchers. Russo and Fouts (1997), following the resource-based view, start from the assumption that the same environmental strategy that internalises the nega- tive environmental effects, may simultaneously benefit the company, generating positive effects that are intern- ally and privately accumulated within it. They follow Hart’s argument (1995) that social demands, as part of the environment, drive the companies to try to develop unique resources when expectations exist that they will be valuable and inimitable. In relation to this, and although previous works differ in their results1, Russo and Fouts (1997) prove empirically the existence of a positive relationship between environmental perform- ance and business profitability. Nevertheless, they add that such an influence is greater in large companies than in SMEs.

Nevertheless, the differences in size also affect the environmental performance. Thus, King and Lenox (2000), by means of a probit analysis, show a positive relationship between the company’s size and the environmental development. In accordance with this, SMEs will perceive less environmental management advantages, which constitutes a second explanation of the lower level of development of their strategies in this field.

The essential question is to know why, that is: Which are the factors that condition that such a positive relationship between environmental behaviour and environmental performance, on the one hand, as well as business profitability, on the other hand, differs between companies of different sizes. The analysis of the contri- butions of the economic literature on the matter is the essential objective of the present paragraph.

The economic literature has recognised the influence of various aspects on the development limits of the SMEs’ environmental strategy. Next, we show the con- clusions of different studies about the influence of each one of them.

3.1. Financial resources

Azzone et al. (1997a and 1997b) and Azzone and Noci (1998b) show that SMEs are companies with limited financial resources. Therefore, they cannot develop long processes of competence accumulation, not even allocate funds to ecological initiatives or the secondary aspects of the company’s main activity. This lack of resources is

1 In any case, these works were undertaken with small samples of companies, did not have reliable indicators of profitability and those relative to social responsibility were very questionable (Russo and Fouts, 1997).

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an element hindering the development of environmental improvements (Noci and Verganti, 1999).

3.2. Organisational structure

Some studies have shown that, among the difficulties SMEs encounter to implement environmental actions, are the peculiar characteristics of their organisational structure. Several elements of this confer an advantage on larger companies over SMEs with regard to environ- mental protection.

In general, it is easier to implement these practices in companies with a standardised and well structured organisation, like the larger ones (Alberti et al., 2000).

However, SMEs usually have more capacity than larger companies when it comes to adapting to changes in the environment (Sroufe et al., 2000). This is important, since some empirical studies point out its stra- tegic relevance. This is shown by Azzone et al. (1997b), with a small sample of companies. For his part, Arago ́n (1998) finds out, by means of a regression model, that this capacity influences the development of the compa- nies’ environmental strategy. However, the research studies carried out on the matter show that the SMEs’ managers are afraid that, with the adoption of environ- mental actions, companies may lose part of their flexi- bility. Nevertheless, Alberti et al. (2000) point out that it should not necessarily be like this, since an advanced environmental management would make the organis- ation more efficient, even when it comes to reacting to unexpected events. Nevertheless, despite the positive effects of such capacity to develop programs and manage environmental issues quickly, the reality shows that SMEs are less developed from an environmental per- spective than larger companies (Alberti et al., 2000).

An explanation is provided by Noci and Verganti (1999), to the effect that the reaction capacity to the need for change derived from small size, makes the SMEs’ managers think that it is easier to face the environmental challenge by means of reactive and implicit actions. Nevertheless, such reactive capacity only facilitates incremental changes, providing marginal advantages when facing the multidimensional nature and the broad scope of environmental innovation. This would serve as an explanation of the apparent contradiction found by Alberti et al. (2000).

3.3. Management style

Although it has been a field very much neglected by the economic literature, some studies have recently started to consider the influence of leadership styles on the environmental management (Bansal and Roth, 2000; Cordano and Frieze, 2000; Egri and Herman, 2000; Flannery and May, 2000; Sharma, 2000; Banerjee, 2001, among the most relevant ones). However, these studies

have not been specifically applied to SMEs. The scant studies that refer to these aspects in smaller companies show contradictions regarding whether there exist characteristics typical of the SMEs’ managers which may affect the environmental result or whether, on the contrary, this is not so.

Nevertheless, most works defend the existence of characteristics specific to the management style in SMEs that influence the companies’ environmental develop- ment, sometimes indirectly. Azzone et al. (1997a) note that the SMEs’ environmental managers adopt a com- pliance with the legislation attitude. This is either because of lack of information—poor level of manage- ment capacities, even of perceived control2 (Azzone and Noci, 1998b; Noci and Verganti, 1999)—or due to their limited strategic capacity in this field—a short-term orientation (Bianchi and Noci, 1998; Noci and Verganti, 1999), which does not provide incentives for improving the environmental performance (Azzone and Noci, 1998b).

Besides, the managers’ environmental training is to a certain extent a determining factor of the level of devel- opment of the companies’ environmental strategy (Azzone and Noci, 1998b). In fact, Noci and Verganti (1999) point out that a reactive strategy is a feasible option in companies with merely a high availability of technical and management competences. Other studies support this relation. Brıo (1999) finds significant differ- ences depending on the managers’ level of environmen- tal training with respect to the level of development of the companies’ environmental actions. In consequence, the higher the percentage of managers trained in this area, the greater the development of the companies’ environmental approaches. These empirical works show that the possession of certain skills on the part of the managers is a necessary condition for environmental development, even enough up to certain levels. Never- theless, it needs additional resources in the more advanced environmental development stages.

Moreover, other characteristics of the management attitude explain the companies’ environmental develop- ment performance. Sa ́nchez (1997) demonstrates empiri- cally that the SMEs’ managers perception of the environ- mental pressures as a threat makes the innovations less radical, which is considered to be able to influence their competitive capacity. This is like saying that SMEs’ managers avoid exploiting the competitive advantages associated with the ecological activity. It would explain their reactive strategic attitude, and causes a reduction in competitiveness, both with respect to their clients and also other stakeholders (Noci and Verganti, 1999).

2 The manager’ s perception that he can reach the objectives set in accordance with his aptitudes and the overall resources provided by the company.

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Anyhow, the research in this area does not allow the acceptance of these results as definitive. As opposed to them, Theyel (2000) shows in an empirical analysis car- ried out for chemical companies, that the level of devel- opment of the environmental approaches is not determ- ined by the differences in size, but by the sophistication of the plant managers’ knowledge. Thus, these results show contradictions, since from Theyel (2000) we can ascertain that the management style is not influenced by size. It is independent of it, and therefore there would not exist a fixed profile of the SMEs’ managers.

3.4. Human resources

Environmental management is intensive in human resources and depends on the development of tacit skills through the employees’ involvement (Cramer and Roes, 1993; Klassen and McLaughlin, 1993; Hart, 1995; Berkel et al., 1997; Hanna et al., 2000).

Azzone et al. (1997a) and Azzone and Noci (1998b) observe that the SMEs’ employees usually have a very low level of environmental awareness. This comes on top of a limited training in this area. This has been proved in some empirical studies for several countries, like the one carried out by Brıo (1999) for Spanish industrial companies. Moreover, this study analyses the existence of significant differences, depending on the employees’ level of environmental training with respect to the companies’ level of environmental action develop- ment. So, the higher the percentage of employees trained in this area, the higher the development of the compa- nies’ environmental approaches. Combining all the approaches, we can conclude that the lower level of environmental awareness and training of the SMEs’ employees and their influence on the achievements in this area are relevant causes of the lower level of environmental development of this type of company.

3.5. Environmental management status

The way of organising a company’s environmental protection is controversial. The creation of a post/department with environmental responsibilities (shared or not with others) is an idea increasingly put into practice by companies. However, their role, some- times, is questioned (King, 1995). In fact, it is argued that a clear delimitation of the organisational structure and the environmental competences is vital to achieve a correct environmental management in the company (Weldford and Gouldson, 1993).

When judging the different approaches, most of the literature shows a preference for the creation of a post/department with environmental responsibilities. However, the company has to implement the adequate mechanisms in order to be successful. In consequence, all the personnel can have some type of environmental

responsibility (Sadgrove, 1991; Beaumont, 1992; Ledg- erwood et al., 1992). So, the company that dedicates a specific post/department to these questions attaches more importance to the environment, even more if this depends directly on the senior management (Elkington et al., 1991; Sadgrove, 1991; Weldford and Gouldson, 1993). On the other hand, there exists an empirical con- trast in some works (Arago ́n et al., 1998; Sharma, 2000). In addition, it is believed that independently of technical capacitation criteria, the legitimation the appointment may suppose in the company’s culture is not an irrel- evant issue (Arago ́n et al., 1998).

However, despite its advantages, Azzone et al. (1997b) point out that the lack of an organisational unit with the specific objective of managing environmental issues, which most SMEs lack, could make the develop- ment of the most advanced environmental strategies impossible.

3.6. Manufacturing activity

Azzone et al. (1997b), by means of the analysis of a small group of companies, have shown that relatively simple manufacturing processes, which characterise SMEs, allow the company to observe the context evol- ution before adjusting its course of action.

In fact, this flexibility of the manufacturing process has been shown in other analyses as a way of supporting a company’s strategic answer faced with the environ- mental pressures (Klassen and Angell, 1998). Neverthe- less, in this analysis certain reservations are expressed. In the first stages of the environmental development, the specific capacities and the experience necessary to put into practice flexibility effectively support the efforts to reach a fuller integration of the environmental issues into the manufacturing strategy and, therefore, into the design of the natural environment protection approach (Newman and Hanna, 1996). However, in the later stages of environmental development, the influence of the manufacturing flexibility decreases. As a peculiarity of the SMEs, Klassen and Angell (1998) show that the influence of flexibility faced with external pressures is stronger in SMEs than in larger companies. Neverthe- less, this may be the consequence, not of their size, but of the environmental strategies that characterise them.

3.7. Technological approach

The companies with more environmentally advanced approaches require a large amount of resources of a diverse nature. SMEs have difficulties in obtaining fin- ancial and human resources, among others, with the pur- pose of tackling their business activity. They find it dif- ficult both to introduce and obtain benefits from

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technologies with preventive approaches3 or from ‘green’ products, with the result that their technologies are usually basically out of control4 (Azzone et al., 1997a).

3.8. Innovative capacity

Sa ́nchez (1997) analyses the conditions under which environmental pressures affect the degree to which the companies’ innovations are radical, including size among such analysis factors. Such a positive relationship induces the influence of size on the companies’ competi- tive capacity as a consequence of their innovative activity, in favour of the large ones.

In the first place, Wood (1986) had already noted that larger companies make a bigger research effort and, therefore, their environmental innovation levels are higher. In addition, Marcus (1984) suggests that compa- nies of different sizes differ according to how their environmental innovations are. Such an influence depends on the range of the problems, on the Public Administrations’ behaviour and the company’s incli- nation to cooperate, mainly.

Various reasons support this argument. In the first place, it is more likely that large companies will have an R&D department formalised, given the structural dif- ferentiation associated with a larger organisation (Blau, 1970). This department will be in an adequate position to transform competences and, as a result, will bring about more radical process and product innovations (Leonard, 1984). On the other hand, the innovation options created by the environmental pressures favour large companies when they force SMEs to leave the mar- ket (Birnbaum, 1984; Bartel and Thomas, 1987).

Intensity in R&D is a factor suggested by Sa ́nchez (1997) as a mediator in the relationship between environmental pressure and radical innovation, since it has been empirically proved that companies with a higher level of intensity in R&D innovate more fre- quently in a radical way (Clark and Fujimoto, 1989). The companies that, apart from a considerable research effort, have an adequately integrated department will recognise its express purpose to solve problems, such as environmental problems. Thereby, the most advanced and most competence-modifying technologies will emerge as a result of R&D activities (Rogers, 1983).

Sa ́nchez’s (1997) study demonstrates empirically that the SMEs’ low intensity in R&D and the lack of central- isation of the information concerning the research effort in a unique department are factors that have an influence

3 Technologies that do not produce waste or consume fewer resources and less energy.

4 Technologies that prevent the waste from going outside the com- pany after being produced.

on the fact that the environmental pressures produce less radical innovations in these companies.

Nevertheless, Noci and Verganti (1999) have sug- gested that an SME with high innovation capacity could successfully develop a very advanced environmental strategy. In this way, they reject the idea that companies of a similar size will have the same type of approach regarding environmental innovation.

3.9. External cooperation

The relation with external pressure groups is con- sidered a priority in the development of the companies’ environmental approaches and, especially, of the new products with a ‘green’ dimension. Many researches have emphasised this (Starik, 1995; Dutton, 1996; Fine- man and Clarke, 1996; Hartman and Stafford, 1997; Azzone and Noci, 1998a; Geffen and Rothenberg, 2000; Kitazawa and Sarkis, 2000; Theyel, 2000). However, the environmental innovation management literature fails for the SMEs because most of these techniques, method- ologies and design rules to develop environmental inno- vations imply that the company has an important negoti- ation power over other value chain partners. The aim of this issue is to involve them in the improvement of their environmental result. However, this is not a usual strength of SMEs (Noci and Verganti, 1999).

Noci and Verganti (1999) have shown that the SMEs’ limited capacity to activate new relations with the Public Administrations, companies that provide logistic ser- vices, research laboratories and other organisations external to them, can be considered an obstacle for their environmental action development.

Despite the limited capacity for external relations that characterises SMEs, King and Lenox (2000) prove that voluntary agreements among companies lead to environ- mental improvements in the companies where they are made. Thus, the difficulty with external relations would be another disadvantage for SMEs with respect to the environmental challenge.

4. SMEs’ specific environmental regulation needs

Arago ́n (1998) states that larger companies usually enjoy more advantages when they accede to the Public Administrations’ programmes to support the employees’ environmental training. This is so perhaps because they have a greater capacity to impose their criteria on the regulators (Arora and Cason, 1995). This is proved by the fact that they take part more often in such pro- grammes than SMEs (Arora and Cason, 1995).

Dean and Brown (1995) show that environmental regulation is not neutral with respect to the companies, at least as regards the difference in size. On the one hand, it is suggested that environmental regulation affects more

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considerably the SMEs, which lack the necessary resources to face a much stricter regulation than the large ones (Birnbaum, 1985; Ungson et al., 1985). These stud- ies start from the assumption that the cost of finding and interpreting the regulations and dealing with the regulat- ory agencies is very high because it implies increasing the level of efficient manufacturing, and generates other additional costs.

This situation would prevent SMEs from choosing the environmental equipment most adequate to their oper- ations (Pashigian, 1984) and leads them to be subject to their own economies of scale, not being able to face the environmental requirements.

On the other hand, as environmental regulation becomes stricter, larger companies need to make invest- ments in new equipment to comply with the legal requirements. This change in the use of technologies is usually favourable to the large companies which can adopt their technologies to the current legal require- ments. For the SMEs, the prevention technology adop- tion process may be more difficult, due to its own com- plexity and the lack of economic resources (Barney, 1982).

Similarly, Porter (1980) and Scherer and Ross (1990) identify two new disadvantageous elements for SMEs: the technological complexity and the experience effect. The companies exposed to environmental regulations must cope with new political, technological, administrat- ive and legal challenges that, inserted in the development of their activities, give rise to more complex processes because of the presence of multiple norms, present at all the organisation’s levels and with the same level of demand (Dean and Brown, 1995). This complexity has added to the difficulties in managing the interrelations between regulators, environmental technologies, manu- facturing processes and administrative procedures. The effect of the regulatory complexity can be understood by means of the concept of the learning curve. Applying it to complexity, this idea suggests that the more frequent the companies’ dealings with the regulatory environmen- tal agencies are and the larger the number of activities to develop, the quicker the company will learn which regulations to apply to its activities and how to control them effectively. In consequence, it will know which types of environmental technologies to apply to its pro- cesses and how to use them effectively and will modify its administrative and organisational processes to fulfil the tasks. In other words, the learning complexity goes at a higher cost per unit to the SMEs (Monty, 1991).

From a different perspective, it is considered that environmental regulation may have a favourable effect for SMEs. This effect is produced, firstly, by means of preferential treatment to SMEs from Public Adminis- trations, bearing in mind that their own characteristics may be an obstacle to compliance with environmental regulation (Greener, 1997). Secondly, this effect is pro-

duced by means of the simultaneous choice of manufac- turing and environmental technologies (Dean and Brown, 1995). In some cases, the legislators have con- sidered it appropriate to shield SMEs from regulations and minimise the disproportionate effects of some environmental measures (Pashigian, 1984). So, they can benefit from the SMEs’ regulatory exclusions or from actions that require less legal compliance (Brock and Evans, 1985). Likewise, the regulators may consider it appropriate to defend the SMEs in order that they man- age to maximise the benefits of their efforts in the execution of these measures. So, it is likely that they will be directed to large companies, which will probably have more resources to undertake important environ- mental reduction. By the same token, SMEs’ manufac- turing flexibility allows them to achieve a greater relative efficiency when it comes to adapting to the new environ- mental regulations.

Nevertheless, there seems to exist some net advantage on the part of large companies over SMEs with respect to the environmental management support public pro- grammes. Therefore, Remmen (2001), as Dean and Brown (1995) had already suggested, states that the chal- lenge consists of starting a dynamic and differentiated regulation designed according to the companies’ environmental strategies to create new incentives that encourage them to go beyond mere compliance with the direct regulation. This is more evident considering that in a lot of countries most companies are SMEs.

We must highlight the SMEs’ need for environmental consulting, with respect to several aspects (Greener et al., 1997). Anastas and Breen (1997) point out the importance of lending support to SMEs in environmental matters in order to know their information needs in clean process technologies, with the aim of preventing pol- lution. Once detected, the Public Administrations could support the companies showing them comparisons in relation to the application of different technologies of this sort.

In the United States, as early as 1997, there already existed a specific program for SMEs of the chemical sec- tor, which was aimed at applying the existing experience and leadership to inform and facilitate efforts in pol- lution prevention. This is a type of regulation which can be described as of voluntary approach defined by alliances between industry and society (Anastas and Breen, 1997).

For his part, Remmen (2001) defends that an especially important task is to create the conditions for SMEs to learn to include resource consumption and emissions among their requirements towards the equip- ment suppliers. In some Spanish regions—Catalun ̃a and Paıs Vasco—there also exist support programmes to advise SMEs in this matter (Brıo and Junquera, 2001). On the other hand, and taking into account the relevance of the stakeholders or external pressure groups in the

946 J.A ́. del Brıo, B. Junquera / Technovation 23 (2003) 939–948

environmental action development (Azzone and Noci, 1998a and 1998b; Dyckhoff (2000), it would seem reasonable to extend the collaboration to these groups too.

5. Conclusions

The Public Administrations, especially the European Community institutions, are starting to show interest in the SMEs’ environmental activity, considering its impact. However, these types of companies are used to practically ignoring the environmental issues, and, at most, just comply with the direct regulation that con- cerns them. Comparably, the effects of the SMEs’ environmental regulation had been a matter rarely dealt with by business administration research. However, if the forecast comes true, this tendency should reverse in the future.

The scant research carried out so far on business man- agement in SMEs has revealed a great uniformity of environmental strategies among them, whose common denominator is the poor level of development. Several studies have analysed the factors which are more likely to condition this type of behaviour. Thus, they prevent environmental actions from turning into a competitive advantage for the company and, on the other hand, ham- per environmental performance levels similar to those of larger companies.

Among them are mentioned: the limitation of financial resources, the type of organisational structure, the slight influence of the SMEs’ adaptation to change capacity, the managers’ poor environmental training and short- term orientation, the employees’ limited involvement and training in this area, the status of the environmental function in the company as a whole, the SMEs’ lower capacity to give rise to highly radical innovations, the slight influence of the SMEs’ manufacturing process flexibility in the most advanced levels of environmental strategy and their lack of relation capacity with external pressures, essential for success of the environmental approach.

Apart from these disadvantages for the SMEs’ environmental progress with respect to larger companies, empirical studies show that regulation is not neutral either, but in general benefits larger companies. Never- theless, the literature shows how the environmental regu- lation could benefit, either larger companies or small and medium-sized enterprises, depending on their character- istics.

Given the lack of neutrality of environmental regu- lation, some writers even suggest the existence of a spe- cific environmental regulation for SMEs. This con- clusion is fundamental for the Public Administrations, because if their objective is to improve the SMEs’ environmental achievement. They should also consider

these aspects to design their companies’ environmental management support programmes. Among such meas- ures we can emphasise technological consulting, the awareness of more preventive approaches, and infor- mation about the relation alternatives with suppliers. In this respect, it is interesting to note the development of similar progress in relation to the stakeholders.

On the other hand, the conclusions drawn from this work raise ideas about the key aspects for the success of the SMEs’ environmental approaches, suggesting some plans of action.

However, there are very few empirical works that have thoroughly analysed these aspects, and we have not found any that analyses the effects of all of them as a whole. In addition, most of them are aimed at studying specifically the type of most habitual environmental strategy in SMEs in relation to large companies. But there is no empirical study specifically related to SMEs that analyses which factors prevent them from achieving the same levels of competitive advantage with their environmental actions as larger companies. However, taking into account the fact that most of the economic literature rests on the assumption that it is such advan- tages that encourage companies to advance along the environmental path, we are of the opinion that this is an irreplaceable course of future research.

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Jesu ́s A ́ ngel del Brio is Doctor of Economics and Management at Univer- sidad de Oviedo, where he has been teaching Firm Organization since 1995. His research work has been directed towards the study of environ- mental innovation and management. Besides, he has done some studies in environmental industry in Asturias (Spain) and analysed the implemen- tation of ISO 14001 standard in Spain.

Beatriz Junquera is Doctor of Economics and Management at Universi- dad de Oviedo, where she has been teaching Firm Organization since 1991. Her research work has been directed towards the study of tech- nology management and environmental innovation and management. Besides, she has collaborated in some studies about the environmental industry in Asturias (Spain). She has also done some work regarding the implementation of ISO 14001 standard in Spain.

9 notes · View notes