Growth Environment Research Articles

Career choices and career mobility of chinese pharmacy graduates: a cross-sectional study

BackgroundThis study investigates the career mobility and employment status of Chinese pharmacy graduates, aiming to address workforce challenges and career planning within the pharmacy profession. Given the rapid expansion of the healthcare sector in China, understanding factors influencing job changes and career decisions is crucial for ensuring workforce stability and professional development. The study covers pharmacy graduates enrolled at Kunming Medical University from 1996 to 2012.MethodsA cross-sectional online survey collected data from 231 respondents in April 2022, focusing on demographic characteristics, career choices, job changes, and the factors influencing these decisions. Multivariate logistic regression and Chi-square (χ²) tests were used to analyze the data, with a particular focus on the pharmacy practice, pharmaceutical sciences, and clinical pharmacy.ResultsOf the 231 respondents, 52.4% (n = 121) had never changed jobs, and 32.5% (n = 75) had changed jobs once or twice. The majority preferred working in governmental institutions (n = 146, 63.2%), with fewer graduates choosing domestic (n = 48, 20.8%) or overseas pharmacy enterprises (n = 20, 8.7%). Income and personal growth were significant factors influencing job changes (p < 0.05). Respondents who had changed jobs three or more times placed a greater emphasis on personal growth (Relative Risk Ratio [RRR]: 2.96; 95% Confidence Interval [CI]: [1.6, 5.49]).ConclusionsThis study reveals significant variations in job mobility and career choices among Chinese pharmacy graduates. Graduates in governmental institutions showed lower mobility, while those in pharmacy enterprises and non-pharmaceutical sectors experienced higher job changes. Income, personal growth, and work environment were key factors.

IMPACT OF GREEN FINANCE ON GREEN TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY: IMPLICATIONS FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH AND SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT

There needs to be more empirical research quantifying the relationship between the growth of green finance (GF) and green productivity. This study investigates this connection by analyzing data from 30 regions in China from 2006 to 2022. We utilize a comprehensive GF growth index to assess the impact. The results reveal a substantial increase in green manufacturing in response to more excellent green financing, fostering environmental sustainability. Both GF and total factor production exhibit upward trajectories, indicating the effectiveness and productivity of green financial initiatives. Furthermore, regression analysis demonstrates a significant positive effect of increased green financing on output. This effect is expected to be more pronounced in regions with more robust economic and social conditions, lower public interest in environmental preservation and higher pollution levels. Our findings suggest that implementing GF policies further enhances the positive effects of expanding green financing. This research has important implications for China’s environmental protection and green financing efforts, serving as valuable insights for environmental analysts, policymakers, local governments, financial institutions and legislators involved in GF policy implementation.

A Compensated Clock: Temperature and Nutritional Compensation Mechanisms Across Circadian Systems.

Circadian rhythms are ∼24-h biological oscillations that enable organisms to anticipate daily environmental cycles, so that they may designate appropriate day/night functions that align with these changes. The molecular clock in animals and fungi consists of a transcription-translation feedback loop, the plant clock is comprised of multiple interlocking feedback-loops, and the cyanobacterial clock is driven by a phosphorylation cycle involving three main proteins. Despite the divergent core clock mechanisms across these systems, all circadian clocks are able to buffer period length against changes in the ambient growth environment, such as temperature and nutrients. This defining capability, termed compensation, is critical to proper timekeeping, yet the underlying mechanism(s) remain elusive. Here we examine the known players in, and the current models for, compensation across five circadian systems. While compensation models across these systems are not yet unified, common themes exist across them, including regulation via temperature-dependent changes in post-translational modifications.

Enhancing oyster mushroom growth and yield using air gliding arc discharge

Abstract Oyster mushroom cultivation can be hindered by slow budding and low yield. This study explored the potential of atmospheric pressure gliding arc discharge plasma to address these challenges. Two types (direct and indirect) of plasma treatment methods were applied to the mushroom spawn and the growth environment in oyster mushrooms. Physicochemical characterization of plasma-activated water (PAW) revealed increased conductivity, oxidation-reduction potential, and nitrate/nitrite levels, and hydrogen peroxide with longer treatment times. Plasma-treated spawn exhibited faster budding and earlier colonization compared to others. The longest stem was observed in spawn exposed to plasma for 3 minutes, while the largest stem diameter was found in spawn treated with plasma-activated water for 4 minutes. Mushrooms produced with a 4-minute PAW treatment had the highest total fresh weight and biological efficiency. Therefore, compared to control spawn, the production of mushroom spawn treated with plasma increased by a factor of 1.5. Overall, plasma treatment enhanced mushroom development and yield, indicating its positive impact on oyster growth.&amp;#xD;

Healthy Environment for Optimal Growth and Development: Preventing Stunting Early

Healthy Environment for Optimal Growth and Development: Preventing Stunting Early

Exploring the Microbial Ecology of Nitrification Denitrification in Wastewater Treatment: Innovations and Future Directions

The nitrification-denitrification process serves as a critical mechanism in the biological removal of nitrogen from wastewater, a necessity for mitigating the environmental impact of nitrogen compounds on aquatic ecosystems. This complex process is orchestrated by diverse microbial communities, whose ecological interactions and functional capabilities are central to the efficiency and stability of nitrogen removal. In recent years, advances in molecular biology and microbial ecology have shed new light on the intricate dynamics within these microbial communities, revealing the roles of lesser known microbial taxa and the importance of microbial community structure and function in optimizing nitrification denitrification processes. This review provides a comprehensive examination of the microbial ecology involved in nitrification and denitrification, exploring the roles of key microbial players, including ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB), Nitrite oxidizing Bacteria (NOB), ammonia oxidizing archaea (AOA), and denitrifying bacteria. The review also delves into the environmental factors that influence microbial community dynamics, such as pH, temperature, oxygen availability, and the presence of inhibitory substances. By understanding these factors, the review highlights the challenges of maintaining stable and efficient nitrogen removal processes, particularly in the face of environmental fluctuations and operational disturbances, the review discusses recent innovations in wastewater treatment technologies that leverage microbial ecology to enhance process efficiency. These include bio-augmentation strategies, where specific microbial strains are introduced to bolster nitrification and denitrification, and advanced bioreactor designs, such as moving bed biofilm reactors (MBBRs) and membrane bioreactors (MBRs), which provide optimized environments for microbial growth and activity. The integration of anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) processes, which offer significant energy savings and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, is also explored as a promising alternative to traditional nitrification pathways.

Intensification of flocculation efficiency in multi-stage reactors by optimizing the multi-cone segment configuration

Flocculation is widely used in water treatment, and creating an optimal environment for floc growth is essential to enhancing flocculation efficiency. In this paper, we developed a multi-stage flocculation reactor (MFR) with strong, moderate, and weak mixing zones. Specifically, multi-cone structures with varying diameter ratios (DR) were incorporated in the moderate zone to promote floc growth. Computational simulations revealed that an MFR with a DR of 0.5 generated a uniform and symmetric flow field, reducing zero-velocity zones and forming distinct vortices within cones. This environment facilitated gradual floc growth while minimizing breakage. When applied to treating fracturing flowback fluid, a complex and challenging wastewater, the MFR produced larger and denser flocs, with an average chord length of 180 μm and a fractal dimension of 1.7170. These flocs exhibited high viscoelasticity, with a strength factor of 68.22 and a recovery factor of 47.77, indicating superior shear resistance and recovery ability after breakage. Consequently, the MFR achieved COD and turbidity removal rates of 92.05% and 93.61%, respectively, outperforming a stirred flocculation reactor, which achieved rates of 72.29% and 83.53% for the same parameters. Additionally, the MFR demonstrated excellent pollutant removal efficiency for both mineral processing wastewater and dyeing wastewater. With gradually decreasing energy along the flow direction, the MFR provided appropriate mixing intensities for different stages of floc growth, promoting efficient formation. These findings underscore the MFR’s potential as a highly effective solution for wastewater treatment applications.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BLOOD SUGAR LEVELS AND THE RESULTS OF ACID-FAST BACILLA EXAMINATION IN PULMONARY TUBERCULOSIS PATIENTS

Introduction: Tuberculosis (TB) is a highly contagious disease and a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. When Mycobacterium tuberculosis enters the body of an individual with elevated blood glucose levels, it creates a favorable environment for bacterial growth and proliferation. Objective: This study aimed to investigate the correlation between blood glucose levels and acid-fast bacilli (AFB) smear results in pulmonary tuberculosis patients at Arifin Achmad General Hospital, Pekanbaru. Methods: This study employed a retrospective analytical correlational design using secondary data from medical records. A total sample of 51 cases was analyzed using total sampling. Data was collected using an observation sheet and analyzed using Fisher's exact test. Results: A majority of the respondents (43%) had blood glucose levels exceeding 125 mg/dl, and a significant proportion (76.5%) had positive AFB smears. The Fisher exact test revealed a significant correlation between blood glucose levels and positive AFB smear results (p &lt; 0.05). Conclusion: This study demonstrates a significant association between blood glucose levels and AFB smear results in pulmonary tuberculosis patients at Arifin Achmad General Hospital, Pekanbaru.

Strawberry Grown in an Indoor Vertical Farm Responds to Increased Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density When Calcium Is Supplied at Higher Concentrations

Indoor vertical farms can optimize light, temperature, humidity, and nutrient use, thus potentially maximizing crop growth and yield. However, the reported potential for enhanced crop growth and yield within these systems needs to be tempered against the understanding of the effects of this “forced growth”/optimal growth environment on “actual” plant performance to fully reap the benefits of these innovative vertical farming systems. We investigated the effect of calcium (Ca) on the production of strawberries in an indoor vertical farm system with varying photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD). Fruit yield of plants fed with high Ca (9 meq·L−1) increased by 42.3% when the PPFD was 422 µmol·m−2·s−1; however, a subsequent increase to 572 µmol·m−2·s−1 resulted in a decline in fruit production. Plants treated with low Ca (5 meq·L−1) had a reduced yield and demonstrated no response to the PPFD. The observed increase in yield was associated with increased fruit production and total soluble solids. Plants exhibited 21.5% and 57.8% increases in the total dry weight when exposed to 422 and 572 µmol·m−2·s−1, respectively; however, Ca did not have any impact on this response. Independent of the Ca concentration, the photosynthesis rate increased by 16.1% and 22.2% when the PPFD increased to 422 and 572 µmol·m−2·s−1, respectively; however, the highest photosynthesis rate was recorded with 422 µmol·m−2·s−1 when the Ca level was 9 meq·L−1. High Ca-fed plants exhibited a reduction in Ca (−17.1%) content in their fruits when exposed to 572 µmol·m−2·s−1, which was likely caused by a dilution effect attributable to increased fruit biomass. In contrast, shoot Ca increased when plants were given high Ca when the PPFDs were 422 and 572 µmol·m−2·s−1. The Ca concentration in shoots correlated with the increasing yield, and a higher Ca concentration was associated with the increasing transpiration rate and stomatic conductance. Shoot phosphorus declined when plants were exposed to increased PPFD, and phosphorus was lower when plants were provided with 9 meq·L−1 of Ca; however, plants watered with low Ca solutions had more potassium. The shoot nitrogen content and micronutrient contents were unchanged regardless of the variations in PPFD or Ca. In summary, the favorable conditions for the cultivation of strawberry under controlled environments resulted in greater growth and fruit yield as long as Ca was provided at higher concentrations in the irrigation solutions (from 5 to 9 meq·L−1). We suggest that the higher demand of Ca that is necessary to satisfy the enhanced plant development observed in indoor farming systems may be connected to the role of Ca in the formation of new tissues, cell walls, and cell membranes.

The Urgency of Notary Deed in Supporting Sustainable Economic Growth in Riau

This research aims to investigate and analyze the creation of a conducive business climate using notary deed in Riau. The results show that notary deed play a central role in creating a stable and attractive business environment for sustainable economic growth through interviews and documentation, including maximizing Nvivo 12 Plus analysis for data coding. In this context, business transactions become legally valid with notary deed to increase confidence in investing and conducting business. Even though the concept is essential in increasing legal certainty and creating a conducive business climate, several challenges are faced in the implementation, including awareness and education, cost and time, bureaucratic processes, and changing regulations.

Cardio-metabolic risk and morbidity of a cohort in a rural community of Bangladesh

Background and objectives: Of the ever-increasing non-communicable diseases (NCDs), cardiometabolic morbidity and mortality constitute the major health burden world-wide. Several cross-sectional studies revealed the increasing prevalence of NCDs irrespective of cast, culture, ethnicity, socio-economic growth and geopolitical environment. Recent cross-sectional studies revealed South Asians are the most susceptible to cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Few cohort studies addressed cardiometabolic morbidity and related risks, particularly in the rural population.This study was carried out to find out the prevalence of metabolic syndrome (MetSyn) and its changes overtime in a rural cohort of Bangladesh. Methods: The study used baseline data of a study conducted in 2011- 2013 on prevalence of coronary artery disease among a cohort living in 16 villages. During 2021-2023, the baseline data collected in 2011-2013 were retrieved and the participants were searched and categorized into a) physically present, b) died and c) missing. Those who were present were requested to volunteer for re-investigations. Briefly the investigations included interviewing on social, family, personal and clinical history, anthropometry, blood pressure measurement, blood biochemistry and electrocardiography (ECG). Results: A total of 3928 people participated in baseline study of 2011- 2013. Of them, 1075 could be tracked by village and household. Of them, 953 were found alive. Of the 953 available participants, 651 (254 men and 397 women) volunteered to participate in 2021-2023 study. Compared to 2011-2013 baseline, the prevalence of MetSyn and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) increased to 31.6% and 5.2% from 7.5% and 0.8% respectively in 2021-2023. Similarly, compared to baseline, the prevalence of obesity and hypertension also showed significant increase overtime. Estimated incidence of MetSyn was 260.8 per 1000 population, which was more profound in women than men (W: M= 300.3:200.8). Conclusions: The study revealed a significant increase of obesity, hypertension, diabetes and metabolic syndrome within a decade indicating an emerging health burden among the rural people of Bangladesh. January 2025; Vol. 19(1):003. DOI:https://doi.org/10.55010/imcjms.19.003 *Correspondence: MA Sayeed, Department of Community Medicine, Ibrahim Medical College, 1/A Ibrahim Sarani, Segunbagicha, Dhaka 1000, Bangladesh. Email: sayeed950@gmail.com; © 2025 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License(CC BY 4.0).

Tailoring of Spectral Behaviors in Ce3+-Activated Ba2Gd8(SiO4)6O2 Cyan-Emitting Phosphors via Site Substitution Engineering for Plant Growth and Full-Spectrum White Light-Emitting Diodes.

Highly efficient Ce3+-activated Ba2Gd8(SiO4)6O2 (BGSO) cyan-emitting phosphors were designed to simultaneously fulfill the applications of plant growth and a white-light-emitting diode (white-LED). Here, the spectral behaviors of the studied samples are manipulated by arranging Ce3+ to occupy various crystallographic sites (i.e., Ba2+ and Gd3+) in BGSO host lattices. Upon ultraviolet light excitation, all the samples emit an intense asymmetric broadband emission from Ce3+ and its fluorescence intensity is strongly impacted by the dopant concentration and occupied position. In addition, the resultant phosphors do not only possess satisfied thermal stability but also present high internal and extra quantum efficiencies of 78.6 and 61.8%, respectively, which can be regulated by selecting the substituted sites. Two cyan-emitting LEDs are fabricated by integrating the synthesized phosphors, and their emission bands align well with the absorption peaks of plant pigments, enabling their uses in plant growth. Furthermore, the controlled plant growth environments also clarify that the packaged cyan-emitting LED can effectively promote plant growth. Additionally, via adopting the resulting phosphors as cyan-emitting converters, full-spectrum white-LED with good electroluminescence behaviors is developed. These findings manifest that the Ce3+-activated BGSO phosphors with tunable spectral properties are promising cyan-emitting components for both artificial plant growth LED and full-spectrum white-LED.

Unraveling the venom constituents of the endoparasitoid Aphidius gifuensis with an emphasis on the discovery of a novel insecticidal peptide.

Venom serves as a pivotal parasitic factor employed by parasitoid wasps to manipulate their hosts, creating a favorable environment for the successful growth of their progeny, and ultimately kill the host. The bioactive molecules within parasitoid venoms exhibit insecticidal activities with promising prospects for agricultural applications. However, knowledge regarding the venom components of parasitoids and the discovery of functional biomolecules from them remains limited. In this study, 30 venom proteins were identified from the endoparasitoid Aphidius gifuensis through the application of a transcriptomic approach. These proteins were categorized into five groups: hydrolase, molecular chaperone, transferase, other functional protein, and hypothetical protein with unknown function. Particularly noteworthy is the abundant expression of the peptide Vn1 in the venom apparatus of A. gifuensis, indicating its pivotal role in venom activity. Consequently, Vn1 was chosen for further functional analysis, exhibiting insecticidal activity against Tenebrio molitor pupae. Further assessment for revealing its mode of action disclosed that Vn1 impacts genes related to immune response, environmental information processing, metabolism, and response to external stimuli in T. molitor, suggesting its involvement in the intricate parasitoid wasp-host interaction. The findings of this study significantly contribute to our knowledge of the composition and functionality of A. gifuensis venom, establishing a foundation for further investigation into the biological roles of the identified venom constituents. The insecticidal Vn1 isolated from the venom of this parasitoid represents a valuable resource for the development of innovative biocontrol agents with potential applications in agriculture. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry.

Remote-Contact Catalysis for Target-Diameter Semiconducting Carbon Nanotube Arrays.

Electrostatic catalysis uses an external electric field (EEF) to rearrange the charge distribution to boost reaction rates and selectively produce certain reaction products in small-molecule reactions (e.g., Diels-Alder addition), requiring a 10 MV/cm field aligned with the reaction axis. Such a large and oriented EEF is challenging for large-scale implementation or material growth with multiple reaction axes or steps. Here, we demonstrate that the energy band at the tip of an individual single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) can be spontaneously shifted in a high-permittivity growth environment, with its other end in contact with a low-work-function electrode (e.g., hafnium carbide). By adjusting the Fermi level at a point where there is a substantial disparity in the density of states (DOS) between semiconducting (s-) and metallic (m-) SWCNTs, we achieve effective electrostatic catalysis for 99.92% purity s-SWCNT growth with a narrow diameter distribution (0.95 ± 0.04 nm), targeting the requirement of advanced SWCNT-based electronics for future computing.

YOLO-Ginseng: a detection method for ginseng fruit in natural agricultural environment.

The accurate and rapid detection of ginseng fruits in natural environments is crucial for the development of intelligent harvesting equipment for ginseng fruits. Due to the complexity and density of the growth environment of ginseng fruits, some newer visual detection methods currently fail to meet the requirements for accurate and rapid detection of ginseng fruits. Therefore, this study proposes the YOLO-Ginseng detection method. Firstly, this detection method innovatively proposes a plug-and-play deep hierarchical perception feature extraction module called C3f-RN, which incorporates a sliding window mechanism. Its unique structure enables the interactive processing of cross-window feature information, expanding the deep perception field of the network while effectively preserving important weight information. This addresses the detection challenges caused by occlusion or overlapping of ginseng fruits, significantly reducing the overall missed detection rate and improving the long-distance detection performance of ginseng fruits; Secondly, in order to maintain the balance between YOLO-Ginseng detection precision and speed, this study employs a mature channel pruning algorithm to compress the model. The experimental results demonstrate that the compressed YOLO-Ginseng achieves an average precision of 95.6%, which is a 2.4% improvement compared to YOLOv5s and only a 0.2% decrease compared to the uncompressed version. The inference time of the model reaches 7.4ms. The compressed model exhibits reductions of 76.4%, 79.3%, and 74.2% in terms of model weight size, parameter count, and computational load, respectively. Compared to other models, YOLO-Ginseng demonstrates superior overall detection performance. During the model deployment experiments, YOLO-Ginseng successfully performs real-time detection of ginseng fruits on the Jetson Orin Nano computing device, exhibiting good detection results. The average detection speed reaches 24.9 fps. The above results verify the effectiveness and practicability of YOLO-Ginseng, which creates primary conditions for the development of intelligent ginseng fruit picking equipment.

Control of spatio-temporal patterning via cell growth in a multicellular synthetic gene circuit

A major goal in synthetic development is to build gene regulatory circuits that control patterning. In natural development, an interplay between mechanical and chemical communication shapes the dynamics of multicellular gene regulatory circuits. For synthetic circuits, how non-genetic properties of the growth environment impact circuit behavior remains poorly explored. Here, we first describe an occurrence of mechano-chemical coupling in synthetic Notch (synNotch) patterning circuits: high cell density decreases synNotch-gated gene expression in different cellular systems in vitro. We then construct, both in vitro and in silico, a synNotch-based signal propagation circuit whose outcome can be regulated by cell density. Spatial and temporal patterning outcomes of this circuit can be predicted and controlled via modulation of cell proliferation, initial cell density, and/or spatial distribution of cell density. Our work demonstrates that synthetic patterning circuit outcome can be controlled via cellular growth, providing a means for programming multicellular circuit patterning outcomes.

Coupled Effect of Nutritional Food Molecules and Lactobacillus reuteri Surface Protein Interaction on the Bacterial Gastrointestinal Tolerance.

Lactobacillus reuteri, which is present in fermented foods, can produce LPxTG motif proteins (LMPs) to help the strain resist gastrointestinal fluid environmental stress and enhance the adherence and colonizing properties. Intestinal nutrient small molecules can interact with LMPs and cooperate with Lactobacillus to exert probiotic effects in the host intestine. However, the mechanism of their correlation with gastrointestinal tolerance needs to be further studied. In this study, different kinds of nutritional food molecules, such as intestinal phenols, sugars, and acids, were screened and the interaction between the LPxTG proteins and small molecules was explored via the molecular docking approach. The docking results showed that phenols and oligosaccharides were more likely to bind to the LPxTG protein (B3XKV5), with the benzene ring, phenolic hydroxyl group, and glycosidic bond in the small molecule more easily binding to the active site of B3XKV5. Furthermore, the gastrointestinal tolerance was enhanced under the rutin, myricetin, quercetin phenols, and stachyose-treated L. reuteri strain groups, especially the phenol group, which revealed the relationship between the molecular interaction of the strain with the small molecules and strain tolerance mechanism. All the findings illustrated the gastrointestinal tolerance escape effect of the Lactobacillus strain under enriched intestinal nutrient small molecular conditions, and they also provide insight regarding the small molecules for the Lactobacillus strain under abnormal growth environments.

Enhancing Plant Species Retrieval in Flora Through Language Model Integration

Traditionally, textual data storage and retrieval systems were designed primarily for human reading, mainly relying on paper records. However, as information technology has advanced, computerized searches have become common. However, Boolean logic-based data retrieval systems often struggle to handle data's diversity and richness effectively. These systems rely on strict matching rules, which can lead to either too few or too many results. For example, when searching for plant species descriptions, a query like "circle" AND "ellipse" may exclude relevant records that describe these traits using slightly different terms (e.g., "round" or "oval"). Conversely, broader queries like "oblong" may return an overwhelming number of irrelevant results. This rigidity limits the system's ability to adapt to the nuanced and varied ways users describe data. With the advent of advanced semantic models such as SBERT (Sentence-Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) (Reimers and Gurevych 2019), we can now delve deeper into the semantic relationships within textual data. Unlike general-purpose large language models, SBERT is specifically designed for efficient semantic similarity computation. In plant taxonomy, records in Flora, such as Flora of Taiwan or Flora of China, play a crucial role in understanding plant diversity in specific regions. These records provide critical information on plant growth environments, morphological characteristics, and economic values. Our research aims to enhance the efficiency of retrieving plant data using language models. Specifically, we transform textual descriptions from Flora and user queries into vector representations (Fig. 2) and calculate their cosine similarity to determine the relevance between user inputs and species records. Cosine similarity, a metric commonly used in text mining and information retrieval, quantifies the similarity between two vectors by measuring the cosine of the angle between them. The similarity score ranges from -1 (completely dissimilar) to 1 (identical), where higher scores indicate greater similarity. By applying this method, we can provide users with ranked scores of plant species related to their queries (Fig. 1). This approach not only streamlines data retrieval but also introduces new perspectives for botanical research and data management, fostering a more efficient exploration of plant diversity. Our results demonstrate the potential of language models to facilitate biodiversity research and data management, especially in retrieving plant taxonomy information. Our approach provides a novel tool for future biodiversity data analysis and retrieval, thereby contributing to the progress of biodiversity conservation.

Research on litchi image detection in orchard using UAV based on improved YOLOv5

The growth environment of litchis is complex, and there is a tendency for occlusion between litchis, which makes litchi detection difficult. The use of UAVs to detect litchi in complex natural environments is important for litchi yield estimation. In this paper, an improved You Only Look Once version 5 (YOLOv5) model YOLO-Litchi based on litchi images captured by UAVs is proposed, which can be used for litchi detection and yield estimation in orchards. We establish a dataset of litchi in the litchi orchard of South China Agricultural University (SCAU) using a DJI Elf 4 generation drone, and chose the YOLOv5s model as the base version of the improved model for litchi detection in complex natural environments. First, we add a small target detection layer for the characteristics of litchi targets in UAV images, so that the model can localize smaller targets and improve the detection performance of small targets. Second, we replace the C3 module C3TR with the C3 module C3TR incorporating a transformer at the end of the network backbone and add the ECA attention (Efficient Channel Attention) mechanism after the C3TR module to reduce the interference of invalid information in the background and enhance the ability of the network to extract litchi feature information. Finally, we replace the SiLU activation function in the original model with MemoryEfficientMish, a more efficient version of the Mish activation function that customizes the forward propagation and backpropagation, making its backpropagation more efficient. The effectiveness of the improvement is verified experimentally. The results show that the mAP and recall of the proposed model in this paper are improved by 1.5 % and 2.4 %, respectively, compared with the unimproved YOLOv5 network. Compared with object detection models such as SSD and YOLOv7, the model proposed in this paper also has better performance. In addition, our proposed model maintains the FPS of the model at 45.87 and the model size at 20.7 MB while improving the detection effect, which still meets the requirements of real-time detection as well as model lightweighting. In summary, the proposed model successfully balances speed, model size, and accuracy, meeting the needs of agricultural litchi detection. The improved litchi detection model is more robust, has higher detection accuracy, and is suitable for litchi recognition and yield estimation in field environments, which helps to refine the management of litchi plantations.

Formation mechanism of iron-catechol complexes in the colored periostracum of Corbicula spp.

The shell color of Corbicula clams, which are globally distributed, is roughly divided into yellowish and blackish depending on the environmental conditions of the sediment. The formation of an iron-L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (DOPA) complex in a thin organic layer, called the periostracum, on a calcareous layer causes the blackening of the clamshell. However, the iron-DOPA complex formation mechanism is unclear. To reveal how the iron is transported from the aquatic environment to the periostracum, cross-sectional analyses of the shell were conducted using an electron probe microanalyzer (EPMA) and Raman spectroscopy to investigate the distribution and structure of iron in the shell. Iron was only present in the periostracum, excluding deposition, and all iron was in the form of an iron-DOPA complex. Attenuated total reflection infrared spectroscopy and oxygen K-edge X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy revealed that the molecular structure of the native periostracum is independent of shell color. These results indicate that dissolved iron-organic complexes diffuse from the aqueous environment to the periostracum, forming iron-DOPA complex through ligand exchange. Because the iron-DOPA complex color depends on the pH, the shell color can serve as a historical indicator of the shell's growth environment.