Context
The Sanjiangyuan region of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau—also known as the “Three Rivers’ Headwaters”—is the origin of the Yellow, Yangtze, and Mekong Rivers and therefore the key water source ...for hundreds of millions of downstream residents. Protecting this region’s ecosystems is a key priority for sustainable development in China and Asia. An important social dimension of Sanjiangyuan is the long-established and widespread presence of Tibetan Buddhism, particularly as manifested in the large number of monasteries throughout the region. However, the influence of cultural factors on environmental change remains largely understudied here.
Objective
We focus on two types of spatial associations—point-point and point-area features—to quantitatively investigate the effects of Buddhist monasteries on land use/cover change (LUCC) in surrounding landscapes.
Methods
We conduct a spatially-explicit analysis of Sanjiangyuan for two periods, 1990–2000 and 2010–2015, to identify and quantify the influence of the presence and spatial distributions of Buddhist monasteries on LUCC compared to village communities that lack monasteries.
Results
We found that the presence of monasteries is highly correlated with the preservation of natural ecosystems, specifically of grasslands and forests. Within monastery buffer zones with radii between 1 and 10 km, 7.13–9.30% more grassland area and 7.14–7.47% more forest area remained around monasteries compared to villages. This contrast decreased with increasing distance to the monastery/village. Overall, built-up areas were also much smaller around monasteries than around villages, while unused land was more commonly transformed to forests and grasslands around monasteries.
Conclusions
These findings strongly support the idea that Buddhist culture, as manifested through its physical institutions and communities, are instrumental in achieving desired landscape conservation outcomes.
The Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is a typical Tibetan plateau area, and its ecological environment is very fragile. It is necessary to explore the terrain and cultural factors for the ...protection of the local ecological environment. We mainly investigated and quantified the effect of terrain factors and two typical plateau cultural landscapes (temples and villages) on the spatiotemporal variation characteristics of four types of forest landscape in the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture from 1990 to 2015 using remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) technology. The results showed that, under the influence of terrain factors, forest landscapes were only distributed in places with an altitude of 5055 meters above sea level (masl) to 6300 masl, with a slope of 0–27°, and the largest distribution area was shrubbery. The area of the forest decreased with the increase in altitude, and it first rose and then decreased with the increase in slope. Regression analysis results showed that the influence of altitude on closed forest land and open forest land followed a polynomial function, while that on shrubbery followed a logarithmic function, and the impact of slope on the three forest landscapes followed the amplitude version of a Gaussian peak function. Considering cultural factors, temples and villages did not determine the forest distribution in the same way as natural factors do, but they motivated the amount of forest over spatiotemporal scales. Temples had a greater influence on forest protection than villages, and this positive impact was stronger within 6 km. The area of forest distributed around the temple accounts for more than 45.67% of the total forest area, and this area has not changed significantly in 25 years. In summary, altitude and slope affect the natural distribution of the forest, and temples affect the scale of forest distribution. These results reveal the impact of terrain factors and cultural landscapes on forest distribution and could motivate an even more effective management for sustainable forest development.
To ensure the safety of the water supply of the Panjiakou reservoir, in 2016, the Chinese central government comprehensively banned the fishing cage culture that had lasted for almost 30 years. ...However, the long-term effects and retention impacts of the government’s mandatory intervention on the reservoir water quality are unknown. To determine the reservoir water quality, we employed statistical methods along with the mathematical model to investigate the internal relationship since the construction of the reservoir. We applied seasonal trend decomposition using loess (STL) to explore the long-term and seasonality trend of monthly total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorous (TP). To separate the impact of upstream water quality changes from cage culture on reservoir water quality, we employed generalized additive models (GAMs). We created a model, the LAKE2K model, to investigate the internal sources of the sediment that accumulated during the aquaculture period and its retardant effect. The results revealed that the concentration of upstream TN was more affected by non-point sources than by TP. The long-term policy of encouraging aquaculture has greatly contributed to the increase in the reservoir TP concentration rather than an increase in TN; the prohibition of cage aquaculture has resulted in a sharp drop in TP. After the ban, the sediment became the main source of TP. We suspect that the TP concentration of the reservoir and sediment will decrease gradually until a new equilibrium is reached within 10 years. This study offers lake managers an opportunity to increase their insight into the interaction of management measures with water quality and provides valuable information for the natural recovery of the eutrophic system.
Eastern Sichuan is an important ecological barrier in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. Based on 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015 Landsat TM / ETM image data, the dynamics change of land ...use is analysed by using remote sensing and GIS software. The trend of change measures the effect of the Grain to Green Projects in the study area. The results show that farmland was the main type of land, and building land had the most dynamic degree during the period of studying. Since the implementation of the Grain to Green Projects in 2000, the area of farmland has decreased and the patches have been fragmented. The area of forestland has increased and the connectivity of patches has increased. The shape of grass types has tended to be regular. At the same time, the overall landscape diversity has increased and the spatial layout has become increasingly regularized. This study provides a theoretical support for policy-making of environmental protection and management in Eastern Sichuan Region of Sichuan Province.
Exibei, located in the northwestern Hubei Province, is recognized as an important region for the geographical transition from north to south, which has significant ecological status. Consequently, ...the research on land use pattern in this region contains non-negligible value for environmental protection. This research provided a scientific basis and an effective support for the sustainable development of ecological environment in Exibei region and the rational use of land resources. In this paper, combing with geographic information technology and spatial statistical methods, we mainly focused on the temporal and spatial changes of land use in Exibei region based on remote sensing maps from 1990 to 2015. The results show: 1) during the study period, the distribution area of farmland, grassland and unused landscape decreased, whereas the forestland and water land were opposite; 2) the Single Land Use Dynamic Degree of building land was 1.46%, which was the largest among all land use types; 3) the Comprehensive Dynamic Degree in the study area was 0.06%, indicating that pattern change was not obvious.
In recent years, with the continuous development of industry and agriculture, the content of organic pollutants in the environment has been increasing, which has caused serious pollution to the ...environment. Adsorption has proven to be an effective and economically viable method of removing organic contaminants. Since biochar has many advantages such as various types of raw materials, low cost, and recyclability, it can achieve the effect of turning waste into treasure when used for environmental treatment. This paper summarizes the source and production of biochar, points out its research status in the removal of organic pollutants, expounds its adsorption mechanism on organic pollutants, introduces the relevant adsorption parameters, summarizes its regeneration methods, studies its application of engineering, and finally analyses of benefits and describes the development prospects.
•Recent research on adsorbing organic contaminants by biochar were summarized.•Mechanism of organic contaminants adsorption using biochar.•The application of biochar as adsorbents in engineering was introduced.•Biochar as an adsorbent needs to continue to explore in the future was proposed.
Patients with lung cancer often experience reduced functional capacity and quality of life after surgery. The current study investigated the impact of a short-term, home-based, multimodal ...prehabilitation program on perioperative functional capacity in patients undergoing video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) lobectomy for nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
A randomized controlled trial was conducted with 73 patients. Patients in the prehabilitation group (n = 37) received a 2-week multimodal intervention program before surgery, including aerobic and resistance exercises, respiratory training, nutrition counseling with whey protein supplementation, and psychological guidance. Patients in the control group (n = 36) received the usual clinical care. The assessors were blinded to the patient allocation. The primary outcome was perioperative functional capacity measured as the 6-minute walk distance (6MWD), which was assessed at 1 day before and 30 days after surgery. A linear mixed-effects model was built to analyze the perioperative 6MWD. Other outcomes included lung function, disability and psychometric evaluations, length of stay (LOS), short-term recovery quality, postoperative complications, and mortality.
The median duration of prehabilitation was 15 days. The average 6MWD was 60.9 m higher perioperatively in the prehabilitation group compared to the control group (95% confidence interval CI, 32.4-89.5; P < .001). There were no differences in lung function, disability and psychological assessment, LOS, short-term recovery quality, postoperative complications, and mortality, except for forced vital capacity (FVC; 0.35 L higher in the prehabilitation group, 95% CI, 0.05-0.66; P = .021).
A 2-week, home-based, multimodal prehabilitation program could produce clinically relevant improvements in perioperative functional capacity in patients undergoing VATS lobectomy for lung cancer.
Inflammation resolution and cardiac repair initiation after myocardial infarction (MI) require timely activation of reparative signals. Histone lactylation confers macrophage homeostatic gene ...expression signatures via transcriptional regulation. However, the role of histone lactylation in the repair response post-MI remains unclear. We aimed to investigate whether histone lactylation induces reparative gene expression in monocytes early and remotely post-MI.
Single-cell transcriptome data indicated that reparative genes were activated early and remotely in bone marrow and circulating monocytes before cardiac recruitment. Western blotting and immunofluorescence staining revealed increases in histone lactylation levels, including the previously identified histone H3K18 lactylation in monocyte-macrophages early post-MI. Through joint CUT&Tag and RNA-sequencing analyses, we identified
, and
as histone H3K18 lactylation target genes. The increased modification and expression levels of these target genes post-MI were verified by chromatin immunoprecipitation-qPCR and reverse transcription-qPCR.
We demonstrated that histone lactylation regulates the anti-inflammatory and pro-angiogenic dual activities of monocyte-macrophages by facilitating reparative gene transcription and confirmed that histone lactylation favors a reparative environment and improves cardiac function post-MI. Furthermore, we explored the potential positive role of monocyte histone lactylation in reperfused MI. Mechanistically, we provided new evidence that monocytes undergo metabolic reprogramming in the early stage of MI and demonstrated that dysregulated glycolysis and MCT1 (monocarboxylate transporter 1)-mediated lactate transport promote histone lactylation. Finally, we revealed the catalytic effect of IL (interleukin)-1β-dependent GCN5 (general control non-depressible 5) recruitment on histone H3K18 lactylation and elucidated its potential role as an upstream regulatory element in the regulation of monocyte histone lactylation and downstream reparative gene expression post-MI.
Histone lactylation promotes early remote activation of the reparative transcriptional response in monocytes, which is essential for the establishment of immune homeostasis and timely activation of the cardiac repair process post-MI.
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•The deposit locations of Pd-NPs depended on the transfer of Pd(II) in biosorption.•The biosorption was a spontaneous endothermic process fitted well by Langmuir isotherm and ...pseudo-second order kinetics.•The main functional groups for Pd(II) biorecovery were carboxyl groups, hydroxyl groups and amine groups.•The bioreduction was via the hydrolysis and oxidation of sodium formate to deliver electron.•The biorecovery of Pd(II) was via biosorption to cells and then bioreduction in situ.
In this study, the biorecovery mechanism of palladium ions (Pd(II)) as palladium nanoparticles by Enterococcus faecalis (E. faecalis), a typical Gram-positive bacterium, was explored from acting force, participated substance and reaction process. The XRD and TEM analysis showed that the deposit locations of Pd-NPs depended on the transfer of Pd(II) in biosorption, and the process was invested by effect factors and theory models of isotherm, thermodynamics, and kinetics, which was a spontaneous endothermic process fitted well by Langmuir isotherm and pseudo-second order kinetics. In addition, the surface characteristic changes of E. faecalis during biorecovery of Pd(II) were compared by FTIR and XPS, and it found that carboxyl groups, hydroxyl groups and amine groups were the main participated functional groups in biorecovery. Furthermore, the contrary pH change between biosorption and bioreduction combined with above results proved that electrostatic interaction, complex formation of Pd(II) on the cell and intracellular uptake were the acting forces for biosorption, and the bioreduction of adsorbed Pd(II) was via the hydrolysis and oxidation of sodium formate to deliver electron. Therefore, the biorecovery mechanism of Pd(II) can be divided into the biosorption from solution to cells, and then the bioreduction and crystallization in situ by the electron donor and the link frame of E. faecalis.
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