Summary

Environmental science emerged from the fields of natural history and medicine during the Enlightenment. Today, it provides an integrated, quantitative, and interdisciplinary approach to the study of environmental systems. Environmental studies are incorporating more of the social sciences in order to understand human relationships, perceptions and policies towards the environment. This entry collection features information about design and technology for improving environmental quality in every aspect.

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Topic Review
Seasonal Changes in Soil Microbial Community
Hazelnut is one of the four major nuts in the world and has high nutritional and economic value. This study employed Illumina sequencing of ITS rDNA and 16S rRNA genes to identify the seasonal changes in soil microbial community, the predominant environmental factors driving microbial community composition, and the differences in soil microbial composition among different species of the genus Corylus. We found that the soil microbial community composition of species of Corylus changed significantly with the change in seasons. Corylus heterophylla and Corylus kweichowensis had more ectomycorrhiza in their soil compared to Corylus avellane. The main factor influencing fungal community composition in soil was the available potassium, while that of bacteria was the total phosphorus content.
  • 1.1K
  • 02 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Sustainability Human Factors
Sustainability is the result of a complex combination of factors. Social, cultural and personal elements are key for the pursuit of a sustainable future. Beyond the existing, very broad program on sustainability studies, additional research should contribute to specify how those social and human factors affect sustainability indices. General beliefs, values, attitudes, habits, assumed lifestyles or even meaning systems projecting purpose on one’s own life have an impact on sustainability as well. Our aim in this paper is to describe these factors, which we group under the label of ‘sustainability human factors’. This task requires a multidisciplinary effort involving anthropology, psychology and social sciences, covering cognitive, emotional or cultural dimensions. First, we set the stage describing the expected network of features and traits that could describe the human factor. Second, we propose a model which can help to assess it through multiple scales and surveying instruments. These instruments can provide valuable data that could expand the current indices. It is important to connect our program with the ongoing research in this field and to develop a broad model that highlights the human factor and its central role when planning for a sustainable future.
  • 2.5K
  • 02 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Fire Safety Performance of Polymer Composites
The growth of the use of polymer composite materials has been a phenomenon since 1960, with diverse applications in spacecraft, aircraft, boats, ship, automobiles, civil infrastructure, sporting goods, and consumer products. In addition, the use of composites will continue to grow in the coming years with emerging end-use such as large bridge structures, engine machinery, offshore platforms, computer hardware, and biomedicals devices. However, a critical challenge facing the growing use of polymer composites is their high combustibility.
  • 1.0K
  • 02 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Building Energy and Urban Microclimate Simulations
Considering the latest research findings as well as trends in energy policies that necessitate building energy design with accurately predicted performance indicators, building simulation techniques, taking into account the external microclimate effects, should no longer be considered as “for research purposes only” and move to the practitioner level at the early design stages.
  • 1.2K
  • 02 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Influence on Habitat on Neotropical Rodents Viral Diversity
Ecosystem disturbances and resulting decreases of host species richness have been associated with the emergence of zoonotic diseases. Among vertebrates, rodents are important reservoirs of numerous viruses, including some with significant impacts on public health. Exploring the viral diversity in Neotropical rodents, we provide significant insights into zoonotic viruses in Amazonia, and emphasize that habitats and host’s dietary ecology drive viral diversity. Linking richness and abundance of viruses to the ecology and responses to habitat disturbance of their hosts should be starting points for a better understanding of viral emergence, prediction of at-risk situation, and implementation of early control and mitigation measures.
  • 924
  • 01 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Peptide Phytohormones
Various plant peptide hormones play a role in the defense from pathogens and herbivores and also in the interaction with beneficial microorganisms. Some families of peptide phytohormones have exclusively protective functions and are among the components of plant immunity, whereas other members of peptide phytohormones mostly play a role in the regulation of plant growth, but can be also involved in the defense response or plant–microbe interactions.
  • 1.0K
  • 29 Oct 2021
Topic Review
IoT Intrusion Detection Taxonomy
The taxonomy includes (1) IoT security attacks, (2) IoT architecture layers, (3) intrusion-detection systems for IoT, (3) DL techniques used in the IoT IDSs, (4) common datasets used in the evaluation of the DL systems, and (5) their classification strategies. The different areas included in the taxonomy are in various ways interconnected as root causes of IoT security vulnerabilities in IoT and/or solutions to counter such causes.
  • 2.4K
  • 29 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Spent Lithium-Ion Batteries Recycling
An urgent demand for recycling spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) is expected in the forthcoming years due to the rapid growth of electrical vehicles (EV). To address these issues, various technologies such as the pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical method, as well as the newly developed in-situ roasting reduction (in-situ RR) method were proposed in recent studies.
  • 1.2K
  • 29 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Seaweeds in Pig Nutrition
In order to reduce the antimicrobials used in livestock, it's important to find natural and sustainable molecules that boost animal performance and health. Brown seaweeds seem to be a promising dietary intervention in pigs in order to boost the immune system, antioxidant status and gut health. 
  • 1.0K
  • 28 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Retinoic Acid and Retinaldehyde Dehydrogenase
Retinoic acid (RA) is an important biological metabolite synthesized from the retinol content (known as “vitamin A”) via a sequential cellular process in the retinoid signaling pathway (RSP). RSP-mediated RA biosynthesis is a vital physiological process in chordates, since RA interacts with the nuclear receptor superfamily, namely nuclear RA receptors (RARs) and retinoid X receptors (RXRs), bound to the RA response elements (RAREs) in the promoter region of RA target genes. Retinaldehyde dehydrogenases (RALDH) belongs to the oxidoreductase family and plays a critical role in RA synthesis from the retinaldehyde content; therefore, this enzyme is considered to be one of the key regulators of RA-related retinol metabolism and embryonic development.
  • 1.8K
  • 27 Oct 2021
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