The application of artificial neural networks to flow and phosphorus dynamics in small streams on the Boreal Plain,with emphasis on the role of wetlands

Historically, management strategies in Canada's boreal forest have focused on forest polygons and terrestrial biodiversity to address ecological considerations in forest management. The Forest Watershed and Riparian Disturbance (FORWARD) project examines the problem from a watershed perspective rather than a forest polygon viewpoint. The main objective of this study was to devise an artificial neural network (ANN) modeling tool that can predict flow and total phosphorus (TP) concentration for ungauged watersheds (where daily flow is not monitored). This dictates that all inputs should be easily accessed via a public domain database, like the Environment Canada weather database, without the need to install flow gauges in each modeled watershed. Daily flow and TP concentration for two of the project watersheds were modeled using ANNs. The two watersheds (1A Creek, 5.1 km² and Willow Creek, 15.6 km²) were chosen to reflect variations in wetland area and composition in the study area. Flow was modeled with a feed-forward multilayer perceptron ANN trained with the error back-propagation algorithm. Simulated values for flow were then used, as inputs, to model TP concentration using the same neural networks algorithm. One hidden layer with three slabs; each operating with a different activation function was utilized to simulate the conceptual differences between base flow, snowmelt, and storm events. Time domain analysis was conducted to identify possible model time-lagged inputs reflecting the time dependency of the modeled variables. Spectral analysis was used to address data hystereses. Our results highlight the capabilities of ANN in modeling complex ecosystems and highly correlated variables. Results also indicated that more research towards the phosphorus dynamics in wetlands is required to better represent the impact of wetland area and composition on the water-phase phosphorus in ANN modeling.     

Heavy metal biomonitoring and phytoremediation potentialities of aquatic macrophytes in River Nile

The concentrations of Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn in sediments, water, and different plant organs of six aquatic vascular plant species, Ceratophyllum demersum L. Echinochloa pyramidalis (Lam.) Hitchc. & Chase; Eichhornia crassipes (Mart.) Solms-Laub; Myriophyllum spicatum L.; Phragmites australis (Cav.) Trin. ex Steud; and Typha domingensis (Pers.) Poir. ex Steud, growing naturally in the Nile system (Sohag Governorate), were investigated. The aim was to define which species and which plant organs exhibit the greatest accumulation and evaluate whether these species could be usefully employed in biomonitoring and phytoremediation programs. The recorded metals in water samples were above the standard levels of both US Environmental Protection Agency and Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency except for Pb. The concentrations of heavy metals in water, sediments, and plants possess the same trend: Zn > Cu > Pb > Cd which reflects the biomonitoring potentialities of the investigated plant species. Generally, the variation of heavy element concentrations in water and sediments in relation to site and season, as assessed by two-way repeated measured ANOVA, was significant (p < 0.05). However, insignificant variations were observed in the concentrations of Pb and Cd in sediments in relation to season and of Cu and Zn in relation to site. Results also showed that the selectivity of the heavy elements for the investigated plants varied significantly (p < 0.05) with species variation. The accumulation capability of the investigated species could be arranged according to this pattern: C. demersum > E. crassipes > M. spicatum > E. pyramidalis > T. domingensis > P. australis. On the basis of the element concentrations, roots of all the studied species contain higher concentrations of Cu and Zn than shoots while leaves usually acquire the highest concentrations of Pb. Cd concentrations among different plant organs are comparable except in M. spicatum where the highest Cd concentrations were recorded in the leaves. Our results also demonstrated that all the studied species can accumulate more than 1,450-fold the concentration of the investigated heavy elements in water rendering them of interest for use in phytoremediation studies of polluted waters. Given the absence of systematic water quality monitoring, heavy elements in plants, rather than sediments, provide a cost-effective means for assessing heavy element accumulation in aquatic systems during plant organ lifespan.     

内质网应激在PFOS致大鼠肝损伤中的作用

通过全氟辛烷磺酸(PFOS)28 d大鼠经口染毒评价PFOS肝损伤效应,探讨内质网应激在PFOS毒效应中的作用。Wistar大鼠随机分组,分别以0 mg·kg~(-1)、5 mg·kg~(-1)和10 mg·kg~(-1)PFOS灌胃染毒28 d。HE染色观察大鼠肝脏形态改变。ELISA法测定各组丙氨酸转氨酶(ALT)、天门冬氨酸转氨酶(AST)、碱性磷酸酶(ALP)和淀粉酶(AMY)含量变化。紫外分光光度法测定肝组织匀浆中丙二醛(MDA)、超氧化物歧化酶(SOD)、谷胱甘肽过氧化物酶(GSH-Px)活性变化。RT-PCR检测肝脏内质网应激标志蛋白表达水平。结果表明,PFOS造成大鼠体重降低、肝重增高(P0.05),组织切片显示肝细胞出现脂质沉积。PFOS不同剂量组大鼠ALT随暴露浓度增加,分别为(50.96±10.02)U·L~(-1)、(71.73±11.55)U·L~(-1),显著高于对照组(P0.05),AST、ALP含量与对照组相比显著上升(P0.05),高剂量组AMY水平为(833.46±63.05)U·L~(-1),与对照组相比显著降低(P0.05)。GSH-Px和SOD水平随PFOS浓度增加出现了显著降低(P0.05),而MDA水平显著升高(P0.05)。内质网应激标志蛋白表达均较对照组显著上升(P0.05)。以上结果说明PFOS可导致大鼠肝细胞损伤,其机制可能与内质网应激调控有关。     

Risk assessment of heavy metal contamination in soil and wild Libyan jird Meriones libycus in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

This study was undertaken to document the impact of heavy metal pollution on the Libyan jird, Meriones libycus and to contribute to an environmental impact statement for the rapidly growing City of Riyadh. All metal concentrations in surface soil of a polluted site (within Riyadh City) were higherthan those from a reference site (outside the city).Although Pb declined versus earlier reports on Riyadh soil, Cd (0.97 microg g(-1)) and Hg (0.28 microg g(-1)) were above some of the most stringent quality guidelines (0.07-0.62 microg g(-1) for Cd and 0.14-0.18 microg g(-1) for Hg). Metal distribution in M. libycus proved site-related and organ-specific, recognizing a higher affinity of most tested metals towards the kidneys, liver and brain than the lung and heart. The comparatively lower site-specific accumulation of Pb in soft tissues was attributed primarily to its major hypothetical accumulation in bones, whereas, the transition rate of Hg from the liver was suggested to be lower to the brain than to the kidneys. Although a non hazardous status was assumed for Cu (11.27-13.16 microg g(-1)) and Hg (up to 0.207 microg g(-1)) in tissues of M. libycus, a potential risk was imposed by mean tissue concentrations of Cd (up to 3.29 microg g(01)), Ni (up to 1.48 microg g(-1)) and Pb (up to 1.94 microg g(-1)). On the grounds of the significantly higher metal levels in polluted soft tissues versus reference subjects, Libyan jirds possess high exposure potential and can be useful biomonitors of environmental metal contamination.     

COVID-19 drugs in aquatic systems: a review

Environmental Chemistry Letters - The outbreak of the human&nbsp;coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has induced an unprecedented increase in the use of several old and repurposed therapeutic...     

Biochar reduces the toxicity of silver to barley (Hordeum vulgare) and springtails (Folsomia candida) in a natural soil

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The use of biochar in soil remediation is a promising method to deal with metal contamination. In the present study, the influence of biochar...     

Characterization of Lipopeptides Biosurfactants Produced by a Newly Isolated Strain Bacillus subtilis ZNI5: Potential Environmental Application

Journal of Polymers and the Environment - Aiming the production of lipopeptides biosurfactants (BioS), we isolated a new strain identified as Bacillus subtilis ZNI5 from a hydrocarbon contaminated...     

Changes in tropopause height for the Eurasian region determined from CARDS radiosonde data

Previous studies have identified the tropopause height (TH) as a promising fingerprint of climatic change. In the present paper, we report variations in TH for the Eurasian region over the period 1973–1998 and analyse the influence of the Northern Annular Mode (NAM) on these variations. As previous studies indicate that the greatest increases in TH occur in the extratropics, we focused our attention on this area. We applied a set of homogenization procedures to radiosonde data and considered three different scenarios that take into account change points and the main volcanic eruptions over the study period. Our results demonstrate that the number of stations with positive TH trends is very sensitive to the quality of data and the methods used to remove inhomogeneities. Consequently, when change points were included in the analysis, the number of stations with positive trends decreased markedly. Furthermore, stratospheric NAM appears to control TH in stations located at latitudes higher than 55°N.Electronic supplementary materials  Supplementary material is available for this article at and is accessible to authorized users.     

Overexpressing both ATP sulfurylase and selenocysteine methyltransferase enhances selenium phytoremediation traits in Indian mustard

A major goal of our selenium (Se) phytoremediation research is to use genetic engineering to develop fast-growing plants with an increased ability to tolerate, accumulate, and volatilize Se. To this end we incorporated a gene (encoding selenocysteine methyltransferase, SMT) from the Se hyperaccumulator, Astragalus bisulcatus, into Indian mustard (LeDuc, D.L., Tarun, A.S., Montes-Bayón, M., Meija, J., Malit, M.F., Wu, C.P., AbdelSamie, M., Chiang, C.-Y., Tagmount, A., deSouza, M., Neuhierl, B., B?ck, A., Caruso, J., Terry, N., 2004. Overexpression of selenocysteine methyltransferase in Arabidopsis and Indian mustard increases selenium tolerance and accumulation Plant Physiol. 135, 377-383.). The resulting transgenic plants successfully enhanced Se phytoremediation in that the plants tolerated and accumulated Se from selenite significantly better than wild type. However, the advantage conferred by the SMT enzyme was much less when Se was supplied as selenate. In order to enhance the phytoremediation of selenate, we developed double transgenic plants that overexpressed the gene encoding ATP sulfurylase (APS) in addition to SMT, i.e., APSxSMT. The results showed that there was a substantial improvement in Se accumulation from selenate (4 to 9 times increase) in transgenic plants overexpressing both APS and SMT.