Ecological restoration of coal mine degraded soils across arid and semi-arid environments worldwide remains particularly challenging. We used a combination of greenhouse and field experiments to ...assess the potential role of a woody species, Ulmus pumila, in the restoration of degraded soils associated with coal-mining activities in the northwest China. We investigated how various combinations of water-nitrogen-phosphorus (W–N–P) resources affect multiple growth parameters in U. pumila. We found that several plant growth traits significantly improved with W–N applications, regardless of P inputs. Moderate-to-highest W–N–P doses increased net photosynthesis and transpiration rates, water use efficiency, stomatal conductance, chlorophyll and carotenoid contents under greenhouse conditions. A combination of high W together with low N–P applications led to high relative water content and net photosynthetic rates under field conditions. Increasing of N–P doses under W-shortage condition, aided U. pumila to enhance osmotic adjustments by increasing contents of proline and soluble sugar and also boost the activity of superoxide dismutase, peroxidase and catalase in leaf tissues to reduce accumulation of reactive oxygen species and malondialdehyde content in all conditions of greenhouse and field. Our study is the first to assess the optimum W–N–P resources in U. pumila and demonstrate that optimum growth performance could be obtained under W supplements corresponding to 90 mm year−1, N and P at 110 and 45 kg ha−1, respectively, under field condition. These findings can have far reaching implications for vegetation restoration of degraded areas associated with coal-mining activities across arid and semi-arid regions worldwide.
•Revegetation potential of Ulmus pumila was tested with water (W) and N–P fertilizer.•U. pumila improved morphological attributes with W–N application regardless of P.•Moderate to high W, N and P doses enhanced photosynthesis traits and water status.•N–P restricted ROS levels by boosting enzyme activities and osmolytes at low-W dose.•W90N110P45 was best dose for U. pumila growth in coal-mined degraded arid areas.
Bangladesh is one of the most flood-prone countries in the world, resulting in significant losses of agricultural crops and other assets due to the absence of risk mitigation strategies such as flood ...insurance. In order to ascertain farmers' risk behavior towards flood and their willingness to pay (WTP) for flood insurance as a strategy for climate change adaptation and agricultural sustainability, this study employed survey data collected from 480 flood-affected farm households in northern Bangladesh with experiment-based risk preference and subjective risk perception data. Farmers' flood risk perceptions and attitude were assessed through risk matrix and ELCE technique (equally likely certainty equivalent) and used as independent variables in a probit regression model. Farmers' WTP decisions were found to be influenced by a variety of factors, including land ownership status, off-farm income, flood experience, farmers’ group and access to information and extension services. Additionally, the findings indicated that farmers' subjective risk perceptions and experiment-based risk aversion measures were positively and significantly linked with their decision to purchase flood insurance. Risk-averse farmers were more inclined to obtain insurance and those who perceived greater flood risk factors were more willing to pay for flood insurance than those who perceived lower risks. In designing the insurance scheme, the socio-economic features of flood affected rural farm households as well as their risk perceptions and attitudes should be considered carefully.
o Willingness to pay for flood insurance depends on various sociodemographic factors.o Flood risk behavior was critical in determining willingness to pay for insurance.o Risk-averse farmers were more inclined to obtain insurance.o Farmers who perceived greater flood risk were more willing to buy flood insurance.o Government-subsidized insurance programs are needed to help small farmers.
Abstract Large-scale geological sequestration of CO 2 is one of the most effective strategies to limit global warming to below 2 °C, as recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ...(IPCC). Therefore, identifying and characterizing high-quality storage units is crucial. The Surma Basin, with its four-way dip closed structures, high-quality reservoirs, and thick regional cap rocks, is an ideal location for CO 2 storage. This study focuses on the Bokabil Formation, the most prominent reservoir unit in the Surma Basin. Detailed petrographic, petrophysical, XRD, and SEM analyses, along with mapping, have been conducted to evaluate the properties of the reservoir and cap rock within this formation. The Upper Bokabil Sandstone in the Surma Basin ranges from 270 to 350 m in thickness and consists of fine- to medium-grained subarkosic sandstones composed of 70–85% quartz and 5–12% feldspar, with good pore connectivity. Petrophysical analysis of data from four gas fields indicates that this unit has a total porosity of 21–27.4% and a low shale volume of 15–27%. Cross plots and outcrop observations suggest that most of the shales are laminated within the reservoir. The regional cap rock, known as the Upper Marine Shale (UMS), ranges in thickness from 40 to 190 m and contains 10–40 nm nano-type pores. A higher proportion of ductile materials with a significant percentage of quartz in the UMS indicates higher capillary entry pressures, enhancing its capacity to hold CO 2 . Using the CSLF method with a 6% cut-off of the available pore volume, it is estimated that 103 Mt, 110 Mt, 205 Mt, and 164 Mt of CO 2 can be effectively stored in the Sylhet, Kailashtila, Habiganj, and Fenchuganj structures, respectively. Due to the shallow depth of the storage unit and the thick cap rock, the southern Surma Basin is the optimal location for CO 2 injection.
A wide range of existing passive micromixers are reviewed, and quantitative analyses of ten typical passive micromixers were performed to compare their mixing indices, pressure drops, and mixing ...costs under the same axial length and flow conditions across a wide Reynolds number range of 0.01-120. The tested micromixers were selected from five types of micromixer designs. The analyses of flow and mixing were performed using continuity, Navier-Stokes and convection-diffusion equations. The results of the comparative analysis were presented for three different Reynolds number ranges: low-
(Re ≤ 1), intermediate-
(1 <
≤ 40), and high-
(
> 40) ranges, where the mixing mechanisms are different. The results show a two-dimensional micromixer of Tesla structure is recommended in the intermediate- and high-
ranges, while two three-dimensional micromixers with two layers are recommended in the low-
range due to their excellent mixing performance.
The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused more than 200,000 deaths so far in the USA alone, which instigates the necessity of initial screening to control the spread of the onset of COVID-19. However, ...screening for the disease becomes laborious with the available testing kits as the number of patients increases rapidly. Therefore, to reduce the dependency on the limited test kits, many studies suggested a computed tomography (CT) scan or chest radiograph (X-ray) based screening system as an alternative approach. Thereby, to reinforce these approaches, models using both CT scan and chest X-ray images need to develop to conduct a large number of tests simultaneously to detect patients with COVID-19 symptoms. In this work, patients with COVID-19 symptoms have been detected using eight distinct deep learning techniques, which are VGG16, InceptionResNetV2, ResNet50, DenseNet201, VGG19, MobilenetV2, NasNetMobile, and ResNet15V2, using two datasets: one dataset includes 400 CT scan and another 400 chest X-ray images. Results show that NasNetMobile outperformed all other models by achieving an accuracy of 82.94% in CT scan and 93.94% in chest X-ray datasets. Besides, Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations (LIME) is used. Results demonstrate that the proposed models can identify the infectious regions and top features; ultimately, it provides a potential opportunity to distinguish between COVID-19 patients with others.
Polyvinyl alcohol/beryllium sulfate/polyethyleneimine (PVA/BeSO
4
/PEI) precursor nanofibers (NFs) was first fabricated to obtain PVA/BeSO
4
/PEI electrospun NFs by electrospinning technology, ...finally manufactured beryllium oxide (BeO) NFs followed by various heat treatment methods. The minimum calcination temperature for pure BeO NFs was 1000 °C, and the minimum specific surface area (5.1 m
2
g
−1
) and pore volumes (0.0128 cm
3
g
−1
) were at 1300 °C. 46.18% Be and 53.82% O was measured in BeO NFs by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. BeO NFs were then impregnated with polyurethane (PU) aqueous solution to make PU/BeO NFs heat-dissipating sheet. This heat-dissipating sheet showed superior thermal conductivity (14.4 W m
−1
K
−1
) at 41.4 vol% BeO NFs content. The electrical insulating properties of the heat-dissipating sheet were likewise excellent (1.6 × 10
12
Ω
−1
). In this study, the author attempted to create a thermally conductive but electrically insulating PU/BeO NFs heat-dissipating sheet that could effectively eliminate generated heat from electric equipment.
The BeO NFs' elongated shape, which provides excellent heat pathways for the BeO NFs in the resin.
Tartary buckwheat is one of the nutritious minor cereals and is grown in high-cold mountainous areas of arid and semi-arid zones where drought is a common phenomenon, potentially reducing the growth ...and yield. Melatonin, which is an amphiphilic low molecular weight compound, has been proven to exert significant effects in plants, under abiotic stresses, but its role in the Tartary buckwheat under drought stress remains unexplored. We evaluated the influence of melatonin supplementation on plant morphology and different physiological activities, to enhance tolerance to posed drought stress by scavenging reactive oxygen species (ROS) and alleviating lipid peroxidation. Drought stress decreased the plant growth and biomass production compared to the control. Drought also decreased Chl a, b, and the Fv/Fm ratio by 54%, 70%, and 8%, respectively, which was associated with the disorganized stomatal properties. Under drought stress, H
O
, O
, and malondialdehyde (MDA) contents increased by 2.30, 2.43, and 2.22-folds, respectively, which caused oxidative stress. In contrast, proline and soluble sugar content were increased by 84% and 39%, respectively. However, exogenous melatonin (100 µM) could improve plant growth by preventing ROS-induced oxidative damage by increasing photosynthesis, enzymatic antioxidants (superoxide dismutase, peroxidase, catalase, and ascorbate peroxidase), secondary metabolites like phenylalanine ammonialyase, phenolics, and flavonoids, total antioxidant scavenging (free radical DPPH scavenging), and maintaining relative water content and osmoregulation substances under water stress. Therefore, our study suggested that exogenous melatonin could accelerate drought resistance by enhancing photosynthesis and antioxidant defense in Tartary buckwheat plants.
Human Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is one of the leading causes of lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI), responsible for infecting people from all age groups-a majority of which comprises ...infants and children. Primarily, severe RSV infections are accountable for multitudes of deaths worldwide, predominantly of children, every year. Despite several efforts to develop a vaccine against RSV as a potential countermeasure, there has been no approved or licensed vaccine available yet, to control the RSV infection effectively. Therefore, through the utilization of immunoinformatics tools, a computational approach was taken in this study, to design a multi-epitope polyvalent vaccine against two major antigenic subtypes of RSV, RSV-A and RSV-B. Potential predictions of the T-cell and B-cell epitopes were followed by extensive tests of antigenicity, allergenicity, toxicity, conservancy, homology to human proteome, transmembrane topology, and cytokine-inducing ability. The peptide vaccine was modeled, refined, and validated. Molecular docking analysis with specific Toll-like receptors (TLRs) revealed excellent interactions with suitable global binding energies. Additionally, molecular dynamics (MD) simulation ensured the stability of the docking interactions between the vaccine and TLRs. Mechanistic approaches to imitate and predict the potential immune response generated by the administration of vaccines were determined through immune simulations. Subsequent mass production of the vaccine peptide was evaluated; however, there remains a necessity for further in vitro and in vivo experiments to validate its efficacy against RSV infections.
Pattani Basin hosts the greatest number of hydrocarbons producing fields in the Gulf of Thailand. Early to Middle Miocene fluvial channel and overbank sands are the main reservoirs in this basin. Due ...to their nature of very limited vertical and horizontal distribution it is not always easy to predict the geometry and distribution of these sands based on the conventional seismic interpretation. This study aims to study seismic geomorphology at different stratigraphic intervals to predict sand distribution by applying advanced imaging techniques such as RMS amplitude analysis, spectral decomposition, semblance and dip steered similarity. For this purpose, the study interval is divided into three periods. In period 1, RMS and semblance successfully identified sand bodies and mud filled channels associated with channel belts. On the other hand, deeper stratigraphic levels (period 2 & 3) can be imaged more effectively by using spectral decomposition and dip steered similarity volumes. Horizon slices from these attribute volumes show the distribution of sands and mud filled channels at different stratigraphic level. The width of channel belts varies from 200 m to 3 km. These channel belts are N-S and NW-SE oriented. The findings from seismic geomorphology analysis in these three (3) periods were then validated by well log analysis and correlation. Broad channel belts in horizon slices in period 3 correspond to stacked channel sands in well log. Whereas narrow channel belts correspond to thin sand units in well log in period 2. Widespread occurrence of coals has also been noticed in this interval. Very well-developed meander belts in horizon slices are transpired as fining upward succession in well logs in period 1. Mud filled channels identified in the horizon slices might act as a barrier and compartmentalize the reservoir. The proposed workflow of predicting sand distribution in this study might help to reduce exploration risk as well as in planning infill development wells.
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