Extraction and characterization of chitin,chitosan, and protein hydrolysate from the invasive Pacific blue crab,Portunus segnis (Forskål, 1775) having potential biological activities

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The diversity of marine biomasses is a set of exploitable and renewable resources with application in several sectors. In this context, a co-culture...     

Recovery studies of selenium using dry ashing procedure with ashing aid.

A previously reported dry ashing procedure for the decomposition of marine samples prior to arsenic determination is demonstrated to be equally applicable to the analysis of selenium. Quantitative recovery of selenium as inorganic or organic compounds in a variety of plants and animal tissues is demonstrated using 75Se tracer and X-ray fluorescence techniques. The dry ashing procedure is simpler than the official AOAC method, which uses a mixture of H2SO4, HNO3 and HC10(4).     

Network-based exploration and visualisation of ecological data

Networks – structured graphs consisting of sets of nodes connected by edges – provide a rich framework for data visualisation and exploratory analyses. Although rarely used for the visualisation of ecological data, networks are well suited to this purpose, including data that one might not normally think of as a network. We present a simple method for transforming a data matrix into network format, and show how this can be used as the basis for interactive exploratory analyses of ecological data.The method is demonstrated using a database of marine zooplankton samples acquired in the Southern Ocean. The network analyses revealed zooplankton community structures that are in good agreement with previously published results. Variations in community structure were observed to be related to the temporal and spatial pattern of sampling, as well as to physical environmental factors such as sea ice cover. The analyses also revealed a number of errors in the data, including taxon identification errors and instrument failures.The method allows the analyst to generate networks from different combinations of variables in the data set, and to examine the effects of varying parameters such as the scales of spatial, temporal, and taxonomic aggregation. This flexibility allows the analyst to rapidly gain a number of perspectives on the data and provides a powerful mechanism for exploration.     

Evidence for enhanced dissipation of chlorpyrifos in an agricultural soil inoculated with Serratia rubidaea strain ABS 10

The insecticide ¹⁴C-chlorpyrifos was found mineralized in a Tunisian soil with repeated exposure to it. From this soil, a bacterial strain was isolated that was able to grow in a minimal salt medium (MSM) supplemented with 25 mg L^?1 of chlorpyrifos. It was characterized as Serratia rubidaea strain ABS 10 using morphological and biochemical analyses, as well as 16S rRNA sequencing. In a liquid culture, the S. rubidaea strain ABS 10 was able to dissipate chlorpyrifos almost entirely within 48 h of incubation. Although the S. rubidaea strain ABS 10 was able to grow in an MSM supplemented with chlorpyrifos and dissipate it in a liquid culture, it was not able to mineralize ¹⁴C-chlorpyrifos. Therefore, it can be concluded that the dissipation capability of this bacteria might be attributed to its capacity to adsorb CHL. It can also be ascribed to other reasons such as the formation of biogenic non-extractable residues. In both non-sterile and sterile soil inoculated with S. rubidaea strain ABS 10, chlorpyrifos was more rapidly dissipated than in controls with DT₅₀ of 1.38 and 1.05 days, respectively.

     

Long short-term memory neural network and improved particle swarm optimization–based modeling and scenario analysis for municipal solid waste generation in Shanghai,China

Accurate estimations of municipal solid waste (MSW) generation are vital to effective MSW management systems. While various single-point estimation approaches have been developed, the non-linearity and multiple site-specific influencing factors associated with MSW management systems make it challenging to forecast MSW generation quantities precisely. To address these concerns, this study developed a two-stage modeling and scenario analysis procedure for MSW generation and taking Shanghai as a test case demonstrated its viability. In the first stage, nine influencing factors were selected, and a hybrid novel forecasting model based on a long short-term memory neural network and an improved particle swarm optimization (IPSO-LSTM) was proposed for the forecasting of the MSW generation quantities, after which actual Shanghai data from 1980 to 2019 were used to test the performance. In the second stage, the future influencing variable values in different scenarios were predicted using an improved grey model, after which the predicted Shanghai MSW generation quantities from 2025 to 2035 were evaluated under various scenarios. It was found that (1) the proposed IPSO-LSTM had higher accuracy than the benchmark models; (2) the MSW generation quantities are expected to respectively increase to 9.971, 9.684, and 9.090 million tons by 2025 and 11.402, 11.285, and 10.240 by 2035 under the low, benchmark, and high scenarios; and (3) the MSW generation differences between the high and medium scenarios were decreasing.

     

Elaboration of a Bio-Colored Material Based on Natural Dye and Polybutylene Succinate: Comparative Study with Colored Polylactic Acid

Journal of Polymers and the Environment - In the context of sustainable development and natural products valorization, new ecological materials enter a logic aimed at removing the causes of...     

Agriotes proximus and A. lineatus (Coleoptera: Elateridae): a comparative study on the pheromone composition and cytochrome c oxidase subunit I gene sequence

The presence of geranyl octanoate, previously found in pheromone gland extracts of Agriotes lineatus females, was also demonstrated in gland extracts of A. proximus females. Similar to A. lineatus, geranyl butanoate was present only in trace amounts in A. proximus female gland extracts. In air entrainment samples of female A. lineatus and A. proximus beetles, the relative ratio of geranyl butanoate and geranyl octanoate was higher than that in gland extracts. In addition, comparison of a segment of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I gene of feral specimens of A. lineatus and A. proximus showed >99% similarity. Both pheromone profile and nucleotide sequence analysis delineate close relationship between the investigated taxa and postulate taxonomic revision. Further studies on sympatric populations of A. lineatus and A. proximus are underway to investigate and better understand possible processes of species diversification.     

硝酸异辛酯的热安全性研究

为了研究十六烷值改进剂—硝酸异辛酯(EHN)的热稳定性与热危险性,采用C600微型量热仪测试硝酸异辛酯的热分解特性.利用热分析技术考察温升速率对EHN热分解特性的影响,并利用活化能、TMRad(在绝热条件下最大反应速率到达时间)和自加速分解速率(SADT)方法评价此改进剂的危险性.结果表明,EHN发生分解反应的起始放热温度和最大放热温度均随着温升速率的增加而增大,且四种温升速率的反应机理是一致的.计算得到EHN热分解活化能在143.6-213.6kJ/mol之间.通过绝热条件下TMRad评价得出EHN在常温常压条件下不易发生危险失控,EHN自加速分解温度为98℃＞75℃,即在常温条件下储运是安全的,为储运硝酸异辛酯提供有力的数据支持.     

Climate change risks in Sahelian Africa

Analyses of Sahel regional and country-specific rainfall and temperature time series derived from a fixed subset of stations show the well-documented large-scale decreasing trend in rainfall that occurred between 1970 and 2000 and also, an increasing trend in summertime maximum and wintertime minimum temperatures. The evolution of summertime mean maximum temperature is almost opposite to that of rainfall, and a significant correlation is observed between the evolution of this quantity and millet yields, in comparison with correlation with summertime rainfall. It appears that quantifying future vulnerability of the Sahel zone to climate change is rather difficult because climate models have not in general shown yet a satisfactory reproduction of the observed climate variability of this area.     

长江三峡库区极端大雾天气的气候变化特征

为了进一步认识长江三峡库区大雾天气特征,采用线性趋势估计和Molet小波分析方法,研究了库区持续12 h以上和连续3 d以上极端大雾天气气候变化特征,探讨了库区蓄水后大雾天气气候变化的原因。结果表明：三峡库区年平均雾日数呈弱的下降趋势,存在准8、18、32 a的年代际周期振荡。持续12 h以上和连续3 d以上大雾天气有明显增加趋势,分别存在准10、17、32 a和准12、32 a的年代际周期振荡。在蓄水后,库区西段年平均雾日数明显减少、东段略有增加,持续12 h以上大雾年平均日数变化不大,连续3 d以上大雾年平均日数明显减少。库区年平均雾日数的总体减少在很大程度上是受全球气候变暖以及城市化共同影响的结果,没有证据说明三峡库区蓄水对大雾天气有明显影响。