Search Results (10,838)

The ecological impact of microplastic pollution in freshwater ecosystems has received growing scientific attention, although research on freshwater species remains limited compared to marine organisms. This study investigates the individual and combined toxicological impacts of polystyrene nanoparticles (PSNPs) and dibutyl phthalate (DBP) on hybrid snakehead (Channa maculata ♀ × Channa argus ♂), a commercially important freshwater fish. PSNPs inhibited growth, induced hepatic and intestinal lesions, and delayed ovarian development, co-exposure with DBP exacerbated these effects. qPCR analysis revealed significant up-regulation of inflammation-related genes in the liver but inhibitory effects in the intestines, indicating that PSNPs and DBP provoke immune modulation and systemic pro-inflammatory responses. Furthermore, PSNPs and DBP induced oxidative damage in the liver and intestines by affecting antioxidant enzyme activity. 16S rRNA sequencing revealed that PSNPs and DBP altered intestinal microbiota composition, particularly reducing Proteobacteria abundance. Correlation analyses indicated negative associations between the abundances of Proteobacteria and Firmicutes and antioxidant parameters (SOD and MDA), suggesting microbiota-mediated impacts on host metabolism and physiological health. These findings highlight the ecological threat of microplastics and phthalates in freshwater environments and underscore the need for targeted conservation strategies. Full article

This study examines the socio-ecological impacts of soybean cultivation in the Brazilian Amazon, a region of critical importance for global climate regulation and biodiversity conservation. It explores how the expansion of soybean cultivation in this region since the 1990s, driven by international demand and domestic policies, has triggered a series of unsustainable socio-ecological consequences, such as deforestation, overuse of agrochemicals, displacement of indigenous communities, and land tenure conflicts. Inadequate governance, at both national and international levels, has exacerbated these challenges, undermining efforts to balance soybean cultivation with sustainable development in Brazilian Amazon. Through a mixed analysis method, this study proposes pathways for sustainable soybean production in the Amazon, including extending the Soy Moratorium to the Cerrado, strengthening indigenous land rights, enhancing international cooperation, and adopting sustainable agricultural practices such as agroforestry. These findings contributes to reconciling soybean cultivation with sustainable development in the Brazilian Amazon. Full article

The performance of seawater intake systems affects the reliability and efficiency of desalination plants and water-processing systems. The objective of this work is to gain insights into improving their design by examining the flow patterns around seawater intakes using particle image velocimetry (PIV), image processing techniques, and numerical modeling. Different wave and current conditions are considered, and intake conditions are classified into categories based on hydrodynamic parameters. Numerical simulations indicate complex flow patterns under simultaneous waves and currents. The results revealed that the velocity of the approach current affects the efficiency of seawater intake, and the impact depends on the cap geometry. Square caps, characterized by sharp edges, create flow contractions and instabilities, whereas circular caps result in smoother flow patterns, enhancing efficiency. Wave action exacerbates these effects, particularly as the Keulegan–Carpenter (KC) number increases, and may compromise the stability of intake structures. Circular caps improve overall stability and performance under waves. These results contribute to better designs of seawater intake structures and, thus, improved efficiency and stability. Full article

As protected areas (PAs) expand globally at an accelerating rate, reconciling biodiversity conservation with socioeconomic development in adjacent communities has become a critical challenge for landscape sustainability. This systematic review synthesizes literature (1990–2025) to trace three interconnected transitions: (1) the conceptual evolution from exclusionary to inclusive PA–community paradigms, grounded in shifting perceptions of cultural landscapes; (2) the governance transformation from tokenistic participation to power-sharing co-management frameworks; and (3) the spatial planning progression from fragmented “island” models to integrated protected area networks (PANs) leveraging ecological corridors. Our analysis reveals that disconnected PA–community relationships exacerbate conservation–development conflicts, particularly where cultural landscapes are undervalued. A key finding is that cultural–natural synergies act as pivotal mediators for conservation efficacy, necessitating context-adaptive governance approaches. This study advances landscape planning theory by proposing a rural landscape network framework that integrates settlement patches, biocultural corridors, and PA matrices to optimize ecological connectivity while empowering communities. Empirical insights from China highlight pathways to harmonize stringent protection with rural revitalization, underscoring the capacity of PANs to bridge spatial and socio-institutional divides. This synthesis provides a transformative lens for policymakers to scale locally grounded solutions across global conservation landscapes. Full article

Background: Atherosclerosis is the main cause of coronary heart disease, which frequently precedes the onset of heart failure. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a pro-inflammatory endotoxin produced by Gram-negative bacteria, exacerbates atherosclerotic processes and negatively impacts myocardial function, particularly in the context of activating low grade inflammation. Zonulin, a key regulator of the blood-gut barrier, modulates tight junction permeability, potentially facilitating the translocation of microbial-derived compounds, including LPS, into the circulation. Given these interactions, we investigated serum levels of lipopolysaccharide and zonulin in patients following myocardial infarction. This study aimed to assess serum levels of zonulin and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in patients who had experienced a myocardial infarction (MI) and to evaluate the association between these biomarkers and ejection fraction (EF) across different patient groups. Methods: 78 patients (22 women and 56 men) diagnosed with MI, who underwent primary PCI (percutaneous coronary intervention), were included in the study. The blood samples were collected between 24 and 48 h after PCI. Results: Post-myocardial infarction patients with an ejection fraction ≤ 40% exhibited significantly elevated serum lipopolysaccharide levels compared to those with an ejection fraction > 40%. However, no significant differences in zonulin levels were observed between the study groups. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that elevated serum lipopolysaccharide levels may be associated with a reduction in post-infarction ejection fraction. This observation highlights a potential link between endotoxemia and impaired myocardial function following MI, warranting further investigation. Full article

Climate change and rapid urbanization exert significant impacts on ecosystem services (ESs). The rational assessment and prediction of ESs are crucial for urban sustainable development. This study analyzes the spatiotemporal changes in land use in Shanghai from 2000 to 2020 and evaluates the key ESs, including water yield, soil retention, carbon storage, and habitat quality. Furthermore, integrated “climate change-land use” scenarios were constructed to systematically simulate the response characteristics of ESs under different climate change and development pathways. The results indicate that Shanghai’s land use from 2000 to 2020 was characterized by continuous expansion of built-up land and a significant reduction in cropland. Ecological land exhibited a low and fragmented coverage. By 2040, the ecological protection (EP) scenario could effectively curb the disorderly expansion of built-up land and maintain the stability of cropland and woodland, whereas the natural development (ND) scenario would exacerbate urban sprawl towards the east and further fragment ecological land. From 2000 to 2020, water yield in Shanghai showed an increasing trend, soil retention initially decreased followed by a gradual recovery, carbon sequestration experienced minor fluctuations, and habitat quality exhibited a continuous decline. By 2040, the EP scenarios will effectively maintain water yield and soil retention functions, steadily enhance carbon sequestration and habitat quality, and mitigate the negative impacts of climate change. In contrast, the ND scenarios show an unstable trend of initial increase followed by decrease. Spatially, the western and northern regions consistently remain high-value ESs zones under both scenarios. In 2040, Shanghai’s ESs will exhibit distinct administrative district disparities, characterized by “peripheral sensitivity and central stability”. This pattern underscores the necessity for implementing zone-specific regulation strategies in future urban planning. Full article

Non-Hodgkin B-cell lymphomas are a heterogeneous group of lymphoid malignancies with variable biological behavior, clinical presentation and treatment response. While chemoimmunotherapy remains the cornerstone of their management, growing evidence implicates the gut microbiota as a critical modulator of both lymphomagenesis and therapeutic efficacy. Gut microbiota dysbiosis, characterized by reduced microbial diversity and pathogenic taxonomic shifts, has been observed also in newly diagnosed patients and not just after therapy. This microbial imbalance contributes to mucosal barrier disruption, systemic inflammation, and altered immune responses, affecting treatment outcomes and toxicity profiles. Antibiotic exposure, especially broad-spectrum agents, exacerbates dysbiosis and has been associated with inferior responses to immunochemotherapy and CAR T-cell therapy. Conversely, certain commensal taxa, like Faecalibacterium prausnitzii and Lactobacillus johnsonii, may exert protective effects by preserving mucosal homeostasis and promoting antitumor immunity. Targeted interventions, including prudent antibiotic stewardship, prebiotics, probiotics, dietary modulation, and fecal microbiota transplantation, are under investigation to restore eubiosis and improve clinical outcomes. Preliminary clinical trials suggest a strong correlation between baseline microbiome composition and therapeutic response. Further mechanistic studies and randomized trials are warranted to define the causal role of the microbiome in non-Hodgkin B-cell lymphomas pathophysiology and to develop personalized microbiome-modulating strategies as adjuncts to standard treatment. Full article

Under the typical scenario of high-speed mobility, channel disturbances at the physical layer may disturb the transmission of video base layers. Due to the close dependency of Scalable Video Coding (SVC) on base layers, such disturbances will result in retransmissions and handover delays. Meanwhile, ineffective enhancement layers continue to occupy resources, ultimately causing system performance collapse and further exacerbating physical-layer disturbances. To address this challenge, we propose an edge computing resource coordination optimization scheme for highly dynamic mobile terminals. The scheme first empowers the SVC layered transmission with the local caching capabilities, enabling rapid retransmission of base layer data by employing a Lyapunov optimization framework for transmission queue scheduling. Secondly, we design a strategy for dynamically releasing the enhancement layer (EL) cache. This can mitigate resource waste caused by invalid enhancement layers. Finally, Lyapunov drift optimization is implemented to ensure base layer transmission stability and accelerate system state convergence. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed scheme significantly improves video transmission reliability and user experience in highly dynamic network environments. Full article

Intra-fractional respiratory management represents one of the greatest challenges of modern cancer radiotherapy (RT), as significant breathing-induced lesion motion might affect target coverage and organs at risk (OARs) sparing, jeopardizing oncological and toxicity outcomes. The detrimental effects on dosage of uncompensated organ motion are exacerbated in RT with charged particles (e.g., protons and carbon ions), due to their higher ballistic selectivity. The simplest strategies to counteract this phenomenon are the use of larger treatment margins and reductions in or control of respiration (e.g., by means of compression belts, breath hold). Gating and tracking, which synchronize beam delivery with the respiratory signal, also represent widely adopted solutions. When tracking the tumor itself or surrogates, invasive procedures (e.g., marker implantation), an unnecessary imaging dose (e.g., in X-ray-based fluoroscopy), or expensive equipment (e.g., magnetic resonance imaging, MRI) is usually required. When chest and abdomen excursions are measured to infer internal tumor displacement, the additional devices needed to perform this task, such as pressure sensors or surface cameras, present inherent limitations that can impair the procedure itself. In this context, radars have intrigued the radiation oncology community, being inexpensive, non-invasive, contactless, and insensitive to obstacles. Even if real-world clinical implementation is still lagging behind, there is a growing body of research unraveling the potential of these devices in this field. The purpose of this narrative review is to provide an overview of the studies that have delved into the potential of radar-based technologies for motion-adaptive photon and particle RT applications. Full article

Rapid urbanization within ecologically fragile mountainous regions exacerbates tensions between development needs and land use sustainability, yet few studies have systematically quantified long-term land use/land cover (LULC) dynamics in large-scale mountainous urban agglomerations. Focusing on the Chengdu–Chongqing Urban Agglomeration (CCUA) in Southwest China—an archetypal mountainous megaregion undergoing accelerated development—this study analyzed LULC evolution from 1985 to 2019 using multi-period data, identified dominant driving factors through logistic regression, and projected future LULC patterns under various scenarios via the Future Land Use Simulation (FLUS) model. The outcomes indicate that (1) over the past decades, construction land expanded by over 4000 km², an increase of about 318%, while cultivated land decreased by nearly 8600 km², a reduction of 6.86%; (2) the dominant transformation type was the conversion of cultivated land to forest, followed by its conversion to construction land; (3) elevation, slope, and average annual temperature emerged as significant predictors of LULC change, highlighting the critical influence of topographical and climatic conditions; and (4) natural development scenarios (NDS) and ecology and cultivated protection scenarios (ECPS) represent suitable development pathways. These findings contribute to evidence-based spatial governance and provide policy guidance for ecological protection in the CCUA and other similarly vulnerable areas. Full article

Submicron particles (SPs), with diameters less than 1.0 μm, are a serious health risk, and urban meteorology variables (MVs), impacted by human activity, can support their sustainability. This study, in a city immersed in a basin geomorphology, is carried out during the summer period of high temperatures and variable relative humidity. An area of high urban density was selected, with the presence of high-rise buildings, urban canyons that favor heat islands, low forestation, intense vehicular traffic, and extreme conditions for MVs. Hourly measurements, in the form of time series, record the number of SPs (for diameters of 0.3, 0.5, and 1.0 μm) along with MVs (temperature (T), relative humidity (RH), and wind speed magnitude (WS)). The objective is to verify whether MVs (RH, T) promote the sustainability of SPs. For this purpose, Spearman’s analysis and a heavy-tailed probability function were used. The central tendency probability, a Gaussian distribution, was discarded since its probability does not discriminate extreme events. Spearman’s analysis yielded significant p-values and correlations between PM₁₀, PM_5.0, PM_2.5, and SPs. However, this was not the case between MVs and SPs. By applying a heavy-tailed probability analysis to extreme events, the results show that MVs such as T and RH act in ways that can favor the accumulation and persistence of SP concentrations. This tendency could have been exacerbated during the measurement period by heat waves and a geographical environment under the influence of a prolonged drought resulting from climate change and global warming. Full article

For arid and semi-arid regions like Xinjiang, analyzing the spatiotemporal patterns of September precipitation and their atmospheric circulation teleconnections is crucial for ecosystem preservation. This research examined how the August Asian–Pacific Oscillation (APO) influenced the September precipitation patterns in northern Xinjiang. The results show that the thermal anomalies resulting from the August APO exhibited persistence into September, triggering atmospheric circulation anomalies that ultimately affected the precipitation patterns in northern Xinjiang, with a notable negative correlation. The positive (negative) August APO phase corresponded to reduced (increased) mid-tropospheric geopotential heights over Asia and the Arabian Sea, significantly enhancing anomalous cyclonic (anticyclonic) circulation patterns in these regions. These circulation patterns induced anomalous northerlies (southerlies) over northern Xinjiang and the region from eastern Iran to the Persian Gulf, thereby reducing (increasing) the moisture transport from the Arabian Sea. Furthermore, the anomalous divergence (convergence) of cold/warm air masses and subsidence (ascent) motions exacerbated (enhanced) these effects, ultimately suppressing (enhancing) the September precipitation in northern Xinjiang. Full article

Background: Endometriosis is a chronic, estrogen-dependent inflammatory and immunological disease, with chronic pain being its predominant clinical manifestation. This condition significantly impairs quality of life and is frequently associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms, further exacerbating social and occupational dysfunction in affected women. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between chronic pain in patients with endometriosis and the severity of depressive symptoms. Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on the medical records of 60 women of reproductive age treated at the Tomaszewski Medical Center in Białystok between 2023 and 2024. Pain intensity was evaluated using the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and the McGill Pain Questionnaire, while depressive symptoms were assessed with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Results: Statistical analyses included the Student t-test, Wilcoxon signed-rank test, chi-square test, and Shapiro–Wilk test, with significance set at p < 0.05. Pain intensity was significantly higher during menstruation (M = 7.23) compared to non-menstrual phases of the cycle (M = 4.55; p < 0.001). Accompanying symptoms included sleep disturbances, reduced activity, and gastrointestinal complaints. Depressive symptoms were also more severe during menstruation (M = 30.12) than during the rest of the cycle (M = 22.15; p < 0.001). A significant association between pain severity and depressive symptoms was observed during menstruation (χ²(4) = 12.89; p = 0.012), but not outside this phase. Conclusions: (1) Pain in endometriosis is chronic and cyclic in nature. (2) Depressive symptoms are common but may be masked by nonspecific somatic complaints. (3) Pain intensity strongly correlates with the severity of depressive disorders, particularly during menstruation. (4) The coexistence of depression significantly impairs patient functioning. (5) Effective management of endometriosis should integrate gynecological treatment with psychological support and psychiatric care when necessary. Full article

In intensive agriculture, the excessive application of chemical fertilizers leads to approximately 50% nitrogen loss, which exacerbates water pollution and the greenhouse effect. Meanwhile, nitrogen and phosphorus emissions from livestock manure have far exceeded those from chemical fertilizers, becoming the primary source of agricultural non-point-source pollution. This study aims to clarify the comprehensive effects of combining manure with urea application and precision irrigation on the soil environment, lettuce growth, and quality, and to determine the optimal water and fertilizer management strategy. The results indicate that combining manure with urea application and precision irrigation can effectively mitigate non-point-source pollution, enhance soil nutrients, promote lettuce growth, and improve quality. When the irrigation volume reaches 75–78% of field capacity and the ratio of manure to urea nitrogen ranges from 7:3 to 1:1, key indicators for soil health, lettuce growth, and quality can exceed 90% of their respective maximum levels. This study provides a scientific basis and practical guidance for the resource utilization of manure and precise water–fertilizer management in intensive lettuce production. Full article

Avian poxvirus was diagnosed in eight wild Stone-curlews (Burhinus oedicnemus) from the Canary Islands, based on a combination of pathological and molecular analysis. Affected birds exhibited lesions consistent with poxvirus infection; three of four with mild lesions (≤2 on pelvic limbs, excluding phalanges) were successfully rehabilitated and released, while four with moderate (≤2 on phalanges) to severe lesions (≥3 on phalanges) potentially faced impaired mobility, increased predation risk, and reduced foraging efficiency. Histopathology of six individuals revealed Bollinger bodies, characteristic of Avipoxvirus infection, and molecular analysis confirmed the presence of viral DNA in six cases. Three genetically distinct viral variants were identified, each associated with different phylogenetic clades and subclades, suggesting substantial viral diversity within this host species. Co-infection with Aspergillus fumigatus was also detected in six of the eight birds, confirmed by molecular analysis in either skin lesions or lung tissue. To our knowledge, this represents the first report of A. fumigatus co-infection in Stone-curlews with Avipoxvirus. Additionally, one individual presented a tumor-like lesion, expanding the known pathological manifestations of the disease. These findings provide new insights into avian pox and highlight the importance of considering fungal co-infections in the differential diagnosis, given their potential to exacerbate disease severity. Full article