Using different DNA probes from the first two previously described alkane-inducible cytochrome P450 genes of the Candida tropicalis CYP52 gene family, we isolated five independent additional members by screening a genomic library under low-stringency conditions. These genes are not allelic variants and, when taken gogether, constitute the largest gene family known in this organism. The seven members of this gene family are located on four different chromosomes and four of them are tandemly arranged on the C. tropicalis genome. The products of the seven genes, alk1 to alk7, were compared to each other and revealed a high degree of divergence: the two most diverged proteins exhibit a sequence identity of only 32%. Six of the seven genes were shown to be induced by a variety of different aliphatic carbon sources but repressed when the organism was grown on glucose. Three of the five additional CYP52 genes could be successfully expressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and display different substrate specificities in in vitro assays with model substrates: alk2 and alk3 exhibit a strong preference for hexadecane, while alk4 and alk5 preferentially hydroxylate lauric acid.

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While individual behaviour change is considered a central strategy to mitigate climate change, public engagement is still limited. Aiming to raise awareness, and to promote behaviour change, governments and organisations are conducting multiple pro-environmental campaigns, particularly via social media. However, to the best of our knowledge, these campaigns are neither based on, nor do they take advantage of, the existing theories and studies of behaviour change, to better target and inform users. In this paper we propose an approach for analysing user behaviour towards climate change based on the 5 Doors Theory of behaviour change [19]. Our approach automatically identifies five behavioural stages in which users are based on their social media contributions. This approach has been applied to analyse the online behaviour of participants of the Earth Hour 2015 and COP21 Twitter movements. Results of our analysis are used to provide guidelines on how to improve communication via these campaigns.

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Abstract.Changing behaviour related to energy conservation is not an emotionally neutral task. People have to deal with individual and group interests, contextual constraints, eventually trading-off between their values and effective actions in terms of savings. This paper presents a set of dynamics and artefacts for families to raise and share their energy awareness, and transform it into sustainable behaviour. This method based on human values was applied with 7 families to identify critical factors that must be in play when promoting energy conservation within a social group. Preliminary results confirmed that bringing families' values into discussion and establishing shared commitments and responsibilities are promising approaches for technology design with the purpose to raise awareness collectively and promote effective changes in behaviour towards protecting the natural environment.