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In this study, we elucidated the effect of sewage drain on groundwater contamination as including different contaminants, microbes, and pathogens, which deteriorating the groundwater ...by poor infiltration and seepage. This is getting severer in developing countries like India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, where unprocessed effluent is discharged into the water bodies. This study was planned to elucidate the effect of sewage drain (based on distance 0–5, 5–10, 15–20, 20–25 m) from two different sewage drains to explain the different physiochemical, and biological parameters including total soluble solids (TSS), chloride, total dissolved solids (TDS), calcium, total hardness, magnesium, nitrate, chemical oxygen demand (COD), dissolved oxygen (D.O.), and biological oxygen demand (BOD). Drainage channel number-1 results showed that E. coli (positive), coliform count (22.75–48.66 /100 mL), and BOD (8–25.75 mgL−1) remained above the permissible limit of the World Health Organization (WHO). Besides, drainage channel number 2 results exposed that E. coli (positive), coliform count (17.7–47 /100 mL), and BOD (6.25–21.5 mg/ L) was not within the permissible limit of WHO. The presence of COVID-19 in the stool has been significantly reported in the literature. The presence of stool in sewage drain leading to groundwater contamination can be an emerging threat to water pollution and could lead to the spread of COVID-19. This study helps to minimize this threat with the help of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Because organizational responsibility towards its society is one of the critical factors to contain numerous issues related to the society.
Air is a diverse mixture of gaseous and suspended solid particles. Several new substances are being added to the air daily, polluting it and causing human health effects. Particulate matter (PM) is ...the primary health concern among these air toxins. The World Health Organization (WHO) addressed the fact that particulate pollution affects human health more severely than other air pollutants. The spread of air pollution and viruses, two of our millennium's most serious concerns, have been linked closely. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) can spread through the air, and PM could act as a host to spread the virus beyond those in close contact. Studies on COVID-19 cover diverse environmental segments and become complicated with time. As PM pollution is related to everyday life, an essential awareness regarding PM-impacted COVID-19 among the masses is required, which can help researchers understand the various features of ambient particulate pollution, particularly in the era of COVID-19. Given this, the present work provides an overview of the recent developments in COVID-19 research linked to ambient particulate studies. This review summarizes the effect of the lockdown on the characteristics of ambient particulate matter pollution, the transmission mechanism of COVID-19, and the combined health repercussions of PM pollution. In addition to a comprehensive evaluation of the implementation of the lockdown, its rationales-based on topographic and socioeconomic dynamics-are also discussed in detail. The current review is expected to encourage and motivate academics to concentrate on improving air quality management and COVID-19 control.
Image classification has gained lot of attention due to its application in different computer vision tasks such as remote sensing, scene analysis, surveillance, object detection, and image retrieval. ...The primary goal of image classification is to assign the class labels to images according to the image contents. The applications of image classification and image analysis in remote sensing are important as they are used in various applied domains such as military and civil fields. Earlier approaches for remote sensing images and scene analysis are based on low-level feature representations such as color- and texture-based features. Vector of Locally Aggregated Descriptors (VLAD) and orderless Bag-of-Features (BoF) representations are the examples of mid-level approaches for remote sensing image classification. Recent trends for remote sensing and scene classification are focused on the use of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). Keeping in view the success of CNN models, in this research, we aim to fine-tune ResNet50 by using network surgery and creation of network head along with the fine-tuning of hyperparameters. The learning of hyperparameters is tuned by using a linear decay learning rate scheduler known as piecewise scheduler. To tune the optimizer hyperparameter, Stochastic Gradient Descent with Momentum (SGDM) is used with the usage of weight learn and bias learn rate factor. Experiments and analysis are conducted on five different datasets, that is, UC Merced Land Use Dataset (UCM), RSSCN (the remote sensing scene classification image dataset), SIRI-WHU, Corel-1K, and Corel-1.5K. The analysis and competitive results exemplify that our proposed image classification-based model can classify the images in a more effective and efficient manner as compared to the state-of-the-art research.
The underground community of soil organisms, known as soil biota, plays a critical role in terrestrial ecosystems. Different ecosystems exhibit varied responses of soil organisms to soil physical and ...chemical properties (SPCPs). However, our understanding of how soil biota react to different soil depths in naturally established population of salinity tolerant Tamarix ramosissima in desert ecosystems, remains limited. To address this, we employed High-Throughput Illumina HiSeq Sequencing to examine the population dynamics of soil bacteria, fungi, archaea, protists, and metazoa at six different soil depths (0–100 cm) in the naturally occurring T. ramosissima dominant zone within the Taklimakan desert of China. Our observations reveal that the alpha diversity of bacteria, fungi, metazoa, and protists displayed a linear decrease with the increase of soil depth, whereas archaea exhibited an inverse pattern. The beta diversity of soil biota, particularly metazoa, bacteria, and protists, demonstrated noteworthy associations with soil depths through Non-Metric Dimensional Scaling analysis. Among the most abundant classes of soil organisms, we observed Actinobacteria, Sordariomycetes, Halobacteria, Spirotrichea, and Nematoda for bacteria, fungi, archaea, protists, and metazoa, respectively. Additionally, we identified associations between the vertical distribution of dominant biotic communities and SPCPs. Bacterial changes were mainly influenced by total potassium, available phosphorus (AP), and soil water content (SWC), while fungi were impacted by nitrate (NO3-) and available potassium (AK). Archaea showed correlations with total carbon (TC) and AK thus suggesting their role in methanogenesis and methane oxidation, protists with AP and SWC, and metazoa with AP and pH. These correlations underscore potential connections to nutrient cycling and the production and consumption of greenhouse gases (GhGs). This insight establishes a solid foundation for devising strategies to mitigate nutrient cycling and GHG emissions in desert soils, thereby playing a pivotal role in the advancement of comprehensive approaches to sustainable desert ecosystem management.
•Soil nutrients and diversity of soil biota across different soil depths in Tamarix ramosissima was investigated.•Declining pattern in the alpha diversity of soil biota was recorded with an increase in soil depth except archaea.•The most prevalent classes were Actinobacteria, Sordariomycetes, Halobacteria, Spirotrichea, and Nematoda.•AP and SWC influenced bacteria and protists, while AK affected fungi and archaea and metazoa by AP and pH.•Our findings provide a new perspective on the vertical distribution of soil biota in T. ramosissima in desert ecosystem.
Microplastics (MPs) pollution is an emerging environmental health concern, impacting soil, plants, animals, and humans through their entry into the food chain via bioaccumulation. Human activities ...such as improper solid waste dumping are significant sources that ultimately transport MPs into the water bodies of the coastal areas. Moreover, there is a complex interplay between the coastal climate dynamics, environmental factors, the burgeoning issue of MPs pollution and the complex web of coastal pollution. We embark on a comprehensive journey, synthesizing the latest research across multiple disciplines to provide a holistic understanding of how these inter-connected factors shape and reshape the coastal ecosystems. The comprehensive review also explores the impact of the current climatic patterns on coastal regions, the intricate pathways through which MPs can infiltrate marine environments, and the cascading effects of coastal pollution on ecosystems and human societies in terms of health and socio-economic impacts in coastal regions. The novelty of this review concludes the changes in climate patterns have crucial effects on coastal regions, proceeding MPs as more prevalent, deteriorating coastal ecosystems, and hastening the transfer of MPs. The continuous rising sea levels, ocean acidification, and strong storms result in habitat loss, decline in biodiversity, and economic repercussion. Feedback mechanisms intensify pollution effects, underlying the urgent demand for environmental conservation contribution. In addition, the complex interaction between human, industry, and biodiversity demanding cutting edge strategies, innovative approaches such as remote sensing with artificial intelligence for monitoring, biobased remediation techniques, global cooperation in governance, policies to lessen the negative socioeconomic and environmental effects of coastal pollution.
Summary
Formamidinium iodide (FAI) based perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have now been established as effective PSCs than methylammonium lead iodide perovskite for several years due to their optimal ...bandgap and high thermal stability. However, the FAI‐based PSCs have humidity issues, due to which mixed cation perovskites are getting popular. MAI‐based PSCs have better stability against high humidity but low thermal stabilities. Herein, we prepared highly crystallized, efficient, and large‐grain size perovskite films via FAI post‐dripping process. In addition, the most promising structures FAI mixed MAPbI3 were explored as stable and effective active layers. The post‐dripping of FAI solution just after the MAPbI3 deposition provides a robust long‐distance diffusion, long carrier life, and enhanced grain sizes when compared to MAPbI3 PSCs. Based on the facile way of mixed cation perovskite preparation by post‐dripping, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) has risen from 15.24% to 17.52% in comparison with the pristine devices. This results in the best quality and large grain perovskite films which enhanced the PSCs' performance by reducing defect density and regulating the crystallization rate.
FAPbI3 is thermally stable perovskite and exhibits high Power conversion Efficiency than MAPbI3, but there is phase conversion issue in FAPbI3. Herein, the FA has been placed in MA PbI3 lattice and PCE and stability has been increased.
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•KMnO4 and NaClO were combined for the synergistic degradation of BP-3.•NaClO enhanced the generation of high-valence Mn species for BP-3 removal.•KMnO4 oxidized Cl- released from ...NaClO into Cl2 to promote BP-3 degradation.•Six main reaction mechanisms were observed in KMnO4/NaClO oxidation system.•KMnO4/NaClO system largely reduced the ecological risk compared with NaClO alone.
To obtain utilization efficiency of low permanganate (KMnO4), it is available to combine with other chemical agents. This work found the synergistic effects of adding KMnO4 and sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) simultaneously on the efficient degradation of benzophenone-3 (BP-3). The synergy factors of the combined method were increased with increasing concentrations of KMnO4 and NaClO. Neutral and alkaline conditions were more favorable for BP-3 removal. Methyl phenyl sulfoxide (PMSO) was used as the probe to detect high-valence Mn species (e.g., Mn(VI), Mn(V)). Results indicated that the reactivity of KMnO4 was improved by NaClO by increasing the content of high-valence Mn species. Cl- converted from NaClO was oxidized by KMnO4 to generate Cl2, also promoting the degradation of BP-3. The oxidative mechanisms of BP-3 in the system of KMnO4 coupling with NaClO (KMnO4/NaClO) mainly included oxidative ring-opening, carboxylation, Bayer-Villiger oxidation, electrophilic chlorination, hydroxylated reactions and cleavage, but oxidative ring-opening products were detected only in the combined system. Due to the reduced dosage of chlorine and the decreased toxicity in the combined process, KMnO4/NaClO decreased the environmental risk of the reaction process largely. Comprehensively analyzing the degradation efficiency and environmental risk in treatment of BP-3 by the combined process, KMnO4/NaClO oxidation is a promising technology for water treatment.
Soil salinity is a major problem affecting crop production worldwide. Lately, there have been great research efforts in increasing the salt tolerance of plants through the inoculation of plant ...growth-promoting endophytic bacteria. However, their ability to promote plant growth under no-stress and salinity-stress conditions remains largely uncertain. Here, we carried out a global meta-analysis to quantify the plant growth-promoting effects (improvement of morphological attributes, photosynthetic capacity, antioxidative ability, and ion homeostasis) of endophytic bacteria in plants under no-stress and salinity-stress conditions. In addition, we elucidated the underlying mechanisms of growth promotion in salt-sensitive (SS) and salt-tolerant (ST) plants derived from the interaction with endophytic bacteria under no-stress and salinity-stress conditions. Specifically, this work encompassed 42 peer-reviewed articles, a total of 77 experiments, and 24 different bacterial genera. On average, endophytic bacterial inoculation increased morphological parameters. Moreover, the effect of endophytic bacteria on the total dry biomass, number of leaves, root length, shoot length, and germination rate was generally greater under salinity-stress conditions than no-stress conditions. On a physiological level, the relative better performance of the bacterial inoculants under the salinity-stress condition was associated with the increase in total chlorophyll and chlorophyll-b, as well as with the decrease of 1-aminocylopropane-1-carboxylate concentration. Moreover, under the salinity-stress condition, bacterial inoculation conferred a significantly higher increase in root K+ concentration and decrease in leaf Na+ concentration than under the no-stress condition. In SS plants, bacterial inoculation induced a higher increase in chlorophyll-b and superoxide dismutase activity, as well as a higher decrease in abscisic acid content, than in ST plants. Under salinity-stress, endophytic bacterial inoculation increased root K+ concentration in both SS and ST plants but decreased root Na+ concentration only in ST plants. Overall, this meta-analysis suggests that endophytic bacterial inoculation is beneficial under both no salinity-stress and salinity-stress conditions, but the magnitude of benefit is definitely higher under salinity-stress conditions and varies with the salt tolerance level of plants.
In plastic, a 2-(2H-benzotriazol-2-yl)-4,6-di-tert-pentylphenol (UV328) ultraviolet light absorber is a common additive. When using sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) to disinfect plastic, UV328 may react ...with NaClO. For this work, we investigated the transformation behavior of UV328 in polyethylene (PE) plastic by NaClO. The reaction rate increased with the initial free active chlorine (OCl−) concentration and the decrease of the initial UV328 concentration. At room temperature (25 °C) to lower temperatures (0 °C), OCl− could transform UV328, and the reaction activation energy was fitted as 31.10 kJ/mol. Replacement of the plastic carrier (change to polypropylene) had no effect on the reaction process. A total of 12 intermediates were identified, and calculations based on density functional theory (DFT) were used to assist in rationalizing the product structure. Chlorination, hydroxylation, coupling, and bond cleavage were speculated as the main transformation pathways. Dichloroacetic acid (DCAA) and trichloroacetic acid (TCAA) were the only two measured disinfection by-products in the system, and their concentration were 18.33 and 18.19 μg/g, respectively. The toxicity prediction by Toxicity Estimation Software Tool (T.E.S.T) illustrated that the toxicity of the transformation products was higher overall than that of UV328 during the reaction. This work can help to deepen the understanding of the transformation behavior of UV328 in PE plastic in NaClO solution.
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•The reaction between NaClO and UV328 at 0 °C can still proceed.•Chlorination, hydroxylation, coupling, and bond cleavage were the main pathways.•The toxicity of products were higher than UV328 according to T.E.S.T.
A range of studies have been observed, covering the title of climate change and its linkage with the agriculture sector. This would justify the claim that changing environment has its several ...outcomes for which the agriculture sector cannot be ignored. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of various climate change dynamics and modelling on the four indicators of agriculture sector. Overall, five panel economies were selected having highest level of agriculture output in the world economy. The time duration of the study was during 1990–2018 with yearly data as collected from world development indicator or WDI. The study analysis was conducted while applying four panel regression models like ordinary least square, fixed effect estimator, least square dummy variable, and finally the random effect. For better understanding, study findings are empirically explained. The results confirm that both positive and negative impact of various proxies of climate change on agriculture dimension of selected economies. More specifically, it is observed that higher climate change in the form of carbon emission from different sources are causing a downturn effect on the agriculture export while at the same time, they are causing an up-ward shift in the agriculture import of selected economies. Besides, study has reasonably disrobed various policy implications both in theoretical and practical perspective. However, some limitations are also under observation. Firstly, this study considers the limited number of explanatory variables for reflecting the changing climate trends among top five agriculture economies of the world. However, there are still range of other factors which can be observed in the future studies to examine their influence on the selected indicators of agriculture industry. Secondly, this study has applied traditional panel models where no implication is observed for the dynamic panel methods like Generalized methods of Moments or GMM. Thirdly, this study has not provided any evidence for the cross-country analysis. Fourthly, this study has limited time span along with missing examination of both short run and long as well. Future studies may address these limitations for better implication in both theoretical and practical perspective.
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