Rusheskesen8860

These model results can help government regulators identify the worst connected areas of the river network and take effective measures to reduce the impact of human interferences. Thus, the model can provide practical guidance and support to the conservation, management, and restoration of the river ecosystem. V.Health concerns of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) emerged with the increase of their industrial and biomedical application and thus human exposure. The highly dynamic properties of AgNPs lead to coexposure to nanoparticulate and ionic silver, and the combined effects of different Ag species might alter their individual toxicity. Herein, the toxicity of AgNPs combined with ionic Ag+ toward the rat was investigated after intravenous (i.v.) exposure to either AgNPs (5 mg/kg), Ag+ (5 mg/kg), or a mixture of Ag+ and AgNPs (5 mg/kg for both). Comparable results by histopathological and biochemical studies revealed that the exposure to individual AgNPs causes no apparent toxicity in rats, while Ag+ ions at the same dose induced marked acute toxicity. More importantly, while there was a negligible combined effect on the Ag accumulation, the less toxic AgNPs ameliorated Ag+ induced toxicity to rat organs after coexposure to the mixture of Ag+ and AgNPs, which might result from the complexation of Ag+ with the thiols like metallothioneins. Therefore, the combined toxicity of particulate and ionic Ag was complicated by their individual toxicities and also their interaction with intracellular detoxification biomolecules, regardless of differences in Ag accumulation. Although further investigations are still needed for the potential toxic mechanisms of the coexposed AgNPs and Ag+, considerations of the combined toxicity of different Ag species will reflect more accurate assessments of their health impacts. V.Drowsiness is considered a potential risk for traffic accidents. Exposure to high carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in vehicles may result in unpleasant feeling, fatigue, drowsiness or lethargy among drivers and passengers. However, little is known about whether reducing CO2 levels in vehicles by air filtration can relieve adverse effects among human subjects during driving. We recruited a panel of 84 healthy participants to drive a vehicle equipped with a CO2 filtration system for 1 h on a coastal road in a Northern Taiwan rural area. The operation modes of the CO2 filtration system, including fresh air from open windows without a CO2 filtration system (Control-mode), fresh air from an air conditioning (AC) system with closed windows and a false CO2 filtration system in operation (Off-mode) or a true CO2 filtration system in operation (On-mode), were examined. The repeated measurements of heart rate (HR), blood pressure (BP), CO2, total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs), particulate matter ≤2.5 μm in aerodynamic diameter (PM2.5) and a simple question about drowsiness were obtained for each participant in three different modes. We found that decreased HR, systolic BP (SBP) and diastolic BP (DBP) and increased drowsiness were associated with increased levels of in-vehicle CO2. The effects of in-vehicle CO2 on adverse effects were highest in the Off-mode during driving. In the On-mode, the participants showed slight decreases in HR, SBP and DBP and slight increases in drowsiness. We concluded that the utilization of a CO2 filtration system can reduce in-vehicle CO2 levels and modify the effect of in-vehicle CO2 on HR, BP and drowsiness among human subjects during driving. Reliable guidance for crop selection and related management to achieve sustainable soil resource use in rubber agroforestry systems is limited. One important reason for this limited guidance is that our understanding of the effects of different plant functional groups on soil resources is still insufficient. Here, to examine the effects of the species composition of trees, shrubs and herbs on soil nutrients and soil water with increases in the complexity of the plant community structure, we measured the soil nutrient concentrations (i.e., C, N, P, K, Ca and Mg), soil water content and soil water residence time (with stable hydrogen and oxygen isotope tracers) at six soil depths in a monoculture rubber plantation, four multi-species rubber agroforestry systems, and a tropical rainforest. As the plant species composition increased, the soil C and N increased. The soil water content also increased with increases in soil C and N. However, the effects of plant species composition on the soil water content gradually changed from positive to negative, especially under the effects of herb species, which could accelerate soil water drainage and hence shorten the soil water residence time. Therefore, the faster water infiltration and potentially higher flow of soil water in complex plant communities increased the risk and magnitude of mineral nutrient leaching. In addition, as the plant composition increased, plant competition decreased the concentration of soil nutrients, especially soil P, K and Ca. In general, plant interspecific interactions definitively decreased soil mineral nutrients as the plant composition increased, and the effects of tree, shrub and herb species on soil nutrients and soil water differed and sometimes appeared contradictory. However, the effects of plant species composition on soil gradually weakened with increases in soil depth. Sewer flushing is widely used to remove sewer sediment from drainage systems; however, its performance and cleaning efficiency are limited by the cohesive strength of sewer sediment. To address this, ultrasound, as a clean technology, is proposed to reduce the cohesive strength of sewer sediment. This study investigated the variations in the cohesive strength, extracellular polymeric substances (EPSs), and microbial community of sewer sediment with ultrasonic treatment. EGFR inhibitors cancer During ultrasonic conditioning, the degradation process of the cohesive strength followed the first-order kinetic model and was positively related to the degradation of bound-EPSs. Field emission scanning electron microscopy, particle diameter, and three-dimensional excitation emission analyses suggested that ultrasound reduced the cohesive strength by decreasing the bound-EPS concentration, which reduced the particle size of sewer sediment, and by destroying the structure of tryptophan proteins, which impaired the stability of agglomerated particles. Following ultrasonic treatment, the cohesive strength of the treated sediment was reduced to 69.3% of that of the raw sewer sediment after storage for 21 days; this result could be ascribed to the improvements in polysaccharide transport, amino acid transport, and the cell wall biogenesis functions of the microbial community, as indicated by PICRUSt. Furthermore, next-generation sequencing studies suggest that the proportions of Syntrophomonadaceae, Bacteroidetes_vadinHA17, Synergistaceae, and Syntrophaceae, which are associated with anaerobic digestion and methane production in sediment, improved conspicuously after ultrasonic conditioning. Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) often experience deteriorating gaseous exchange which in turn may result in declines in blood oxygen saturation (SpO2). Increasing evidence has also shown that elevated levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) may contribute to COPD pathogenesis. However, the acute effects of PM2.5 on SpO2 among COPD patients remain unclear, especially for its time course. Therefore, we conducted this panel study with 3-day real-time monitoring for personal PM2.5 exposure and concurrent SpO2 of 39 participants (20 COPD patients, 19 healthy participants), aged 60 to 90 years, in Hong Kong to explore the acute effects of personal PM2.5 exposure on SpO2 (within minutes to hours). We applied a linear mixed effect model to examine the associations between personal PM2.5 and SpO2, while adjusting for temporal trend, personal characteristics, weather conditions, and co-exposure to gaseous pollutants (ambient ozone, nitrogen dioxides, carbon monoxide, and atmospheric pressure). We found that short-term exposure to PM2.5 might result in acute declines of SpO2 within minutes, and the effects would last for several hours. An interquartile range increase of personal PM2.5 exposure (17.2 μg/m3) was associated with -0.19% (95% CI -0.26% to -0.12%) changes of concurrent SpO2 for all participants. The most significant decline was observed at lag0-3 h, and then became insignificant at lag0-12 h. At lag0-1 h, estimated mean changes of SpO2 were -0.40% (95% CI -0.55% to -0.24%) for COPD patients and -0.09% (95% CI -0.23% to 0.06%) for healthy participants. Compared with healthy participants, the effects of PM2.5 exposure on SpO2 for COPD patients were slightly stronger and more acute. Reducing PM2.5 concentrations might be a useful approach to improve health status and reduce exacerbations for COPD patients. Estimating gross primary production and ecosystem respiration from oxygen data is performed widely in aquatic systems, yet these estimates can be challenged by high advective fluxes of oxygen. In this study, we develop a hybrid framework linking data-driven and process-based modelling to examine the effect of storm events on oxygen budgets in a constructed wetland. After calibration against measured flow and water temperature data over a two-month period with three storm events, the model was successfully validated against high frequency dissolved oxygen (DO) data exhibiting large diurnal fluctuations. The results demonstrated that pulses of high-DO water injected into the wetland during storm events were able to dramatically change the wetland oxygen budget. A shift was observed in the dominant oxygen inputs, from benthic net production during non-storm periods, to inflows of oxygen during storm events, which served to dampen the classical diurnal oxygen signature. The model also demonstrated the changing balance of pelagic versus benthic production and hypoxia extent in response to storm events, which has implications for the nutrient attenuation performance of constructed wetlands. The study highlights the benefit of linking analysis of high-frequency oxygen data with process-based modelling tools to unravel the varied responses of components of the oxygen budget to storm events. Endorheic lakes are one of the most important factors of an environment. Regarding their morphology, these lakes, in particular saline lakes, are much more sensitive and can either benefit or pose a threat to their surroundings. Thus, constant monitoring of such lakes' water level, modeling and analyzing them for future planning and management policies is vitally important. We proposed a generalized linear stochastic model (GLSM) for forecasting the weekly and monthly Urmia lake water levels, the sixth-largest saltwater lake on Earth. In this methodology, three approaches are defined to pre-process data. The first approach is merely based on the differencing method, while the second and third are a one-step (the combination of de-trending with standardization and spectral analysis) and two-step (the combination of the 2nd approach with normalization transform) preprocessing, respectively. A thorough comparison of the GLSM results with eminence nonlinear AI models (Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference Systems, ANFIS, Multilayer Perceptron, MLP, Gene Expression Programming, GEP, Support Vector Machine with Firefly algorithm, SVM-FFA, and Artificial Neural Networks ANN) showed that by using an appropriate method that delivers accurate information of the entailing terms in time series, it is possible to model Urmia lake level with acceptable precision.