Ritchiepilgaard7658

Lectin is considered as a suitable biomarker for nano-depletion of acrosome-damaged sperm. The aim of this study was to synthetize magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) coated by peanut (Arachis hypogaea) agglutinin lectin (PNA) and investigate its beneficial effect in improving of sperm characteristics. MNPs were obtained by co-precipitation method, functionalized with chitosan and coated by PNA at a concentration of 0.04 mg/mL. Semen was frozen either with glycerol-based or sucrose-based extenders. Frozen-thawed straws from five donkeys (three ejaculates per donkey) were incubated with lectin-MNPs (2 mg/mL), and then exposed to an external magnet enabling the non-bound sperm to be collected as nanopurified sperm. Sperm were evaluated post-thawing (control) and after nanopurification for motility, plasma membrane integrity, acrosome integrity, morphology, DNA fragmentation and concentration. The statistical analyses were extended to investigate the correlation between the initial quality of the frozen-thawed semen sarticles can be considered as a suitable method to reduce the proportion of acrosome-damaged sperm and to increase the quality of frozen thawed donkey semen. After the promotion of urbanization in the past decades, air pollution has become one of the bottlenecks of China's urban development. Kinds of real-time air pollution indicators are recorded by using environmental detection system in China's urban area that produces precious streaming data. The present paper constructs window DEA model to compute the dynamic air quality index after applying hierarchy analysis to resolve the heterogeneity of time varying data. In the section of empirical study, we select the daily data of CO, NO, SO2, PM 2.5 and PM 10 since January 2018 to August 2019 for 360 cities in China which includes 1,092,600 streaming data. Our empirical findings indicate that air pollution is heavily serious in most China' cities, in which more than 95% cities have over emitted air pollution by 30% at least. Chinese urban air quality is significantly affected by the change of month and shows an inverse U-shaped curve relationship in year, while the orders of weeks within month or order of days within week is irrelevant. The provinces with the most urban air pollution concentrate in middle China and from a continuous pollution zone with Shanxi as the center. Coastal salinity causes substantial adverse impacts on agricultural productivity and food security. Farmers' choice of salinity adaptation strategies might depend on how they perceive the problem. This research examined rice farmers' perceptions of salinity, adaptation strategies, and its implications for policy initiatives to sustain rice production in the affected coastal areas of Bangladesh. Boro rice growers (n = 109) randomly selected from two coastal sub-districts were interviewed using a semi-structured survey. Awareness of salinity and its increase over the past 20 years was widespread among rice farmers. A high proportion of farmers (90%) perceived the reproductive (e.g. booting, heading, and flowering) stages of the rice plant as the most sensitive to salinity problems. Salinity (ECe) was measured in the farmers' fields and were categorized according to farmers' perceptions and scientific interpretation (e.g. high or low). Farmers perceived a field affected by high salinity at a lower EC reading than the scientific interpretation of the salinity level. Most of the farmers (67%) were undertaking early transplanting and applying irrigation in order to adapt to salinity problems which occur later in rice crop growth during Boro season. Thus, farmers' actions demonstrated that their perceptions of salinity and adaptation responses were pre-emptive of when salinity was most likely to have an impact on the rice crop. Farmers' perceptions of salinization and measures to manage salinity need to be considered in research prioritization and policy formulation by the government. This action could potentially secure rice production and thus contribute to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG-1, 2 and 3). The invasion of alien plant species is a serious problem for conservation and the maintenance of biodiversity in grasslands. Therefore, it is important to find environmental factors correlated with the distribution of invasive species in such areas. In this study, we examined the impacts of environmental factors operating at different spatial scales on the distribution of invasive species. The study area were located in the Sudetes Mountains, Poland (3800 km2). We sampled field data from 163 random plots located in grassland, among which there were 94 plots with invasive species and 69 plots without invasive species. For each plot, we collected data on resident vegetation (species richness, community structure), geodiversity (topography, soil type), environmental heterogeneity (landscape structure) and climate (temperature and precipitation). Since the factors examined are likely to operate at different spatial scales, we calculated values of environmental variables with different spatial scopes (10m2 plot and buffers with 50, 250 and 1250 m radii). The probability of invasive plant presence was modeled using boosted regression trees (BRT). The results of our study showed that the distribution of invasive species is explained by factors operated at different spatial scale in the finer scale the presence of invasive species was driven predominantly by the average Ellenberg's Indicator Values for soil moisture, in medium-scale by the average topographic wetness index and sum of edges, while at coarse-scale by temperature. It was also presented that the effect of drivers operating at fine-spatial scale is overwhelming by effect of drivers operating at coarse scale. From a practical point of view, the results demonstrate that effective grassland management should be planned on a larger spatial context, because focussing on the management of a single site cannot be successful. Arsenic (As) contamination of soil is a global issue of serious ecological and human health concern. For better use of soil enzymes as biological indicators of As pollution, the response of soil β-glucosidase in different pools of soil (total, intracellular and potential extracellular) to As(V) stress was investigated. Chloroform fumigation method was employed to distinguish the intracellular and potential extracellular β-glucosidase in three soils. The intracellular and potential extracellular β-glucosidase accounted about 79% and 21% of the total β-glucosidase activity in the tested soils. Moreover, it was found that the response of these three enzyme pools to As(V) pollution was different. Under the stress of 400 mg kg-1 As(V), the β-glucosidase activities decreased by 69%, 79%, and 28% for the total, intracellular and potential extracellular pools, respectively. The calculated median ecological dose (ED50) showed the highest value for potential extracellular β-glucosidase (19.55-27.63 mg kg-1 for total, 18.49-27.42 mg kg-1 for intracellular, and 32.27-52.69 mg kg-1 for potential extracellular β-glucosidase). As(V) exhibited an uncompetitive inhibition for total and intracellular β-glucosidase and non-competitive inhibition for potential extracellular enzyme. The inhibition constant (Kiu) is biggest for potential extracellular β-glucosidase among the three enzyme pools (0.61-0.79 mmol L-1 for total, 0.34-0.36 mmol L-1 for intracellular, and 4.01-23.90 mmol L-1 for potential extracellular β-glucosidase). Thus, compared to potential extracellular β-glucosidase, the total and intracellular β-glucosidases are more suitable for their use as sensitive indicators of As(V) pollution. Much of the plastic waste entering the sea is thought to be transported from land by rivers, yet little is known about the distances over which rivers transport plastic. To address this knowledge gap, we collected surface water samples from the Orange-Vaal River at the end of the wet and dry seasons. The Vaal River drains South Africa's main urban-industrial centre, whereas the upper Orange River is sparsely populated. Below their confluence, the river flows through increasingly arid regions with very low human populations before entering the Atlantic Ocean. We collected bulk water samples from 33 bridges to test for microplastic and microfibre (0.025-1 mm) pollution and conducted observations for macrodebris (>50 mm). Where possible, we sampled for plastic fragments (>1 mm) using a neuston net. Microfibres and microplastics were found at every site (1.7 ± 5.1 L-1, >99% fibres) and accounted for 99% of the number of items recorded. Microfibres and microplastics were particularly abundant in the lower reaches during the period of low flow prior to the wet season flush. Macrodebris and larger microplastics were orders of magnitude less abundant (observations 0.0002 ± 0.0007 items·m-2; neuston net 0.34 ± 0.93 items·m-2). However, at sites where larger items were found, they comprised most of the mass of plastic. Larger plastics were found mostly at sites in the upper reaches of the Vaal River. Our results suggest that, while the Orange-Vaal River system may be a source of microfibres to the Atlantic Ocean, larger plastic items typically only travel short distances. The Orange-Vaal River system therefore does not appear to be a major source of plastics into the Atlantic Ocean, at least under regular flow conditions. Culture supernatant containing resuscitation-promoting factor (SRpf) from Micrococcus luteus was added to the sequencing batch reactor (SBR) for effective treatment of phenol-containing wastewater. SRpf acclimation significantly improved combined removal of phenol and nutrients. Moreover, the Illumina high-throughput sequencing analysis revealed that the SRpf boosted bacteria diversity, which enhanced the stability of the system under phenol stress. Addition of SRpf increased the abundances of Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria phyla which are involved in nutrient and phenol removal. SCH772984 Specifically, SRpf promoted Nitrosomonas and Nitrospira which participate in nitrification, family Comamonadaceae, genera Dechloromonas and Pseudomonas involved in denitrification, and Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas and Rhodocyclus which remove phosphorus elements. Moreover, the abundances of Bacillus and Klebsiella responsible for phenol removal as well as Pseudomonas and Acinetobacter were significantly increased after SRpf acclimation. These results show that SBR combined with SRpf acclimation provide optimal nutrient and phenol removal. Anthropogenic and natural changes are threatening pond ecological integrity in Patagonia and tools for bioassessment are required. Macrophytes are good candidates to determine the conservation status of ponds; nevertheless, metric selection procedures should be founded on an adequate knowledge of plant ecological responses. We assessed the main environmental constraints driving variation in macrophyte assemblages, and trophic status at 29 ponds located at the continental and insular Patagonia region. We screened 20 potential macrophyte metrics as indicators of pond condition that included origin (native, endemic, exotic), lifeforms (annual/biannual, perennial), functional groups (submersed, emergent, floating-leaved, landforms), and community attributes. A set of 106 taxa were recorded, and richness per site (10 species) was unexpectedly high for a cold temperate area, reinforcing the value of isolated ponds as habitat for macrophytes in the Patagonian landscape. Natives dominated most assemblages; exotics were present at 24 ponds, contributing with high cover (>45%) at 15% of them.