Syntrophic acetate oxidation operates close to the thermodynamic equilibrium and very little is known about the participating organisms and their metabolism. Clostridium ultunense is one of the most abundant syntrophic acetate-oxidising bacteria (SAOB) found in engineered biogas processes operating with high ammonia concentrations. It has been proven to oxidise acetate in cooperation with hydrogenotrophic methanogens. There is evidence that the Wood-Ljungdahl (WL) pathway plays an important role in acetate oxidation. In this study we analysed the physiological and metabolic capacities of C. ultunense on genome scale and conducted a comparative study of all known characterised SAOB, namely Syntrophaceticus schinkii, Thermacetogenium phaeum, Tepidanaerobacter acetatoxydans and Pseudothermotoga lettingae. The results clearly indicated physiological robustness beneficial for anaerobic digestion environments and revealed unexpected metabolic diversity with respect to acetate oxidation and energy conservation systems., Unlike S. schinkii and Th. phaeum, C. ultunense clearly does not employ the oxidative WL pathway for acetate oxidation, as its genome (and that of P. lettingae) lack important key genes. In both those species, a proton motive force is likely formed by chemical protons involving putative electron-bifurcating [Fe-Fe] hydrogenases rather than proton pumps. No genes encoding a respiratory Ech hydrogenase, as involved in energy conservation in Th. phaeum and S. schinkii, were identified in C. ultunense and P. lettingae. Moreover, two respiratory complexes sharing similarities to the proton-translocating ferredoxin:NAD⁺ oxidoreductase (Rnf) and the Na+ pumping NADH:quinone hydrogenase (NQR) were predicted. These might form a respiratory chain involved in reduction of electron acceptors other than protons. However, involvement of these complexes in acetate oxidation in C. ultunense and P. lettingae needs further study. This genome-based comparison provides a solid platform for future meta-proteomics and meta-transcriptomics studies and for metabolic engineering, control and monitoring of SAOB.

Changes in agricultural policy may have rapid impact even on landscapes which have taken millennia to form. Here we explore the potential of UK leaving the EU as a catalyst for profound changes in pastoral landscapes in Wales. Impending change of the trading regime governing agricultural produce, concurrent to public pressure to use agricultural subsidies for environmental goals, may lead to unforeseen consequences for Welsh natural environment. We employ a combination of change demand modelling and ‘story and simulation approach’ to predict the effect of five hypothetical scenarios on land use and land use change in Wales by 2030. We show that the most extreme trade scenario would result in a near-uniform distribution of broadleaf woodland across most of Wales. Abandonment of marginal and low productivity grazing would likely give way to afforestation, initiating a return to forested landscapes not seen in Wales for several thousands of years.

The escalating reliance on revolutionary online web services has introduced heightened security risks, with persistent challenges posed by phishing despite extensive security measures. Traditional phishing systems, reliant on machine learning and manual features, struggle with evolving tactics. Recent advances in deep learning offer promising avenues for tackling novel phishing challenges and malicious URLs. This paper introduces a two-phase stack generalized model named AntiPhishStack, designed to detect phishing sites. The model leverages the learning of URLs and character-level TF-IDF features symmetrically, enhancing its ability to combat emerging phishing threats. In Phase I, features are trained on a base machine learning classifier, employing K-fold cross-validation for robust mean prediction. Phase II employs a two-layered stacked-based LSTM network with five adaptive optimizers for dynamic compilation, ensuring premier prediction on these features. Additionally, the symmetrical predictions from both phases are optimized and integrated to train a meta-XGBoost classifier, contributing to a final robust prediction. This work's significance lies in advancing phishing detection with AntiPhishStack, operating without prior phishing-specific feature knowledge. Experimental validation on two benchmark datasets, comprising benign and phishing or malicious URLs, demonstrates the model's exceptional performance, achieving a notable 96.04% accuracy. This research adds value to the ongoing discourse on symmetry and asymmetry in information security and provides a forward-thinking solution for enhancing network security in the face of evolving cyber threats.

Aim of this study is to gather information regarding the sustainability development goals from the public as well as the organizations of Pakistan. A sample of 500 respondents each from five main cities including employs and general public is selected for their opinion regarding sustainability development goal. The level of awareness as well as level of commitment towards the fulfilment of Sustainable Development Goals varies across the cities of Pakistan due to difference in literacy level. The commitment to achieve Sustainable Development Goals of the organizations across the selected cities varies according to the nature of the business, volume and the membership with the United Nations. This study provides the policy makers with the ground level data regarding the awareness and commitment of Pakistan based organizations and public towards SDGs fulfilment. A glance towards the attitudes of the people towards the subject matter could also be seen through this study. This a comprehensive study conducted at federal and provincial level of Pakistan which has yielded ground realities towards the implementation of SDGs. The results could be used for policy making and planning at national level and also serve as bench mark for other countries.

Human activity recognition (HAR) using wearable sensors is gaining popularity in the healthcare domain, enabling continuous monitoring and timely interventions. The conventional HAR systems are centralised and need data sharing with a server for processing and model training. However, this data sharing leads to various challenges, such as privacy concerns, increased communication and storage costs, inefficient computational algorithms, data scarcity due to unwillingness to share, and difficulty achieving high accuracy and personalised models simultaneously. To overcome these challenges, this paper introduces a privacy and energy-aware federated learning (FL) framework for model training without data sharing. The proposed scheme incorporates spiking neural networks (SNNs), which are particularly suited for resource-constrained devices due to their event-driven information processing. The key idea is to synergise the strengths of SNNs and long short-term memory (LSTM) to create a hybrid model for robust HAR. The proposed hybrid spiking LSTM (S-LSTM) model uses the LSTM as an input layer to capture temporal dependencies efficiently, followed by spiking layers that replace the typical activation using leaky integrate-and-fire neurons. We employ the combination of surrogate gradient learning and backpropagation through time (BPTT) to update the weights of SNN layers in a supervised manner. The performance of the proposed model is evaluated using two publicly available datasets for both indoor and outdoor scenarios. The results show that the proposed S-LSTM performs much better than spike convolutional neural networks (S-CNN) and simple CNN, achieving the accuracy of 97% and 87% for indoor and outdoor datasets, respectively. Personalisation, also known as fine-tuning the global model using local data, is crucial in HAR. It allows the model to adapt to individual behaviour and preferences, making predictions more accurate. The results also show that personalisation improves the performance of participants up to 9% on average. Additionally, analysis with 50% random client participation reduces communication costs by 50% with minimal impact on accuracy.

Being a great source of protein, B-vitamins and minerals, meat and fish are staple foods in many cultures. However, cooking at high temperatures can produce chemicals associated with an increased risk of developing cancer. This review investigates the possible carcinogenic activity of chemicals formed during the cooking of meat and fish including heterocyclic amines (HCAs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and advanced glycation end products (AGEs). High-temperature cooking methods for meat, including grilling or frying, result in the formation of HCAs. Meat that has been smoked, grilled, or cooked over an open flame produces PAHs whereas, dry heat methods including roasting, grilling, and frying results in formation of AGEs. In vitro studies have shown that these compounds can damage DNA, cause mutations, and promote the growth of cancer cells. Research shows that thoroughly cooked meat increases the risk of cancer, particularly colorectal, pancreatic, and prostate cancer. Alternative cooking techniques, marinades, and incorporating fruits and vegetables can help to mitigate this risk. For determining the efficacy of these measures, additional studies are required. For the purpose of lowering the potential carcinogenic activity of chemicals formed during the cooking of meat and fish, mitigation techniques must be understood and put into practice. Cancer can be avoided by informing people about the dangers of eating meat and fish that have been cooked at high temperatures and by encouraging better diets and cooking styles. In order to lessen the possible health concerns related to the eating of meat and fish, further studies are required.

The world is looking towards organizations for social responsibility to contribute to a sustainable environment. Employees’ organizational citizenship behavior for the environment (OCBE) is a voluntary environmental-oriented behavior that is important for organizations’ environmental performance. Based on social learning theory, the study examined the effects of responsible leadership in connection with OCBE by using a sample of 520 employees of manufacturing and service sector including engine manufacturing, petroleum plants banking and insurance sector organizations of China. Further, the role of psychological ownership and employee environmental commitment were used as mediators and moderators simultaneously. The direct, mediation, and moderation model results exposed a positive relationship between responsible leadership and OCBE via employee psychological ownership and employee environmental commitment. The study also revealed that the indirect effect is stronger when employees hold higher employee environmental commitment. The theoretical and practical implications for environmental sustainability in respect of organizations as well as future research directions are discussed.

Modern day civilization is dependent on energy generation by fossil fuels. But the major drawback of using fossil fuels is environmental pollution. Microalgae are potential candidate for production of various products of interest, such as proteins, mini food, pigments and triglycerides that can be converted into biofuels. Lignocellulosic feedstocks are the most abundantly available raw material of plants that can serve as a promising feedstock for cultivating bacteria, fungi, yeasts and microalgae to produce biofuels and other value-added products. Owing to the abundant availability of these low/no cost substrates, can be utilized as feedstocks for cultivating microalgae to generate biogas/biodiesel. Likewise, there is much room to exploit defatted algal biomass to be used as animal/fish feed and oil producing/accumulating genes knowledge in future to produce high and good quality biodiesel and biogas.

Mercury (Hg (II)) contamination is indefatigable global hazard which causes severe permanent damages to human health. Extensive research has been carried out to produce mercury adsorbents however they are still facing certain challenges limiting their upscaling. Herein we reported the synthesis of novel amine impregnated inverse vulcanized copolymer for effective mercury removal. Poly(S-MA) was prepared using sulfur and methacrylic acid employing inverse vulcanization method following by functionalization. The polyethylenime (PEI) was impregnated on poly(S-MA) to increase the adsorption active sites. The developed adsorbent was then characterized using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). FTIR confirmed formation of copolymer and successful impregnation of PEI and SEM revealed composite porous morphology of the copolymer. Amine impregnated copolymer (amine@poly(S-MA)) outperformed poly(S-MA) in mercury as it showed 20 % superior performance with 44.7 mg/g maximum adsorption capacity. The adsorption data best fits the pseudo second order which indicates that the chemisorption is most influential mechanism in this case indicating the involvement of NH2 in mercury removal. The adsorption is mainly monolayer on homogenous surface as indicated by 0.76 value of Redlich-Peterson exponent (g) which describes the adsorption nature advent from R2 value of 0.99.

The current study was planned to simulate runoff due to the snowmelt in the Lidder River catchment of Himalayan region under climate change scenarios. A basic degree-day model, Snowmelt-Runoff Model (SRM) was utilized to assess the hydrological consequences of change in climate. The SRM model performance during the calibration and validation was assessed using volume difference (Dv) and coefficient of determination (R2). The Dv was found as 11.7, -10.1, -11.8, 1.96, and 8.6 during 2009-2014, respectively, while the R2 is 0.96, 0.92, 0.95, 0.90, and 0.94, respectively. The Dv and R2 values indicating that the simulated snowmelt runoff has a close agreement with the observed value. The simulated findings were also assessed under the different scenarios of climate change: a) increases in precipitation by +20 %, b) temperature rise of +2 °C, and c) temperature rise of +2 °C with a 20 % increase in snow cover. In scenario "b", the simulated results showed that runoff increased by 53 % in summer (April–September). In contrast, the projected increased discharge for scenarios "a" and "c" was 37 % and 67 %, respectively. In high elevation data-scarce mountain environments, the SRM is efficient in forecasting future water supplies due to the snowmelt runoff.

The concerning rise in emergence and prevalence of resistant strains to drugs of M. tuberculosis has ,the prompted researchers to look for new and effective treatments. With this motive, biscoumarins were identified as the lead molecules on a whole-cell-based screening of several less explored low molecular weight bioactive compounds against M. tuberculosis strains. Among the screened biscoumarins, the highest dock score derivatives were synthesized (a-h) using a programmable microwave synthesizer for better yields and reaction control. The synthesized derivatives were evaluated against H37Rv, H37Ra, M. smegmatis, an MDR surrogate model, and other bacterial strains for the structure-activity response. Assessment of the synthesized library against mycobacterial strains led to the identification of compounds (f and d) as lead anti-tuberculosis agents. Compounds (f and d) exhibited less toxicity against human cell lines. At the same time, it displayed enjoyable activity wherein MIC concentrations were observed to be 16- and 32 µg/mL against the susceptible H37Rv, and H37Ra strains of M. tuberculosis and MIC value of 128 µg/mL for M. smegmatis, respectively. For mechanistic insights and identification of drug binding targets, molecular docking and dynamic simulations were employed for a panel of 16 mycobacterial enzymes essential for mycobacterial growth and survival. These in silico studies revealed the DprE1 enzyme as a druggable target for the anti-tuberculosis activity of the selected biscoumarins derivatives. Further investigation is underway in our laboratory, leading to its development as an anti-tuberculosis drug (animal model studies).

Establishment of protected areas (PAs) is one of the key global conservation strategies that currently cover approximately 15% of the earth’s land surface. Globally, PA networks are designed to curb the growing anthropogenic pressures in areas with high biological diversity. Despite the importance of PAs in conserving the vanishing biodiversity and unique habitats, many of them are in critical condition due to poor governance thus functioning below the expected level. Moreover, in many developing countries, the PA coverage is below the global standard. Recognizing their contemporary role in conservation, governments have recently agreed to expand the global PA coverage to 17% by the year 2020 (Aichi target 11). This book with eight chapters from different regions of the world provides an overview of the PAs governance, institutional mechanisms, conservation benefits, limitations and challenges associated with their respective policy discourse, integrated management, and functional attributes. Protected areas expect to to play an important role in the long rn in conservation and protection of biodiversity and ecosystems particularly in countries where population pressure and habitat loss are high. Regular intervention, political commitment, and effective governance are essential for the sustainability of PAs across the world. Here, we also attempted to shed some light on future development clues for the sustainable management and monitoring of PAs worldwide.

Newcastle disease virus (NDV) causes a highly contagious and devastating disease in poultry, Newcastle disease (ND). ND causes heavy economic losses to the global poultry industry by decreasing the growth rate, decrease egg productions, mortality, and morbidity. Although, significant advances have been made in the vaccine development, but outbreaks are reported in vaccinated birds leading to overall decreased growth rate. In this study, we report the damage caused by the NDV infection in the pancreatic tissues of vaccinated as well as specific pathogen free chickens. The histopathological examination of the pancreas showed sever damage in the form of partial depletion of zymogen granules, acinar cell vacuolization, necrosis, and apoptosis, congestion in the large and small vessels, sloughing of epithelial cells of pancreatic duct, and mild perivascular edema. Increased plasma levels of corticosterone, somatostatin, were observed in NDV infected chicks at 3 and 5-day post infection (DPI). Slight decrease in the plasma concentrations of the insulin were noticed at 5 DPI. Significant changes were not observed in the plasma levels of glucagon. Furthermore, NDV infection has decreases the activity and mRNA expression of amylase, lipase, and trypsin from the pancreas. Taken together, our findings highlight that NDV induces extensive tissue damage in pancreas, decrease the activity and expression of pancreatic enzymes and increase plasma corticosterone and somatostatin.

Good governance in natural resource management (NRM) is one of the most challenging issues in developing countries that often inappropriately embedded in national policies and political agendas. It is, in fact, even more important for countries like Bangladesh with exceptionally high pressure and dependence on its natural resources for sustaining rural livelihoods. Globally, nowadays, good governance is considered as one of the key factor for achieving the goal of sustainable development and biodiversity conservation. Bangladesh, of late has responded to that global zeal by involving local communities in the management of country’s declining forest and other natural resources. The colonial legacy of the forestry sector of Bangladesh was planned and, managed as interim projects through donors’ prescriptions. Thus, institutions, management processes and conservation outcomes were problematic. The conventional approach adopted by colonial and post-colonial regimes for forest management also proved to be inefficient due to its top-down management system. The absolute dependency on donor support, and their prescription sometimes worsened the situation both ecologically and socially. Global, regional and local trends supported the need for a different dimension in the governance paradigms. The introduction of a pluralistic approach, known as co-management in protected areas (PAs) is an example of an attempt whereby shared governance mechanism are implemented to attain the desired goals of conservation that will also address the livelihoods and aspirations of communities living in and around PAs of the country. However, in designing future forest and PA regimes the concern of the external aid support and attached conditions remain a reality that needs to be addressed. Adequate attention should be given to our vanishing biodiversity, culture and community livelihoods through devising an appropriate governance mechanism recognizing and supporting local rights, access and participation in the environmental management. It is now time to mainstream the adhoc nature of governance according to our national conservation strategy and policy frameworks in order to achieve the goals and objectives of the Bangladesh NRM sector addressing the human and community right of people in the specific context of forest protected areas management.

Biodiversity has become an issue of global anxiety over the past decades due to its rapid decline worldwide. Bangladesh as one of the most densely populated countries in the world is no more exception. The country, although, was once very rich in biodiversity, during the last few decades as a consequence of the rapid reduction in forest area, urbanisation, habitat modification, unsustainable natural resources use and collection and overall climate change it has decreased alarmingly. Of late, the government, as a signatory of various regional and international conservation treaties, has taken various initiatives to improve country’s dwindling biodiversity. This paper reviews the present situation of biodiversity in Bangladesh, management trends and major causes of biodiversity loss. A separate statutory body is fundamental to ensure conservation, sustainable use and equitable sharing of benefits arisen from biodiversity in the country.

Despite of being an exceptionally biodiversity rich country, the forest coverage of Bangladesh is declining at an alarming rate. Declaration and management of protected areas in this regard is one of the efforts from government side to tackle the loss of biodiversity. The limited numbers of forest-protected areas (FPA), established to conserve the dwindling forest biodiversity of the country with high pressure on them for timber, non-timber forest products, and fuelwood - makes their management challenging. Moreover, most of the FPAs of the country declared only in the recent decades with very limited infrastructure, manpower and policy support for monitoring and governance. Some people-centred approaches for the management of FPAs and alternative livelihood and income generation subsidies although made available through a few project interventions, their number are still inadequate and performance remains less than satisfactory. This chapter provides a critical review of the FPAs of Bangladesh looking at their role in biodiversity conservation, management challenges, and key lessons from previous management interventions with recommendations for the future. It has been revealed that the FPA system of Bangladesh still poorly represents the diverse forest ecosystems with relatively small forest size and lack of corridors for the movement of wildlife. There are ample opportunities to render co-management of FPAs an effective strategy to minimize the conflicts in FPAs management in the country. It is, however, important to ensure the access of local forest-dependent people to different alternative income generating options that may adequately support their livelihoods.