Willardkjeldgaard2761

In summary, biocrust growth varied with seasonal variation in light energy utilization and complementary chemical energy sources, with the most suitable season varying with biocrust successional type.Nitrous oxide and ammonia emissions from farmland need to be abated as they directly or indirectly affect climate warming and crop yield. We conducted a two-year field experiment to investigate the effect of biochar applied at two rates (no biochar application vs. biochar applied at 10 t ha-1) on gaseous nitrogen (N) losses (N2O emissions and NH3 volatilization), plant N uptake, residual soil mineral N, and peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) yield under three irrigation regimes furrow irrigation (FI), drip irrigation (DI), and mulched drip irrigation (MDI). We found that MDI reduced residual (post-harvest) soil mineral N, cumulative N2O emissions, and yield-scaled N2O emissions as compared to FI. Biochar application increased residual soil NO3--N and decreased yield-scaled N2O emissions as compared with the control without biochar application. Under the three irrigation regimes, biochar application decreased cumulative NH3 volatilization and increased plant N uptake and yield compared with the control. Biochar application improved the sustainability of peanut production and could be used to alleviate the environmental damage associated with gaseous N emissions. Where possible, biochar application under MDI in peanut fields is recommended as a management strategy to minimize gaseous N losses.Antibiotics play a role in preventing and treating infectious diseases and also contribute to other health risks for humans. With the overuse of antibiotics, they are widely distributed in the environment. Long-term exposure to multiple antibiotics may occur in humans through medication and dietary intake. Therefore, it is critical to estimate daily intake and health risk of antibiotics based on urinary biomonitoring. This review compares the strengths and weaknesses of current analytical methods to determine antibiotics in urine samples, discusses the urinary concentration profiles and hazard quotients of individual antibiotics, and overviews correlations of antibiotic exposure with the risk of diseases. Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry is most applied to simultaneously determine multiple types of antibiotics at trace levels. Solid-phase extraction with a hydrophilic-lipophilic balance adsorbent is commonly used to extract antibiotics in urine samples. Fifteen major antibiotics with relatively e research is needed. Longitudinal studies about antibiotic exposure and the risk of diseases in different developmental windows as well as in-depth research on the pathogenic mechanism of long-term, low-dose, and joint antibiotic exposure are warranted.Global plastic waste production has increased dramatically in recent years, both globally and regionally, having a multitude of adverse effects on the environment and human health. However, little attention has been directed to this problem in the Arabian Gulf region. This study aims to delineate and map the status of the plastic waste problem in the Gulf Co-operation Countries (GCC), with a focus on Qatar. The study focuses on the plastic waste in the marine environment, depicting the different types, sizes and shapes of plastic particles found in the Arabian Gulf. this website To depict the flow of plastic waste, a generic material flow diagram was built using a material flow analysis software named STAN, in which transfer coefficients were assigned based on existing scientific literature and estimations built on data from local industries and recycling facilities. The recovery and recycling efforts that have been made by the different GCC countries, in efforts to reduce plastic waste and minimize the risk of plastic on the environment are analyzed, too. Our analyses indicate that approximately 11.9 Mt ± 595.395 Kt of plastic waste is produced annually in the GCC region, of which only 23 ± 15% is recycled, indicating that improvements are yet to be made in the recovery, recycling and treatment of plastics in the region. However, in Qatar, a higher percentage of plastics (40 ± 10%) is recovered-recycled with efforts to treat plastics and reuse it to generate energy.Forecasting river water levels or streamflow water levels (SWL) is vital to optimising the practical and sustainable use of available water resources. We propose a new deep learning hybrid model for SWL forecasting using convolutional neural networks (CNN), bi-directional long-short term memory (BiLSTM), and ant colony optimisation (ACO) with a two-phase decomposition approach at the 7-day, 14-day, and 28-day forecast horizons. The newly developed CBILSTM method is coupled with complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise (CEEMDAN) and variational mode decomposition (VMD) methods to extract the most significant features within predictor variables to build a hybrid CVMD-CBiLSTM model. We integrate three distinct datasets (satellite-derived, climate mode indices, and ground-based meteorological observations) to improve the forecasting capability of the CVMD-CBiLSTM model, applied at nineteen different gauging stations in the Australian Murray River system. This proposed model returns a significantly accurate performance with ~98% of all prediction errors within less than ±0.020 m and a low relative root mean square of ~0.08%, demonstrating its superiority over several benchmark models. The results show that using the new hybrid deep learning algorithm with ACO feature selection can significantly improve the accuracy of forecasted river water levels, and therefore, the method is attractive for adopting remote sensing data to the model ground-based river flow for strategic water savings planning initiatives and dealing with climate change-induced extreme events such as drought events.The adverse effects of acidic ultrafine particles (AUFPs) have been widely recognized in scientific communities. However, a handful of studies successfully acquired the concentrations of AUFPs in the atmosphere. To explore the AUFPs pollution, six extensive measurements were for the first time conducted in the roadside, urban and rural areas in Hong Kong, and the urban area in Shanghai between 2017 and 2020. The concentrations of AUFPs and UFPs, and the proportions of AUFPs in UFPs were obtained. The concentration of UFPs was the highest at the roadside site, followed by the urban site and the rural site, while the proportion of AUFPs in UFPs showed a contrary trend. The difference, on one hand, indicated the potential transformation of AUFPs from non-acidic UFPs during the transport and aging of air masses, and on the other hand, suggested the minor contribution of anthropogenic sources to the emission of AUFPs. In addition, the urban area in Hong Kong suffered from heavier pollution of UFPs and AUFPs than that in Shanghai. As for size distribution, the proportion of AUFPs in UFPs peaked in the size range of 35-50 nm and 50-75 nm in roadside and urban area, respectively. In rural area, the peak was observed in the size range of 5-10 nm, which might indicate the stimulation of new particle formation with the AUFPs as seeds. Furthermore, in the urban areas of Hong Kong and Shanghai, no significant difference was found for the geometric mean diameters of UFPs and AUFPs (p > 0.05). At last, the sulfuric acid proxy was positively correlated with the proportions of AUFPs in UFPs but not well correlated with the AUFPs levels. The results suggested the important roles of interaction between sulfuric acid vapor and non-acidic UFPs in AUFPs formation. Due to the significant reduction of sulfur dioxide in China during the last decade, the pollution of AUFPs in urban areas was alleviated.Ash is a fundamental component of plant litter and plays a vital role in regulating litter decomposition. However, to date, global patterns and underlying mechanisms of initial litter ash concentrations remain unclear. Here, we used 570 observations collected from 104 independent publications to assess the global patterns of initial plant litter ash concentrations and evaluated the effects of mycorrhizal association [arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) vs. ectomycorrhiza (ECM)], taxon group (gymnosperm vs. angiosperm), life form (tree vs. shrub vs. herb), leaf type (broadleaf vs. needle), and environmental factors such as climate and soil properties on initial litter ash concentration. The results showed that (1) global average ash concentrations varied significantly among different plant tissues and were 7.3, 4.5, 3.7, 3.5, 3.1, 2.4, and 1.5% in leaf, root, bark, reproductive tissue (flower and fruit), branch, stem, and wood litter, respectively; (2) in leaf litter, the initial ash concentrations of AM plants and spees of carbon and nutrient cycling.In this study, microbes were added to food waste compost in order to investigate the bioaugmentation mechanism of Humic acid (HA) formation. Thermogravimetric analysis, structural equation model, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and statistical analysis were utilized to explain the bioaugmentation mechanism. The results showed that bioaugmentation increased humification rate and degree. Bioaugmentation not only promoted the formation of aromatic structures and CC bonds but also brought different change orders of functional groups in HA. The HA obtained in bioaugmentation group (BA, 7.51 g/kg) was significantly higher compared to the control group (CK, 2.37 g/kg). Similarly, the HA/FA of BA (1.90) was also higher than that of CK (0.62), and peaked at 2.34 on day 40. The polyphenol humification pathway played a major role regardless of the addition of inoculant. However, the exogenous microbes promoted protein and carbohydrate degradation in the initial stage, and the abundance of precursors (amino acids and reducing sugars) enhanced both Maillard and polyphenol humification pathways. When polyphenol was insufficient in later stage, bioaugmentation mainly embodied in the strengthening of Maillard humification pathway. This finding benefited the practice of directional humification process of food waste composting.Prorocentrum minimum is a common diarrhetic shellfish toxins-producing marine microalga that may seriously endanger marine resources and cause great economic losses. The development of a novel rapid detection technique is of great importance for the prevention and control of the damage caused by P. minimum. In this study, the aptamer against P. minimum was for the first time generated from an artificially synthesized single-stranded DNA library by systematic evolution of ligand by exponential enrichment (SELEX), using P. minimum and P. minimum-related species, including Prorocentrum donghaiense, Prorocentrum lima and Prorocentrum micans as target and counter-screening species, respectively. The aptamer library was successfully obtained at the end of 18 rounds of SELEX-screening by continuously monitoring the binding ratio of the resultant ssDNA from each round. Three sequences (Apt 1, Apt 2 and Apt 3) with the highest frequency in the aptamer library resulted from high-throughput sequencing were first selected as candidate aptamers. The secondary structure of these sequences was predicted and analyzed. In addition, the specificity and affinity of these candidate aptamers were determined by flow cytometry analysis. The results indicated that these aptamers had high specificity and affinity, with a KD of (224.6 ± 8.8) nM (Apt 1), (286.6 ± 13.9) nM (Apt 2) and (388.5 ± 44.6) nM (Apt 3), respectively. Apt 1 was therefore chosen as the best aptamer against P. minimum. Finally, the fluorescence microscopic examination further confirmed that Apt 1 can well bind to P. minimum. In summary, Apt 1 may be promising for being used as a novel molecular recognition element for P. minimum.