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Topic Review
Conventional Event Tree Analysis on Liquefied Natural Gas
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is stored in facilities located in urban areas and transported over public roads. A shift towards the broader use of LNG is economically and environmentally justified. Conventional event trees for LNG emergency release in three different units is a concept that is based on the physical and chemical properties of LNG. It has been designed with deep consideration and analysis of past experiences and real cases of LNG incidents. The idea of having training checkpoints, such as ‘decision points’ and ‘learning curve points’ in the continuum of a training or exercise enable the achievement of optimal learning objectives in a flexible way which take into account the trainee individual mental and physical disposition on a day, scalability of difficulty level as well as realistic scenario paths determined by the performance of the trainees facing concrete operational problems.
  • 1.4K
  • 07 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Ecosystem Service Trade-Offs/Synergies of Karst Desertification Control
Ecosystem services, as the term of a scientific period, began in 1970 with the publication of the UN University’s report on “Human Impact on the Global Environment”. Since then, Costanza has proposed that ecosystem services are benefits derived directly or indirectly by human beings from the ecosystem, which are used to maintain the natural environmental conditions and utilities on which human beings depend for survival and development. Trade-offs, as a fundamental concept, first appeared in economics and were defined as opportunity costs. Where resources are scarce, an individual or group must give up a certain amount of additional scarce resources to obtain more of the scarce resources. Karst desertification refers to the land degradation phenomenon caused by the disturbance and destruction of unreasonable human social and economic activities under the fragile karst environment in the subtropical zone, which is manifested by soil erosion, gradual rock exposure, land productivity degradation, and a desert-like landscape on the surface. The results of management over the years show that forests, as the main provider of ecosystem services, have the functions of water conservation, soil and water conservation, carbon sequestration, and climate change mitigation. In particular, they play an irreplaceable role in managing karst desertification.
  • 1.4K
  • 13 Mar 2023
Topic Review
Fungal Enzymes for Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) Degradation
The ubiquitous persistence of plastic waste in diverse forms and different environmental matrices is one of the main challenges that modern societies are facing at present. The exponential utilization and recalcitrance of synthetic plastics, including polyethylene terephthalate (PET), results in their extensive accumulation, which is a significant threat to the ecosystem. The growing amount of plastic waste ending up in landfills and oceans is alarming due to its possible adverse effects on biota. Thus, there is an urgent need to mitigate plastic waste to tackle the environmental crisis of plastic pollution. With regards to PET, there is a plethora of literature on the transportation route, ingestion, environmental fate, amount, and the adverse ecological and human health effects. Several studies have described the deployment of various microbial enzymes with much focus on bacterial-enzyme mediated removal and remediation of PET. However, there is a lack of consolidated studies on the exploitation of fungal enzymes for PET degradation. Herein, an effort has been made to cover this literature gap by spotlighting the fungi and their unique enzymes, e.g., esterases, lipases, and cutinases. These fungal enzymes have emerged as candidates for the development of biocatalytic PET degradation processes. The first half of this review is focused on fungal biocatalysts involved in the degradation of PET. The latter half explains three main aspects: (1) catalytic mechanism of PET hydrolysis in the presence of cutinases as a model fungal enzyme, (2) limitations hindering enzymatic PET biodegradation, and (3) strategies for enhancement of enzymatic PET biodegradation.
  • 1.4K
  • 26 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Ecological Environment in Belt and Road Initiative Regions
With the widespread recognition and in-depth implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), especially in the context of global climate change, the ecological environment of Belt and Road Initiative regions might be confronted with pressures and challenges with rapid socioeconomic development. In response to those potential environmental challenges, China has put forward Green BRI and enriched the new Silk Road with more environmental connotations, aiming to reduce the conflict between economic development and eco-environmental protection.
  • 1.4K
  • 03 Jan 2023
Topic Review
Green Infrastructure in Spatial Planning
Adaptation to climate change is becoming one of the main paradigms for how cities function and develop. The significant role of green infrastructure (GI) as a tool for cities to adapt to climate change is increasingly emphasized among practitioners of spatial planning and in the research literature. Green infrastructure should be understood as "a strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural areas with other environmental features designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services. It incorporates green spaces (or blue if aquatic ecosystems are concerned) and other physical features in terrestrial (including coastal) and marine areas".
  • 1.4K
  • 12 Jun 2023
Topic Review
Vitamin D on Skin Aging
The normal vitamin D3 status is important for a general prevention of premature aging maintaining a healthful skin aging. Vitamin D3metabolites including its classical (1,25(OH)2D3) and novel (CYP11A1-intitated) D3hydroxyderivatives exert many beneficial protective effects on the skin, which could influence the process of premature aging via many different mechanisms, leading to a delay or attenuation of both chronological skin aging and photoaging. Skin-resident cells (keratinocytes, fibroblasts, and sebocytes) are capable of locally activating vitamin D3and exhibiting a diverse biological effect such as photoprotection and immunosuppression, similar to the UVR-induced one.
  • 1.3K
  • 29 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Fermented Foods and Gut Microbiota
Fermented foods and beverages are generally defined as products made by microbial organisms and enzymatic conversions of major and minor food components. Further to the commonly-recognized effects of nutrition on the digestive health and well-being, there is now strong evidence for the impact of fermented foods and beverages, produced or preserved by the action of microorganisms, on general health, namely their significance on the gut microbiota balance and brain functionality. 
  • 1.3K
  • 19 May 2021
Topic Review
Energy Consumption of Vacuum Freeze Dryer
The vacuum freeze-drying process is characterized by sublimating the frozen object into a solid state in a vacuum environment, sublimating the water from the object, and finally drying it. At the same time, sublimating the water into the cold trap coil to re form ice. This characteristic determines that the freeze-drying machine needs to use the heat medium circulation system to heat the material to sublimate the water of the object, The ice condensed on the cold trap coil also needs a lot of heat to melt and discharge. During the freeze-drying process of the freeze dryer, the cold trap needs to continuously capture the water vapor generated by sublimation to freeze the cold trap coil. The ice captured by the cold trap coil needs to be melted after each batch of freeze-drying, which in turn requires a large amount of high-temperature defrosting water or thawing steam. For the freeze dryer with heat medium circulation system, sublimation drying also needs to continuously absorb heat, The heat required for the whole process is provided by the electric heater of the heat medium circulation system. The preparation of defrosting water or defrosting steam and the electric heater that provides necessary heat for sublimation require a lot of energy consumption. The freeze dryer consumes too much energy, the freeze-drying cost is high and the energy waste is serious.
  • 1.3K
  • 13 Dec 2021
Topic Review
A city Multi-Floor Manufacturing Cluster
Multi-floor manufacturing cluster (MFMC) comprise production and service enterprises of various types of ownership, mainly SMEs, with different production orientations, with the presence of small-scale in-house equipment. This feature of MFMC promotes business competition, allowing for creating collaborative and networked organizations that can happen at some stages of development and can reach a level of a virtual manufacturing network based on Digital Twins models to fulfil customer orders.
  • 1.3K
  • 28 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Urban Green Space and Residents’ Mental Health
As an important part of urban built environment, urban green space has long been recognized in the fields of promoting residents’ mental health. The mediators can be divided into environmental factors, outdoor activity, and social cohesion. From the perspective of heterogeneity, both individual characteristics (e.g., age and gender) and group characteristics (e.g., level of urban development and urban density) of residents are considered to be the cause of various mediating effects. Types of urban green space tend to affect residents’ mental health through different paths.
  • 1.3K
  • 25 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Air Pollution Interconnections with Climate and Environmental Health
Air pollution is a major environmental problem. It is a problem that is interconnected with climate change and ecosystem health. The dynamics within the Niger Delta region of Nigeria are discovered. The high reliance of the people of the Niger Delta on their environment increases their vulnerability to environmental changes. This makes the problem an issue of environmental Justice when the drivers of air pollution in the region are factored in. Urgent and concerted action is required at the individual, local and national levels. The directions in this regard are highlighted. The emission and transmission of air pollutants cause air pollution. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation of over 200 million, is plagued with numerous environmental problems one of which is air pollution. The air quality in its major cities ranks among the worst in the world. 
  • 1.3K
  • 02 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Extremophilic Microorganisms in Central Europe
“Extremophiles”, first introduced in 1974, describes organisms that thrive in environments where one or more physical or chemical parameters are beyond most organisms’ normal optimal range. They can be broadly separated into two categories: extremophilic organisms that require one or more extreme conditions to grow and extremotolerant organisms that can tolerate harsh conditions but grow optimally in a milder environment
  • 1.3K
  • 19 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Integration of Environmental Justice and Sustainability in Practice
The environmental justice (EJ) movement has been a key factor in the United States’ struggle to provide a healthy environment for all to thrive. The origins of the movement date as far back as the 1960’s, led primarily by people of color and low economic status communities living in America’s most polluted environments. More recently, the just sustainability movement calls for the inclusion of EJ considerations, including social justice, equity, and human rights, into sustainability science and initiatives.
  • 1.3K
  • 13 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Cyanobacteria Controlling Agricultural Plant Diseases
Cyanobacteria, also called blue-green algae, are a group of prokaryotic microorganisms largely distributed in both terrestrial and aquatic environments. They produce a wide range of bioactive compounds that are mostly used in cosmetics, animal feed and human food, nutraceutical and pharmaceutical industries, and the production of biofuels. Nowadays, the research concerning the use of cyanobacteria in agriculture has pointed out their potential as biofertilizers and as a source of bioactive compounds, such as phycobiliproteins, for plant pathogen control and as inducers of plant systemic resistance. The use of alternative products in place of synthetic ones for plant disease control is also encouraged by European Directive 2009/128/EC. 
  • 1.3K
  • 19 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Precision Agroecology
Precision agroecology provides a unique opportunity to synthesize traditional knowledge and novel technology to transform food systems. Merging precision agriculture technology and agroecological principles offers a unique array of agricultural solutions driven by data collection, experimentation, and decision support tools. Precision agroecology can offer solutions to agriculture’s biggest challenges in achieving sustainability such as pollution, biodiversity loss, and climate change, as well as broader societal issues of rural depopulation and corporate consolidation of the agricultural sector.
  • 1.2K
  • 14 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Microbiome and Root Traits in Organic Phosphorus Mobilization
Moving toward more sustainable sources for managing phosphorus (P) nutrition in agroecosystems, organic phosphorus (Po) derived from organic inputs and soil is increasingly considered to complement mineral P fertilizer. However, the dynamics of P added by organic input in soil-plant systems is still poorly understood and there is currently no clear information on how the Po composition of these amendments determines P availability through interactions with the soil microbiome and root traits. Here, we review the main mechanisms of rhizosphere microbiome and root traits governing the dynamics of organic input/soil-derived Po pools in the soil-plant system.
  • 1.2K
  • 22 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Remediating Endocrine-Disrupting Compounds
Over the years, the persistent occurrence of superfluous endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs) (sub µg L−1) in water has led to serious health disorders in human and aquatic lives, as well as undermined the water quality. At present, there are no generally accepted regulatory discharge limits for the EDCs to avert their possible negative impacts. Moreover, the conventional treatment processes have reportedly failed to remove the persistent EDC pollutants, and this has led researchers to develop alternative treatment methods. Comprehensive information on the recent advances in the existing novel treatment processes and their peculiar limitations is still lacking. In this regard, the various treatment methods for the removal of EDCs are critically studied and reported in this entry.
  • 1.2K
  • 23 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Silvopastoral System in Morocco
The silvopastoral systems in Morocco, which combine trees, herbaceous resources, and livestock on the same unit of land, are a socio-economically and ecologically productive alternative to traditional management systems. Successful silvopastoral systems require effective limitation of agricultural expansion and deforestation phenomena, which could preserve the beauty and diversity of the landscape.
  • 1.2K
  • 21 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE-5) Inhibitors as Emergent Environmental Contaminants
Erectile dysfunction (ED) is an increasing disorder [16], affects 25 to 35 million men over 18 years in Europe. Pharmaceuticals used to reduce this disorder act as phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE-5) inhibitors, a family of enzymes typically active in cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) degradation. The inhibition of PDE-5 results in the intracellular accumulation of cGMP, which plays a central role in signal transduction and regulates several physiological responses.
  • 1.2K
  • 26 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Waste Conversion for Fuel Gas Production
The problems of the annual formation of industrial waste are common to a wide group of industries, particularly chemical, petrochemical, coal, gas, and wood processing. The most typical wastes of these industries are coal tar, waste oils, oil sludge, filter cakes, coal slime, sawdust, wood shavings, etc. Most of these materials and components pose a significant environmental threat.  A successful solution to these problems is possible due to the use of auxiliary fuel; boiler modifications; oxy-fuel combustion; and the preparation of multi-component fuels, including the use of additives. 
  • 1.2K
  • 15 Feb 2022
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