Soil erosion is one of the most important environmental problems which can have various negative consequences, such as land degradation affecting the sustainable development and the agricultural production, especially for developing countries like Tunisia. Moreover, soil erosion is a major problem around the world because of its effects on soil fertility by nutriment loss and siltation in water bodies. Apart from this, soil erosion by water is the most serious type of land loss in several regions both locally and globally. This study evaluated regional soil erosion risk through the derivation of appropriate factors, using the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE), which was applied to establish a soil erosion risk map of the whole Tunisian territory and to identify the vulnerable areas of the country. RUSLE model take into account all the factors playing a major role in erosion processes, namely the erodibility of soils, topography, land use, rainfall erosivity and anti-erosion farming practices. The equation is thus implemented under Geographic Information System (GIS) “Arc GIS Desktop”. The results indicated that Tunisia has a serious risk of soil water erosion, showing that 6.43% of the total area of the country is affected by a very high soil loss rate estimated at more than 30 t/ha/year and 4.20% are affected by high mean annual soil loss ranging from 20 to 30 t/ha/year. The most eroded areas were identified in west southern, central and western parts of the country. The spatial erosion map can be used as a decision support document to guide decision-makers towards better land management and provide the opportunity to develop management strategies for soil erosion prevention and control in the global scale of Tunisia.

In order to create a smart mine, it is necessary to digitize the existing emulsion pumping station. Existing research does not achieve this task, this paper designs and manufactures a high-pressure, high-flow, high-water-based mining digital controlled unloading valve (abbreviated as HLHMDCUV), which achieves good results in both theoretical analysis and experimental testing. In order to obtain the accurate dynamic characteristics, this valve was analyzed by simulation using AMESim. Based on the dynamic performance analysis and the flow field analysis inside the valve body, the structure has been optimized to improve the performance of HLHMDCUV. The results show that the HLHMDCUV has a better dynamic characteristics, which were also demonstrated in the experiment. At the same time, the HLHMDCUV is easy to disassemble and maintain. This paper provides a theoretical basis for the design of such valves, which is conducive to the subsequent promotion of intelligent mine transformation.

The pressure on freshwater resources is leading to diminishing flows in some of the critical river systems across the globe and India is no exception and this is mainly because of water withdrawal for irrigation, which is often to the tune of 70% to 80% with some proportion for domestic and industrial use. While graduating from the concept of environmental flows and its assessment methodologies in India, the water-managers, the researchers and the conservationists are now moving towards answering the next question if the rivers are to be revived, then where will the water come from, especially in the case of over-allocated rivers, including the river Ganga. While the logical way is to look at the biggest user of water, i.e. irrigation, it remains to be seen whether the irrigation water savings will actually lead to enhancing flows in a river, complementing the efforts towards maintaining e-flows in rivers, or whether it will lead to more area under agriculture, bring changes in cropping patterns towards more water-intensive crops or result in something else. This is a growing debate across the globe, where India is no exception, and there has been a wide range of opinions in this regard. This paper discusses the process, findings and lessons from a joint initiative involving farmers, the Uttar Pradesh state Irrigation and Water Resources Department, Bijnor District Administration and a conservation organisation to enhance flows in a rivulet, called karula River, which is part of the Ganga river system.

A parallel shallow water flow model is introduced in this paper. The explicit-time finite volume approach is adopted to solve the 2D shallow water equations on an unstructured triangular mesh. The proposed scheme is second-order accurate in temporal and spatial terms using the two-stage Runge-Kutta and the monotone upwind scheme for conservation law (MUSCL) methods, respectively. Based on Message Passing Interface (MPI) and OpenACC, a multi-GPU model is presented with the METIS library to produce the domain decomposition. A CUDA-aware MPI library through GPUDirect for peer-to-peer (P2P) transfer between two GPUs and overlapping computation and MPI communication are used to speed up MPI memory exchange and the performance of the code. A 2D circular dam break test with wet and dry downstream beds and grid resolutions of about 2 million cells is considered to verify the accuracy of the code, and good results were achieved compared to the numerical simulations of published studies. Compared with the multi-CPU version of the 6-core CPU, maximum speedups of 56.18 and 331.51 were obtained using the single-GPU and multi-GPU versions, respectively. Results indicate that acceleration performance improves as the mesh resolution increases.

Water resource pollution, particularly in river channels, presents a grave environmental challenge that necessitates a comprehensive and systematic approach encompassing assessment, forecasting, and effective management. This article provides a comprehensive exploration of the methodology and modeling tools employed to scrutinize the process of river channel pollution due to silting, rooted in the fundamental principles of hydrodynamics and pollutant transport dynamics. The study's methodology seamlessly integrates numerical simulations with state-of-the-art neural network techniques, with a specific focus on the Physics-informed neural networks (PINN) method. This innovative approach represents a groundbreaking fusion of artificial neural networks (ANN) and physical equations, offering a more efficient and precise means of modeling a wide array of complex processes and phenomena. The proposed mathematical model, grounded in the Euler equation, has been meticulously implemented using the Ansys Fluent software package, ensuring accuracy and reliability in the computations. In a pivotal phase of the research, a thorough comparative analysis was conducted between the results derived from the PINN method and those obtained through conventional numerical approaches using the Ansys Fluent software package. The outcomes of this analysis revealed the superior performance of the PINN method, characterized by the generation of smoother pressure fluctuation profiles and significantly reduced computation time, underscoring its potential as a transformative modeling tool. The calculated data originating from this study assumes paramount significance in the ongoing battle against river sedimentation. Beyond this immediate application, these findings also serve as a valuable resource for creating predictive materials pertaining to river channel silting, thereby empowering decision-makers and environmental stakeholders with essential information. The utilization of modeling techniques to address pollution concerns in river channels holds the potential to revolutionize risk management and safeguard the integrity of our vital water resources. However, it is imperative to underscore that the effectiveness of such models hinges on ongoing monitoring and frequent data updates, ensuring that they remain aligned with real-world conditions. This research not only contributes to the enhanced understanding and proactive management of river channel pollution due to silting but also underscores the pivotal role of advanced modeling methodologies in the preservation of our invaluable water resources for present and future generations.

The sugar company Valdez S.A. Entity located within the geographical limits of the city of Milagro, needs to reduce its emissions to the environment and does not always comply with the air emissions standards for stationary combustion sources, which indicates that for equipment installed before 2003 they have a maximum limit of 300 mg / m³. A mist eliminator was designed to work inside the original wet gas scrubber of the water-tube cauldron #10, which uses Bagasse as fuel, for the generation of steam for industrial use. The research is documentary and field. The methodology used was mixed. focusing on the comparison of three types of technologies to meet the objectives, the fog eliminators types: Demister, Cyclone and Chevron. To find the appropriate complement, a comparison sheet was made, which is a table of contents evaluated quantitatively, analyzing indicators formulated in each of the contents. The results, supported by the Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis methodology, select the Chevron type fog eliminator, with the best efficiency for capture. Using AutoCAD, allows to visualize in 3D, the structural design in the gas scrubber.

The key objective of the experiment was to show the environmental based of copper nanoparticles which counters the growth of bacterial pathogens such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Staphylococcus aureus. To begin with the experiments, root extract of Asparagus racemosus was used to synthesise Copper nanoparticles. To confirm the formation of Cu-NPs, it was subjected to characterization such as Ultra Violet analysis, X-ray Diffraction method, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and Scanning electron microscope images. Later the antibacterial activity of Cu-NPs was studied by incorporating it into two bacterial pathogens (Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus). The outcome displayed a satisfactory antibacterial activity against the bacterial pathogens by the biosynthesized copper nanoparticles. To boost up the enzyme inhibition property of the Cu NPs, Antioxidant and Antidiabetic assay were also performed. The biosynthesised Cu NPs displayed a satisfied result in Antifouling function. The result was used assessed with green algae bloom water.

Water area segmentation in remote sensing is of great importance for flood monitoring. To overcome some challenges in this task, we construct the Water Index and Polarization Information (WIPI) multi-modality dataset and propose a multi-Modality Fusion and Gated multi-Filter U-Net (MFGF-UNet) convolutional neural network. The WIPI dataset enhances the water information and reduces the data dimension. In particular, the Cloud-Free label provided in the database effectively mitigates the issue of scarcity of labeled samples Since a single form or uniform kernel size cannot handle the variety in size and shape of water bodies, we proposed the gated multi-filter inception (GMF-Inception) module in our MFGF-UNet. Moreover, we utilize the attention mechanism by introducing the Gated Channel Transform (GCT) skip connection and integrating GCT into GMF- Inception to further improve model performance. Extensive experiments on three benchmarks, including WIPI, Chengdu and GF2020 datasets demonstrate that our method achieves favorable performance with lower complexity and better robustness against six competing approaches. For example, on WIPI, Chengdu and GF2020 datasets, the proposed MFGF-UNet model achieves F1 of 0.9191, 0.7410, and 0.8421, respectively, which average F1 on three datasets is 0.0045 higher than the U-Net model and reduces 62% average GFLOPs. New WIPI dataset, code and trained models have been released on GitHub

This study aims to evaluate how the operational procedure adopted for the pellets placement and the exposure to subsurface conditions influences the mechanical integrity of bentonite plugs used as barrier elements in the abandonment of petroleum wells. To this end, two methodologies were used to obtain the plugs: from the first methodology, the pellets were immersed in diesel or olefin, which are proposed as displacement fluids in offshore operations, and then, hydrated in deionized water; in the second methodology, representative of onshore operations, the pellets were directly hydrated in deionized water. After that, the plugs were tested by compression and adhesion tests. These mechanical tests were also carried out for test specimens obtained from plugs exposed to four formulations of synthetic formation waters. The results obtained demonstrated that the previous contact with olefin adversely affects the mechanical stability of bentonite plugs, while plugs formed from pellets immersed in diesel presented satisfactory mechanical properties. The mechanical properties of onshore plugs attested the highly successful performance of these elements, once its compressive strength was minimally impacted by exposure to formation waters and more pronounced reductions were observed only in the adhesion properties after the contact with higher salinity formation waters.

Water pollution with dyes is a critical environmental issue because off the huge amount of dyes disbarred annually which cause severe damage for the ecosystem and human life. On the other hand, the core-shell based magnetic materials have showed amazing character for controlling the material synthesis with targeted structure to enhance the adsorptive-removal of pollutants. Herein, Fe3O4 core-TiO2/mesoSiO2 and Fe3O4 core-mesoSiO2/TiO2 double shell nanoparticles were prepared by first (R1) and second (R2) routes. The preparation procedure is controlled to prepare the magnetic core with further coating layers from silica and titania for the uptake of methylene blue from aqueous solutions. The reported adsorption capacities for R1-0.2, R1-0.4 and R2 samples were 46, 38 and 50 mg/g respectively at pH 6 after 80 min contact time form 50 ppm methylene blue solution. The adsorption process of methylene blue onto Fe3O4core-meso SiO2/TiO2 double shell was well fitted with the pseudo-second-order kinetic model and Freundlish isotherm which suggested the quick and multilayer adsorption mechanism. In addition, results of thermodynamic investigation indicated that the surfaces of Fe3O4 core-mesoSiO2/TiO2 and Fe3O4 core-TiO2/mesoSiO2 double shell exhibit spontaneous tendency to adsorb methylene blue from the aqueous solutions. These results will encourage the further application of Fe3O4 core-meso SiO2/TiO2 and Fe3O4 core-TiO2/meso SiO2 double shell for removal of other dyes and pollutants from wastewater.

By definition, a cell is the smallest unit of biological life. This means that every living thing can be fundamentally narrowed down to a composition of cells working together for the furtherance of that being in existence. With the dawn dawn of the evolutionary theory that bespeaks of life commencing some 〜3.8 billion years ago with RNA strands that underwent evolution to become DNA, which led to what we have now as life in the world, or with the Panspermia hypothesis, assuming that life on Earth was seeded from space, what is being considered in this work pertains to the origin of life. In addition to the plethora of intuitive stances that concern the origin story of life, this work will only add to the these. The major hypothesis in this work is that the continuity of life, as pertaining to its procession from parent to offspring provides fundamental links to the origin of life and this is the major consideration that will be given. It is thus apparent that the cells that would be considered are germ cells and not somatic cells. A cursory look at the continuity of life, should give us clues as regards how life originated. We nonetheless, take into consideration the fact that some features due to its non-use have gone extinct, thus taking with them the needed knowledge to breaking even as regards our inquiry. Even at that, we propose that conjectures, hypothetically, can be made based on the physical evidence that is available to us today.

This paper presents a robust method based on graph topology to find the topologically correct and consistent subset of inter-robot relative pose measurements for multi-robot map fusion. However, the absence of good prior gives a severe challenge to distinguish the inliers and outliers, and wrong loop closures can seriously corrupt the fused global map. Existing works mainly rely on the consistency of spatial dimension to select inter-robot measurements, which does not always hold. In this paper, we propose a fast inter-robot loop closure selection method that integrates the consistency and topology relationship of measurements, which both conform to the continuity characteristics of similar scenes and spatiotemporal consistency. The traditional high-dimensional consistency matrix is decomposed into the sub-matrix blocks corresponding to the overlapping trajectory area. Building on this logic, a clustering method involving topology correctness of inter-robot loop closures is introduced to split the entire measurement set into multiple clusters. We define the weight function to find the maximum cardinality subset with topologically correct and consistent, then convert the weight function to a maximum clique problem in the graph and solve it. We evaluate the performance of our method in a simulation and in a real-world experiment. Compared to state-of-the-art methods, the results show that our method can achieve competitive performance in accuracy while reducing computation time by 75%.

There is still a lack of a clinical test to reliably identify patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) being at risk for aspiration. In this prospective, controlled, cross-sectional study we assessed if swallowing speed for water is a useful clinical test to predict aspiration proven by flexible endoscopic evaluation of swallowing (FEES). Due to this we measured the swallowing speed for 90 ml water in 115 consecutive and unselected PD outpatients of all clinical stages and 32 healthy controls. Average swallowing speed was lower in patients compared with controls (6.5 ± 3.9 ml/s vs. 8.5 ± 3.2 ml/s; p < 0.01). The disease-independent widely used threshold of < 10 ml/s showed insufficient sensitivity of 88% and specificity of 19% with unacceptable false-positive rates of 63% for patients and 69% for controls. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was carried out to define a suitable cut-off value for detection of aspiration of water (area under the curve 0.72, p < 0.001) in PD patients. The optimized cut-off value was 5.5 ml/s with a sensitivity of 69% and a specificity of 64%. Overall, measuring swallowing speed is prone to methodological errors and not suitable as a screening instrument to predict aspiration in PD patients.

Inorganic nanoparticles based on magnetite improve the mechanical, thermal, and magnetic properties of microporous cryogel polymer composites. Here we report the synthesis of microporous cryogel based on the crosslinked sodium vinyl sulfonate (Na-VS) and 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropane sulfonic acid sodium salt (Na-AMPS). The magnetite nanoparticles were inserted into Na-VS/Na-AMPS cryogel either during its crosslinking polymerization or by in-situ technique after its crosslinking. The morphology, particle sizes, thermal stability and magnetite contents of Na-VS/Na-AMPS cryogel and its magnetite composites were investigated. The prepared Na-VS/Na-AMPS cryogel and its magnetite composites were used as adsorbents for methylene blue (MB) cationic dye using optimum conditions. The magnetite Na-VS/Na-AMPS cryogel composite prepared by in-situ technique achieved the best adsorption MB removal capacity for 7 cycles among the other adsorbents via chemical adsorption mechanism at room temperature.

Research with deuterium-depleted water (DDW) in the last two decades proved that deuterium/hydrogen ratio has a key role in cell cycle regulation and cellular metabolism. The present study aimed to investigate the possible effect of deuterium-depleted organic compounds (DDOC) alone and in combination with DDW on cancer growth in two in vivo mouse models. To produce DDOC, drinking water of laying hens was replaced with DDW (25 ppm) for 6 weeks, resulting in 60 ppm D level in dried egg yolk that was used as deuterium-depleted food additive. In one model, 4T1, a cell line with high metastatic capacity to the lung, was inoculated in the mice’s mammary pad. After three weeks of treatment with DDW and/or DDOC, the tumor volume in the lungs was smaller in all treated groups vs. controls with natural D level. Tumor growth and survival in mice transplanted with MCF-7 breast cancer cell line showed that the anticancer effect of DDW was enhanced by food containing the deuterium-depleted yolk. The study confirmed the importance of D/H ratio not only in consumed water but also in metabolic water produced by the mitochondria while oxidizing nutrient molecules. This is in line with the concept that initiation of cell growth requires the cells to generate a higher D/H ratio, but DDW, DDOC, or the naturally low-D lipids in a ketogenic diet, have significant effect on tumor growth by preventing the cells from raising D/H ratio to the threshold.

Carbamazepine (CBZ) is one of the most common emerging contaminants released to the aquatic environment through domestic and pharmaceutical wastewater. Due to its high persistence through conventional degradation treatments, is considered a typical indicator for anthropogenic activities. This study tested the removal of CBZ through two different clay-based purification techniques: adsorption of relatively large concentrations (20-500 μmol L-1) and photocatalysis of lower concentrations (&lt;20 μmol L-1). The sorption mechanism was examined by FTIR measurements, exchangeable cations released, and colloidal charge of the adsorbing clay materials. Photocatalysis was performed in batch experiments under various conditions. Despite the neutral charge of carbamazepine, the highest adsorption was observed on negatively charged montmorillonite-based clays. Desorption tests indicate that adsorbed CBZ is not released by washing. The adsorption/desorption processes were confirmed by ATR-FTIR analysis of the clay-CBZ particles. A combination of synthetic montmorillonite or hectorite with low H2O2 concentrations under UVC irradiation exhibits efficient homo-heterogeneous photodegradation at μM CBZ levels. The two techniques presented in this study suggest solutions for both industrial and municipal wastewater, possibly enabling water reuse.

The Roman villa of Pisões (Beja, Portugal), was part of the Lusitanian colony of Pax Iulia. This place stands out for the predominance of the water element in several structures of the villa, highlighting the balneum and the large natatio, one of the largest known in Roman Hispania. The records of the initial excavations that took place since 1967 do not allow the establishment of clear functionalities of the villa. The University of Évora, owner of the site, conceived an action plan for the requalification and enhancement of the archaeological site. One of the tasks aims to investigate using Applied Geophysics. This work analyses the landscape directly related to the villa, given that it is in the flooded area of a river, with a Roman containment dam. It is uncertain whether the water supply comes from this structure or other nearby springs. The use of ground-penetrating radar, combined with unnamed aerial vehicles, all integrated in a geographic information system, allows us to know the location of underground water connections and create a topographic model with high resolution. Considering all the information, we propose a model for the water transport inside the villa and estimate the location of the water supply.

Glacial meltwater has been lifeline of agriculture in Gilgit-Baltistan for centuries which is being effected by the climatic changes and associated challenges. The government line institutions and development agencies have been investing to sustain and further extend the cultivated areas by leveraging the available glacial meltwater source. However, approximately 13% arable land, laying mainly along river banks, has limited access to glacial meltwater. Moreover, already cultivated areas also need alternate and sustainable irrigation water supplies to insurefood security. Hence, there is need to explore more potential options to address these challenges and bringing arable land under irrigation for regional prosperity and environmental gains. The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and its partners piloted solutions for aforementioned issues in Gojal, District Hunza. These solutions included river water lifting through solar and Hydraulic Ram Pumps, uphill water storages and application through drip irrigation systems. In order to assess the technical and economical viabilities of these piloted systems, a semi-structured questionnaire survey, field observation visits to collect data and economic assessment studies were carried out in Morkhun and Khyber. Both piloted systems have been proven as climate resilient, adaptable, environment friendly and economically viable. The cost to benefit ratio for solar powered drip irrigation and Hydraulic Ram Pump drip irrigation systems are 2.96 and 4.21 respectively, with payback period of 9.21 and 8.25 years respectively. The drip irrigation systems at Khyber and Morkhun sites have exhibited excellent hydraulic performance with Coefficient of Uniformity 92.61 and 93 % respectively. However, the field application efficiency of drip irrigation systems estimated for Khyber and Morkhun sites are 85.24 and 88.88% which are lower than the optimal value mainly due to lesser water holding capacity. The Hydraulic Ram Pump can lift four times more water to greater height, while comparing to solar pump of approximately similar capacity and higher capital costs. Both water lifting systems have some limitations and requires local customization for sustainable use.

Recent climate change and water pollution has affected algal diversity resulting in emergence of more tolerant species. They can be the indicators of water quality, pollution and seasonal changes. Present study revealed the green algal diversity and distribution pattern according to water parameters and season in the Lucknow City, India. The water sample were collected from seven sites within Lucknow and outskirts. The occurrence of a total of 36 taxa of green algae belonging to 11 genera are recorded. It has been observed that less polluted water is dominated by Spirogyra; where conductivity, TDS and salinity of water were low. Whereas the more polluted water was dominated by desmids. Dominance index was found highest in site 4 (0.61), where only three taxa were identified; whereas the lowest (0.13) was measured in site 1, where nine taxa were identified. This study also recorded several algal taxa for the first time from Lucknow.

Short-term changes in shallow bathymetry affect the coastal zone and therefore their monitoring is an essential task in coastal planning projects. This study provides a novel approach for monitoring shallow bathymetry change based on drone multispectral imagery. Particularly we apply a shallow water inversion algorithm on two composite multispectral datasets being acquired five months apart in a small Mediterranean sandy embayment (Chania, Greece). Initially, we perform radiometric corrections using proprietary software and following we combine the bands from standard and multispectral cameras resulting in a six-band composite image suitable for applying the shallow water inversion algorithm. Bathymetry inversion results showed good correlation and low errors (< 0.3m) with sonar measurements collected with an uncrewed surface vehicle (USV). Bathymetry maps and true-color orthomosaics assist in identifying morphobathymetric features representing crescentic bars with rip channel systems. The temporal bathymetry and true-color data reveal important erosional and depositional patterns, which were developed under the impact of winter storms. Furthermore, bathymetric profiles show that the crescentic bar appears to migrate across and along-shore over the 5-months period. Drone-based multispectral imagery proves to be an important and cost-effective tool for shallow seafloor mapping and monitoring when it is combined with shallow water analytical models.

As freshwater sources of drinking water become limited cities and urban areas must consider higher-salinity waters as potential sources of drinking water. The Salton Sea in the Imperial Valley of California has a very high salinity (43 ppt), total dissolved solids (70,000 mg/L) and color (1440 CU). Proposals to desalinate the Salton Sea are expected to lower the equilibrium salinity from 45 ppt to 3 ppt yielding significant benefits for ecological restoration. High salinity eutrophic waters such as the Salton Sea are difficult to treat yet more desirable sources of drinking water are not always available. Jar tests were performed to evaluate the treatability of Salton Sea water for potential urban water use by coagulation using aluminum chlorohydrate, ferric chloride and alum. Coagulation-sedimentation proved to be relatively ineffective for lowering turbidity with no clear optimum dose for any of the coagulants tested. Alum was most effective for color removal (28 percent) at a dose of 40 mg/L. Turbidity was removed effectively with 0.45 m and 0.1 m microfiltration. Bench tests of Salton Sea water using Sea Water Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) achieved rejections of 99 percent salinity, 97.7 percent conductivity, 98.6 percent total dissolved solids, 98.7 percent chloride, 65 percent sulfate, and 99.3 percent turbidity.

Wild artisanal cultures, such as SCOBY-based membranes (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeasts) and water kefir grains (WKG), are complex consortia of microorganisms comprising yeasts, lactic and acetic acid bacteria, with a large strains’ diversity and abundance. The fermented products (FPs) obtained by the microbiome’s contribution can be included into functional products due to their metabiotics (pre-, pro-, post-, and paraprobiotics) as a result of the complex and synergistic association as well as due to the metabolic functionality. In this study, both consortia of SCOBY and WKG were involved in the co-fermentation of a new formulated substrate, that was further analysed aiming at increasing of the postbiotic composition of the FPs. Plackett-Burman (PB) and Response Surface Methodology (RSM) techniques were used for the experimental designs to select and optimize the most important parameters that influence the freeze-dried starter cultures of SCOBY and WKG activity as a multiple inoculum. The tea concentration (1-3%), sugar concentration (5-10%), raisins concentration (3-6%), SCOBY lyophilized culture concentration (0.2-0.5%), WKG lyophilized culture concentration (0.2-0.5%), and fermentation time (5-7 days), were considered the independent variables for mathematical analysis and fermentation conditions’ optimization. The pH, total acidity (TA), antioxidant activity (DPPH), and antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli ATCC 25922, Bacillus subtilis MIUG B1, Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923, and Aspergillus niger MIUG M5 were evaluated as responses. The rich postbiotic bioactive composition of the FP obtained in optimized biotechnological conditions highlighted the usefulness of the artisanal co-cultures, through their symbiotic metabolic interactions for the improvement of bioactive potential.

With this article, impact of effluent mixed water with the quality of the Mansagar Lake has been established by evaluating the physico-chemical parameters and the heavy-metal contents experimentally. The process of calculating water quality and the metal pollution quality indices is also explained in brief with respect to selected sample locations and varied environmental conditions (Pre- and Post-Monsoon season). Distribution trends of Pearson‘s correlation factor have also been discussed to establish their relation among the physico-chemical parameters and the heavy-metal contents for varied environmental conditions. In the end, detailed discussion on observations made during this study and useful recommendations are also elaborated in details. With this article, we intend to present a document for better understanding of the water quality of this lake in view of futuristic management strategies to be adopted to maintain it heritage values.

UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goal 6 presents difficulties for small island developing states such as the Kingdom of Tonga, which relies on rainwater and groundwater lenses for freshwater supply. Planning and managing water resources to supply demands in dispersed small islands under variable climate and frequent extreme events is challenging. Tensions between water planning using top-down versus bottom-up processes have long been recognized. Tonga’s overarching national planning instrument is the Tonga Strategic Development Framework, 2015-2025 (TSDFII). This identifies desired national outcomes and is used to direct and resource Ministries and address international and regional commitments. Water supply was a low priority in the three-month consultations that led to TSDFII. Community Development Plans (CDPs), developed by rural villages throughout Tonga’s five Island Groups over nine years, involved participation from 80% of each village population who ranked local priorities. Analysis of priorities in 117 available village CDPs reveals improvements to village water supply was the highest overall priority in all five Island Groups and ranked within the top three priorities by 76% of all villages, with women, youth and men returning figures of 83%, 66% and 80% respectively. The mismatch between top-down and bottom-up priorities appears to result from an urban/rural divide.

To address three important issues related to extraction of water features from Landsat imagery, i.e., selection of water indexes and classification algorithms for image classification, collection of ground truth data for accuracy assessment, this study applied four sets (ultra-blue, blue, green, and red light based) of water indexes (NWDI, MNDWI, MNDWI2, AWEI_ns, and AWEI_s) combined with three types of image classification methods (zero-water index threshold, Otsu, and kNN) to 24 selected lakes across the globe to extract water features from Landsat-8 OLI imagery. 1440 (4x5x3x24) image classification results were compared with the extracted water features from high resolution Google Earth images with the same (or ±1 day) acquisition dates through computing the Kappa coefficients. Results show the kNN method is better than the Otsu method, and the Otsu method is better than the zero-water index threshold method. If the computational cost is not an issue, the kNN method combined with the ultra-blue light based AWEI_ns is the best method for extracting water features from Landsat imagery because it produced the highest Kappa coefficients. If the computational cost is taken into account, the Otsu method is a good choice. AWEI_ns and AWEI_s are better than NDWI, MNDWI and MNDWI2. AWEI_ns works better than AWEI_s under the Otsu method, and the average rank of the image classification accuracy from high to low is the ultra-blue, blue, green, and red light-based AWEI_ns.

Research has been actively conducted on the materials used to commercialize finished products that use hydrogen energy. Hydrogen embrittlement that occurs when hydrogen atoms penetrate metals is the largest problem that must be addressed first regarding safety. Because liquefied hydrogen has an 800 times higher density than hydrogen gas, hydrogen has been stored and transported through liquefaction at -253℃ using helium gas as a refrigerant. However, even if extreme temperatures below zero are maintained, natural vaporization loss that reduces liquefied hydrogen by 3 to 5% of the tank storage capacity per day occurs. In addition, when liquefied hydrogen is converted into high-pressure hydrogen gas for use, it is difficult to completely prevent the loss of the gas, even if sealing technology is applied to prevent gas leaks in transport and storage tanks. Therefore, methods to minimize the loss of hydrogen, establishment of assessment criteria for the embrittlement caused by a small amount of hydrogen gas, and related research are essential. We researched the hydrogen embrittlement resistance of SUS316L rods according to the tensile speed by conducting water electrolysis testing at room temperature, at which hydrogen gas is used to present hydrogen embrittlement assessment criteria for primary ring-shaped forged products.

The assessment of water quality consists of counting bacteria indicating fecal contamination or detecting the presence of pathogenic bacteria using standardized or validated methods of classical microbiology. Our present study aims to determine the bacteriological quality of drilling water in the Tandjilé region of Chad. Our method used was based on qualitative and quantitative research on suspected total coliforms, Echerichia Coli and fecal enterococci were analyzed according to the standard routine methods of the French Association for Normalization (AFNOR). Microbiological analysis shows the presence of indicators of fecal contamination such as total coliforms, Escherichia coli and fecal enterococci. The number of strains detected in 100 ml were E. coli (7 /29 samples), fecal Streptococcus (6 /29 samples) and total coliforms (29/29 samples), respectively from borehole water. The contamination rate of E. coli is 24.13%, total coliforms 100% and 20.68% of fecal enterococci in boreholes. The high number of these microorganisms is more than the values recommended by the WHO for the quality of drinking water. Corrective and urgent measures are needed to improve the quality of these water resources, rich in pathogens, which are health risks, and the causes of infectious diseases such as gastroenteritis, diarrhea, typhoid and skin diseases.

This work presents a numerical study on atmospheric sound propagation over rough water surfaces. A method to generate pseudorandom sea profiles consistent with sea wave spectra is presented. The proposed method is suited to capture the logarithmic nature of the energy distribution of the waves. Sea profiles representing fully developed seas for sea states 2, 3, 4 and 5 are generated from the Elfouhaily et al. (ECKV) sea wave spectra. Excess attenuation caused by refraction and surface roughness is predicted with a parabolic equation (PE) solver. A novel method to estimate equivalent effective impedance based on PE predictions at different sea states is presented. Parametric expressions using acoustic frequency and significant wave height are developed for effective surface impedances. In this work, sea surface roughness is on a scale comparable to the acoustic wavelength. Under this condition, the acoustic scattering is primarily incoherent. This work shows the limitations of using an equivalent surface impedance in such incoherent scattering cases.

2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) is a globally used herbicide and is frequently found in water samples. This fact has prompted studies on its effects in non-target organisms, revealing significant alterations on liver structure and function. In this review, we evaluated the literature on the hepatotoxicity of 2,4-D, focusing on morphological damages, biomarkers of toxicity and affected liver functions. Searches were conducted on PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus and 83 articles were selected after curation. Among the studies, 72% used in vivo models and 30% used in vitro models. Additionally, 48% used the active ingredient, and 35% used commercial formu-lations in exposure experiments. The most affected biomarkers were related to a decrease in an-tioxidant capacity, including alterations in the activities of catalase and superoxide dismutase, and in the levels of malondialdehyde. Changes in energy metabolism, lipids, liver function, and xenobiotic metabolism were also identified. Furthermore, we found studies about the effects of 2,4-D in mixtures with other pesticides, as well as hepatoprotection trials. The reviewed data in-dicate that the reduction in antioxidant capacity and oxidative stress play an important role in 2,4-D-induced hepatotoxicity. However, the mechanism of action of the herbicide is still not ful-ly understood and further research in this area is needed.

In order to realize the sustainable utilization of water resources and the sustainable development of economy, the evaluation index system of water use efficiency system and economic development system was constructed. Entropy weight method and comprehensive evaluation method were adopted to determine the index weights and conduct comprehensive evaluation for the two systems. The coupling coordination model was used to calculate the coupling degree, coordination degree and coupling coordination degree of the two systems. The annual coupling stage and coupling coordination intensity of the two systems were analyzed and determined. The results showed that the comprehensive evaluation values of both water use efficiency system and economic development system in Jinan City increased greatly from 2008 to 2017, and showed a changing trend of ups and downs. The two systems were in the antagonistic stage, and were gradually approaching the running-in stage, indicating that they were in the state of common development. The coupling coordination degree of the two systems gradually increased in waves, progressed from the moderately to the highly coordinated coupling. In the future, if the water control path appropriate to Jinan City can be explored actively, the water-saving kinetic energy of economic development can be increased constantly, and the linkage effect between economic development and water resources utilization can be given full play to, the two systems will be in the orbit with the benign interaction and healthy harmonious development.

In arid and semi-arid regions like Tunisia, irrigation water is typically saline, posing a soil and crop salinization risk and yield reduction. This research aims to study the combined effects of soil matric and osmotic potential stresses on tomato root water uptake. Plants were grown in pot and field experiments in loamy-clay soils and were irrigated with three different irrigation water qualities: 0, 3.5, and 7 dS/m. The Hydrus-1D model was used to simulate the combined dynamics of subsurface soil water and salts. Successful calibration and validation of the model against measured water and salt profiles enabled the examination of the combined effects of osmotic and matric potential stresses on root water uptake. Relative yields, indirectly estimated from actual and potential transpiration, indicated that the multiplicative stress response model effectively simulated measured yields and the impact of saline water irrigation on crop yields. The gradual salinization of the root zone further evidenced this effect. The scenario considering a temperature increase of 2°C had no significant impact on crop yields in the pot and field experiments.

The biodegradability of water hyacinth for biogas and biofertiliser production was studied under mesophilic conditions. The effects of water hyacinth pre-treatments were also included in this investigation. It was found that water hyacinth has a low biodegradability of 27% when monodigested while at a 3:1 ratio with cow manure, the biodegradability increases to 46%. At this elevated biodegradability, the water hyacinth biomethane potential was 185 LCH4/kgVS, while that of cow manure was 216 LCH4/kgVS. The Gompertz kinetic model had superior parameters than the Logistic model for most of the water hyacinth-cow manure combined substrate digestion. Based on the Gompertz model, the lag phase and daily maximum methane production rate were 5.5 days and 22.9 ml /day respectively for the 3:1 codigestion (R2 of 0.99). These values were 6.7 days and 15.2 ml/day respectively, in the case of water hyacinth monodigestion (R2 = 0.996). The dominant microbial species detected in the digestates were Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria. A few microbial species were indigenous to water hyacinth but a more diverse consortia which is key to efficient substrate biodegradation, came from cow manure. The digestate contained ammonium nitrogen at 68 mg/kg with phosphorous and potassium at 73 and 424 mg/kg respectively. Nitrogen was lower but phosphorous and pottasium were comparable to previously studied digestates of other substrates. Only water hyacinth pretreated through aerobic composting proved to unlock a higher methane yield that matched a 3:1 codigestion with cow manure. Other pretreatments induced better biodegradation performance than that observed on untreated water hyacinth but this improvements were not as good as that of the 3:1 codigestion scheme. It was concluded that water hyacinth sourced from the Hartbeespoort dam, could be treated through anaerobic digestion to recover biogas and biofertilizer. However, more experiments are required to fully understand and harness the optimisation opportunities available in applying this technology to manage water hyacinth.

Abstract: Currently, thermal power is the largest source of power in the world. Although the impacts of climate change on cooling water sufficiency in thermal power plants have been extensively assessed globally and regionally, their economic consequences have seldom been evaluated. In this study, the Asia-Pacific Integrated Model Computable General Equilibrium model (AIM/CGE) was used to evaluate the economic consequences of projected future cooling water insufficiency on a global basis, which was simulated using the H08 global hydrological model. This approach enabled us to investigate how the physical impacts of climate change on thermal power generation influence economic activities in regions and industrial sectors. To account for the uncertainty of climate change projections, five global climate models and two representative concentration pathways (RCPs 2.6 and 8.5) were used. The ensemble-mean results showed that the global gross domestic product (GDP) loss in 2070–2095 due to cooling water insufficiency in the thermal power sector was −0.21% (−0.12%) in RCP8.5 (RCP2.6). Among the five regions, the largest GDP loss of −0.57% (−0.27%) was observed in the Middle East and Africa. Medium-scale losses of −0.18% (−0.12%) and −0.14% (−0.12%) were found in OECD90 (the member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development as of 1990) and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, respectively. The smallest losses of −0.05% (−0.06%) and −0.09% (−0.08%) were found in Latin America and Asia, respectively. The economic impact of cooling water insufficiency was non-negligible and should be considered as one of the threats induced by climate change.

Inland waters pose a unique challenge for water quality monitoring by remote sensing techniques due to their complicated spectral features and small-scale variability. At the same time, collecting the high-quality reference data needed to calibrate remote sensing data products is both time consuming and expensive. In this study, we present the further development of a robotic team composed of an uncrewed surface vessel (USV) providing in situ reference measurements and an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipped with a hyperspectral imager. Together, this team is able to address the limitations of existing approaches by enabling the simultaneous collection of comprehensive in situ data together with high-resolution hyperspectral imagery. We showcase the capabilities of this team using data collected in a north Texas pond during three collections in the fall of 2020. Machine learning models for 13 variables are trained using the data set of paired in situ measurements and coincident reflectance spectra. These models can successfully estimate physical variables, including temperature, conductivity, pH, and turbidity, as well as the concentrations of blue-green algae, colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM), chlorophyll-a, crude oil, optical brighteners and the ions Ca2+, Cl−, and Na+. We extend the training procedure to utilize conformal prediction to estimate 90% confidence intervals for the output of each trained model. The maps generated by applying each trained model to the collected images reveal the small-scale spatial variability within the pond. Additionally, the permutation importance computed for each feature of the trained models highlights the spectral features relevant to each water quality variable.

This study focuses on the modification of ion-exchange membranes by incorporating phosphorylated dendrimer into sulfonated polytetrafluoroethylene membranes to enhance specific selectivity between mono-/divalent ions, using the Ca2+/Na+ pair as an example. The research employs mechanical, physico-chemical, and electrochemical analyses to explore the effects of P-H20 incorporation on membrane properties. Bulk modification significantly increases membrane selectivity towards calcium ions (specific permselectivity coefficient rises from 1.5 to 7.2), while maintaining the same level of the limiting current density. Other findings indicate that bulk modification significantly changes the transport-channel structure of the membrane and alters the mechanism of over-limiting mass transfer. The over-limiting current for the pristine membrane is mainly due to non-equilibrium electroconvection, while modified membranes actively participate in the water-splitting reaction, leading to the suppression of the electroconvection. Despite this drawback, the decrease of the over-limiting potential drop results in a decrease in specific energy consumption from 0.11 to 0.07 kWh/mol. In the under-limiting current mode, the specific energy consumption for all studied membranes remains within the same limits of 0.02-0.03 kWh/mol.

Soil nitrite (NO2‒) is an important reactive intermediate in many nitrogen transformation processes, but it is unstable under acidic conditions. Canonical extraction method of soil NO2‒ with potassium chloride (KCl) solution greatly underestimates its concentration. In order to reflect the concentration more accurately, we optimized the extraction method of soil NO2‒ in this study. Moreover, soil ammonium (NH4+) and nitrate (NO3‒) were also systematically investigated to achieve efficient extraction of soil inorganic nitrogen. The results showed that un-buffered KCl significantly underestimated soil NO2‒ concentration compared to DIW. The highest recovery of NO2‒ was obtained by extracting with DIW at 10 min of oscillation for three soils. Compared with DIW, the concentration of NH4+ and NO3‒ in soil extracted from KCl solution increased significantly. Furthermore, the soil inorganic nitrogen content of extracts stored at 4°C for one day were closer to directly measurements of fresh samples than the other storage methods. Overall, the recommend analysis method for soil NO2‒ was extracted by DIW, oscillated for 10 min, and filtered by a 0.45 µm filter, and soil NH4+ and NO3‒ were extracted with KCl solution and oscillated for 30 min. The extract should be stored at 4°C and analyzed within 24 hours.

Although the European reports highlight an increase in community-acquired Legionnaires’ disease cases, the risk of Legionella spp. in private houses is underestimated. In Pisa (Italy) we performed a three-year survey on Legionella presence in 121 buildings with an independent hot water production (IB); 64 buildings with a central hot water production (CB); and 35 buildings with a solar thermal system for hot water production (TB). From all the 220 buildings Legionella spp. was researched in two hot water samples collected either at the recirculation point or at on the first floor and on the last floor, while the potable water quality was analyzed in three cold water samples collected at the inlet from the aqueduct network, at the exit from the autoclave, and at the most remove remote? tap. Legionella pneumophila sg1, Legionella pneumophila sg2-16 and not-pneumophila Legionella species were detected in 26% of the hot water networks, mostly in CB and TB. In these buildings we detected correlations between the presence of Legionella and the total chlorine concentration decrease or/and the increase of the temperature. Cold water resulted free from microbiological hazards, with the exception of Serratia liquefaciens and Enterobacter cloacae isolated at the exit from two different autoclaves. We observed an increase in total microbial counts at 22 and 37°C between the samples collected at the most remote taps compared to the ones collected at the inlet from the aqueduct. The study highlights a condition of potential risk for susceptible categories of population and supports the need for measures of risk assessment and control.

Accurate knowledge of the rain amount is an crucial driver in several hydro-meteorological applications. This is especially true in complex orography territories, which are typically impervious, thus leaving ungauged most of the mountain areas. Thanks to their spatial and temporal coverage, weather radars can potentially overcome such an issue. However, weather radar, if not accurately processed, can suffer from several limitations (e.g., beam blocking, altitude of the observation, path attenuation, indirectness of the measurement) that can hamper the reliability of the rain estimates performed. In this study, a comparison between rain gauge and weather radar retrievals is performed in the target area of the Abruzzo region in Italy, which is characterized by a heterogeneous orography ranging from the sea side to Apennine ridge. Consequently, the Abruzzo region has an inhomogeneous distribution of the rain gauges, with station density decreasing with the altitude reaching up to approximately 1500 m a.s.l. Notwithstanding, pluviometric inflow spatial distribution shows a sub-regional dependency as a function of four climatic and altimetric factors: coastal, hilly, mountain, and inner plain areas (i.e., Marsica). Such areas are used in this analysis to characterize the radar retrieval vs. rain gauge amounts in each of those zones. Compared to previous studies on the topic, the analysis presented an attention to the importance of an accurate selection of the climatic and altimetric sub-regional areas where undertake the radar vs. rain gauge comparison. This aspect is not only of great importance to correct biases in radar retrievals in a more selective way, but it also paves the way for more accurate hydro-meteorological applications (e.g., hydrological model initialization, quantify the aquifers recharge etc.) which, in general, require the accurate knowledge of rain amounts upstream of a basin. To fill the gap caused by the uneven rain gauge distribution, Ordinary Kriging has been applied on a regional scale to obtain 2D maps of rainfall data, which are cumulated on a monthly and yearly base. Weather radar data from the Italian mosaic are considered as well, in terms of rain rate retrievals and cumulations performed on the same time frame used for rain gauges. The period considered for the analysis is two continuous years: 2017 and 2018. The output of the elaborations are raster maps for both radar and interpolated rain gauges, where every pixel contains a rainfall quantity. Although the results show a general underestimation in the weather radar data especially in mountain and Marsica areas, even though within the 95% confidence interval of the OK estimation. Our analysis highlights that the average bias between radar and rain gauges, in terms of precipitation amounts, is a function of altitude and is almost constant in each of the selected areas. This achievement suggests that after a proper selection of homogeneous target areas, the radar retrievals can be corrected using the denser network of rain gauges typically distributed at lower altitudes and extend such correction at higher altitudes without loss of generality.

Two types of trenches cross-section in conventional vertical and brand new reverse-V-shape have fabricated on SCD substrate by micro-jet water-assist laser, the epitaxial lateral overgrowth technique has applied by microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition system in forming multiple micrometer-size channels. Raman and SEM techniques have applied in analyze both types growth layer characterization. Optical microscope has used to test microchannels hollowness. As a result, with the brand new reverse-V-shape trench, epitaxial lateral overgrowth layer reaches higher SCD surface morphology and crystal quality.

Recent prolonged dry periods and lack of irrigation water have severely affected the productivity of coffee farms’ in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. This paper analyzes the efficiency of irrigation water use for Robusta coffee (Coffea canephora) in Lam Dong province, Highlands, Vietnam. A Cobb-Douglas production function was used to determine coffee productivity’s response to the application of irrigation water and other production factors using data collected from 194 farmers while the Technical Efficiency (TE) and Irrigation Water Use Efficiency (IWUE) were analyzed using a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model. The correlation of different factors to IWUE was determined using the Tobit model. The production function analysis using Cobb-Douglas shows that the volume of irrigation water, amount of working capital, labor and farm size significantly influence coffee productivity. It also shows that indigenous farmers are more efficient in utilizing irrigation water than the (mostly Kinh) migrant farmers. The Tobit result, on the other hand. indicates that farmers’ experience, education level, distance of farm to water source, security of access to water source, extension contact and credit access significantly affect IWUE. The study findings further suggest that mitigating water shortages in coffee farms require sub-regional and national policy support such as better access to credit and extension services, training, land management and household-level effort to improve farming practices, through the application of appropriate technologies and traditional knowledge.

The paper considers the issues of structural stability, electronic properties, and phonon dispersion of the cubic, tetragonal, and monoclinic phases of ZrO2. It was found that the monoclinic phase of zirconium dioxide is the most stable among the other two phases in terms of total energy, lowest enthalpy, highest entropy, and other thermodynamic values. The smallest negative modes were found for m-ZrO2. An analysis of the electronic properties showed that during the m–t phase transformation of ZrO2, the Fermi level first shifts by 0.125 eV towards higher energies, and then decreases by 0.08 eV in the t–c cross section. The band gap for c-ZrO2, t-ZrO2, and m-ZrO2 is 5.140 eV, 5.898 eV, and 5.288 eV, respectively. Calculations based on the analysis of the influence of doping 3.23, 6.67, 10.35 and 16.15 mol. %Y2O3 on the m-ZrO2 structure showed that the enthalpy of m-YSZ decreases linearly, which accompanies further stabilization of monoclinic ZrO2 and an increase in their defectiveness. In this case, the position of the Fermi level changes abruptly, and the energy gap decreases. It has been established that not only for pure systems, including those doped with Y2O3, the main contribution to the formation of the conduction band is made by the p-states of electrons. An analysis of the mechanism of water adsorption on the surface of t-ZrO2 (101) and t-YSZ (101) showed that H2O on unstabilized t-ZrO2 (101) is adsorbed dissociatively with an energy of -1.22 eV, as well as by the method of molecular chemisorption with an energy of -0.69 eV and the formation of a hydrogen bond with a bond length of 1.01 Å. In the case of t-YSZ (101), water is molecularly adsorbed onto the surface with an energy of -1.84 eV. Dissociative adsorption of water occurs at an energy of -1.23 eV, near the yttrium atom.

This experiment aimed to investigate the impact of malic acid (MA) and citric acid (CA) on the nutritional composition, fermentation quality, rumen degradation rate, and microbial diversity of a mixture of apple pomace and corn protein powder during ensiling. The experiment used apple pomace and corn protein powder as raw materials, with four groups: control group (CON), malic acid treatment group (MA, 10g/kg), citric acid treatment group (CA, 10g/kg), and citric acid + malic acid treatment group (MA, 10g/kg + CA, 10g/kg), subjected to mixed ensiling for 60 days. The results indicated: (1) Compared to the CON group, the crude protein content significantly increased in the MA, CA, and MA+CA groups (p < 0.05), with the highest content observed in the MA+CA group. The addition of MA and CA effectively reduced the water-soluble carbohydrate (WSC) content (p < 0.05). Simultaneously, the CA group showed a decreasing trend in NDFom and hemicellulose content (p = 0.08; p = 0.09). (2) Compared to the CON group, the pH significantly decreased in the MA, CA, and MA+CA groups (p < 0.01), and the three treatment groups exhibited a significant increase in lactic acid and acetic acid content (p < 0.01). The quantity of lactic acid bacteria increased significantly (p < 0.01), with the MA+CA group showing a more significant increase than the MA and CA groups (p < 0.05). (3) Compared to the CON group, the in situ dry matter disappearance (ISDMD) significantly increased in the MA, CA, and MA+CA groups (p < 0.05). All three treatment groups showed highly significant differences in in situ crude protein disappearance (ISCPD) compared to the CON group (p < 0.01). (4) Good's Coverage for all experimental groups was greater than 0.99, meeting the conditions for subsequent sequencing. Compared to the CON group, the Shannon index significantly increased in the CA group (P < 0.01), and the Simpson index increased significantly in the MA group (p < 0.05). However, there was no significant difference in the Chao index among the three treatment groups and the CON group (p > 0.05). At the genus level, the abundance of Lentilactobacillus in the MA, CA, and MA+CA groups was significantly higher than in the control group (p < 0.05). PICRUSt prediction results indicated that the metabolic functional microbial groups in the CA and MA treatment groups were significantly higher than in the CON group (p < 0.05), suggesting that the addition of MA or CA could reduce the loss of nutritional components such as protein and carbohydrates in mixed ensilage. In conclusion, the addition of malic acid and citric acid to a mixture of apple pomace and corn protein powder during ensiling reduces nutritional losses, improves fermentation quality and rumen degradation rate, enhances the diversity of the microbial community in ensiled feed, and improves microbial structure. The combined addition of malic acid and citric acid demonstrates a superior effect.

Here, we report on ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) generated by nanosecond pulsed laser (Nd:YAG, 1064 nm) through ablation of metallic Zn target in water and air and their comparative analysis as potential nanomaterials for biomedical applications. The prepared nanomaterials were carefully characterized in terms of their structure, composition, morphology and defects. It was found that in addition to the main wurtzite ZnO phase, which is conventionally prepared and reported by others, the sample laser-generated in air also contained some amount of monoclinic zinc hydroxynitrate. Both nanomaterials were then used to modify model wound dressings based on biodegradable poly-L-lactic acid. The as-prepared model dressings were tested as biomedical materials with bactericidal properties towards S. aureus and E. coli strains. The advantages of the NPs prepared in air over their counterparts generated in water found in this work are discussed.

The investigation of the spatiotemporal propagation characteristics of the "meteorological-agricultural-hydrological" drought system, under diverse climatic conditions, is crucial for the development of a robust drought warning system and the effective implementation of proactive drought prevention and resilience strategies. To achieve this, the current study utilizes the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model to simulate key components of the watershed water cycle, such as evaporation, surface water, soil water, and groundwater. Specifically, the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), the Standardized Soil Moisture Index (SSMI), and the Nonlinear Joint Hydrological Drought Index (NJHDI) are employed to characterize meteorological drought, agricultural drought, and hydrological drought, respectively. By analyzing the correlation between these types of drought, the propagation characteristics of the "meteorological-agricultural-hydrological" drought system are elucidated using the rigorous strongest correlation coefficient method. The Yellow River Basin (YRB) is chosen as the case study for this research. Results showed that (1) The propagation time from meteorological to agricultural drought exhibited distinct seasonal characteristics, with durations of 5-6 months in spring, 2-3 months in summer, 3-5 months in autumn, and 6-8 months in winter. Compared to 1961-1990, the propagation time increased in spring and summer but decreased in autumn and winter during 1991-2010 for most YRB regions. (2) The agricultural to hydrological drought propagation showed no clear seasonal differences but increased over time. Specifically, zone C (arid/semi-arid with moderate temperatures) had shorter propagation time of 1-5 months, while zones B (transitional plateau to mid-latitude) and E (semi-arid/semi-humid temperate continental climate) experienced longer propagation time of 7-12 months. (3) Despite the extended timescales, agricultural-hydrological drought correlation was weaker than meteorological-agricultural linkage. This is because meteorological deficits directly reduce soil moisture, rapidly inducing agricultural drought. However, groundwater sustaining baseflow during agricultural drought delays streamflow deficits, prolonging the agricultural-hydrological propagation time.

The microstructure and hardness along the thickness direction of a water quenched, high-strength thick plate with a thickness of 40 mm were investigated with three specimens from the thick plate: surface, 1/4t, and 1/2t (center) thickness, and the phase transformation behavior of the thick plate according to the cooling rate was analyzed through dilatometric experiments. Finally, the cooling rate for each thickness of the thick plate was estimated by comparing the microstructure and hardness of the thick plate along the thickness with those of the dilatometric specimens. Martensite microstructure was observed on the surface of the water quenched thick plate due to the fast cooling rate. On the other hand, an inhomogeneous microstructure was transformed inside the thick plate due to the relatively slow cooling rate and central segregation of Mn. A small fraction of bainite was shown at 1/4t thickness. A banded microstructure with martensite and bainite resulting from Mn segregation was developed at 1/2t; that is, the full martensite microstructure was transformed in the Mn-enriched area even at a slow cooling rate due to high hardenability, but a bainite microstructure was formed in the Mn-depleted area owing to relatively low hardenability. A portion of martensite with fine cementite at the surface and 1/4t was identified as auto-tempered martensite with a Bagaryatskii orientation relationship between the ferrite matrix and cementite. The microstructure and hardness as well as dilatation were investigated at various cooling rates through a dilatometric experiment, and a continuous cooling transformation (CCT) diagram was finally presented for the thick plate. Comparing the microstructure and hardness at the surface, 1/4t, and 1/2t of the thick plate with those of dilatometric specimens cooled at various cooling rates, it was estimated that the surface of the thick plate was cooled at more than 20 oC/s, whereas the 1/4t region was cooled at approximately 5 ~ 10 oC/s during water quenching.

Drinking water, in addition to the best-known chemical and biological agents, contains radionuclides of both natural and artificial origin, which can contribute significantly to the overall effective dose received by the population. The Italian Decree Law 28/2016, implementing 2013/51/EURATOM Directive, establishes the activities for risk management and the parameter values for different radionuclides activity concentrations. In addition to the institutions involved, annually the National Inspectorate for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection (ISIN), publishes the monitoring reports of environmental radioactivity in Italy, including radioactivity in drinking water. The purpose of the study was to integrate ISIN reports with 2018 to 2020 data by collecting measurements performed by institutional laboratories to obtain a more complete information and adding, for the Campania region, some data not yet published. This new updated report was not significantly different from ISIN’s one, meaning that those publications are nevertheless extremely representative of the radioactivity in Italian drinking water. However, the study allowed to obtain a more detailed data also including measurements not considered in ISIN reports, for instance, radon-222 activity concentrations. This may be of great usefulness for all radiation protection stakeholders in order to ensure environmental protection, pollution prevention and the population safety.

Current problem facing researchers globally is microplastics as well as toxic chemical pollution of the ecosystem. Microplastics carry toxic chemicals in the ecosystem.serving as a vector for transport. In this study, a review of the literature has been conducted with the following objectives: (1) to summarise the concentrations of toxic chemicals such heavy metals and hydrophobic organic contaminants sorped on microplastics; (2) to evaluate their spatial distribution regarding adsorbed contaminant (3) to discuss plausible mechanism by which microplastics adsorp or desorp toxic chemicals in the environment; (4) to discuss implications of their occurrence in air, water and soil media; and (5) to discuss the impact of ingested microplastics to human health. Microplastics are ubiquitous environmental contaminant. Concentrations of sorped toxic chemical varied with location which represents a local problem; industrialized areas (especially areas experiencing crude oil related activities or have history of crude oil pollution) have higher concentrations than less industrialized areas. Ingestion of microplastics has been demonstrated in a range of marine and soil organisms as well as edible plants, thus possible contaminating the base of the food-web. Potential health effect to human is by particle localization, chemical toxicity and microbal toxins. We conclude by highlighting the gap in knowledge and suggesting key future areas of research for scientists and policymakers.

The sustainability of irrigated agriculture depends on the quality of irrigation water used. The electrolyte concentration (EC) of irrigation water may lead to the accumulation of salts in the root zone layers and affect the physiological functions of the crop by osmotic and ion toxicity effects. Further, the cationic and anionic composition of the water may alter the exchangeable cation composition of the soil and as well as its pH. Because of the dominance of sodium salts in many sources of irrigation water, parameters related to sodium such as exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP) of soils and sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) of soil solutions have been commonly used to study the effects of sodium in irrigation water on soil structural stability. Quirk and Schofield concept of ‘threshold electrolyte concentration’ (TEC) has shown the importance of electrolytes in preventing the effects of sodium on soil structure. Based on this concept, several models have been proposed to relate ESP or SAR with EC to predict the possible impacts of irrigation water on soil structural stability. However, many research reports indicate that this relationship varies with soils and a given model is not suitable for all types of soils. Further, the effects of potassium and magnesium in the processes leading to clay dispersion are disregarded in these models. This essay analyses all the factors involved in the structural failure of soils with different cationic composition, identify the defects in these TEC models and re-defines TEC on the basis of new insights on dispersive and flocculating charges of soils. This review does not deal with EC effects on crops and also the role of contaminant ions not involved with soil structural stability.

The photocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) by water splitting has been studied, using catalysts based on TiO2 nanowires (TiO2NWs), which were synthesized by a hydrothermal procedure. This nanomaterial was subsequently modified by incorporating different loadings of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) on the surface, previously exfoliated MoS2 nanosheets, and CeO2 nanoparticles (CeO2NPs). These nanomaterials, as well as the different synthesized catalysts, were characterized by electron microscopy (HR-SEM and HR-TEM), XPS, XRD, Raman, Reflectance and BET surface area. HER studies were performed in aqueous solution, under irradiation at different wavelengths, which were selected through the appropriate use of optical filters. The results obtained show that there is a synergistic effect between the different nanomaterials of the catalysts. The specific area of the catalyst, and especially the increased loading of MoS2 and CeO2NPs in the catalyst substantially improved the H2 production. Recyclability studies showed only a decrease in activity of approx. 7% after 15 cycles of use, which opens many possibilities regarding the potential use and scaling of these heterostructures in photocatalytic production of H2 from water.

Keenjhar Lake is the main source of drinking water for the metropolitan city of Karachi. The release of untreated wastewater from Kotri industrial area and other sources have made the lake water polluted. This study was subjected to determine the impacts of such pollutant sources on the water quality of Keenjhar Lake. The study involves the analysis of water quality parameters of Keenjhar Lake and its Feeding source (KB Feeder). The sampling sites were selected based on the sources of contamination. The water samples are tested for physical, chemical and microbiological parameters. The result of water analysis indicates the contamination level of the lake is quite alarming for the sites of Kotri effluent and WAPDA colony where Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), Chloride and other ionic metals were quite higher in concentration than other sites. These sites are also contaminated with Fluoride and Arsenic which are carcinogenic elements. The study reveals that the contamination level of feeding source is causing big non-reversible damage to the lake if continued to be uncontrolled. This contamination is mainly due to the release of toxic metals and ions in the KB feeder caused by human carelessness.

The anthropogenic deterioration of aquatic ecosystems affects water resources due to agricultural malpractices, pollution from domestic septic tanks, recreational activities, and poor watershed management, among others. This study examines the management of Las Curias Reservoir (176,974 m2), San Juan, Puerto Rico, post the 2016 arrival of the invasive aquatic fern Salvinia molesta. In December 2019, a community-led initiative introduced the Cyrtobagous salviniae weevil, an effective biological control agent for S. molesta, and commenced a mechanical removal campaign using an aquatic harvester. Limnological sampling (September 2019 to March 2022) and drone flights were employed to measure physicochemical and floating plant cover changes, respectively, in the reservoir. Monitoring of weevils in the reservoir demonstrated a rapid establishment and dispersal, which resulted in visible damage including browning of plants and eventually sinking of entire mats. By January 29, 2021, 71% (125,652 m2) of the reservoir surface was covered by salvinia. In 2022, the reservoir recorded an average dissolved oxygen concentration of 2.38 mg/L -1 (± 0.021, n = 144), the highest in the study period and indicative of ecosystem recovery. After three years of control efforts, dissolved oxygen, pH, and specific conductance returned to levels recorded prior to Salvinia molesta introduction. This ecosystem recovery, a first in Puerto Rico, could be attributed to an early use of mechanical control and a long-term impact of biological control.

This study aimed to elucidate the antibacterial efficacy and unique chemical compositions generated from plasma-activated water (PAW) when utilized a novel vaginal cleansing device. We conducted an analysis of antibacterial activity against probiotics and several chemical compositions including ions under various operational parameters of PAW, including electrical power (12 and 24 V), treatment duration (1, 10, and 20 min), and stay duration (immediate, 30 and 60 min). Our findings revealed that as treatment duration increased, hypochlorous acid (HOCl), Ca2+, and Mg2+ concentrations increased and Cl−concentrations decreased. Higher electrical power and longer treatment duration resulted in increased HOCl levels, which acts to prevent the growth of general microorganisms. Notably, PAW exhibited no antibacterial effects against a type of probiotic, Lactobacillus reuteri that produces lactic acid for vaginal health. This result demonstrated the ability of the vaginal cleaning device to generate ions, primarily HOCl and some cations (Ca2+ and Mg2+), thereby providing vaginal mucosa protecting and cleansing effects with the vaginal environment.

Rapid draw-down in an earthfill dam has serious implications for dam safety regarding slope stability. The evaluation of reservoir draw-down impact on slope stability was carried out considering the case study of 8 hours of rapid draw-down of the Middle Marsyangdi Hydroelectric Power Project (MMHPP) rock-fill dam using the Limit Equilibrium Method (LEM) and stress-based Finite Element Method (FEM). The time-dependent factor of safety (FOS) was evaluated and found that the 8 hours of rapid draw-down undertaken in October 2012 for reservoir flushing was unsafe with a draw-down rate of 1.91m/h. The resulting FOS of 1.28 and 1.27 using LEM and FEM was classified as unsafe as per the US Army Corps of Engineers’ guideline, the minimum required factors of safety should be greater than 1.3. The minimum safe allowable draw-down rate of 0.76m/h for 20 hours was identified. Applying three layers of horizontal filter materials and increasing the upstream dam’s permeability provided adequate FOS results for all cases by increasing seepage discharge to reduce the destabilizing excess pore water pressure. Several gradual draw-down rates were also tested and found that FOS increases with decreased draw-down rates, as it reduces the excess pore water pressure controlled with stabilizing existing water load.

During the development of horizontal wells in bottom water reservoirs, the strong heterogeneity of reservoir permeability leads to premature bottom water breakthrough at locations with high permeability in the horizontal wellbore, and the water content rises rapidly, which seriously affects production. In order to cope with this problem, a new technology has emerged in recent years that utilizes gravel filling to block the flow in the annulus between the horizontal well and the borehole, and utilizes the Inflow Control Device (ICD) completion tool to carry out segmental water control in horizontal wells. Unlike conventional horizontal well ICD completions that use packers for segmentation, gravel pack combined with ICD completions breaks the original seg-mentation routine and increases the complexity of production dynamic simulation. In this paper, the flow in different spatial dimensions such as reservoir, gravel packed layer, ICD completion section and horizontal wellbore is modeled separately, and the annular pressure at different locations is used as the solution variable for the coupled solution, which realizes the prediction of oil production, water production and water content of gravel pack combined with ICD completions of horizontal wells. The model was used to calculate the effects of different crude oil viscosities, different reservoir permeabilities, different permeabilities of gravel packed layers, and different development stages on the water control effects of gravel pack combined ICD completions and conventional ICD completions at field conditions. This study provides a basis for using gravel pack combined ICD completions in horizontal wells in bottom water reservoirs.

Arabinoxylans (AXs) are non-starch polysaccharides with complex structures naturally occurring in grains (i.e., barley, corn, and others) providing many health benefits, especially as prebiotics. AXs can be classified as water-extractable (WEAX) and water-unextractable (WUAX) based on their solubility, with properties influenced by grain sources and extraction methods. A large body of evidence shows that AXs exert an im-portant health impact, including glucose and lipid metabolism regulation and immune system enhancement, which is induced by the interactions between AXs and the gut microbiota. Recent research underscores the dependence of AX physiological effects on structure, advocating for a deeper understanding of struc-ture-activity relationships. While systematic studies on WEAX are prevalent, knowledge gaps persist re-garding WUAX, despite its higher grain abundance. Thus, this review reports recent data on WUAX struc-tural properties (chemical structure, branching, MW) in cereals under different treatments. It discusses WUAX applications in baking and its benefits deriving from gut fermentation.

We describe the direct formation of mixed-phase (1T and 2H) MoS2 layers on Si as a photocathode via atomic layer deposition (ALD) for application in the photoelectrochemical (PEC) reduction of water to hydrogen. Without typical series-metal interfaces between Si and MoS2, our p-Si/SiOx/MoS2 photocathode showed efficient and stable operation in hydrogen evolution reactions (HERs). The resulting performance could be explained by spatially genuine device architectures in three dimensions (that is, laterally homo and vertically heterojunction structures). The ALD-grown MoS2 overlayer with the mixed-phase 1T and 2H homojunction passivates light absorber and surface states and functions as a monolithic structure for effective charge transport within MoS2. It is also beneficial in the operation of p-i-n heterojunctions with inhomogeneous barrier heights due to the presence of mixed-phase cocatalysts. The effective barrier heights reached up to 0.8 eV with optimized MoS2 thicknesses, leading to a 670 mV photovoltage enhancement without employing buried Si p-n junctions. The fast-transient behaviors via light illumination show that the mixed-phase layered chalcogenides can serve as efficient cocatalysts by depinning the Fermi levels at the interfaces. A long-term operation of ~ 70 h was also demonstrated in a 0.5 M H2SO4 solution.

Initial water content significantly affects the efficiency of soil stabilization. In this study, the effects of initial water content on the compressibility, strength, microstructure and composition of a lean clay soil stabilized by compound calcium-based stabilizer were investigated by static compaction test, unconfined compression test, optical microscope observations, environment scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction spectroscopy. The results indicate that as the initial water content increases in the range studied, both the compaction energy and the maximum compaction force decrease linearly and there are less soil aggregates or agglomerations, and smaller proportion of large pores in the compacted mixture structure. In addition, for specimens cured with or without external water supply and under different compaction degrees, the variation law of the unconfined compressive strength with initial water content is different and the highest strength value is obtained at various initial water contents. With the increase of initial water content, the percentage of oxygen element tends to increase in the reaction products of the calcium-based stabilizer, whereas the crystalline mineral of the soil did not change obviously.

The cutting of difficult-to-machine materials, including their preconditioning, often requires specialised tools and machinery. An alternative processing technology can be cutting materials with a water jet. From the initial stage, the selection of appropriate technological parameters will influence what further finishing treatments will be applied. Vibrations occurring during this process can negatively affect the quality of the cutting edges and surfaces. Therefore, this study analysed vibrations during water-jet cutting with variable technological parameters (speed vfi and pressure pi). To measure the vibrations, a three-axis accelerometer from SEQUOIA was used in water-jet cutting of three materials: aluminum alloy, titanium alloy, and steel. Based on the study, it was found that the maximum value of vibration amplitude reaches the lowest value of vibration acceleration for aluminum alloy (not exceeding 5 m/s2), regardless of the value of pressure during the cutting process. This, taking into account the material properties, indicates that aluminum alloy is the material most susceptible to the cutting process while maintaining a high quality of the cutting surface. Significantly higher values of vibration acceleration amplitude (reaching up to 60 m/s2) during cutting were registered for steel and titanium alloy in all zones and phases of the process (entry zone, cutting zone, and exit zones).

In this study, we have included the water footprint (WF) in the process of optimising animal feed rations. The global footprint of cattle production accounts for the largest share (33%) of the global water footprint of livestock production. Using two homogeneous groups of Limousine Podolian young bulls, two different diets were compared: corn silage feeding (CSF), with corn silage-based diet; and the triticale silage feeding (TSF), with triticale silage-based diet. Silage constituted about 41% and 46% of the feed composition (for CSF and TSF, respectively). Diets were characterised by the same energy and protein content. Despite the lower WF in the TSF group than in the CSF group (7726 vs 8571 l/day/calf respectively), no significant differences were found in animal performances (i.e., daily weight gain and final weight), feed conversion and income over feed costs. These results show that simple production decisions can have a significant impact on water resource. Therefore, the use of triticale silage should be further promoted, especially in world regions with limited water resources where low WF feed formulation is more strategic than elsewhere.

Abstract: Radiation-induced skin injury can be a serious cutaneous damage and have specific characteristics. Asymptomatic periods are classified as the latent stage. The skin barrier plays a critical role in the modulation of skin permeability and hydration and protects the body against a harsh external environment. However, an analysis on the skin barrier dysfunction against radiation exposure in the latent stage has not been conducted. Thus, we investigated whether skin barrier is impaired by irradiation in the latent stage and aimed to identify the molecules involved in skin barrier dysfunction. We analyzed skin barrier function and its components in SKH-1 mice that received 20 and 40 Gy local irradiation. Increased transepidermal water loss and skin pH were observed in the latent stage of the irradiated skin. Skin barrier components, such as structural proteins and lipid synthesis enzymes in keratinocyte, increased in the irradiated group. Interestingly, we noted sebaceous gland atrophy and increased serine protease and inflammatory cytokines in the irradiated skin during the latent period. This finding indicates that the main factor of skin barrier dysfunction in the latent stage of radiation-induced skin injury is sebaceous gland deficiency, which could be an intervention target for skin barrier impairment.

Ca2+ is a crucial second messenger in plant cells, playing a vital role in various physiological and biochemical processes, including plant growth and development, photosynthesis, and enzyme regulation. Exogenous calcium concentration can have different effects on plant growth. This study aimed to investigate the optimal calcium concentration for the growth of four tree species, namely Pinus tabuliformis, Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica, Populus, and Morus alba seedlings, and whether the optimal calcium concentration varies among different tree species. The study utilized five calcium concentration gradients (0, 100, 200, 400, 800 mg·kg-1) for each species with three repeated treatments. Various growth indexes, photosynthetic parameters, chlorophyll fluorescence parameters, water use efficiency, and antioxidant enzyme activities were assessed to determine each species' calcium concentration requirements. The results showed that exogenous calcium significantly affected the growth and development of each seedling. The growth, biomass, photosynthetic parameters, photosynthetic products, photosynthetic pigments, water use efficiency, and antioxidant enzyme activity all increased initially and then decreased with increasing calcium concentration. Leaf calcium concentration also increased with the exogenous calcium content. Thus, there is an optimal calcium concentration for plant growth, and high or low calcium concentration is not conducive to plant growth. Furthermore, the study found that different tree species have varying optimal calcium concentrations. The optimal calcium concentration for Pinus tabuliformis, Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica, Populus, and Morus alba seedlings was 100, 100, 200, and 400 mg·kg-1, respectively. Finally, the study revealed that broadleaf species require higher calcium concentrations than coniferous species.

The integration of clean energy generation with wastewater treatment holds promise for addressing both environmental and energy concerns. Focusing on photocatalytic hydrogen production and wastewater treatment, the study introduces PdIn/TiO2 catalysts for the simultaneous removal of the pharmaceutical contaminant paracetamol and hydrogen production. Physicochemical characterization showed a high distribution of Pd and In on the support as well as a high interaction with it. The Pd and In deposition enhances the light absorption capability and significantly improved HER in comparison to TiO2 not only in the electrolyte but also in presence of paracetamol. Regarding PTM oxidation, TiO2 and PdIn/TiO2 showed an irreversible behavior toward the PTM oxidation, limited by the adsorption of species on the electrode surface. Thus, PdIn-doped TiO2 stands out as a promising catalyst, showcasing enhanced physicochemical properties and superior catalytic performance. This underscores its potential for both environmental remediation and sustainable hydrogen production.

Accurate forecast of tail water level (TWL) is of great importance for the safe and economic operation and management of hydropower stations. The predictive performance is significantly influenced by the backwater effect of downstream hydropower stations and tributaries, but the explicit quantification method of the backwater effect is lacked. In this study, a deep learning model based forecasting framework for TWL predictions is established and applied to forecast TWL of Xiangjiaba (XJB) hydropower stations, which is influenced by the backwater effect of downstream tributaries including Hengjiang River (HJR) and Minjiang River (MJR). Firstly, the lag time of the backwater effect of HJR and MJR is analyzed based on the permutation importance. The results demonstrate that the lag time of backwater effect on the TWL of XJB is 5-7 hours for the HJR and 1-2 hours for the MJR. Then, the runoff thresholds of the HJR and MJR for impacting the TWL of the XJB station are obtained by scenario comparison, and the results show that the thresholds of HJR and MJR are 700 m3/s and 7000 m3/s respectively. Finally, the deep learning methods based TWL forecasting model is established based on the lag time and threshold analysis. The model is used to forecast the TWL in future 48 hours. The results show that the forecasting model has a good predictive performance with 98.22% of absolute errors less than 20 cm. The mean absolute error over the validation dataset is 5.27 cm and the maximum absolute error is 63.35 cm.

The Korean water deer (WD), the dominant wildlife species in South Korea, is classified as vul-nerable on the IUCN Red List. Beside their several unique characteristics, they have a lower in-cidence of tick bites compared to other Cervidae species, particularly roe deer (RD). In natural environments, ticks exhibit questing behavior by waiting on grasses to climb onto host's hair coat. They use sensory organs to detect signals such as body temperature and chemicals from the host's skin, then move to preferred feeding location. Therefore, we conducted a comparative analysis of the skin tissue and hair features of both species to compare the factors leading to lower incidence of tick bites in WD. Notably, WD had significantly larger blood vessels, sebaceous glands, and sweat glands which maintain the barrier functions of the skin (p≤0.004), irregular scale surfaces in hair cuticles, and stiff and 2.83-times thicker primary hair diameter (p<0.001). Each parameters made the ticks difficult to move onto the epidermis of WD. To our knowledge, this is the first report which is focused on the comparative analysis for skin and hair feature in WD and RD. We suggest that these differences may attribute to evade tick bites in WD.

Recently, NOAA has included GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) Radio Occultation (RO) data as one of the crucial long-term observables for weather and climate applications. To include more GNSS RO data in the numerical weather prediction system, the NOAA Commercial Weather Data Pilot program (CWDP) started to explore the commercial RO data available on the market. After two rounds of pilot studies, the CDWP decided to award the first Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to GeoOptics and Spire Incs. in 2020. This study examines the quality of Spire data products for weather and climate applications. Spire RO data are collected from commercial CubeSats through careful comparison with the data from Formosa Satellite Mission 7–Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate-2 (COSMIC-2), ERA-5, and high-quality radiosonde data. The results demonstrated that although with lower Signal-Noise-Ratio (SNR) in general, the pattern of the lowest penetration height for Spire is similar to those for COSMIC-2. The Spire and COSMIC-2 penetrate heights are between 0.6 and 0.8 km altitude at the tropical oceans. Although using different GNSS RO receivers, the precision of Spire STRASP receivers is of the same quality as those of COSMIC-2 Global Positioning System - GPS, GALILEO, and GLObal NAvigation Satellite System – GLONASS (TGRS) receivers. The retrieval accuracy from Spire is very compatible with those from COSMIC-2. We validated Spire temperature and water vapor profiles by comparing them with collocated radiosonde data. Generally, over the height region between 8 km and 16.5 km, the Spire temperature profiles match those from RS41 RAOB very well with temperature biases &lt; 0.02 K. Over the height range from 17.8 to 26.4 km, the temperature differences are ~-0.034 K with RS41 RAOB being warmer. We also estimated the error covariance matrix for Spire, COSMIC-2, and KOMPSAT-5. Results showed that the COSMIC-2 estimated error covariance values are slightly more significant over the oceans at the mid-latitudes (45oN-30oN and 30oS-45oS), which may also be owing to COSMIC-2 SNR being lower at those latitudinal zones.

Leakages in the water distribution networks (WDNs) are real problems for utilities and other governmental agencies. Timely leak detection and location identification has been a challenge. In this paper, an integrated approach to geospatial and infrared image processing method was used for robust leak detection. The method combines drops in flow, pressure, and chlorine residuals to determine potential water leakage locations in the WDN using Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques. GIS layers were created from the hourly values of these three parameters for the city of Sharjah provided by Sharjah Electricity, Water and Gas Authority (SEWA). These layers are then analyzed for locations with dropped values of each of the parameters and are overlaid with each other. In the case where there were no overlaying locations between flow and pressure, further water quality analysis was avoided, assuming no potential leak. In the case where there are locations with drops in flow and pressure layers, these overlaying locations are then examined for drops in chlorine values. If overlaying locations are found, then these regions are considered potential leak locations. Once potential leak locations are identified, a specialized remote sensing technique can be used for precise leak location. This study also demonstrated the suitability of using an infrared camera for leak detection in a laboratory-based setup. This paper concludes that the following methodology can help water utility companies in the timely detection of leaks, saving money, time, and effort.

The way humans use natural resources and especially freshwater, reflects their relationship with nature. It also influences the conceptual Water Resources Management (WRM) model. A historical review shows that the interplay between Humans and Nature is diachronically in constant change between two opposites: conflict and cooperation. Lessons from the past 20.000 years indicate that the WRM model is a function of two main parameters: (1) socio-economics, and (2) climate conditions. Three different Eras of the Humans-Nature relationship have been distinguished: (1) Naturalistic: Nature dominating Humans during the Last Glacial Period (100-10) kyr BC, (2) Dualistic: Nature-Humans cooperation and competition from 10 kyr BC to 1800 AD, and (3) Anthropocentric: Humans dominating Nature from 1800 AD to now. Since 2000, the Integrated WRM (IWRM) model is promoted as state-of-the-art and remains anthropocentric producing huge externalities. Its assessment during the last 20 years has given mixed results and needs to be reformulated. The new model we suggest is based on the dialectical tool for conflict resolution. It unifies Humans and Nature and enhances the social dimension of WRM. After identifying conflicts between stakeholders and the natural laws (eristic part), opposite objectives are unified to harmonize Humans with Nature (dialectical resolution). A case study of flood mitigation illustrates the eristic-dialectical methodology.

To ensure sustainable production and consumption in the agricultural sector, it is necessary to assess the contribution of each element of the nexus in the agricultural production chain. The aim of this study is to make a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the contributions of each element of the energy, water, waste and land nexus to agricultural products. A composite method approach combining aspects based on input-output model, Location Quotient (LQ) as well as competitive position is adopted. A database of nexus elements over a period from 2009 to 2018 is used for Cameroon, with ten regions considered. The results show proportions of around 0.42% energy, 67.88% water withdrawal, 11.91% harvested area, 97.81% waste for agricultural products. The geolocation of harvested areas shows that the largest portion is in the far north (1,373,829 ha) and the smallest in Adamawa (224,038 ha). Maximum production is in the central region (4,334,095 tons) and minimum in the Adamawa region (915,841 tons). The central, littoral and west regions are more representative of agricultural products. The analysis of the competitive position of agricultural products contributes to a better orientation of national strategies for agricultural sustainability according to existing potentials.

Semiconductor nanocrystals or quantum dots (QDs), have unique optical and physical properties that make them potential imaging tools in biological and medical applications. However, concerns such as the aqueous dispersivity, toxicity to cells and stability in biological environments may limit the use of QDs in bioapplications. Here, we report an investigation into the cytotoxicity of aqueously dispersed CdSe(S) and CdSe(S)/ZnO core/shell QDs in the presence of human colorectal carcinoma cells (HCT-116) and a human skin fibroblast cell line (WS-1). The cytotoxicity of the precursor solutions used in the synthesis of the CdSe(S) QDs was also determined in the presence of HCT-116 cells and compared to that of the heat-shock protein (Hsp90) inhibitor, 17-AAG. CdSe(S) QDs were found to have a low toxicity at concentrations up to 100 µg/ml, with a decreased cell viability at higher concentrations, indicating a highly dose-dependent response. Meanwhile, CdSe(S)/ZnO core/shell QDs exhibited lower toxicity than uncoated QDs at higher concentrations. Confocal microscopy images of HCT-116 cells after incubation with CdSe(S) and CdSe(S)/ZnO QDs showed that the cells were stable in aqueous concentrations of 100 µg of QDs per ml, with no sign of cell necrosis, confirming the cytotoxicity data. Key words: HCT-116, WS1, water dispersive QDs, aqueous synthesis, cytotoxicity of QDs.

In-depth insights into the profound impacts of climate change and human activities on water resources are garnered through the dynamic changes in surface water, a crucial aspect of effective water resource management and the preservation of aquatic ecosystems. This paper introduces an innovative approach employing the random forest algorithm for the systematic extraction and monitoring of surface water at large regional or national scales. This method integrates spectral bands, spectral indices, and digital elevation model data, offering a novel perspective on this critical task. A data filling model is proposed to mitigate the impact of missing data due to cloud cover. Leveraging the capabilities of the Google Earth Engine (GEE), detailed information on surface water dynamics during the rainy and dry seasons in the Yangtze River Basin (YRB) from 1991 to 2021 is extracted using Landsat time series imagery. The analysis encompasses spatial-temporal variation characteristics and trends, with a specific focus on the intricate interplay between the areal extent of surface water and hydro-meteorological factors in each sub-basin of the YRB. Importantly, this includes considerations of potential groundwater contributions to surface water. Key findings from our research include: (1) Achieving a remarkable overall accuracy of 0.96 ± 0.03 in obtaining reliable surface water datasets with the support of GEE. (2) Identifying significant trends, such as a noteworthy increase in rainy season surface water bodies (+248.0 km2·yr−1) and a concerning decrease in surface ice/snow cover during both rainy and dry seasons, with change rates of −39.7 km2·yr−1 and −651.3 km2·yr−1, respectively. (3) Uncovering the driving mechanisms behind these changes, revealing positive correlations between the areal extent of rainy season surface water bodies and precipitation, as well as negative correlations between surface ice/snow cover area and average surface skin temperature. It is crucial to note that these driving factors exhibit variation among secondary river systems, underscoring the complexity of surface water dynamics. Furthermore, comparative analyses with existing surface water products are conducted, contributing to a deeper understanding of the advantages and uncertainties inherent in our proposed extraction method. The proposed method for large-scale surface water extraction not only enhances the monitoring of spatio-temporal surface water dynamics in the YRB but also provides valuable insights for the sustainable utilization and protection of water resources, considering the potential role of groundwater in supplementing surface water.

China is rich in coal resources under water bodies. However, for a long time, the safety prediction of high-intensity mining under water bodies is one of the problems encountered by the coal industry. It is of great significance to realize safe mining under water bodies, improve the recovery rate of coal resources and protect reservoir resources. Therefore, this article takes the No. 5 coal seam and No. 11 mining area of Wangwa Coal Mine as the research object, and integrates physical simulation, numerical simulation, theoretical analysis and other methods to study the development height of water-conducting fracture zones in fully mechanized top coal caving mining. Solid-liquid coupling physical simulation test reveals the failure characteristics of overlying strata in goaf and the seepage law of reservoir water under the influence of mining. By comparing the monitoring data of borehole leakage, the measured data obtained by borehole peeping with the height data of water-conducting fracture zone obtained by the traditional empirical formula of three-under standard, the error between the two is as high as -29.39 %. In this case, the variance correction coefficient is used to correct the empirical formula, and on this basis, in order to effectively protect the surface water dam and water body, the mining height of coal seam in the working face with limited height mining is inversely derived. The research results provide a basis for the safety prediction of high-intensity mining under the reservoir dam in the ecologically fragile areas of western China and provide a scientific guarantee for the formulation of safety measures under such conditions.

Industrial process control systems commonly exhibit features of time-varying, strong coupling, and strong nonlinearity. Obtaining accurate mathematical models of these nonlinear systems and achieving satisfactory control performance is still a challenging task. In this paper, data-driven modeling techniques and deep learning methods are used to accurately capture a category of smooth nonlinear system’s spatiotemporal features. The operating point of these systems may change over time, and their nonlinear characteristics can be locally linearized. We established the LSTM-CNN-ARX model by utilizing a fusion of long short-term memory (LSTM) network and convolutional neural network (CNN) to fit the coefficients of the state-dependent exogenous variable autoregressive (SD-ARX) model. Compared to other models, the hybrid LSTM-CNN-ARX model is more effective in capturing the nonlinear system’s spatiotemporal characteristics due to its incorporating the strengths of LSTM for learning temporal characteristics and CNN for capturing spatial characteristics. The model-based predictive control (MPC) strategy, namely LSTM-CNN-ARX-MPC, is developed by utilizing the model's local linear and global nonlinear features. The control comparison experiments conducted on a water tank system (WTS) show the effectiveness of the developed models and MPC methods.

Iron, a crucial element in our environment, plays a vital role in numerous natural processes. Understanding the presence and concentration of iron in the environment is very important, as it impacts various aspects of our planet’s health. On-site detection and speciation of iron are significant for several reasons. In this context, the present work aims to evaluate the applicability of voltammetry for on-site determination of iron and its possible speciation using a portable voltammetric analyzer. Voltammetry offers the advantage of convenience and cost-effectiveness. For iron (III) determination a modification of a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) with an antimony-bismuth film (SbBiFE) using acetate buffer (pH=4) as supporting electrolyte was used. The technique adopted was Square Wave Adsoptive Cathodic Stripping Voltammetry (SW-AdCSV) and we used 1-(2-piridylazo)-2-naphthol (PAN) as iron (III) ligand. Linearity, repeatability, detection limit and accuracy were determined using synthetic solutions, then a Standard Reference Material (SRM) 1643f - Trace Elements in Water was used for validation measurements in real matrix. The procedure was finally applied to real samples (tap, lake and sea water) and the results obtained were compared by Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES). The results obtained demonstrated the excellent applicability of the proposed on-site voltammetric procedure for the determination of iron and its speciation in water.

In recent years, a large-scale afforestation campaign has taken place in Inner Mongolia, China, to control desertification and soil erosion. However, the water consumption associated with large-scale afforestation significantly impacts the water resources in Inner Mongolia, resulting in a substantial ecological risk. This study aimed to evaluate the ecological risk of water resources caused by afforestation in the region. In this study, based on land cover data, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data, and meteorological data, used trend analysis, water balance equation, and Water resources Security Index (WSI) index to analyze the ecological risks of water resources caused by afforestation in Inner Mongolia from 2000 to 2020. The results show that:(1) The afforestation area in Inner Mongolia was 5.37×104 km2 in 2000-2020; (2) Afforestation in arid and semi-arid areas leads to the reduction of water resources. (3) Afforestation reduces water resources in the study area by 0.76×108m3/year; (4) ~76% of afforestation regions face ecological risks of water resources.

Water deficit greatly affects global crop growth and productivity, particularly in water-limited environments like upland rice cultivation, leading to reduced grain yield. Plants activate various defense mechanisms during water deficit, involving numerous genes and complex metabolic pathways. Exploring orthologous genes, linked to enhanced drought tolerance, can aid functional validation in target species using genomic data from model organisms. Here, we studied the OsCPK5 gene in upland rice, an AtCPK6 ortholog from A. thaliana, by overexpressing it in the BRSMG Curinga cultivar. Transformants were assessed under two conditions: water deficit applied 79 days after seeding, lasting 14 days, followed by 7 days of irrigation at 80% field capacity. Physiological data and samples were collected at R3, R6, and R8 stages. GM plants consistently exhibited higher OsCPK5 gene expression across stages, peaking during grain filling. During this phase, GM plants displayed reduced stomatal conductance, photosynthetic rate, and increased water use efficiency compared to non-GM plants under drought. GM plants also exhibited higher filled grain percentage in both irrigation conditions. Their drought susceptibility index was 0.9 times lower than NGM plants, and they maintained a higher chlorophyll a/b index, indicating sustained photosynthesis. NGM plants under water deficit exhibited more leaf senescence, while OsCPK5-overexpressing plants retained green leaves. Overall, OsCPK5 overexpression induced diverse drought tolerance mechanisms, hinting at potential for future development of more drought-tolerant rice cultivars.

Maize, a crop of international relevance, frequently undergoes xylem embolism due to water shortage, negatively impacting growth, yield, and quality. Consequently, a refined comprehension of xylem embolism is vital for enhancing maize cultivation. Notwithstanding extensive research and the generation of analytical models for embolism mechanisms, prevalent models often disregard crop-specific hydraulic processes and the formation of embolisms via air bubbles in the xylem conduit. In this research, we present an inventive model applying pipe cavitation parameters to discern water potential and bubble formation in maize leaf xylem. The model integrates pivotal physiological traits of maize—leaf count, leaf vein count, and average leaf radius—demonstrating robust correlations. Furthermore, we constructed a percentage conductivity loss (PLC) curve based on pre-dawn leaf water potential and compared it with our model, offering interval data to observe embolisation events triggered by air bubbles. Utilizing experimental data, our novel cavitation-parameters based model effectively corresponds with observed bubble phenomena and appropriately characterizes water transport in plant xylem conduits. This method enabled us to observe the transition from bubble occurrence to cavitation embolism microscopically, which aligned with the embolism intervals provided by the model. This procedure reveals potential trends in bubble-induced embolism and deepens our knowledge of microscopic plant hydraulics and crop embolism. This work establishes a basis for understanding the generation of bubble embolisms in maize, assists in evaluating maize plant water status for efficient water supply management throughout the growth cycle, and contributes towards potential water management strategies for maize.

The gradual decline of the Aral Sea’s water level over the past five decades poses a huge environmental problem in the heart of Central Asia. Uzbekistan, once blessed with abundant water resources, now struggles with water scarcity in certain regions. While global environmental issues contribute to some degree to this dilemma, irrigation mismanagement plays a central role. This study focuses on the widespread problem of irrigation mismanagement in Uzbekistan and specifically addresses the rural district of Oltinsoy in the southern province of Surkhandarya. The main objective of this research project is to propose effective measures that can alleviate the pressing problem of water scarcity in the region while emphasizing the urgent need for well-executed projects and careful maintenance to ensure long-term sustainability at the local level. It is important to note that this study does not include an examination of the impact of global warming on the decline of water resources in Uzbekistan.

Coagulation is the most sensitive step in drinking water treatment. Underdosing may not yield the required water quality, whereas overdosing may result in higher costs and excess sludge. Traditionally, the coagulant dosage is set based on bath experiments performed manually. Therefore, this test does not allow real-time dosing control, and its accuracy is subject to operator experience. Alternatively, solutions based on machine-learning (ML) have been evaluated as a computer-aided alternative. Despite these advances, there is open debate on the most suitable ML method applied to the coagulation process, capable of the most highly accurate prediction. This study addresses this gap, where a comparative analysis between ML methods was performed. As a research hypothesis, a novel data-driven fuzzy inference system (FIS) should provide the best performance due to its ability to deal with uncertainties inherent to complex processes. Although ML methods have been widely investigated, only a few studies report hybrid neuro-fuzzy systems applied to coagulation. Thus, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study thus far to address the accuracy of this novel data-driven FIS for such application. The novel FIS provided the smallest error (0.86), indicating a promising alternative tool for real-time and highly accurate coagulant dosing in drinking water treatment.

The fabrication and characterisation of photo-anodes based on black-Si (b-Si) are presented using a photo-electrochemical cell in NaOH solution. Black-Si was fabricated by maskless dry plasma etching and was conformally coated by tens-of-nm of TiO2 using atomic layer deposition (ALD) with a top layer of CoO_x cocatalyst deposited by pulsed laser deposition (PLD). Low reflectivity R < % of Black-Si over the entire visible and near-IR (λ < 2 µm) spectral range is favourable in better absorption of light while an increased surface area facilities larger current densities. Photoelectrochemical performance of the heterostructured photoanode is discussed in terms of n-n junction between b-Si and TiO₂.

The megacities´ sewage creates socioeconomic dependence related to water availability in the nearby zones, especially in countries with hydric stress. The present paper studies the water balance progression of realistic scenarios from 2005 to 2050 in the Mezquital Valley, the receptor of Mexico City untreated sewage since 1886, allowing agriculture irrigation in unsustainable conditions. WEAP model calculated the water demand and supply. Validation was performed with outflows data of the Tula River and simulated three scenarios: 1st) Steady-state based on inertial growth rates, 2nd) Transient scenario concerned climate change outcomes, with minor influence in surface water and hydric stress in 2050; 3rd) Transient scenario perturbed with a planned reduction of 36% in the imported wastewater and the start-up of a massive Water Treatment Plant, allowing drip and sprinkler irrigation since 2030. In the 2005-2017 period, 59% of the agriculture depended on the flood irrigation with megacity sewage. The water balance scenarios evaluated the sectorial supply of the ground and superficial water. Drip irrigation would reduce 42% of agriculture demands, but still does not grant the downflow hydroelectric requirements, aggravated by the lack of wastewater supply since 2030. This research alerts about how present policies compromise future Valley demands.

Pollution of sub-surface water reservoirs mainly rivers and streams through contaminated water point sources (CWPS) was studied. The objective was to formulate a discrete time delay mathematical model which describes the dynamics of reservoir pollution using mixing-problem processes that involve single species contaminants such as nitrates, phosphorous and detergents. The concentration of pollutants was expressed as a function of the inflow and outflow rates using the principle for the conservation of mass. Systems of ODEs generated from principles of mixing problems were refined into a system of DDEs so that the concentration of pollutant leaving the reservoir at time would be determined at some earlier instant, for the delay. The formulated model is a mathematical discrete time delay model which would be used to describe the dynamics of sub-surface water reservoir pollution. The results from the validation of the model were analyzed to determine how time delays in the mixing processes affect the rate of particle movement in water reservoirs.

Degussa P25 is a benchmark form of TiO₂ used worldwide in photocatalysis studies. Currently no such benchmark exists for co-catalysts, which are essential for many photocatalytic reactions. Here, we present the preparation of Pt nanocluster co-catalysts on TiO₂ using an unmodified commercial source and equipment that is commonly available. Transmission electron microscopy reveals that the procedure produces TiO₂ decorated with Pt atom and nanoclusters (1-5 atoms). Optical reflectance and X-ray diffraction measurements show that the procedure does not affect the TiO₂ polymorph or UV-Vis absorbance. Gas phase photocatalytic splitting of heavy water (D₂O) shows that the Pt nanocluster decorated TiO₂ outperforms Pt nanoparticle (produced by photodeposition) decorated TiO₂ in D₂ production. Pt nanoclusters, produced directly from a commercial source, with high co-catalyst activity are prime candidates to be used in benchmark photocatalytic reactions.

As for most Mediterranean countries, groundwater is the main resource for irrigation and drinking supply in most parts of Syria, however this resource suffers from mismanagement. In the study area (Northeast of Mt. Hermon), the lack of information makes water management in this area extremely difficult. Assessing groundwater pollution risk is the most essential issue for water resources management, especially in the regions where complex interaction between climate, geology, geomorphology, hydrogeology, water scarcity and water resource mismanagement exist. This complexity leads to significant complication in determining pollution risk of studied system. In the present work, we adopted an Integrative Approach to assess groundwater pollution risk in the study area. This methodology is based on the analysis of hydrogeological characteristic of aquifer system and the available information about socio-economic context and physio-chemical groundwater condition that might affect this system. This approach allowed us to delineate the groundwater pollution risk map based on the analysis of concerning parameters/ indicators. The degree of risk was assessed based as the sum and average of rating of these parameters and indicators for each subarea. Typically, very high pollution risk index was identified over the Quaternary/Neogene horizon, i.e shallow and unconfined aquifer and in the lower part of Jurassic aquifer. In these two parts, the majority of anthropogenic activities are concentrated. Low pollution risk index was found for the outcropping of low permeable Quaternary basalt at the Southern part of the study area. A moderate pollution index was identified for the low/moderate permeability of silt, clay and marly limestone rich horizons of the major part of Neogene aquifer outside of the intersected zones with Quaternary aquifer and for the Paleogene formations. The spatial analysis shows that about 50% of the study area is characterized as being at very high and high pollution risk index. Hence, the overall natural protective capacity of this area is still poor. This study demonstrates the flexibility of the proposed approach to assess groundwater pollution risk in local complex aquifer system characterized by lack of information and data in order to reduce the risk of future groundwater pollution.

Water quality is the measure of chemical, physical and biological suitability of water in relation to natural effects and intended purpose which may affect human health and aquatic life. Assessment of water quality is very essential for the management of water resources and human health. Traditionally, in-situ measurements have been used to obtain the water quality parameters of the water bodies. However, with the availability of satellite images, researchers have shown that satellite images are a reliable tool that can be used to estimate water quality. Satellite image-derived water quality parameters provide extensive spatial extent and large temporal variations when compared to traditional in situ sample collection and laboratory measurements. The present work estimated several parameters for quality of water in the Kamuzu reservoir of Lilongwe River for the 2013-2020 period using Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 satellite images. The band ratio algorithms were used to retrieve Chlorophyll a (Chl-a), Turbidity, Total Suspended Matter (TSM), Secchi depth, Coloured Dissolved Organic Matter (CDOM), and Cyanobacteria from the reservoir. Turbidity and TSM were compared with the in-situ data collected over the same period. The comparison indicated R² of 0.9 and 0.69 for TSM and Turbidity respectively from Sentinel-2 images whereas R² of 0.56 and 0.61 was obtained using Landsat 8 images which are quite encouraging. The other set of results included the spatial distribution maps of water quality parameters using Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 satellite data. It was observed that the spatial distribution of water quality parameters, except for CDOM and Cyanobacteria, showed very good distribution and matches with the theoretical results. However, for CDOM and Cyanobacteria, the distribution was almost similar for the entire study area and the band ratio algorithm may not be able to estimate them quite reasonably. This research reiterates the need for the use of remote sensing in estimating the water quality parameters and may be a substitute to the in-situ data, in terms of spread and frequency, which is very common to most of the water bodies, across the globe.

Coastal marine ecosystems worldwide, like Florida Bay, are increasingly affected by tide alteration and anthropogenic disturbances which affect water quality imbalance leading to algal blooms. Increased bloom persistence is a serious threat due to the long-lasting impact on processes like carbon cycle and services like species presence. However, exploring eco-environmental feedback patterns of algal blooms remains challenging and poorly investigated, also due to the paucity of data. Florida Bay, taken as an epitome, has long experienced algal blooms in its central and western regions, and in 2006 an unprecedented bloom occurred in the eastern habitats. We analyzed the occurrence of blooms from three perspectives: (1) the spatial spreading networks of chlorophyll-a (CHLa) that pinpoints source and unbalanced habitats; (2) the fluctuations of water quality factors pre- and post-bloom outbreaks to in assess environmental impacts of ecological dysbiosis and target prevention and control of algal of blooms; and (3) the biogeochemical-spreading network topological co-evolution to quantify ecosystemic stability and ecological shift likelihood in long-term. Here, we propose Transfer Entropy (TE) to quantify dynamical interactions between spatial areas and biogeochemical factors (ecosystem connectome) underpinning bloom emergence and spreading, as well as environmental effects; the Pareto principle is defined for identifying the salient eco-environmental interactions of CHLa. We quantified the spatial dynamics of algal blooms, and thus obtained areas in need for ecological monitoring and potential bloom control. Results show that algal blooms are increasingly persistent over space with long-term negative effects on water quality factor. A dichotomy is reported between spatial ecological corridors of spreading and biogeochemical networks as well as divergence from the optimal eco-organization: randomization of the former due to nutrients' overload and temperature increase leads to scale-free CHLa spreading and extreme outbreaks a posteriori. Subsequently this increases bloom persistence, turbidity and salinity with potentially strong ecological effects on highly biodiverse and vulnerable areas such as tidal flats and marshes. Algal blooms are important ecosystem regulators of nutrient cycles; however, beyond limit chlorophyll-a outbreaks cause aquatic species mortality due to their effect on water turbidity, nutrient balance (nitrogen and phosphorus in particular), salinity and temperature. Beyond compromising local environmental quality, socio-ecological services are also compromised at large scales, yet ecological assessment models like the one presented are in need of application in subtropical and tropical bays worldwide.

A recently developed thermodynamic theory for the determination of the driving force of crystallization and the crystal–melt surface tension is applied to the ice–water system employing the new Thermodynamic Equation of Seawater TEOS-10. The deviations of approximative formulations of the driving force and the surface tension from the exact reference properties are quantified, showing that the proposed simplifications are applicable for low to moderate undercooling and pressure differences to the respective equilibrium state of water. The TEOS-10 based predictions of the ice crystallization rate revealed pressure-induced deceleration of ice nucleation with an increasing pressure, and acceleration of ice nucleation by pressure decrease. This result is in, at least, qualitative agreement with laboratory experiments and computer simulations. Both the temperature and pressure dependencies of the ice–water surface tension were found to be in line with the le Chatelier–Braun principle, in that the surface tension decreases upon increasing degree of metastability of water (by decreasing temperature and pressure), which favors nucleation to move the system back to a stable state. The reason for this behavior is discussed. Finally, the Kauzmann temperature of the ice–water system was found to amount TK=116K, which is far below the temperature of homogeneous freezing. The Kauzmann pressure was found to amount pK=-212MPa, suggesting favor of homogeneous freezing upon exerting a negative pressure on the liquid. In terms of thermodynamic properties entering the theory, the reason for the negative Kauzmann pressure is the higher mass density of water in comparison to ice at the melting point.

Agriculture technical development exclusively relies on the effective delivery of agrochemicals and water to the plants and reduce the harmful effects of the agrochemicals on the useful organisms in the soil. Wherefore, super absorbent hydrogels were prepared by copolymerization of gum Arabic (GA) with chitosan (CS) or poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), and cross-linked by N,’N-methylenebisacrylamide (MBA) chemically (CH) or using sodium hexametaphosphate (SHMP) as physical (PH) cross-linker. The prepared hydrogels include PVA/GA-CH, PVA/GA-PH, CS/GA-CH and CS/GA-PH showed different degree of swelling (DS) in the following swelling medium, deionized water (DW), river water(RW) and buffer solution pH9. PVA/GA-CH and CS/GA-CH hydrogels have showed 84g/g and 63g/g maximum DS in RW respectively, while PVA/GA-PH and CS/GA-PH hydrogels have showed 81g/g and 69g/g maximum DS in pH9 respectively. The water- retention capability of some hydrogels were studied using a mixture of 0.5%(w/w) hydrogel in agricultural soil and the composite showed about 20 days extra retain of water with a control sample of soil alone. The hydrogels were loaded using urea the important fertilizer in agriculture field. The hydrogels of higher DS were only loaded, where PVA/GA-CH hydrogel has shown 89%(w/w) maximum loading percentage (Lmax%), and CS/GA-PH hydrogel reached 79.75%(w/w) of urea. The release behavior in different medium and degree of temperatures of loaded hydrogels were studied. Generally, PVA/GA-CH hydrogel have shown better release profile in RW medium at 10oC, while CS/GA-PH hydrogel showed more controlled release in pH9 medium at 30oC. Different analytical methods of SEM, FTIR of loaded hydrogel and after their release were achieved, whereas XRD,1H NMR and (TGA, DSC) of prepared hydrogels have been characterized.

Bodybuilders utilize peaking strategies in a bid to fine-tune their aesthetics for competition day. The most prevalent peaking strategies utilized by natural bodybuilders are unreported in the current literature. Eighty-one (M - 59, F - 22) natural bodybuilders were recruited from competitions during the 2016 and 2017 British Natural Bodybuilder Federation seasons. Competitors completed a 34-item questionnaire designed to investigate peaking and contest day strategies. The questionnaire listed commonly utilized peaking strategies and provided additional space for qualitative information. Analysis of the data indicated that carbohydrate (CHO), water and sodium manipulation were the most commonly utilized peak week strategies. The consumption of high glycemic index CHO was the most common competition day strategy. Only 6.2 % of competitors reported following their regular diet the week prior to competition. The CHO manipulation strategies were similar to classical CHO loading, whereby bodybuilders attempt to maximize muscle glycogen concentrations. Furthermore, bodybuilders attempted to remove superfluous water by exploiting the diuretic/polyuria effect associated with water loading/restriction. The potentially deleterious effects of peaking on bodybuilders' health is considered and the efficacy of these strategies to enhance appearance is discussed. The findings of the present investigation are likely to be of interest to bodybuilders and their coaches.

Based on the analysis of hydrochemical data of 18 samples of shallow groundwater around Hancheng mining area in Guanzhong Basin, Gibbs semi-logarithmic diagram and Piper diagram were used to study the hydrogeochemical behavior of shallow groundwater around Hangcheng mining area in Guanzhong Basin. Chemical composition analysis showed that most of the groundwater was SO₄ · Cl-Ca · Mg type, accounting for 61.1 %. Hydrogen and oxygen isotope data show that groundwater in the study area is recharged by modern precipitation. The main chemical components of most groundwater are Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, HCO₃^-, Cl^-and SO₄^2-. Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, and HCO₃^- are mainly dolomite, calcite, and gypsum dissolution precipitation results. Na⁺ and Cl^- originate from the dissolution of halite. The main ion chemistry of shallow groundwater in this area is controlled by rock weathering, and pyrite oxidation is an important factor affecting SO₄^2-concentration. The research results will help analyze the formation mechanism of chemical components and provide some basic data for the evolution of mine water in this area in the future.

This paper presents an overview of the principal structural and dynamics characteristics of reverse micelles (RMs) in order to highlight their structural flexibility and versatility, along with the possibility to modulate their parameters in a controlled-manner. The multifunctionality in a large range of different scientific fields is exemplified in two distinct directions: a theoretical model for mimicry of biological microenvironment and practical application in the field of nanotechnology and nano-based sensors. RMs represents a convenient experimental approach that limits the drawbacks of the conventionally biological studies in vitro, while the particular structure confers them the status of simplified mimics of cells by reproducing a complex supramolecular organization in an artificial system. The biological relevance of RMs is discussed in some particular cases referring to the confinement and crowding environment, molecular dynamics of water and cell membrane structure. The use of RMs in different range of applications seems to be more promising due to their structural and compositional flexibility, a high efficiency and selectivity being achieved. The advance in nanotechnology is based on developing new methods of nanomaterials synthesis and deposition. This review highlighting the advantages of using RMs in synthesis of nanoparticles with specific properties and in nano (bio)sensors design.

The effect of wave forces on the structural safety of fixed oscillating water-column (OWC) devices is critical. In this study, a three-dimensional numerical model of an oscillating water column (OWC) device is constructed using the computational fluid dynamics software OpenFOAM. Subsequently, the hydrodynamic performance of the numerical model is comprehensively validated. Finally, the hydrodynamic performance data are analyzed in detail to obtain meaningful conclusions. The results indicate that the horizontal wave force on the OWC device is approximately 6.6 to 7.9 times greater than the vertical wave force, whereas the lateral wave force is relatively small. Both the horizontal and vertical wave forces decrease as the relative water depth increases under a constant wave period and height. The horizontal wave force increases linearly with the wave height, whereas the vertical wave force increases with the square of the wave height. In addition, the highest dynamic water pressure is observed at the interface between the water surface and device, both within and outside the front wall of the gas chamber. The dynamic water pressure at different locations on the front chamber increases and subsequently decreases as the wave frequency increases.

Drought is one of the leading abiotic factors limiting morphological and physiological activities in blackberry cultivation. We investigated the effect of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) on morphological and physiological processes in the boysenberry crop (Rubus ursinus Chamisso &amp; Schlenhtendal) under drought stress. The experiment was performed with three drought stress levels (0% PEG, 4% PEG and 8% PEG) and three AgNPs treatments (0, 0.1, 0.2 mg L−1) invitro conditions. The results showed that drought stress induced by PEG, reduced root and shoot development of boysenberry plants grown invitro. The addition of AgNPs is significantly alleviated the adverse effect of drought stress and increased the plant growth parameters. Antioxidant activity of SOD and CAT enzymes increased in boysenberry leaves when treated with AgNPs under drought conditions, while the amount of MDA decreased. Therefore, the results obtained in this study suggest that 0.1 mg L-1 AgNPs added to the medium improve the growth and development of invitro boysenberry plants under drought stress.

One of essential procedure nowadays to analyze a dynamic process in Science and Engineering is Computational modeling. Most of dynamic processes are distributed parameter systems, i.e., systems with state variables depend on the number of independent variables (such as space and time) which are expressed by a set of Partial Differential Equations (PDEs). Lateral method of lines is a method which used for solving PDEs numerically by solving a set of boundary value problems sequentially. The aim is to report the development of PDE toolbox based on SCILAB. This paper provides users with a method that is very easy to understand in the applications related to dynamic process. The method uses a SCILAB template to develop numerical simulations in the new field. In this paper, a model of tropical fruit heat treatment for decimating insect is presented. The illustration will be given to show how the lateral method of line template works to solve the problem.

Hydrochemical and geophysical data collected during a hydrological survey in September 2017, reveal patterns of small-scale hydrological connectivity in a small water track catchment, north-European Arctic. Elevated tundra patches underlain by sands were disconnected from the stream and stored precipitation water from previous months. At the catchment surface and in the water track thalweg, some circular hollows, from 0.2 to 0.4 m in diameter, acted as evaporative basins with low d-excess values, from 2 to 4‰. Other hollows were connected to shallow subsurface runoff, yielding d-excess values between 12 and 14‰. ‘Connected’ hollows yielded a 50% higher dissolved organic carbon (DOC) content, 17.5±5.3 mg/L, than the ‘disconnected hollows, 11.8±1.7 mg/L. Permafrost distribution across the landscape is continuous, but highly variable. Open taliks exist under fens and small hummocky depressions, as revealed by electric resistivity tomography surveys. Isotopic evidence supports upward subpermafrost groundwater migration through open taliks under water tracks and fens/bogs/depressions, and its supply to streams via shallow sub-surface compartment. Temporal variability of isotopic composition and DOC in water track and a major river system, the Vorkuta R., evidence the widespread occurrence of the described processes in the large river basin. Water tracks effectively drain the tundra terrain and maintain xeric veg-etation over the elevated inter-track tundra patches.

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether chronic undernutrition modifies the response to rostafuroxin in juvenile rats. Chronic undernutrition was induced in male rats using a multideficient diet known as Regional Basic Diet (RBD), mimicking alimentary habits in impoverished regions worldwide. Animals were given RBD – or a control/CTRL normal diet for rodents – from weaning to 90 days, and rostafuroxin (1 mg/kg body mass) or vehicle were orally administered during the last 30 days. Undernourished rats became hypertensive at 55–60 days of age (tail-cuff recording). During the last two days, the rats were hosted in metabolic cages to measure food/energy, water, Na+ ingestion, and urinary volume. Blood and kidneys were collected after euthanasia. Rostafuroxin increased food/energy and Na+ intake in CTRL and RBD rats but had opposite effects on Na+ balance (intake minus urinary excretion): negative in CTRL and positive in RBD. The drug normalized the decreased plasma Na+ concentration found in RBD rats, increased urinary volume in RBD but not in CTRL, and decreased and increased urinary Na+ concentration in the RBD and CTRL groups, respectively. Rostafuroxin decreased the ouabain-sensitive (Na++K+)ATPase and increased the ouabain-resistant, furosemide-sensitive Na+-ATPase from proximal tubule cells in both groups, and normalized the systolic blood pressure in RBD without effect in CTRL rats. We conclude that chronic undernutrition modifies the response of blood pressure, caloric metabolism, Na+ distribution in liquid compartments, mobilization of Na+ from non-osmotic compartments, Na+ and water balance, and activity of renal Na+-transporting ATPases to rostafuroxin.

The macro-litter (plastic) sea bottom pollution of 14 city harbors and marinas in North Africa and in the western Baltic Sea was investigated using a new simple mobile underwater camera system. The study was complemented by a harbor manager survey and 3D-hydrodynamic transport simulations. The average pollution in German marinas was 0.1 particles/m² sea floor (0.04–1.75). The pollution in North African marinas on average was 7 times higher (0.7 particles/m²) and exceeded 3 particles/m² in city center harbors. The resulting &gt;100,000 litter particles per harbor indicate the existence of a problem. With 73%-74%, plastic particles are dominating. Existing legal and management frameworks explain the lack of plastic bottles and bags on sea floors in Germany and are one reason for the lower pollution levels. Items that indicate the role of untreated sewage water were not found. Harbor festivals seem not to be quantitatively relevant for open sea bottom pollution. Our method tends to underestimate the pollution level. Model simulations indicate that storms can cause litter reallocations and sediment cleanings. However, marina sea floor monitoring is recommendable, because it addresses pollution hot-spots, is cost-effective and takes place close to emission sources. Further, the effectiveness of land-based pollution reduction measures can easily be assessed.

Using numerical software to establish a three-dimensional geological model of shield tunneling through fault fracture zones, considering the synchronous grouting effect at the shield tail, the disturbance of various geotechnical structures in the fault fracture zone under deep burial and high water pressure conditions is studied. According to the comparison between the numerical model analysis results and the on-site inspection results of the entire process of Shiziyang B3 section, synchronous grouting at the shield tail is the main reason for the changes in soil and water pressure in the fault fracture zone area. The soil and water pressure changes strongly during shield tunneling, and the maximum excess pore pressure value occurs when the shield tail passes. When the shield tunneling machine is far away, the soil and water stress shows a downward trend. The impact of synchronous grouting decreases with the increase of tunneling distance. Due to the difference in permeability, the variation law of pore pressure in the fault fracture zone is significantly different from the original rock, leading to a faster increase in pore pressure in the fracture zone area and a wider range of influence.

In this work Cu2O nanoparticles (NPs) were created in-situ on graphene functionalized with Thermomyces lanuginosus lipase (G@TLL) where site-oriented supported TLL acted as template and binder in the presence of copper salt by tailorable synthesis under mild conditions, producing a heterogeneous catalyst. Cu2O NPs was confirmed by XRD and XPS. The TEM microscopy showed that the nanoparticles were homogeneously distributed over the G@TLL surface with sizes of 53 nm and 165nm. This G@TLL-Cu2O hybrid was successfully used in the degradation of toxic organic compounds such as trichloroethylene (TCE) and Rhodamine B (RhB). In the case of TCE, the hybrid presented a high catalytic capacity, degrading 60 ppm of product in 60 min in aqueous solution and room temperature without the formation of other toxic subproducts. In addition, a TOF value of 7.5 times higher than the unsupported counterpart (TLL-Cu2O) was obtained, demonstrating the improved catalytic efficiency of the system in the solid-phase. The hybrid also presented an excellent catalytic performance for the degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) obtaining a complete degradation (48ppm) in 50 min in in aqueous solution and room temperature and with the presence of a green oxidant as H2O2.

Drip irrigation systems are becoming more and more mature and are present extensively applied to increase crop yield and water use efficiency in Xinjiang, northwest China. To investigate the effects of irrigation quota on maize growth, the grain yield, and the irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE), a field experiment with four irrigation quotas (T1 4200m3·hm-2, T2 4800m3·hm-2, T3 5400m3·hm-2 and T4 6000m3·hm-2.) were conducted from 2013 to 2021 in Xinjiang China. The re-sults showed significant changes in maize growth, yield, and irrigation water use efficiency in response to different irrigation quotas. The plant height, leaf area index, SPAD, biomass, yield and harvest index of maize at different irrigation quotas all showed a “single peak curve”, and its change was closely related to the irrigation level. The growth index, dry matter accumulation, yield and irrigation water use efficiency with T3 were the highest. The dry matter transfer effi-ciency, contribution of dry matter translocation to grain and the harvest index with T3 showed significant increase of 13.86%, 26.06%, 29.93% and 7.62% compared to T1, respectively. In com-parison to T1, T2 and T4, the yield of T3 increased by 32.17%, 13.54% and 11.27% respectively, and the irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) increased by 2.80%, 0.93% and 23.63% respectively. The significant correlations established between the maize yield and irrigation quotas could be sim-ulated by kuznets-style relation. The maize yield was negative correlated with irrigation quotas, When the irrigation quota (x) was 5376.73m3·hm-2, the maize yield (y) was 15841.00m3·hm-2. These results demonstrate that the optimized irrigation quota (5400m3·hm-2 treatment) can effectively improve the growth, yield and irrigation water use efficiency of drip irrigation maize in North-west China. In the meanwhile, it can provide theoretical reference and data support for the op-timal irrigation amount of drip irrigation maize in Northwest Xinjiang.

This work aims to investigate systematically the influence of process temperature and biomass-to-water ration on the chemical composition of aqueous and gaseous phases and mass production of chemical by hydrothermal processing of Açaí (Euterpe Oleraceae, Mart.) seeds. The hydrothermal carbonization carried out at 175, 200, 225, and 250 °C, 2 °C/min, biomass-to-water ratio of 1:10, and at 250 °C, 2 °C/min, and biomass-to-water ratios of 1:10, 1:15, and 1:20, in technical scale. The chemical composition of aqueous phase determined by GC and HPLC and the volumetric composition of gaseous phase by using an infrared gas analyzer. For constant biomass-to-water ratio of 1:10, the yields of solid, liquid, and gaseous phases varied between 53.39 and 37.01% (wt.), 46.61 and 59.19% (wt.), and 0.00 and 3.80% (wt.), respectively. The yield of solids shows a smooth exponential decay with temperature, while that of liquid and gaseous phases a smooth growth. By variation of biomass-to-water ratios, the yields of solid, liquid, and gaseous reaction products varied between 53.39 and 32.09% (wt.), 46.61 and 67.28% (wt.), and 0.00 and 0.634% (wt.), respectively. The yield of solids decreases exponentially with increasing water-to-biomass ratio and that of liquid phase increases in a sigmoid fashion. For constant biomass-to-water ratio, the concentrations of Furfural and HMF decrease drastically with temperature, reaching a minimum at 250 °C, while that of phenols increases. In addition, the concentrations of CH3COOH and total carboxylic acids increase, reaching a maximum at 250 °C. For constant process temperature, the concentrations of aromatics vary smoothly with the temperature. The concentrations of furfural, HMF, and cathecol decrease with temperature, while that of phenols increases. The concentrations of CH3COOH and total carboxylic acids decrease exponentially with temperature. Finally, for the experiments with varying water-to-biomass ratios, the productions of chemicals (furfural, HMF, phenols, cathecol, and acetic acid) in the aqueous phase is highly dependent on the biomass-to-water ratio.