Environment For Periods Of Time Research Articles

Application and reduction of a nonlinear hyperelastic wall model capturing ex vivo relationships between fluid pressure, area, and wall thickness in normal and hypertensive murine left pulmonary arteries.

Pulmonary hypertension is a cardiovascular disorder manifested by elevated mean arterial blood pressure (>20 mmHg) together with vessel wall stiffening and thickening due to alterations in collagen, elastin, and smooth muscle cells. Hypoxia-induced (type 3) pulmonary hypertension can be studied in animals exposed to a low oxygen environment for prolonged time periods leading to biomechanical alterations in vessel wall structure. This study introduces a novel approach to formulating a reduced order nonlinear elastic structural wall model for a large pulmonary artery. The model relating blood pressure and area is calibrated using ex vivo measurements of vessel diameter and wall thickness changes, under controlled pressure conditions, in left pulmonary arteries isolated from control and hypertensive mice. A two-layer, hyperelastic, and anisotropic model incorporating residual stresses is formulated using the Holzapfel-Gasser-Ogden model. Complex relations predicting vessel area and wall thickness with increasing blood pressure are derived and calibrated using the data. Sensitivity analysis, parameter estimation, subset selection, and physical plausibility arguments are used to systematically reduce the 16-parameter model to one in which a much smaller subset of identifiable parameters is estimated via solution of an inverse problem. Our final reduced one layer model includes a single set of three elastic moduli. Estimated ranges of these parameters demonstrate that nonlinear stiffening is dominated by elastin in the control animals and by collagen in the hypertensive animals. The pressure-area relation developed in this novel manner has potential impact on one-dimensional fluids network models of vessel wall remodeling in the presence of cardiovascular disease.

Semi-wave and spreading speed for a nonlocal diffusive Fisher-KPP model with free boundaries in time periodic environment

Semi-wave and spreading speed for a nonlocal diffusive Fisher-KPP model with free boundaries in time periodic environment

Elevated lead (Pb) in urban European starling (Sturnus vulgaris) feathers is not correlated to physiology or behavior

Urbanization is rapidly changing the environment and creating new challenges in the lives of animals across the globe. Anthropogenic contaminants—like heavy metals—can persist within the environment for prolonged periods of time and present a widespread problem for those living near contaminated areas. Lead (Pb) was a commonly used heavy metal that continues to threaten the health of all organisms despite being phased out, especially in urban areas where historical use was more common. In this study, a common urban-adapter, the European starling (Sturnus vulgaris), was trapped to explore whether feather Pb burden is greater in birds from urban habitats than rural habitats, as well as whether Pb burdens were correlated with behavior, physiology, and feather development. Across four sites (two rural and two urban), soil Pb concentrations were measured and 197 free-living starlings were captured to measure feather Pb concentrations. Using linear mixed models, this study found that urban starling nestlings had elevated feather Pb burdens compared to rural nestlings. In contrast, there was no correlation between Pb and urbanization in adult birds whose exposure to Pb may reflect a larger spatial range compared to nestlings. For both nestlings and adults, feather Pb was uncorrelated to corticosterone, testosterone, aggressive behavior, or feather growth rates. These findings suggest that starlings may be a useful biomonitoring tool to detect Pb in the local environment, however, the age and spatial range of birds is a critical consideration in applying this tool. Further work is needed to understand the intricate relationship between heavy metals, behavior, morphological development, and physiology in free-living organisms.

Understanding the time-dependent effect of built environment attributes on station-level metro ridership uncertainty in Beijing: A big data analytic approach

The relationship between built environment and metro (underground railway) ridership has been well discussed in the literature. However, few studies focus on the metro ridership uncertainty and its temporal association with the built environment, that is the time-dependent effect of built environment on metro ridership uncertainty. To fill this gap, this study investigates the spatio-temporal patterns of metro ridership uncertainty using data collected in Beijing. Multivariate analysis models are developed to establish statistical relations between metro ridership uncertainty and built environment for different time periods (day of the week and time of the day) for analyzing the temporal variations of the built environment impacts. Results show that time-dependent effects significantly exist, with hourly variations in the relationship more evident than daily variations. Stations with added employment and residential buildings would generate additional metro demand during weekdays, while stations with added service and commercial establishments are during weekends. The findings of this study will help us understand how the built environment affects metro ridership uncertainty in different time periods and develop effective policies.

A diffusive Lotka–Volterra model with Robin boundary condition and sign-changing growth rates in time-periodic environment

In this paper, a Lotka–Volterra model with Robin and free boundary conditions is considered in the heterogeneous time-periodic environment. We mainly consider the changes of local growth rates of native and invasive species that might be negative in some large regions. We study the spreading–vanishing dichotomy. When vanishing occurs, a native species cannot spread successfully as time goes to infinity. However, for an invasive species, in the long run, either it will go extinct or converge to the unique positive solution of time-periodic boundary value problem of logistic equation. When spreading occurs, both native and invasive species have upper and lower bounds. We also obtain the criteria for spreading and vanishing, and estimate of the asymptotic spreading speed.

Ghost fishing capacity of lost experimental gillnets: a preliminary study from Indian waters.

Abandoned, lost, or otherwise discarded fishing gear contributes considerably to global marine debris. These lost gears, mostly made of non-biodegradable synthetic materials, persist in the marine environment for longer periods of time and pose a great threat to marine life by entangling and killing target fishes and other non-target species such as turtles, birds, and mammals, a phenomenon known as ghost fishing. Other environmental impacts include physical impacts on aquatic habitats, transfer of microplastics into food web, and interference with fishing. Information regarding the catching efficiency and catch rates of lost nets in Indian waters is lacking. Ghost fishing capacity of simulated lost gillnets is being reported for the first time in India. This study investigates the ghost fishing capacity of lost gillnets through an experimental approach at Aroor, Vembanad lake, Kerala, India. Simulation studies using purposefully abandoned shrimp gillnets (32mm mesh size) were conducted to understand the fishing capacity of lost gillnets during two seasons (monsoon and post-monsoon) as separate experiments. The gillnets maintained their catching efficiency until the 15th day during the first experiment and up to the 50th day in the second experiment. Catches showed an exponential reduction over time in both experiments. A total of 251 specimens comprising of 27 species were caught from both sets of experimental nets, and the state of catch in the nets showed different decaying stages from the second day itself along with fresh stages. As the days progressed, particulate matter and detritus began to accumulate on the experimental nets, increasing net visibility and reducing their catching efficiency. The results of the study on ghost fishing capability will contribute to the development of strategies for reducing the effects of lost nets on the aquatic ecosystem and for suggesting improved management strategies.

Effects of environmental heterogeneity on species spreading via numerical analysis of some free boundary models

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>This paper investigates the effect of environmental heterogeneity on species spreading via numerical simulation of suitable reaction-diffusion models with free boundaries. We focus on the changes of long-time dynamics (establishment or extinction) and spreading speeds of the species as the parameters describing the heterogeneity of the environment are varied. For the single species model in time-periodic environment and in space-periodic environment theoretically treated in [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b15">15</xref>,<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b16">16</xref>], we obtain more detailed properties here. Among other results, our numerical simulation suggests that, in a time-periodic or space-periodic environment, moderate increase of the oscillation scale enhances the chances of establishment as well as the spreading speed of the species. We also numerically examine a related model with two competing species, which was treated in [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b34">34</xref>,<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b28">28</xref>,<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b24">24</xref>] recently and reduces to the single species free boundary model when one of the species is absent. Our numerical results, obtained by varying the parameters in the time-periodic and space-periodic terms of the model, suggest that heterogeneity of the environment enhances the invasion of the two species (as in the single species model), although there are subtle differences of the influences felt by the two. Some intriguing phenomena revealed in our simulations suggest that heterogeneity of the environment decreases the level of predictability of the competition outcome.</p>

Mechanism of Hypoxia-Mediated Smooth Muscle Cell Proliferation Leading to Vascular Remodeling.

Vascular remodeling refers to changes in the size, contraction, distribution, and flow rate of blood vessels and even changes in vascular function. Vascular remodeling can cause cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. It can also lead to other systemic diseases, such as pulmonary hypertension, pulmonary atherosclerosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, stroke, and ascites of broilers. Hypoxia is one of the main causes of vascular remodeling. Prolonged hypoxia or intermittent hypoxia can lead to loss of lung ventilation, causing respiratory depression, irregular respiratory rhythms, and central respiratory failure. Animals that are unable to adapt to the highland environment are also prone to sustained constriction of the small pulmonary arteries, increased resistance to pulmonary circulation, and impaired blood circulation, leading to pulmonary hypertension and right heart failure if they live in a highland environment for long periods of time. However, limited studies have been found on the relationship between hypoxia and vascular remodeling. Therefore, this review will explore the relationship between hypoxia and vascular remodeling from the aspects of endoplasmic reticulum stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, abnormal calcium channel, disordered cellular metabolism, abnormal expression of miRNA, and other factors. This will help to understand the detailed mechanism of hypoxia-mediated smooth muscle cell proliferation and vascular remodeling for the better treatment and management of diseases due to vascular remodeling.

Removal of orange G dye by Aspergillus niger and its effect on organic acid production

Azo dyes have been found in wastewater from textile industries. These compounds continuously persist in the environment for long periods of time and may be toxic for living beings. An alternative treatment for dye removal that has proven to be effective is aerobic treatment with fungi. In this study, Aspergillus niger was investigated as a mechanism to remove orange G (OG). Removal of 200 mg/L of OG by A. niger biomass was carried out in solid and liquid medium, which showed a positive correlation between A. niger growth and dye removal. In liquid media what was proved is that the efficiency of OG removal by A. niger depends on its concentration; at 200 mg/L of OG remove by degradation and at 400 mg/L by processes as sorption and degradation. During OG removal, the generation of organic acids by A. niger was modified compared to constitutive generation, one of the modifications was the increase of gluconic acid production and the decrease of acids involved in the Krebs cycle, as well as the null detection of oxalic acid. The monitoring of organic acids by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was important because some of them have been linked to dye removal.

Periodic wave propagation in a diffusive SIR epidemic model with nonlinear incidence and periodic environment

The aim of this paper is to study the periodic traveling wave solutions in a nonautonomous reaction-diffusion susceptible-infected-removed epidemic model with general nonlinear incidence and time-periodic environment. The basic reproduction number R0 and the critical wave speed c* are defined. By the fixed-point theorem and upper–lower solutions, the sufficient conditions for the existence of traveling waves satisfying some asymptotic boundary conditions are deduced, and the nonexistence of periodic traveling waves is also obtained. Numerical simulations are carried out to support the theoretical results.

Optimization of Polystyrene Biodegradation by Bacillus cereus and Pseudomonas alcaligenes Using Full Factorial Design.

Microplastics (MP) are a global environmental problem because they persist in the environment for long periods of time and negatively impact aquatic organisms. Possible solutions for removing MP from the environment include biological processes such as bioremediation, which uses microorganisms to remove contaminants. This study investigated the biodegradation of polystyrene (PS) by two bacteria, Bacillus cereus and Pseudomonas alcaligenes, isolated from environmental samples in which MPs particles were present. First, determining significant factors affecting the biodegradation of MP-PS was conducted using the Taguchi design. Then, according to preliminary experiments, the optimal conditions for biodegradation were determined by a full factorial design (main experiments). The RSM methodology was applied, and statistical analysis of the obtained models was performed to analyze the influence of the studied factors. The most important factors for MP-PS biodegradation by Bacillus cereus were agitation speed, concentration, and size of PS, while agitation speed, size of PS, and optical density influenced the process by Pseudomonas alcaligenes. However, the optimal conditions for biodegradation of MP-PS by Bacillus cereus were achieved at γMP = 66.20, MP size = 413.29, and agitation speed = 100.45. The best conditions for MP-PS biodegradation by Pseudomonas alcaligenes were 161.08, 334.73, and 0.35, as agitation speed, MP size, and OD, respectively. In order to get a better insight into the process, the following analyzes were carried out. Changes in CFU, TOC, and TIC concentrations were observed during the biodegradation process. The increase in TOC values was explained by the detection of released additives from PS particles by LC-MS analysis. At the end of the process, the toxicity of the filtrate was determined, and the surface area of the particles was characterized by FTIR-ATR spectroscopy. Ecotoxicity results showed that the filtrate was toxic, indicating the presence of decomposition by-products. In both FTIR spectra, a characteristic weak peak at 1715 cm−1 was detected, indicating the formation of carbonyl groups (−C=O), confirming that a biodegradation process had taken place.

Dispersal-induced growth in a time-periodic environment.

Dispersal-induced growth (DIG) occurs when several populations with time-varying growth rates, each of which, when isolated, would become extinct, are able to persist and grow exponentially when dispersal among the populations is present. This work provides a mathematical exploration of this surprising phenomenon, in the context of a deterministic model with periodic variation of growth rates, and characterizes the factors which are important in generating the DIG effect, and the corresponding conditions on the parameters involved.

Is a Plastic-Free Mauritius Island Achievable by 2030? Opportunities and Challenges

A world without plastics seems inconceivable today. Global plastic production and utilization have reached amazing figures in the last four decades. The widespread use of plastics has been attributed to the various useful properties, plastics offer as a material. Plastics are durable, hence persist into the environment for long periods of time before undergoing degradation or fragmenting into microplastics or nano-plastics. Moreover, with trans-boundary movement of plastic wastes, plastic pollution knows no frontier and thus is recognized as one of the most dreadful global challenges, in the Anthropocene era. Countries around the globe are implementing varying policy measures coupled with economic instruments to beat plastic pollution. Likewise, Mauritius, a small island developing state in the Indian Ocean, is not spared from the detrimental impacts of plastic pollution. Ad hoc actions to deal with plastic pollution have unfortunately not yielded the expected results. The Government of Mauritius has recently set its target to make Mauritius a plastic-free island by 2030. To attain this goal, a roadmap is underway. The objectives of this paper are to undertake a situational analysis of the overall process thereby investigating the causes for failures of past measures and to determine whether the challenge of a plastic-free Mauritius could be met. Our analysis revealed that under prevailing conditions, the target would not be met. The paper therefore discusses some enabling factors that need to be incorporated in the roadmap, to successfully achieve the set target.

Cost-effective mechanism for environmental toxic reduction using deep learning

Environmental toxic reduction (ETR) is necessary to utilize cost-effective, standardized toxicity tests confined to acute reactions to high dosages when conducting environmental risk assessments on chemical goods and effluents inside countries. Chemicals and organisms found in the surroundings harmful to human health are environmental toxins. Physical elements that disturb biological processes and creatures that cause sickness are examples of dangerous chemicals and their compounds. Exposure to environmental contaminants has a slew of negative consequences. People, animals, and plants can be harmed by toxic waste that finds its way into the ground, rivers, or even the air. Heavy metals like mercury and lead stay in the environment for long periods of time and build up. When people or animals consume fish or other prey, they typically absorb these hazardous compounds. These expenses indicate the qualitative degradation of the natural environment caused by economic activity and are referred to as degradation costs. Deep Learning (DL) has an advantage over other toxicity prediction approaches since it builds a hierarchy of chemical characteristics. A further advantage of DL is that it inherently supports multitask learning, which means that one artificial neural network (ANN) may learn about all of a substance's harmful effects as well as other useful chemical properties. The ETR-DL pipeline has been created to use DL for toxicity prediction. It normalizes the process of chemical representations of molecules. That is followed by computing several chemical descriptors fed into machine learning algorithms. It builds models, tests them, and then assembles the best ones into ensembles. It makes predictions about new chemicals' toxicity. The responsiveness, precision, reliability, balanced consistency, and the area under the output response characteristics are some of the most commonly used metrics for evaluating classification model performance of 95.12%.

Plasticity in the timing of detachment of an Eurasian-African songbird tick, Ixodes frontalis

In non-permanent parasites, host detachment should take place in an environment that ensures the continuation of their life cycle. Timing of detachment - in combination with the host's space use - affects dispersal and transmission success of the parasites and of the pathogens they vector. Before reaching the adult reproductive stage, ticks need to go through multiple immature developmental stages (larva and nymph), each feeding on host blood. In between the feeding bouts, they often remain in the off-host environment for considerable periods of time. With this study, we aimed to obtain more insight in Ixodes frontalis’ off-host habitat use by comparing its detachment pattern in different life stages with that of two habitat-specialized ticks also found on birds: the endophilic tree-hole tick (Ixodes arboricola) and the exophilic sheep tick (Ixodes ricinus), the latter living in humid understory vegetation of forests. For this, we artificially infested hole-roosting (great tits, Parus major) and open-roosting (blackbirds, Turdus merula) birds with ticks under laboratory conditions, and recorded whether detachment occurred during the day or the night. We hypothesize that nocturnal detachment improves off-host mating opportunities and host localization, whereas diurnal detachment optimizes tick dispersal. Ixodes frontalis nymphs detached during the night, especially when feeding on blackbirds. This behaviour was very similar to that of I. arboricola (larva and nymph) feeding on great tits. In contrast, I. frontalis larvae detached during the day, especially when feeding on great tits, which resembles that of I. ricinus’ feeding behaviour (larva and nymph). Ixodes frontalis left the host within seven days, immediately after completion of the blood meal. This is similar to both developmental stages of I. ricinus but contrasts with the very long (up to 20 days) feeding duration in I. arboricola. Thus I. frontalis shows strong plasticity, switching from dispersal-centered (larvae) to host-centered (nymphs) detachment behaviour. Findings are discussed with regard to the ticks’ habitat use, dispersal, life history and host specificity.

Short-term and long-term behavior of RC beams strengthened by galvanized steel mesh laminate

Steel reinforced polymers (SRP) are useful in a wide range of applications, including strengthening of existing reinforced concrete (RC) structures, due to their numerous advantages like high strength, low maintenance, light weight and low cost. As such, galvanized steel mesh (GSM) has emerged as an option in the strengthening of RC structures. Although numerous studies were performed on GSM strengthened RC beams, the durability of such strengthening systems is yet to be fully understood. This paper presents an experimental and numerical study to investigate the strengthening effect of GSM on RC beams as well as the time-depended behavior of RC beams with and without strengthening. Reinforced concrete beams without strengthening were used as control beams. For the strengthened beams, both high cord density galvanized steel mesh (HSM) and medium cord density galvanized steel mesh (MSM) were used after which the beams were exposed to Qatar atmospheric environment for different periods of time following 28 days of water curing. Finite element analyses using ABAQUS software were conducted to predict the mechanical behavior of the RC beams with and without strengthening. The results showed an improvement ranging from 46% ∼ 57% in the ultimate load of GSM strengthened beams, with a higher initial cracking load ranging from 3% ∼ 35% when compared to the unstrengthened beams. On the other hand, the time-dependent effect of the concrete has limited influence on the initial cracking load of both systems (before and after strengthening) while the ultimate load increased gradually with time due to the strength development of concrete. The results obtained from this study are useful in improving the design, construction, and maintenance of RC beams strengthened with GSM laminates.

Classifying the level set of principal eigenvalue for time-periodic parabolic operators and applications

We study the effect of diffusion and frequency on the principal eigenvalue of linear time-periodic parabolic operators with zero Neumann boundary conditions. Monotonocity of the principal eigenvalue and its asymptotic behavior, as diffusion rate and frequency approach zero or infinity, are established. This leads to a classification of the topological structures of level sets for the principal eigenvalue, as a function of diffusion rate and frequency. As applications, we investigate a susceptible-infected-susceptible reaction-diffusion model in spatially heterogeneous and time-periodic environment. We characterize the parameter regions for the persistence and extinction of infectious disease by the basic reproduction number. The asymptotic profiles of endemic periodic solutions are determined when the diffusion rate of susceptible population is small. Our results suggest that fast movement of infected populations and high frequency of oscillation tend to eliminate the disease. Even if the disease persists, it can be controlled by limiting the movement of susceptible populations.

Pesticides and Male Fertility: A Dangerous Crosstalk.

In recent decades, an increasing incidence of male infertility has been reported. Interestingly, and considering that pesticides have been used for a long time, the high incidence of this pathological state is concomitant with the increasing use of these chemicals, suggesting they are contributors for the development of human infertility. Data from literature highlight the ability of certain pesticides and/or their metabolites to persist in the environment for long periods of time, as well as to bioaccumulate in the food chain, thus contributing for their chronic exposure. Furthermore, pesticides can act as endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), interfering with the normal function of natural hormones (which are responsible for the regulation of the reproductive system), or even as obesogens, promoting obesity and associated comorbidities, like infertility. Several in vitro and in vivo studies have focused on the effects and possible mechanisms of action of these pesticides on the male reproductive system that cause sundry negative effects, even though through diverse mechanisms, but all may lead to infertility. In this review, we present an up-to-date overview and discussion of the effects, and the metabolic and molecular features of pesticides on somatic cells and germinal tissues that affect germ cell differentiation.

Molecular Evolutionary Dynamics of Energy Limited Microorganisms.

Microorganisms have the unique ability to survive extended periods of time in environments with extremely low levels of exploitable energy. To determine the extent that energy limitation affects microbial evolution, we examined the molecular evolutionary dynamics of a phylogenetically diverse set of taxa over the course of 1,000 days. We found that periodic exposure to energy limitation affected the rate of molecular evolution, the accumulation of genetic diversity, and the rate of extinction. We then determined the degree that energy limitation affected the spectrum of mutations as well as the direction of evolution at the gene level. Our results suggest that the initial depletion of energy altered the direction and rate of molecular evolution within each taxon, though after the initial depletion the rate and direction did not substantially change. However, this consistent pattern became diminished when comparisons were performed across phylogenetically distant taxa, suggesting that although the dynamics of molecular evolution under energy limitation are highly generalizable across the microbial tree of life, the targets of adaptation are specific to a given taxon.

Transcriptome Profile Alterations with Carbon Nanotubes, Quantum Dots, and Silver Nanoparticles: A Review.

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology has revolutionized sequence-based research. In recent years, high-throughput sequencing has become the method of choice in studying the toxicity of chemical agents through observing and measuring changes in transcript levels. Engineered nanomaterial (ENM)-toxicity has become a major field of research and has adopted microarray and newer RNA-Seq methods. Recently, nanotechnology has become a promising tool in the diagnosis and treatment of several diseases in humans. However, due to their high stability, they are likely capable of remaining in the body and environment for long periods of time. Their mechanisms of toxicity and long-lasting effects on our health is still poorly understood. This review explores the effects of three ENMs including carbon nanotubes (CNTs), quantum dots (QDs), and Ag nanoparticles (AgNPs) by cross examining publications on transcriptomic changes induced by these nanomaterials.