COVID-19 highlights the need to improve resilience and equity in managing small-scale fisheries.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of global and domestic seafood markets. We examined the main impacts and responses of the small-scale fisheries (SSF) sector, and found that mitigation and preparedness strategies should be prioritised to boost resilience in SSF. We provide five policy options and considerations: (1) improving access to insurance and financial services; (2) strengthening local and regional markets and supporting infrastructure; (3) recognising fisheries as an essential service; (4) integrating disaster risk management into fisheries management systems; and (5) investing in Indigenous and locally-led fisheries management.

Applying the Quadrant Method for Pumping-Trace Metal Correlations in Variable Time, Low-Data Systems.

Due to increasing global demand for fresh water, it is increasingly necessary to understand how aquifer pumping affects groundwater chemistry. However, comprehensive predictive relationships between pumping and groundwater quality have yet to be developed, as the available data, which are often collected over inconsistent time intervals, are poorly suited for long-term historical correlation studies. For example, we needed an adequate statistical method to better understand relationships between pumping rate and water quality in the City of Norman (OK, USA).

Biome evolution in subfamily Cercidoideae (Leguminosae): a tropical arborescent clade with a relictual depauperate temperate lineage.

Unlabelled: Some plant lineages remain within the same biome over time (biome conservatism), whereas others seem to adapt more easily to new biomes. The c. 398 species (14 genera) of subfamily Cercidoideae (Leguminosae or Fabaceae) are found in many biomes around the world, particularly in the tropical regions of South America, Asia and Africa, and display a variety of growth forms (small trees, shrubs, lianas and herbaceous perennials).

Stable isotope tempestology of tropical cyclones across the North Atlantic and Eastern Pacific Ocean basins.

Tropical cyclones (TCs) are one of the major natural hazards to island and coastal communities and ecosystems. However, isotopic compositions of TC-derived precipitation (P) in surface water (SW) and groundwater (GW) reservoirs are still lacking. We tested the three main assumptions of the isotope storm "spike" hypothesis (sudden spikes in isotopic ratios).

(ragweed) pollen - A growing aeroallergen of concern in South Africa.

Background: Ragweed is an invasive, highly allergenic weed predicted to expand its habitat with warming global temperatures. Several species have been identified in South Africa for well over a century; however, its presence remained undetected by allergists and aerobiologists until the development of an extensive aerospora monitoring system across South African urban areas since 2019. This paper presents the inventory of preliminary investigation of the airborne pollen and the taxonomic identification of ragweed species.

A global dataset of tree hydraulic and structural traits imputed from phylogenetic relationships.

We present a dataset of plant hydraulic and structural traits imputed for 55,779 tree species based on TRY plant trait dataset observations and phylogenetic relationships. We collected plant trait values for maximum stomatal conductance (gs), xylem pressure at 12%, 50%, and 88% conductance loss (P12, P50, P88), maximum observed rooting depth (rd), photosynthetic Water Use Efficiency (WUE), maximum plant height (height), Specific Leaf Area (SLA), and leaf Nitrogen content (LeafN). We demonstrated that each of these traits exhibited remarkably large phylogenetic signals across all land plants.

New soft tissue data of pterosaur tail vane reveals sophisticated, dynamic tensioning usage and expands its evolutionary origins.

Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to achieve powered flight. Early pterosaurs had long stiff tails with a mobile base that could shift their center of mass, potentially benefiting flight control. These tails ended in a tall, thin soft tissue vane that would compromise aerodynamic control and efficiency if it fluttered excessively during flight.

Multimodal Contrastive Learning for Remote Sensing Image Feature Extraction Based on Relaxed Positive Samples.

Traditional multimodal contrastive learning brings text and its corresponding image closer together as a positive pair, where the text typically consists of fixed sentence structures or specific descriptive statements, and the image features are generally global features (with some fine-grained work using local features). Similar to unimodal self-supervised contrastive learning, this approach can be seen as enforcing a strict identity constraint in a multimodal context. However, due to the inherent complexity of remote sensing images, which cannot be easily described in a single sentence, and the fact that remote sensing images contain rich ancillary information beyond just object features, this strict identity constraint may be insufficient.

Greening of a boreal rich fen driven by CO fertilisation.

Boreal peatlands store vast amounts of soil organic carbon (C) owing to the imbalance between productivity and decay rates. In the recent decades, this carbon stock has been exposed to a warming climate. During the past decade alone, the Arctic has warmed by ∼ 0.

A combination cyanobacterial treatment approach using hydrogen peroxide and L-lysine successfully improved the removal efficiency of toxic cyanobacteria.

Harmful cyanobacterial blooms have been increasing globally, introducing new challenges for protecting aquatic ecosystems and human health. A combined algaecide treatment, similar to combination antibiotic therapy, may more rapidly and effectively remove cyanobacteria by broad targeting of different growth mechanisms, reducing the recovery of bloom-forming cyanobacteria. To confirm this hypothesis, hydrogen peroxide (10.

Uneven heat burden in the sunshine state: Spatial patterns and socio-economic disparities of heat-related illness in Florida.

Climate change has increased the frequency and severity of extreme heat events globally, adversely affecting socio-economic conditions and public health. However, extreme heat has disparate effects on different population groups and the socio-economic determinants of its health effects are not well understood. In this study, we analyzed the spatial patterns of heat-related illness (HRI) visit rates at the zip-code level in Florida and applied statistical methods to examine the relationships between HRIs and environmental and socio-economic variables.

Life-course exposure to air pollution and the risk of dementia in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936.

Background: Air pollution in later life has been associated with dementia; however, limited research has investigated the association between air pollution across the life course, either at specific life periods or cumulatively. The project investigates the association of air pollution with dementia via a life-course epidemiological approach.

Methods: Participants of the Lothian Birth Cohort, born in 1936, provided lifetime residential history in 2014.

Photosynthetic responses to temperature across the tropics: a meta-analytic approach.

Background And Aims: Tropical forests exchange more carbon dioxide (CO2) with the atmosphere than any other terrestrial biome. Yet, uncertainty in the projected carbon balance over the next century is roughly three-times greater for the tropics than other ecosystems. Our limited knowledge of tropical plant physiological responses, including photosynthetic, to climate change is a substantial source of uncertainty in our ability to forecast the global terrestrial carbon sink.

What is a unit of nature? Measurement challenges in the emerging biodiversity credit market.

Bending the curve of biodiversity loss requires the business and financial sectors to disclose and reduce their biodiversity impacts and help fund nature recovery. This has sparked interest in developing generalizable, standardized measurements of biodiversity-essentially a 'unit of nature'. We examine how such units are defined in the rapidly growing voluntary biodiversity credits market and present a framework exploring how biodiversity is quantified, how delivery of positive outcomes is detected and attributed to the investment and how the number of credits issued is adjusted to account for uncertainties.

A new hemeroscopid dragonfly (Odonata, Anisoptera) from the Lower Cretaceous of the Jiuquan Basin, northwestern China.

A new hemeroscopid dragonfly, Parahemeroscopus jiuquanensis gen. et sp. nov.

Experimental formation of carbonates from perchlorate and sulphate brines: Implications for Jezero crater, Mars.

Extensive carbonate precipitation has occurred on Mars. To gain insight into the carbonation mechanisms and formation processes under ancient Martian aqueous conditions, we examine the precipitation of carbonates resulting from atmospheric carbon fixation, focusing on interactions between various brines and silicate and perchlorate solutions in alkaline environments. The micro-scale morphology and composition of the resulting precipitates are analysed using ESEM micrographs, EDX chemical compositional analysis, X-ray diffraction, and micro-Raman spectroscopy.

Anomalous Thermal Transport in Compressed Carbon Phases.

Carbon materials display intriguing physical properties, including superconductivity and highly anisotropic thermal conductivity found in graphene. Compressive strain can induce structural and bonding transitions in carbon materials and create new carbon phases, but their interplay with thermal conductivity remains largely unexplored. We investigated the in situ high-pressure thermal conductivity of compressed graphitic phases using picosecond transient thermoreflectance and first-principles calculations.

Multi-Label Feature Selection with Feature-Label Subgraph Association and Graph Representation Learning.

In multi-label data, a sample is associated with multiple labels at the same time, and the computational complexity is manifested in the high-dimensional feature space as well as the interdependence and unbalanced distribution of labels, which leads to challenges regarding feature selection. As a result, a multi-label feature selection method based on feature-label subgraph association with graph representation learning (SAGRL) is proposed to represent the complex correlations of features and labels, especially the relationships between features and labels. Specifically, features and labels are mapped to nodes in the graph structure, and the connections between nodes are established to form feature and label sets, respectively, which increase intra-class correlation and decrease inter-class correlation.

The allometry of brain size in Euarchontoglires: clade-specific patterns and their impact on encephalization quotients.

The timing and nature of evolutionary shifts in the relative brain size of Primates have been extensively studied. Less is known, however, about the scaling of the brain-to-body size in their closest living relatives, i.e.

Creating constellations of coexistence through connections between people in human-wildlife conflict areas.

Human-wildlife conflict (HWC) is a critical challenge to human development and well-being and threatens biodiversity conservation. Ideally, HWC mitigation should benefit both wildlife and communities and limit the costs associated with living alongside wildlife. However, place- and context-dependent realizations of conflict are often overlooked in HWC mitigation.

Deciphering decadal urban ozone trends from historical records since 1980.

Ozone pollution is a major environmental threat to human health. Timely assessment of ozone trends is crucial for informing environmental policy. Here we show that for the most recent decade (2013-2022) in the northern hemisphere, warm-season (April-September) mean daily 8-h average maximum ozone increases much faster in urban regions with top ozone levels (mainly in the North China Plain, 1.

Preparation of a novel 3D printed grinding wheel with linear cooling channels and study on the grinding performance.

In this study, a novel type of diamond grinding wheel with linear cooling channels (GWLCC) is proposed, and an innovative manufacturing process is employed to develop this new grinding wheel. Grinding experiments conducted on four types of hard and brittle materials demonstrate that the grinding performance of GWLCC is better than that of conventional dense grinding wheels. Furthermore, the grinding performance of GWLCC was further investigated by comparing the abrasive ratio and working current under various grinding process parameters.

Spontaneous Lifting and Self-Cleaning of Gas Hydrate Crystals.

Crystal fouling, which refers to the accumulation of precipitates on surfaces and the associated damage, is a common problem in many industrial processes. In deepwater oil and gas transportation, hydrate blockage poses as a considerable barrier. Consequently, modifying hydrophobicity of surfaces has become an increasingly focused strategy to mitigate hydrate.

Analysis of Microscopic Remaining Oil Based on the Fluorescence Image and Deep Learning.

Fossil fuels like oil and natural gas continue to be the primary sources of global energy. Enhancing hydrocarbon recovery from exploited reservoirs has been a major scientific concern in the petroleum industry. Following extended exploitation, the reservoir's oil-water dynamics become intricate, thereby complicating petroleum and natural gas extraction.