Deforestation brings vast and detrimental impact on the environment, economy, and social aspects of community. Thus, it is important to assess and analyze deforestation to inform the decision maker that oversees issued policy and development strategies. The present study aims to characterize deforestation in Central Kalimantan between 2006 - 2020. Utilized land cover map issued by Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry, we analyzed the change in natural forest cover using Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System (GIS) to find the rate the trend, location, and land cover replacement of deforestation in Central Kalimantan Province, Indonesia. The research found that during the period Central Kalimantan lost 1.5 million ha of natural forest with the rate of deforestation 117,000 ha/year. In general, the deforestation shown decrease trend and fluctuated during the period. Deforestation majority takes place at secondary swamp and dry forest that are located at south part of the island. Most of deforestation resulted shrubs, plantations, and agriculture land. The finding of this research could be used as a base to determine the target location for rehabilitation strategy and approach to prevent further deforestation.

LULC changes are major environmental challenges in many parts of the world which are adversely affecting ecosystem services. This study was aimed to analyze LULC changes in the ecological landscape of Ethiopia CRV areas from 1985 to 2015. Satellite images were accessed and pre-processing and classification is done. Major LULC types were detected and change analysis was executed. Nine LULC changes were successfully evaluated. The classification result revealed that in 1985, 44.34% of the land was covered with small scale farming followed by mixed cultivated/acacia (21.89%), open woodland (11.96%), and water bodies (9.77%). Whereas for the same study year open grazing land, forest, degraded savannah and settlements accounted the smallest proportion. Though the area varied among land use classes, the trend of share occupied by the LULC types in the study area remained the same in 1995 and 2015. Increase in small and large scale farming, settlements and mixed cultivation/acacia while a decrease in water bodies, forest, and open woodlands is noted. About 86.11% of the land showed major changes in land use/cover. Lastly, DPSIR framework analysis was done and integrated land use and development planning and policy reform are suggested for sustainable land use planning and management.

The central coast is one of the importantly livable regions in China, and green land plays a meaningful role in improving human settlements through regulating ecosystem services. However, the research on spatiotemporal heterogeneity of green land in different urbanized areas are still lacking in this region, which limits the timeliness of reporting on the land-surface thermal properties of residential environment from green land perspective. To address this issue, the synergistic methodology of “artificial numerical technology -- urban interior mixed pixel classification -- surface radiation energy balance model” was applied to investigate the green land change and its impact on human settlements in Rizhao region, which is known for its coastal ecology and greenery in China and obtained the United Nations habitat award. Main conclusions of this study are below: (1) Although total green land decreased by 474.05 km2, resulting in a decrease of 9.17% in its share of the entire study area from 2000-2022 during the urbanization process, but the greening levels improved within the built-up area, with the greening proportion of 25.34% in 2000 and 42.98 km2 in 2022. (2) Differences in green land at different urbanized regions were first observed, namely, urban greening rate was 37.78% in the old urban areas of 2022, while it was up to 46.43% in new urban areas. More attention was paid to the construction of urban green space during urban expansion, which will inevitably bring better visual and comfort experience to residents. (3) Thermal comfort indicators for urban residents were evaluated in latent heat flux (0-457.83 W/m2), sensible heat flux (0-645.09 W/m2), total available energy (254.07-659.42 W/m2) and others. (4) The lowered cooling temperature effect in the middle, high green land density region was 1.05 ℃ and 2.12 ℃ compared to the low-density region, and the average air temperature was 25.86 ℃. Also, spatial patterns of hot and cold uncomfortable areas were displayed in this study. Overall, this study provides the meaningfully practical reference for exploring the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of green land and its impact on residents' environments from the perspective of land-surface thermal properties in coastal areas of China and around the world.

Agricultural land conversion (ALC) is an incentive–driven process. In this paper we further investigate the inter–relationship between land economic value (LEV) and ALC. To achieve this goal, we calculated LEV for agricultural and non-agricultural (housing) uses in two areas in East Java, Indonesia. The first area represents suburban agriculture, facing rapid urbanization and experiencing high rate of ALC. The second area represents rural agriculture with zero ALC. Furthermore, we identified factors affecting LEV in both areas for both uses. The resut of this study show that agricultural land yielded higher economic benefit in rural area. Conversely, comparing to agricultural land, housing creates 7 times higher value in urban area. Moreover, agricultural land shown to create higher profit after converted. Ironically, the similar comparison doesn’t exists in rural area. Agricultural land only yielded 19% more value, indicate that agricultural land can be easily converted. It is also proven by the growing number of new urban core in the periphery area. There are several factors affecting land economic value, for agricultural use, soil fertility, accessibility, and cropping pattern are important variables. While accessibility and location in urban area increases land value for housing.

We derive some Quantum Central Limit Theorems for expectation values of macroscopically coarse-grained observables, which are functions of coarse-grained hermitean operators consisting of non-commuting variables. Thanks to the hermicity constraints, we obtain positive-definite dis- tribution for the expectation values of observables. These probability distributions open some pathway for an emergence of classical behaviours in the limit of innitely large number of identical and non-interacting quantum constituents. This is in contradistinction to other mechanisms of classicality emergence due to environmental decoherence and consistent histories. The probabil- ity distributions so derived also enable us to evaluate the nontrivial time-dependence of certain differential entropies.

In this paper, we firstly consider extended degenerate central factorial numbers of the second kind and provide some properties of them. We then introduce unified degenerate central Bell polynomials and numbers and investigate many relations and formulas including summation formula, explicit formula and derivative property. Moreover, we derive several correlations for the fully degenerate central Bell polynomials associated with the degenerate Bernstein polynomials and the degenerate Bernoulli, Euler and Genocchi numbers.

Great Malang region is developing rapidly with the population increase and inhabitant`s activity, like migration and urbanization. Other activities like agricultural expansion as well as an uncontrolled residential development need to be monitored to avoid any negative impact in the future. The availability of free and open-source software, spatial high-resolution satellite imagery datasets, and powerful algorithms open the possibilities to map, monitor, and predict the future trend of land use land cover (LULC) changes. However, the accuracy and precision of this model is still in doubt, especially in the Great Malang region. Research is needed to provide a foundational basis and documentation on how the changes occur, where did the changes occur, and the accuracy of the predicted model. This study tries to answer those questions using the high spatial resolution of Sentinel-2 imageries. Combination of the fuzzy algorithm, artificial neural network, and cellular automata was utilized to process the datasets. We analysed four different scenarios of simulation and the result then compared. The different number of hidden layers and iteration was used and evaluated to understand the effect of different parameters in the prediction result. The best scenario was then used to predict future land use changes. This study has successfully produced the future LULC model of Great Malang region with high accuracy level (87%). The study also found that the land use transformation from agriculture to urban built-up area is relatively low, where changes of the built-up area over three periods of analysis are below than 5%. This is due to the physical condition of Great Malang region where mountainous areas are dominated.

Land management and community involvement are two main elements in ensuring the absence of conflict between landowners and agencies. Disputes between owners and agencies will be the biggest obstacle in the land development effort. Therefore, this article aims to address the cause of landowners’ objections against land alienation using the institutional approach. To enable the researchers to understand the root causes of landowners' objections against the alienation of land using the Communal Grant method, the institutional approach has been adopted to identify the issue of the objection. Therefore, questionnaires for 100 landowners were distributed in two villages in Semporna district in Sabah. The purpose is to obtain their views on the cause leading to the dispute of land alienation using the Communal Grant method. The Likert scale was used to enable community rankings on issues that can be understood according to the level of seriousness of the population's views on the issue of using Communal Grants in native customary land alienation. The study results explain that there are four factors that drive objection of the Communal Grant land alienation which involves the formal factors. The findings explained that there are 4 formal provisions which lead to the community's objection against Communal Grants, namely the native customary lands (NCR) act, provision of Communal Grants, provisions in the land ownership and land allocation in Sabah Land Ordinance.Due to numerous objections among native customary peoples concerning the native customary land alienation using Communal Grants, the government has acted in substitution with a fair method of individual ownership for the native customary peoples. This situation explains that disputes in land ownership can be a threat to the country if it cannot be resolved in ways and methods acceptable to the native customary community. This study will benefit the government and NGO’s to alert and focusing on barriers in the context of local community land laws. Communal grants are intended to address land issues in Sabah.

The results reveal CILSS as the most accurate data set with a Kappa coefficient of 68% and an overall accuracy of 83%. CILSS data shows a decrease of savanna and forest whereas an increase of cropland over the period 1975 to 2013. The increase of cropland area of 30.97% from 1975 to 2013 can be related to the increase in population and their food demand, while the losses of forest area and the decrease of savanna are further amplified by using wood as energy sources and the lack of forest management. The three datasets were used to simulate future LULC changes using the Terrset Land Change Modeler. The validation of the model using CILSS data for 2013 showed a quality of 50.94%, it is only 40.04% for ESA and 20.13% for Globeland30. CILSS data was utilized to simulate the LULC distribution for the years 2020 and 2027 because of its satisfactory performances. The results show that a high spatial resolution is not a guarantee of high quality. The results of this study can be used for impact studies and to develop management strategies for mitigating negative effects of land use and land cover change.

Land includes vegetation and water bodies and provides the basis for human livelihoods through primary production, the supply of food, freshwater, and multiple other ecosystem goods and services. The last three decades have recorded frequent drought events as well as rapid population growth, which has resulted in often negative land use and land cover change (LULCC) in the Sahel of Sub-Saharan Africa. In order to propose sustainable land management strategies, it is important to investigate the rate of LULCC and its driving factors in specific locations. This study investigated the case of Wocoro municipality in Mali using a combined approach of remote sensing, Geographical Information System, and focus group discussions. Satellite images and local people's perceptions on LULCC and drivers were collected and analyzed for the years 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020. We found that the study area faced a severe decrease in wooded savannah with an increase in farmland and settlement directly or indirectly related to the rapid population growth, high cotton price (which encouraged cropland expansion), drought, firewood extraction, and charcoal production, which was exacerbated by poverty. There is a need to promote integrated land management strategies that consider current and future livelihoods needs and preserve the health of the environment for the benefits of future generations.

Although urbanization has contributed to improving living conditions, it has had negative impacts on the natural environment in the urbanized areas. Urbanization has changed the urban landscape and resulted in increasing land surface temperature (LST). Thus, studies related to LST in various urban environments have become a popular research topic. However, few LST studies focusing on the mountain landscapes (i.e. hill stations) have been carried out. The primary objective of this study is to investigate changes in the landscape and their impacts on LST intensity (LSTI) in the tropical mountain city of Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka. The study utilized annual median temperatures extracted from Landsat data collected from 1996 to 2017 based on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) interface. The fractions of built-up (BL), forest (FL), and agricultural (AL) land were calculated using land use and cover maps based on the urban-rural zone (URZ) analysis. The urban-rural margin was demarcated based on the fraction of BL (<10%) and LSTI was measured using the mean LST difference in the urban-rural zone. In addition, the mixture of land use types was calculated using the AL/FL and BL/FL fraction ratios, and grid-based density analysis. The result shows that the BL in all URZ rapidly developed, while AL decreased during the period 1996 to 2017. There was minimal change in the forest area of the Nuwara Eliya owing to the government forest preservation policies. The fraction of the BL increased from 32.4% in 1996 to 58.7% in 2017 in the city center zone (URZ₁) resulting in increased mean LST by 4.7 °C. Furthermore, the increase of the BL/FL fraction ratio and the decrease of the AL/FL fraction ratio were positively correlated with the mean LST. Grid-based analysis showed an increasing positive relationship between mean LST and density of BL. This indicated that BL density has been a crucial element in increasing LST in the study area. The results of this study will be a useful indicator to introduce improved landscape and urban planning in the future to minimize the negative impact of LST on urban sustainability.

Public funding of land consolidation projects is an instrument of the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union (CAP). The execution of systematic land consolidation programmes focused on optimising the spatial structure of agricultural areas presents a possibility to improve agricultural production conditions and maximise the efficiency of agriculture on a local, regional, national and international level. However, due to limited access to financial resources, it is necessary to delimit the priority areas for land consolidation. A contemporary practice based on the assessment of the social support percentage of potential land consolidation projects in individual villages does not represent a real necessity for action. This problem leads to ineffective utilisation of financial resources and reduces the efficiency of the implemented programmes. We proposed a new algorithm for assessing real needs for land consolidation based on a detailed multi-faceted analysis of the spatial structure of agricultural areas. The research method involved factors describing the spatial structure defectiveness of farms as well as those determining land quality in correspondence to investment’s profitability. Another factor verifying the potential economic rationale of land consolidation was transaction prices mostly reflecting the agricultural value of the land. The analysis showed that land consolidation in areas with defective spatial structure and a relatively high market value should be a priority. This approach will contribute to maximising profits by increasing the productivity of areas featuring the highest agricultural suitability.

Abstract: Increasing population and urbanization are affecting human health and comfort. In order to get rid of these affects, mankind is changing its enviroment and looking for new life areas. This study investigates the influence of Land Cover Change (LCC) and Normalisied Densly Vegetation Index (NDVI) on Land Surface Temperature (LST) of Fethiye-Göcek Specially Protected Area (SEPA) in easterm mediterranean basin. In the study LCC, NDVI and LST were drived from landsat 5, 7 and 8 satellite image of resolation at 30x30 m acquired between 1995-2020. LST were computed based on Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) types. The Corine Index were used for determination of land uses. The results indicated that water, forest and maquia lands decreasing while urban fabric and bare lands are increasing depend upon the urbanization and forest fires in the basin. These changes in LULC widened the temperature differences between the urban and rural areas. The change in LST is associated with changes in constructional materials in urban land and in vegetation abundance both in the urban and rural areas. Vegetation has an important factor in the temperature of different land covers. That produces warming trend in temperetaure in built-up areas it causes to keep other lands warmer in cold weather. Another important result is affective Urban Heat Island (UHI) on climate change based on the impact of urbanization and land cover changes. Significantly possitive correlation were found between the urbanization rate, population and built-up area and warming rate of average air temperature and so the LST.

This paper explores Ghana's two-decade journey in developing a digital land information system (LIS), exemplified by Ghana Enterprise Land Information System (GELIS) and Enterprise Land Information System (ELIS). Despite advancements by Ghana’s Lands Commission, manual processes persist and coexist with digital ones. Our study uses a qualitative approach to assess the effectiveness of the LIS implemented in Accra. The study found that Accra’s LIS is highly aligned with clear institutional mandates, roles, and responsibilities as well as the availability of laws and policies to support analogue to digital conversion. Furthermore, a robust approach for protecting data, operating system and software underpins the system. Subsequently, the integration of a digital LIS has enhanced service delivery and accountability. Nonetheless, Accra’s LIS is still at the beginning of a comprehensive learning and development curve. To sustain the LIS requires furtherance in the implementation plan, funding, law implementation, ICT strategy, divisional integration, work processes, data quality, and communication strategy. These findings will inform the next steps of improvement for Accra's LIS and guide its nationwide scaling, contributing to discussions on technology acceptance dynamics in predominantly analogue environments.

Due to urban sprawls, the arable land is shifting in the settlement areas and towns, while industrial development is making it more vulnerable. The current study was conducted to see the changes in land use and land cover in Kotri area, Pakistan from 1998 to 2020 to establish trends in recent land use development based on available land use data. In this regard, satellite images in the study area were acquired from USGS and processed using ArcMap 10.5 and Environmental for Visualizing Images (ENVI). Results show that; there was a change in the settlement pattern of Kotri city with 40% between 1998 and 2020, 77% decrease in Bare-land was observed in 2020. Natural vegetation in the study area has decreased significantly with 4.4 Sq/ km in 2020, surface water-bodies in 1998 were 1.3 sq/km and in 2020 there is 1.8 Sq/km indicating 32% increase in surface water bodies. It was further revealed that settlement in Kotri has increased due to its geographical location, nearness of the major city of Hyderabad, and the establishment of the industrial zone and educational city near Kotri. From the foregoing, the study concluded that Kotri City will have more changes in its land use and land cover as the expansion in the city is going on and on. It is therefore recommended that local government and provincial government should pay attention towards this development and put up an action plan towards proper provision for such expansion.

Due to urban sprawls, the arable land is shifting in the settlement areas and towns, while industrial development is making it more vulnerable. The current study was conducted to see the changes in land use and land cover in Kotri area, Pakistan from 1998 to 2020 to establish trends in recent land use development based on available land use data. In this regard, satellite images in the study area were acquired from USGS and processed using ArcMap 10.5 and Environmental for Visualizing Images (ENVI). Results show that; there was a change in the settlement pattern of Kotri city with 40% between 1998 and 2020, 77% decrease in Bare-land was observed in 2020. Natural vegetation in the study area has decreased significantly with 4.4 Sq/ km in 2020, surface water-bodies in 1998 were 1.3 sq/km and in 2020 there is 1.8 Sq/km indicating 32% increase in surface water bodies. It was further revealed that settlement in Kotri has increased due to its geographical location, nearness of the major city of Hyderabad, and the establishment of the industrial zone and educational city near Kotri. From the foregoing, the study concluded that Kotri City will have more changes in its land use and land cover as the expansion in the city is going on and on. It is therefore recommended that local government and provincial government should pay attention towards this development and put up an action plan towards proper provision for such expansion.

This study to assess the Physical Land Suitability Analysis for Cultivation of Selected Cool Weather Cereal Crops, Misha District, Hadiya Zone, South Central Ethiopia of major cereal crops of barley and teff in Misha district. Each of the criteria was separately reclassified and analyzed for their suitability for supporting barley and teff crops based on the FAO crop requirements specified for them. The major data sources were climatic data, soil, LGP and topographic data as well as key informant interview, questioner observation of crop requirements which have been considered to undertake suitability assessments of the study area. The factor maps like land use /land cover, temperature, rain fall, soil type and altitude were classified based on suitability evaluation methods of FAO and experts’ opinion. At final stage these were reclassified and standardized in GIS software extension tools, which led to the preparation of suitability analysis map of the major crops plant suitability classes. As part of spatial MCDM, AHP pair wise comparison module was used to derive internal and external weights for each individual factors and parameters respectively. Consequently, suitability analysis was done and weighted overlay suitability map was visualized with integration of GIS. The findings show that among total area of land suitability maps for both barley and teff cops were using weighted overlay techniques. The suitability map of teff crop shows that 12,038.22 hectare of the investigated area are highly suitable (S1), 19,646.07 hectare moderately suitable (S2) and 4,501.71 hectare marginally suitable (S3) and 112 hectare not suitable. On the other hand, the suitability map of barley crop shows that 7,898.52 hectare of the investigated area are highly suitable (S1), 22,830.08 hectare moderately suitable (S2), and 5,466.4 hectare marginally suitable (S3) and 103 hectare not suitable for economic reasons (N1). This was done for barley and Teff crops separately. Results of the study revealed that most of the lands in the study area are suitable for the cultivation of the selected crops and other crops. Based on finding, it could be recommended that this work would be used as policy guide for planners; investment could be successful in the District, further suitability research works should be carried out in order to optimize the major crop cultivation and production.

The article presents the author's method of land use change assessment in the context of sustainable development and the results of its application based on the transformations that occurred in individual areas of Europe in the years 2012–2018. This method is based on data from the CORINE Land Cover program and local government units presenting the degree of urbanization (DEGURBA). The authors evaluate the transformations taking place in space, reducing them to economic, social and environmental dimensions. They then analyse the results in terms of space (covering the entire Europe) and in terms of division into: large cities, small towns as well as suburbs and rural areas. It has been shown that: development of the economic dimension most often takes place at the expense of natural resources; the higher the population density and more important function in the functional system of a given country, the greater the sustainable development differentiation level in the analysed dimensions, of which the social dimension is characterized by the lowest differentiation and the economic dimension is the highest; development of rural areas is less sustainable than in case of large urban centres. The result interpretation also leads to the conclusion that the areas of Europe are very diverse in terms of sustainable development. However, the method itself, despite the imperfections observed by the authors, may be used in further or similar studies.

Nowadays the relationship between planning land use and actual land use is not so clear in general. A lot of efforts have been put in the failures of regulation for the expansion of construction land. However, it still lacks an integrated approach to study the effectiveness of land use regulation in terms of different land use types. Furthermore, the existing evaluation of land use plan mainly focuses on a general level, a detailed research on the regulation effectiveness of each construction land use type is absent. Therefore, this research tries to evaluate regulation effectiveness of land use plan, which takes Cangwu country, Guangxi Province as an example. The finding by analysis is that the total area of construction land expansion was about 3494.73 ha, nearly 1.1 times of the plan quota. Moreover, the effectiveness differs greatly in various construction land use types. Town, industrial/mining sites can be well regulated through the quota of land use plan. While, the quota regulation system is not as effective for other type of construction land. Thus, we suggest to improve the regulation effectiveness of construction land through different plan instruments.

Despite the ongoing land administration reforms being implemented across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), including Ghana as viable pathway to achieve tenure security and greater efficiency in land administration, the subject of land dispute resolution has received relatively less attention. Whereas customary tenure institutions play a central role in land administration (controlling ~80% of all land in Ghana), they remain at the fringes of the formal land dispute adjudicatory process. Recognizing the pivotal role traditional institutions as development agents and potential vehicles for promoting good land governance, recent discourse on land tenure have geared towards mainstreaming traditional land disputes institutions into the architecture of formal judicial process via alternative dispute resolution pathways. Yet little is known at least empirically as to the operations of traditional dispute resolution institutions in the contemporary context. This study therefore explores the importance of traditional dispute resolution institutions in the management of land-related disputes in southcentral and western Ghana. Drawing on data collated from 380 farming households operating 746 plots. The results show that contrary to the conventional thinking that traditional institutions are anachronistic and not fit for purpose, they remain strong and preferred forum for land dispute resolution (proving resilient and adaptable) given the changing socio-economic and tenurial conditions. Yet these forums have differing implications for different actors within the customary spheres accessing them. The results highlight practical ways for incorporating traditional dispute resolution in the overall land governance setup in Ghana and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. This has implications for redesigning context-specific and appropriate land-use policy interventions that address local land dispute resolution.

Since the controllers of the variable speed seawater pump and the 3-way valve of a ship central cooling system receive the feedback signal from the same output, the two controllers may interfere and operate inefficiently under certain conditions. Therefore, studying an efficient control tuning method for the central cooling water system is necessary. The central cooling water system was modeled in this study using MATLAB Simulink, utilizing actual operation data, and unknown parameters are estimated to fine-tune. The model is then verified using another operating data set. Additionally, transfer functions are developed for freshwater output temperature against 3-way valve openness input and seawater pump motor electric power frequency input. Then, the two PI controllers are tuned through the Internal Model Control guide, supposing the two systems are decoupled. Moreover, the modified IMC tuning method is suggested for the seawater pump system, which has larger time constants because of a heat exchanger. This method simplifies combining the two PI controller tuning, enhancing the seawater pump's overall efficiency and 3-way valve operation. This study determined that the proposed tuning methods through the IMC guide confirmed the efficiency of controlling the seawater pump speed and 3-way valve with reasonable control of freshwater outlet temperature.

Arboviruses represents a real public health problem globally and in the Central African subregion in particular that represents a high risk zone for the emergence and re-emergence of arboviruses outbreaks. Furthermore, an updated review on the current arboviruses burden and associated mosquito vectors is lacking for this region. To contribute in filling this knowledge gap, the current study was designed with following objectives: (i) to systematically review data on the occurrence and distribution of arboviruses and mosquito fauna and (ii) to identify potential spillover mosquito species in Central African region in the last 30 years. Web search enabled the documentation of 2454 articles from different online databases. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) and The Quality of Reporting of Meta-analyses (QUORUM) steps for a systematic review enabled the selection of 164 articles that fulfilled our selection criteria. Of the six arboviruses (Dengue Virus (DENV), Chikungunya Virus (CHIKV), Yellow Fever Virus (YFV), Zika Virus (ZIKV), Rift Valley Fever Virus (RVFV), and West Nile Virus (WNV)) of public health concern studied, the most frequently reported were Chikungunya and Dengue. The entomological records showed >248 species of mosquitoes and regrouped under 15 genera with Anopheles (n= 100 species), Culex (n= 56 species) and Aedes (n=52 species) having high species diversity. Three genera were rarely represented with only one species and included: Orthopodomyia, Lutzia, and Verrallina, but individuals of the genera Toxorhinchites and Finlayas were not identified upto the species level. We found that two Aedes species (Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus) colonised the same microhabitat and were involved in major epidemics of the six medically important arboviruses and other less frequently identified mosquito-genera consisted of competent species and were associated with outbreaks of medical and zoonotic arboviruses. The present study reveals high species richness of competent mosquito-vectors that could lead to the spillover of medically important arboviruses in the region. Although epidemiological studies were found, they were not regularly documented and this also applies to vector competence and transmission studies. Future studies will consider unpublished information in dissertations, technical reports from different countries to enable it more consistent. A regional project entitled: Ecology of Arboviruses (EcoVir) is underway in three countries (Gabon, Benin and Cote d’Ivoire) to generate a more comprehensive epidemiological and entomological data on this topic.

This study delves into the foundational aspects of electrocardiographic (ECG) lead systems, specifically focusing on Einthoven’s Triangle and Wilson’s Central Terminal. We introduce the innovative concept of a Precordial Central Terminal, a strategic arrangement of thoracic electrodes that establishes two Einthoven’s triangles within the horizontal plane, in accordance with physical-mathematical principles. Furthermore, we meticulously scrutinize Goldberger’s contributions to the field of ECG, particularly augmented leads, which shed light on the development of our theory. Additionally, we propose the implementation of a novel standardized electrocardiograph, characterized by its use of exclusively “precordial” electrodes, yet capable of providing a comprehensive three-dimensional perspective of cardiac electrical activity. By amalgamating theoretical underpinnings with empirical experimentation, our study lays the groundwork for future investigations, including the experimental validation of our innovative Precordial Terminal. This validation holds the promise of yielding substantial advancements in the realm of clinical electrocardiography.

Horticulture crops (fruit trees) had been grown and cultivated from ancient times in Central Asia. Few researchers have addressed the problem of this profitable sector in the former Great Silk Road, which was at the crossroads of trading avenues. Horticulture has received much attention in the last twenty years. To investigate the current state of research activity of horticulture in Central Asia, we downloaded 4205 English papers from the Scopus database between 2000-2020. We identified a total of 50 papers, and the last four years have witnessed significant growth in publication number, an average of 5 articles per year. Acta Horticulturea was one of the most productive journal. Institute of Plant Biology and Biotechnology (Almaty) and the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan have worked productively to study high issues. United States Department of Agriculture and Swiss National Science Foundation with Karl Popper Foundation have supported scientific activity in the region. Top 15 highly cited articles were published within the framework of funded projects with international researchers. Researchers of Central Asia focused on walnut, grape and apple, studied on molecular level and cryopreservation of wild relatives for future use. Cherry, apricot, almond and pomegranate crops were less studied by researchers.

Euglenids are a group of algae of great interest for biotechnology, with a large and complex metabolic capability. To study the metabolic network, it is necessary to know the subcellular locations of the component enzymes, but despite a long history of research into Euglena, the subcellular locations of many major pathways are only poorly defined. Euglena is phylogenetically distant from other commonly studied algae, they have secondary plastids bounded by three membranes, and they can survive after destruction of their plastids. These unusual features make it difficult to assume that the subcellular organization of the metabolic network will be equivalent to that of other photosynthetic organisms. Moreover, we show here that the presence of the secondary chloroplast means that it is not possible to make reliable predictions of the subcellular locations of enzymes in Euglena using existing informatics tools. In order to generate a model of the central metabolic pathway operating in Euglena we analysed biochemical and proteomic information from a variety of sources to assess the subcellular location of relevant enzymes. We use these assignments to propose the compartmentation of the core metabolic pathways in Euglena, a prerequisite for the further study of the metabolic network of Euglena. This model of the metabolic network shows that, other than photosynthesis, all major pathways present in the chloroplast are duplicated elsewhere in the cell, and that several biosynthetic pathways confined to plastids in higher plants are localized elsewhere in Euglena. Our model demonstrates how this organism can synthesise all the metabolites required for growth from simple carbon inputs, and can survive in the absence of chloroplasts.

Overcoming the issue of land value and cost in urban areas will not provide a miraculous solution to the problems there. Appropriate land use cost, especially for residential and commercial land, is just one of the issues to be settled in the debate. Therefore, this study aims to build a new urban land price determination model by investigating the urban syntactical analysis, street width, and their economic effects on land value. The study attempts to determine the impact of syntactic analysis of streets and street width on land prices; it also seeks to identify the factor most affected by the land cost. Ultimately, the study built a model for urban land price prediction. The case selected is evaluated and compared in three aspects of the analysis, including; the urban axial assessments and urban street width, to find out their impacts on the real estate’s land price in the context of the land use distributions, which are predominantly residential and commercial types of uses. Depth map X8, SPSS, and QGIS 3.16 were used for the study evaluations and assessments. The result showed a significant impact of the urban street network on the price of land; this result can be used to enhance future urban design regarding urban economy improvements.

Land registry is one of the instruments most mentioned by public actors in land management in Benin to solve land problems faced by the country. Its implementation and functioning depend not only on technical actions but also on political will. Through a methodology based on participant observation, semi-structured interviews, focus group, as well as on the theory of "change in public action" by P. Muller (2005), legal and institutional changes have been observed in the implementation of the cadastral project. It is a project whose political component is readable through government action and the legal reforms carried out. At the technical level, the land data collected are processed by computer systems that can facilitate the mass production of land titles.

Land degradation is a serious impediment to improving rural livelihoods in Eastern Africa. This paper identifies major land degradation patterns and causes, and analyzes the determinants of sustainable land management (SLM) in three countries (Ethiopia, Malawi and Tanzania). The results show that land degradation hotspots cover about 51%, 41%, 23% and 23% of the terrestrial areas in Tanzania, Malawi and Ethiopia respectively. The analysis of nationally representative household surveys shows that the key drivers of SLM in these countries are biophysical, demographic, regional and socio-economic determinants. Secure land tenure, access to extension services and market access are some of the determinants incentivizing SLM adoption. The implications of this study are that policies and strategies that facilities secure land tenure and access to SLM information are likely to incentivize investments in SLM. Local institutions providing credit services, inputs such as seed and fertilizers, and extension services must also not be ignored in the development policies.

Tourism is widely recognised as a significant economic source for local communities. Nevertheless, tourism may potentially result in adverse effects on the environment. In order to mitigate adverse effects and enhance the advantages, tourism development necessitates a comprehensive planning process. In order to effectively manage and guide the growth of tourism, it is imperative to ensure that local-level spatial plans are integrated with national policies and regional strategies. The aim of this article is to investigate the impact of national policies and regional strategies on local spatial plans in tourism destinations, specifically, by analysing the land-use/land-cover changes along the western coastline of Mersin, with a particular emphasis on the Kızkalesi tourism destination.

Land tenure security is important for achieving a number Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The purpose of this paper was to investigate variation in land tenure security across three districts located in different geographical regions of Uganda. Using a quantitative cross-sectional survey data collected in early 2019. The findings show that Kanungu district found in South-Western Uganda had significantly higher levels of land tenure security as compared to Nakasongola (Central) and Nwoya (Northern). Research findings have implications on further study and benchmarking land governance systems in Kanungu. Furthermore, they have implications on implementation of government and donor land titling or registration programs in terms of priority areas. They further sheds light on the importance of accounting for geographical context in land tenure studies.

Land Use Land Cover (LULC) changes analysis is one of the most useful methodologies to understand how the land was used in the past years, what types of detections are to be expected in the future, as well as the driving forces and processes behind these changes. In Ethiopia, the rapidly changing of LULC is mainly due to population pressure, resettlement programs, climate change, and other human and nature-induced driving forces. Anthropogenic activities are the most significant factors adversely changing the natural status of the landscape and resources, which exerts unfavourable and adverse impacts on the environment and livelihood. The main goal of the present work is to review previous studies, discussing the spatio-temporal LULC changes in Ethiopian basins, to find out common points and gaps that exist in the current literature, to be eventually addressed in the future. Seventeen articles, published from 2011 to 2020, were selected and reviewed, focusing on LULC classification using ArcGIS and ERDAS imagine software by unsupervised and maximum likelihood supervised classification methods. Key informant interview (KII), focal group discussions (FGDs) and collection of ground truth data using ground positioning systems (GPS) for data validation were the major approaches discussed in most of the studies. All the analysed research showed that, during the last decades, Ethiopian lands changed to agricultural land use, waterbody, commercial farmland and built-up/settlement. Some parts of forest land, grazing land, swamp/wetland, shrubland, rangeland and bare/ rock out cropland cover class were changed to other LULC class types, mainly as a consequence of increasing anthropogenic pressure. In summary, these articles confirmed that LULC changes are a direct result of both natural and human influences. However, most of the study provided details of LULC for the past decades within a specific spatial location, while they did not address the challenge of forecasting future LULC changes at the basin scale.

This paper focuses on the physical attributes of land that intrinsically limit land use and possibly affect land values. In particular, we investigate if the slope of a land does decrease its price and investigate the role of land slope in forming more reliable constant-quality land price indices and aggregate house price indices. We find that, while land slopes do decrease the land price per unit, they have a small effect on the quality-adjusted land price indices in selected neighborhoods in Auckland, New Zealand, where sloped terrain is common.

Developing countries like Pakistan is among those where lack of adoption to science and technology advancement is a major constraint for Satellite Remote Sensing use in crops and land use land cover digital information generation. Exponential rise in country population, increased food demand, limiting natural resources coupled with migration of rural community to urban areas had further led to skewed official statistics. This study is an attempt to demonstrate the possible use of freely available satellite data like Landsat8 under complex cropping system of Okara district of Punjab, Pakistan. An Integrated approach has been developed for the satellite data based crops and land use/cover spatial area estimation. The resultant quality was found above 96% with Kappa statistics of 0.95. Land utilization statistics provided detail information about cropping patterns as well as land use land cover status. Rice was recorded as most dominating crop in term of cultivation area of around 0.165 million ha followed by autumn maize 0.074 million ha, Fallow crop fields 0.067 million ha and Sorghum 0.047 million ha. Other minor crops observed were potato, fodder and cotton being cultivated on less than 0.010 million ha. Population settlements were observed over an area of around 0.081 million ha of land.

Ever since the Cadastre and Land Registry have existed in Spain, they have been completely separate organisations with very different objectives, which influence the real-estate reality. Their coordination is essential to better identify buildings and to more suitably render services to citizens and Administrations. To this end, Law 13/2015 was passed in 2015 for this desirable and pressing Cadastre-Land Registry coordination to come about. This law came into force on 1 November 2015, and coincided with the development of the technical aspects of the graphical information exchange among the Cadastre, Land Registries and Notaries. Several ministries and different organisations, like the Cadastre personnel, jurists, technicians, and even citizens, are implied in this law. Among the technical aspects, georeferenced graphical representations and GML exchange files adapted to the European INSPIRE directives stand out. Such technical aspects are a genuine revolution as they were transferred to the legal world. After more than 2 years after its application, it is still in its initial and adaptation stages because it is a long-standing law that allows land registry units-cadastral parcels to be coordinated while they are incorporated into real-estate trade.

(1) Background: A simple approach to map irrigated landcover has been introduced by using measures derived from optical spectral range as an alternative to thermal range. It has been demonstrated that substituting surface temperature (Ts, ‘thermal approach’) with SWIR transformed reflectance (STR, ‘optical approach’) to detect surface moisture is feasible with comparable results. (2) Methods: Using an iterative thresholding procedure to minimize within-class variance, the bilevel segmentation of variables derived from Landsat-8 representing surface moisture and vegetation cover was achieved for the 2020-21 summer for a key irrigation district in Australia. (3) Results: The results of irrigated landcover by optical approach found to be comparable with those by thermal approach. The classification accuracy was assessed using water delivery records at farm level. Though the overall accuracy is high in both cases, the optical approach (97.6%) performed slightly better than the thermal approach (93.9%). (4) Conclusions: The feasibility of using STR to map irrigated landcover has been confirmed by a high-level overall accuracy assessment. This has broader implications in terms of irrigated landcover assessment, as the use of satellite imagery in these applications may not necessarily be limited to microwave or thermal sensors.

Purpose: Glue inhalation is a common unconventional substance of abuse and it contains neurotoxic and volatile solvents. We examined the toxicity profile and CNS activities of glue inhalation in Wistar rats.Methods: Acute toxicity was investigated using graded concentrations of 0.5, 1, and 2 mL of glue inhalation (n=3/group) for 4 hours in phase one followed by concentrations of 5, 10, and 20 mL of glue (n=1/group) for 4 hours in phase two. These animals were then observed for signs of toxicity and/or mortality for 24hours. The sub-acute toxicity was studied using 24 male Wistar rats at graded concentrations of Air, 2, 4 and 8mL glue (n=6/group) for 28 days. Blood samples were collected for biochemical and haematological evaluations, and vital organs (lung, liver, kidney, heart, brain, and eye) were used for histological analysis. Behavioural studies were carried out using Elevated Plus Maze, Hole Board Test, Open Field Test, Tail Suspension Test and Forced Swim Test. Dependence and abstinence effect were also evaluated. Results: The Lethal Dose (LD₅₀) of the inhalational glue was 14.14 ml. Glue significantly increased liver function parameters like TB, DB, ALP, ALT, TP, electrolyte levels (K⁺ and HCO₃) but reduced cholesterol level in exposed rats. Glue inhalation had significant anxiolytic and depressant effects on the rats at concentrations of 4mL and 8mL. Histological analysis revealed liver and lung tissue abnormalities and subconjunctival inflammation in eye tissue at 8mL. Conclusion: The study therefore suggests that glue inhalation has anxiolytic and depressant effects in Wistar rats.

Optimization of Magnetohydrodynamics parameters on the velocity profile and temperature distribution of incompressible fluid flow on a porous channel was evaluated. The fluid flow was considered to be unsteady, incompressible and flowing in 2-D in porous channel. The effects of magnetic parameter, Darcy’s number and fluid pressure on velocity profiles, and the effect of variable viscosity and Eckert number on temperature distribution in incompressible fluid flow were determined. The flow was considered to be in a channel running along the x-axis on which the magnetic field exist and finally along the y-axis on the porous part of the channel. The resulting model equations were solved by Finite Difference Method (FDM) in MATLAB software. Analysis of results indicated that increasing Darcy’s number and fluid pressure leads to increase in fluid velocity profile, while increasing magnetic parameter decreases fluid velocity profile. Also, it was observed that increase in both Eckert number and fluid viscosity lead to increase in temperature distribution. Optimization in temperature was achieved by increasing the magnetic field while viscosity was optimized by increasing the length of the porous part of the channel. This study will helpful to contribute alternative equations and methodology to engineering and in factories where getting the MHD parameters optimally is the main objective, particularly on temperature, velocity and pressure.

Sphingolipids are lipids derived from an 18-carbons unsaturated amino alcohol, the sphingosine. Ceramide, sphingomyelins, sphingosine-1-phosphates, gangliosides and globosides, are part of this group of lipids that participate in important cellular roles such as structural part of plasmatic and organelle membranes maintaining their function and integrity, cell signaling response, cell growth, cell cycle, cell death, inflammation, cell migration and differentiation, autophagy, angiogenesis, immune system. The metabolism of these lipids involves a broad and complex network of reactions that convert one lipid into others through different specialized enzymes. Impairment of sphingolipids metabolism has been associated with several disorders, from several lysosomal storage diseases, known as sphingolipidoses, to polygenic diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson and Alzheimer diseases. Sphingolipids are mainly located in central nervous system, and their abundance and distribution depend on brain development state and cell type. Although several studies have expanded the knowledge about sphingolipids function both in health and disease, it is still necessary to continue their study to understand the cellular implications of novel sphingolipids. These studies will also contribute to the diagnosis and treatment of diseases in which these molecules are part of their pathophysiology. In this review, we summarize the main sphingolipid characteristics and current knowledge about the synthesis, catabolism, regulatory pathways, participation in action potential and ionic channels, among other relevant functions.

Background: Lung cancer is one of the common causes of death worldwide. Although the incidence rate of lung cancer in Western countries is decreasing, it presents a growing trend in developed countries. Since there is no accurate enough information about the epidemiological and Histopathologic features of lung cancer in central Iran, Isfahan, we were motivated to conduct this research. Materials and Methods: This was a descriptive, cross-sectional study carried out in central Iran, Isfahan. All demographic, histopathological and clinical data of the lung cancer patients registered in MACSA, a referral charity-based cancer center in central Iran, was analyzed within 2012-2018 using SPSS v.22 software. Results: Altogether 260 patients with lung cancer were included in this study from 6127 cancer patients registered within 2012-2018 (4.2%). Out of them, 66.2% were men, and 18.8 % of the patients were alive at the time of the study. The mean age of the patients at diagnosis was 61.56 (SD=14.11, range: 9-93). Altogether, 63.1% of patients had metastasis of whom 57.6% were in stage IV at diagnosis. The Frequency of different types of lung cancer was 36.9% adenocarcinomas, 14.2% squamous cell carcinoma, 9.6% bronchogenic carcinoma and 8.1% small cell lung cancer, respectively. Altogether, 128 cases were smokers with an average 35.45 ± 14 pack- years. Only in 36.2% of the patients, the diagnostic and therapeutic biomarkers had been checked, and CK7 was positive in 88.9% of the cases in which the biomarker had been checked. Conclusion: Despite to similar Iranian studies, the most common histopathologic type of lung cancer among the patients was adenocarcinoma that it may be attributed to the lower consumption of smoking in our population and their different genetic context. Molecular biomarkers had been checked in a small portion of the patients. More education of the clinicians along with the development of cancer molecular testing may lead to promote the personalized-based approach.

This paper constitutes a first advance in the paleoenvironmental study of a small group of peatland ecosystems, of reduced size, located in the interior of the Iberian Peninsula (Puebla de Don Rodrigo, Ciudad Real, Spain). It represents a singular enclave, because these ecosystems are home to the southern-most peatlands in Europe, located at the lowest altitude in Spain, and are unique to the region of Castilla-La Mancha. They form ecosystems similar to the peat bogs of northern Europe, but in a Mediterranean climate. The analysis is followed of sample collection and data collection from documentary, textual, and cartographic sources drawn up since the 16th century up until the present day. The scientific analyses that were performed and the documentation that was consulted point to the hypothesis that these peatlands are the result of a long process of historical modification of the landscape in which anthropogenic activity has played a leading role, triggering a series of processes on the hillslopes that are culminating in the exhumation of the waterlogged areas, thereby establishing a recent genesis of these ecosystems.

This work presents the computation of reliable warming trends for central Australia around Alice Springs within a circle of radius 1,000 km. Between 1880 and 2011, the average warming for the centre of Australia is +0.166 ºC/century, slightly smaller than the warming of Alice Springs, that is +0.176 ºC/century. Over a shorter time between 1910 and 2011, the centre of Australia is warming +0.794 ºC/century, slightly more than the warming of Alice Springs, that is +0.719 ºC/century.

This study presents an in-depth analysis of land use and land cover change on the Kerch Peninsula over a period spanning three decades. Utilizing convolutional neural networks alongside satellite imagery analysis, we have mapped and quantified the changes in land use and cover, revealing significant trends and transformations within the peninsula's landscape. The research aims to elucidate the interplay between anthropogenic activities, climatic variations, and policy interventions in shaping land cover dynamics, thereby providing insights into the environmental and socio-economic impacts of these changes. Our findings indicate a marked increase in urban expansion at the expense of natural ecosystems, including forests and wetlands, underscoring the urgent need for sustainable land management strategies. The study highlights the role of agricultural intensification and expansion in altering the peninsula's ecological balance and emphasizes the critical importance of integrating change analysis and prediction. By leveraging advanced remote sensing and GIS technologies, our analysis not only enhances the understanding of the complex dynamics driving land use and land cover change but also showcases the potential of predictive modeling in forecasting future land cover scenarios. The implications of this study extend beyond the Kerch Peninsula, offering valuable lessons for managing land use changes and conserving natural landscapes in similar regions globally.

The availability of current land cover and land use (LCLU) information for monitoring the status of land resources has considerable value in ensuring sustainable land use planning. Similarly, the need to provide updated information on the extent of LCLU change in West Africa has become apparent, given the increasing demand for land resources driven by the rapid population growth in the sub-region. SERVIR West Africa, a regional consortium jointly supported by USAID and NASA to foster the use of geospatial and earth observation data and science for decision-making on critical environmental and food security challenges, in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), is building technical capacity in the sub-region to develop and implement harmonized regional land cover classification system for LULC change monitoring in West Africa, based on the Land Cover Meta Language (LCML-ISO 19144-2). This article focuses on the process, potential opportunities, outputs of this collaboration, exemplary use cases, and recommendations for the next steps.

Measuring the impact of land use regulation on the land market involves identifying and classifying relevant impact factors related to the land market. The objective of this study was to identify land market impact factors in the context of the introduction of land use regulation in Nepal. A desktop review was carried out to identify preliminary set of impact factors, which were reclassified through intuitive analysis based on the degree of thematic closeness. Perspective-based impact factors were identified through the qualitative analysis of primary data collected through semi-structured interviews with the Nepalese land market stakeholders. These independently derived impact factors were compared with the desktop literature review impact factors resulting in fourteen land market impact factors across four dimensions, including transaction cost, valuation, mortgage availability, taxation, and compensation across the economic dimension; lot size, subdivision restrictions, and coordination across the institutional dimension; awareness, expectation and proximity across the social dimension; and risk reduction, quality of residential land, and suitability of zoning classification across the environmental dimension. There was significant overlap and commonality across factors identified from both the literature review and semi-structured interviews. The land market impact factors determined in the study may be adapted and generalized across other countries and could be utilized to better understand the impacts of land policy decisions on urban planning and development. Further research is recommended on the process to operationalize the use of these factors to quantify the impact of land use regulation on different land markets.

The identified Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon, coupled with diminished vegetation and anthropogenic heat release, poses a significant environmental challenge for major urban centers. Particularly worrisome is the UHI effect in hot and temperate climates such as the Mediterranean region during the summer season. This exacerbates discomfort and heightens the risks of diseases linked to high temperatures. Additionally, it contributes to environmental consequences, including elevated electricity consumption due to increased demand for cooling [1]. The utilization of Remotely Sensed imagery for estimating Land Surface Temperature has become more prevalent in various applications associated with evaluating urban micro-climates and the Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon. This study presents an algorithm for the automatic mapping of Land Surface Temperature (LST) from Landsat-8 data using a vegetation index-based technique in the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. The primary aim is to discern patterns and trends in LST over a 5-year period, from 2017 to 2021. The application was tested in the urban area of Thessaloniki, Northern Greece, which is particularly representative of the Mediterranean urban environment. Computation of Normalized Difference Indices (NDVI, NDBI, NDWI) for the study area was also performed within the GEE platform and correlation analysis was implemented to evaluate the impact of the urban landscape on the distribution of LST.

The rapid increase in population along with the economic activities led to rapid depletion of natural resources. Land use studies help us analyze the impacts of urban development on environment. Given the political upheavals in Afghanistan, this study aims to analyze how urban development evolved from 1978 to 2018 in six major cities- Kabul, Kandahar, Kunduz, Herat, Mazar-e Sharif and Jalalabad- in Afghanistan using Landsat Satellite Images. This study is based on quantitative approach. ArcGIS 9.4 software was used to synchronize the Landsat Satellite Images within the area of study. The results of the study show that the Annual rate of urban land expansion in Afghanistan was the lowest (average 1.07 square kilometers per year) during the military presence of Soviet Union in Afghanistan while it was the highest (3.35 square kilometers per year) from 2001 to 2018 due to the military presence of US-led NATO forces, relative security and rapid economic activities in Afghanistan. The authors believe that this study could be further explored if other inter-connected factors, e.g., the role of culture, literacy, immigration etc., are incorporated into the study of urban development processes in Afghanistan.

Land degradation a serious and nationwide environmental concern in Ethiopia. The problem is its iterative relationship between land degradation, climate change, and agriculture, exacerbating one another via negative and positive feedback loops. Due to the need for an efficient response to land degradation in the country, different sustainable land management practices have been implemented since the late 1980s. The objective of this study was to analyze land degradation neutrality status using remote sensing data in the study area. We have studied the land degradation neutrality conditions of the North Wello Zone by using indicators data, namely land cover change, land productivity dynamics, and soil organic carbon stock. The result shows that the settlement areas consistently expanded at the fifth speed (2010-2018) from 1995 to 2010. Between 1995 and 2010, forestland declined by 18 percent, while an increasing trend of 26.8 percent from 2010 to 2018. The assessment results also indicate that 52.8 percent of the total area is stable and characterized by less stressed land productivity. The soil organic carbon is comparatively abundant in the high and midland vegetation areas but very thin in lowland areas. Most of the highland and midland parts of the study areas are in the conditions of stable and increasing land productivity with high biomass and soil organic content. However, most lowland areas showed a decline in land productivity conditions.

Urban cities are the major drivers of economic growth and development. Economic growth and development however results in considerable land cover land use dynamics. This study assessed the dynamics in land cover land use that have occurred in New Braunfels, Texas in the last 7 years (2013 - 2020) to observe areas in the city that had experienced considerable shifts in land cover and land use. A 30-meter resolution Landsat images were used to examine possible changes in land cover land use. New Braunfels was observed to have experienced significant changes in land use especially in developed areas. This change can be attributed to the influx of people into the city, contributing to the need for increased urban development. Analysis of this study shows that about 16% (about 553 hectares) of forest land cover class and 28% (about 1,139 hectares) of grassland class in time 1 (August 31, 2013) changed to built-up land use class in time 2 (November 5, 2020). A limitation to this study was that of the spatial resolution of images used. Higher spatial resolution images could impact the producers, users, and overall accuracy assessment. Results from this study can aid in supporting better decision-making for sustainable urban development and climate change mitigation.

The information on the land use and soil conservation practice based on year 2006, 2010 and 2014, hence offering an opportunity to model the impacts of land use change on erosion, deposition and surface water runoff. Limitation in the use of hydrological models had been their inability to handle the large amount of input data that describe the heterogeneity of the natural system. In this study, a procedure that takes into account soil conservation practice based on the land use change, the response of soil erosion and sediment export from the George Town Conurbation catchment area, and average annual sediment yields were estimated for each grid cell of the watershed to identify the critical erosion areas of rural and urban planning proposes. Average annual sediment yield and data on a grid basis estimated using Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and an emerging technology represented by Geographic Information System (GIS) used as a tool to produce a map for erosion rate. The changing of the land use from forest to agriculture and then to an urban area is a challenging task to research on land use demand for population, and environmental impact assessment is important for the planning of natural resources management, allowing research the modification of land use properly and implement more sustainable for long term management strategies. The challenge is to formulate strategies that would promote an integrated approach to the land use planning at an appropriate level as to address the issues that arose. Modelling for creating urban growth boundary for the George Town Conurbation must have to be controlled surface runoff and soil loss and sediment export from land use of the George Town Conurbation catchment.

This study presents empirical evidence on the nature of the political struggles for inclusion on an oil palm land deal in Ghana. It examines the employment dynamics and the everyday politics of workers on an oil palm plantation in a predominantly migrant and settler society of the north-eastern part of Ghana, where large-scale production has only been introduced within the past decade. It shows that by the nature of labour organization, as well as other structural issues, workers do not benefit equally from the land deals and therefore express everyday forms of resistance against exploitation, and for better terms of incorporation. Particularly, they express agency through absenteeism and non-compliance, which especially, enables them to maintain their basic food sovereignty/security. Nonetheless, these everyday politics is not necessarily liberating in confronting the everyday peasant problems and unfavourable agrarian transitions associated with capitalist agriculture. Overall, this paper contributes to the land grab literature by providing context-specific dynamics of impacts and politics and how are they are shaped by a multiplicity of factors- beyond class.

Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Land Use Land Cover (LULC) are the principal aspects of climate and environment studies. The object of the study is to assess spatial relationship between LST and remote sensing LULC indices at the global and continental scale. Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Aqua daytime LST and eight LULC MODIS indices of 2018 prepared and processed using Earth Engine Code Editor. R squared and significance of the relationship values of randomly selected points computed in R program. The research observed the relationship between examined indices and LST is significant at the 0.001 level. Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) and Normalized Difference Snow Index (DSI) are the dominant drivers of LST in the world, Asia and North America. In Australia and Africa, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) are the dominant drivers of LST. Albedo and Normalized Difference Soil Index (NDSI) have superior in Central America. In South America and Europe, the dominant driver of LST is NDWI. Relationship between albedo and LST is moderate inverse on a global scale. Observed relationship between LST and examined vegetation indices is positive in Europe and North America while inverse in Australia and Africa. All observed relationship between Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI) and LST are positive. Association observed between NDSI and LST is positive in Australia, Africa and Central America.

The rapid growth of the metropolitan area around Budapest has led to increased traffic, infrastructure problems, and social and economic issues in the suburbs, making the sustainability of these areas a key topic in professional and public discussions. The article aims to explore the intricacies of sustainability in a suburban town by utilizing the Smart Growth framework, which is highly pertinent in Hungary. The focus of scientific and public discussions revolves around urban planning to curb urban sprawl and enhance public transportation usage. The analysis concentrates on compactness, commute, and community, utilizing quantitative survey data between 2018 and 2023. The findings demonstrate that the town under analysis is dense regarding common and regular services but depends significantly on the central area for more specialized services. The local community is tightly interconnected and shows no evidence of atomization. Commuting patterns show that polycentricity leads to new spatial connections and a growing reliance on cars, even while the quantity of vehicles is still growing. The results indicate that assessing the sustainability of suburbs may not be universally applicable, and examination should be conducted at the town level. Secondly, the sustainability of suburban areas may be distinct from the sustainability of denser, urbanized places.

Recent studies suggest that the interaction of dietary constituents with taste and olfactory receptors and nociceptor expressed in the oral cavity, nasal cavity and gastrointestinal tract may regulate homeostasis through activation of the neuroendocrine system. Polyphenols, of which 8,000 have been identified to date, represent the greatest diversity of secondary metabolites in plants, most of which are bitter and some of them astringent. Epidemiological studies have shown that polyphenol intake contributes to maintaining and improving cardiovascular, cognitive and sensory health. However, because polyphenols have very low bioavailability, the mechanisms of their beneficial effects are unknown. In this review, we focus on the taste of polyphenols from the perspective of sensory nutrition, summarize the results of previous studies on their relationship with bioregulation, and discuss their future potential.

Rhombencephalosynapsis (RES) is a rare, congenital developmental disorder of the central nervous system. Even after many years of its identification, the etiology and pathogenesis of RES remain unclear. It occurs in combination with many syndromes and thus has overlapping symptoms. The clinical presentation of this disorder varies depending on the severity of the maldevelopment of vermis. Here, we present a case of a 60-year-old Indian female diagnosed with Rhombencephalosynapsis. Clinical and MRI characteristics of RES along with treatment options have been discussed.

Arid- and semi-arid Central Asia is particularly sensitive to climate change. The changes in extreme precipitation in Central Asia stemming from climate warming are the subject of intense debate within the scientific community. This study employed a Morlet wavelet analysis to examine the annual occurrence number of extreme precipitation in Central Asia from May to September during the period of 1951–2005. Their modulating planetary-scale climate modes were identified by using a linear regression analysis. Two major scales of the temporal variability were derived: 2–3.9 yr and 4–6 yr. The dominant variability was 2–3.9-yr scale and was associated with the negative phase of the Polar/Eurasia (POL) pattern. The 4–6-yr scale provided a secondary contribution and was closely linked to the negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). These planetary climate modes acted as precursors of extreme precipitation over Central Asia. The negative phase of POL directly contributed to a negative height anomaly over Central Asia, which was intimately related to extreme precipitation. In contrast, the negative NAO phase possibly manifested as a Rossby wave source, which was subsequently exported to Central Asia through a negative–positive–negative Rossby wave train.

With the influences of climate change and human activities, the resources and environment of “One Belt and One Road” are facing severe problems and challenges. This study aims to analyze the temporal and spatial dynamics of the drought environment and the response of vegetation cover to the drought by using drought indicators. Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) drought severity index (GRACE-DSI) and GRACE water storage deficit index (GRACE-WSDI), were calculated to present hydrological drought. Moreover, based on GRACE, Water-Global Assessment and Prognosis (WaterGAP) model, and Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) data, the groundwater in Central Asia was retrieved to calculate the groundwater drought index called the GRACE Standardized Groundwater Level Index (GRACE-SGI). The results show that the annual precipitation in Central Asia increased slightly at a rate of 0.39 mm/year (p = 0.82) since 2000, while the temperature increased slightly at a rate of 0.05 ℃/year (p = 0.10). The water storage decreased significantly at -0.59 mm/year (p &lt;0.01) and experienced a decrease-increase-decrease process. During the study period, the arid situation in Central Asia deteriorated, especially in the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea basin. From 2007 to 2015, the Central Asian environment was generally arid and suffered from different du-rations and degrees of hydrological and groundwater droughts. The drought indicators (i.e., GRACE-DSI, GRACE-WSDI) and the NDVI showed a significantly positive correlation during the growing season. However, the NDVI of cultivated land and grassland distribution areas in Central Asia showed a strong negative correlation with GRACE-SGI. It is concluded that the drought environment in Central Asia affected the growth of vegetation. The continued deterioration of the arid situation may further stress the ecological system in Central Asia.

Patients with lean NAFLD make up an increasing subset of liver diseases. The association between lean NAFLD and feutin-A, which serves as a hepatokine and adipokine, has never been examined. Our study aimed to explore the association of serum fetuin-A among lean and nonlean patients. The study comprised 606 adults from the community, stratified into lean or nonlean (BMI </≥ 24 kg/m2) and NAFLD or non-NAFLD (scoring of ultrasonographic fatty liver indicator, US-FLI ≥ 2/<2). Multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to estimate the odds ratio of having NAFLD among the tertiles of fetuin-A after adjustment. The least square means were computed by general linear models to estimate marginal means of the serum fetuin-A concentrations in relation to the NAFLD groups. The OR of having NAFLD for the highest versus the lowest tertile of fetuin-A was 2.62 (95% CI: 1.72-3.98; P for trend<0.001). Stratifying by BMI, the OR of having lean NAFLD for the highest versus the lowest tertile of fetuin-A was 2.09 (95% CI: 1.09-3.98; P for trend 0.026), while nonlean NAFLD had no significant association with the fetuin-A gradient after adjustments. Fetuin-A was positively associated with lean NAFLD after adjusting for central obesity and insulin resistance.

We know that living matter must behave in accordance with the universal laws of physics and chemistry. However, these laws are insufficient to explain the specific characteristics of the vital phenomenon and, therefore, we need new principles, intrinsic to biology, which are the basis for developing a theoretical framework for understanding life. Here I propose what I call the seven commandments of life (the Vital Order, the Principle of Inexorability, the Central Dogma, the Tyranny of Time, the Evolutionary Imperative, the Conservative Rule, the Cooperating Thrust) as a set of principles that help us explain the vital phenomenon from an evolutionary perspective. In a metaphorical way, we can consider life like an endless race in which living beings are the runners, who are changing as the race goes on (the evolutionary process), and the commandments the rules.

Parasitic infections are often not the direct cause of death of fish but the presence of wounds in the fish's body due to parasitic attacks is a trigger factor for secondary infection. Secondary infections can be caused by fungi, bacteria or viruses, which ultimately cause the death of fish. This study aimed to determine the characteristics of parasites and fungi that infected eel (Anguilla sp.) in the waters of Poso, Buol, Toli-toli and Donggala, Central Sulawesi as an important part of the diagnosis of fish disease in the framework of teraupetic strategies. Eel were taken as many as 30 individuals / location for observation of parasites and fungi. Parasitological examination was carried out for external and internal parasites on the mucous layer of the body, gills, intestines and stomach, while fungal isolations were carried out on muscles, skin and tissues that have abnormalities. After identification, the prevalence and intensity were carried out. The results showed that the highest prevalence of parasites were Camallanus sp (70%), Proteacephalus sp (50%) and Gyrodactylus sp (40%), and the nematode Camallanus sp the tapeworm Proteocephalus sp had the highest intensity of 57.5 and 30.8 respectively. Fungal prevalence were found highest in Saprolegnia sp (36%), and Fusarium sp (32%).

Vietnam is the second largest coffee producer in the world, mostly from the Central Highlands region where water has been becoming a scarce resource. Since 2014, drought has been strongly affecting Central Highlands’ agriculture, particularly coffee production. The drought leads to changes in flowering, ripening and thus harvesting times of coffee. Coffee productivity has reduced about 50 percent. Ultimately, coffee quantity and quality is jeopardized which endangers coffee farmers who occupy 90 per cent of population and their livelihoods mainly rely on coffee. Most of coffee farmers have had to develop alternative strategies to respond to the drought. Based on quantitative and qualitative data collected from 50 coffee households in a community in the Central Highlands, this research has indicated that farmers had to find the ways to adapt as well as to cope with drought. The ways of adaptation and coping were diverse, including short, medium and long-term plans. To strengthen the adaptation and coping strategies of farmers with drought in the short term, it is recommended that authorities provide more technical and financial support to farmers. Furthermore, longer term strategies need to focus on land use planning, investment in irrigation schemes, and consolidated afforestation schemes in appropriate areas.

Keywords: Lightning; Land Cover and Land Use; Topographic Effects, Itacaiúnas River Hydrographic Basin

The rapid growth of urban areas is a major challenge facing cities around the world. This growth can have a significant impact on the local climate, leading to higher temperatures and other changes. In desert climates, the effects of urban expansion can be particularly pronounced. This study investigated the impact of urban expansion on land surface temperature (LST) in Baghdad, Iraq. Notably, this study employs a sophisticated artificial intelligence method known as Random Forest for Land Use Land Cover (LULC) classification, utilizing three Landsat images spanning the temporal spectrum from 1985 to 2021 to meticulously monitor land use transformations and associated LST variations. The results showed that vegetated areas declined by 46.8% during the study period, while built-up areas increased by 124.7%. This decline in vegetation was accompanied by an increase in LST, with bare soil recording the highest temperatures. The study also found that LST has a strong inverse relationship with vegetation and moisture. This means that areas with more vegetation and moisture tend to have lower LSTs. These findings suggest that urban expansion can lead to higher LSTs in desert climates, which can have implications for the health and wellbeing of residents. The study has important implications for urban planners and policymakers in Baghdad and other cities in desert climates. By identifying the main factors that control LST, the study provides insights into strategies for mitigating the effects of urban expansion on temperature.

This study investigates the influence of expectations and trust on farmers' decisions regarding contractual choices in land transfer. The dataset used for analysis consists of 1101 households in Guizhou Province. The research focuses on two aspects: the selection between written and oral contracts, and the decision to continue the contractual relationship. The findings reveal that farmers' choices are significantly affected by their expectations and levels of trust.Specifically, when farmers' expectations regarding the land transfer process are not met, they tend to prefer written contracts over oral ones. This preference can be attributed to the greater clarity and risk reduction offered by written contracts. On the other hand, higher levels of trust increase the likelihood of farmers continuing the land transfer contract, as trust fosters a sense of confidence and security in the ongoing relationship.Interestingly, trust also plays a moderating role. Farmers who have aligned expectations and high levels of trust are more inclined to opt for oral contracts. This preference for oral contracts can be attributed to their flexibility and emphasis on interpersonal relationships, allowing for better adaptation to the changing dynamics of land transfer.These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the factors influencing farmers' decision-making processes regarding contractual choices in land transfer. They provide valuable insights for policymakers involved in land transfer, enabling them to optimize policies and facilitate farmers' decision-making processes.

Based on data from the Yunnan Province farm household survey, we examine the effect of rural land rights policy on farmers’ income. The regression results show that right significantly raises the total income of farmers, with farm income serving as the primary source of total income. After performing numerous robustness tests, using instrumental variables to handle endogeneity and arriving at the same conclusion, the result is still valid. According to the heterogeneity analysis, in the sample of households with long-term migrant workers, the confirmation of rural land rights significantly increases total and nonfarm income while decreasing farm income. Furthermore, total income includes nonfarm income, which reflects the effect of different farmers' optimal labor allocation based on the external market environment. According to the impact mechanism anal-ysis, right can increase farmers' total income by promoting land transfer, and farmers in less developed areas are more willing to increase their income by land transfer out.

In Nigeria, desertification has become one of the most pronounced ecological disasters, with the impacts mostly affecting eleven frontline States. This has been attributed to a range of both nat-ural and man-made factors. This study applied a remote sensing-based change detection and indicator analysis to explore land use/land cover changes and detect major conversions from ecologically active land covers to sand dunes. Results indicate that areas covered by sand dunes (a major indicator of desertification) have doubled over the 25 years under consideration (1990 to 2015). Although about 0.71 km2 of dunes have been converted to vegetation, indicative of the success of various international, national, local, and individual afforestation efforts, conversely about 10.1 km2 of vegetation were converted to sand dunes, implying around 14 times more de-forestation compared to afforestation. Juxtaposing the progression of sand dune with climate records of the study area and examining the relationship between indicators of climate change and desertification suggested a mismatch between both processes as increasing rainfall and lower temperatures observed in 1994, 2005, 2012, and 2014 did not translated into positive feedbacks for desertification in the study area. On average, our results reveal that sand dune is progressing at a mean annual rate of about 15.2 km2 in the study area. Based on this study’s land cover change, trend and conversion assessment, visual reconciliation of climate records with land cover data, statistical analysis, observations from ground-truthing, as well as previous literature, it can be inferred that desertification in Nigeria is less a function of climate change, but more a product of human activities driven by poverty, population growth and failed government policies. Further projections by this study also reveal a high probability of more farmlands being converted to sand dunes by the year 2030 and 2045 if current practices prevail.

Land use land cover (LULC) changes are highly pronounced in African countries, as they are characterized by an agriculture-based economy and a rapidly growing population. Understanding how land use/cover change (LULCC) influence watershed hydrology will enable local governments and policymakers to formulate and implement effective and appropriate response strategies to minimize the undesirable effects of future land use/cover change or modification and sustain the local socio-economic situation. The hydrological response of the Ethiopia Fincha’a watershed to LULCC happened during the last 30 years was investigated comparing the situation in three reference years: 1994, 2004 and 2018. The information was derived from Landsat sensors, respectively Landsat 5 TM, Landsat 7 ETM and Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS. The various LULC classes were derived via ArcGIS using a supervised classification system, and the accuracy assessment was done using confusion matrixes. For all the years investigated the overall accuracies and the kappa coefficients were higher than 80%, with 2018 as the more accurate year. The analysis of LULCC revealed that forest decreased by 19.99% between the years 1994-2004, and it decreased by 11.85% in the following period 2004-2018. Such decline in areas covered by forest is correlated to an expansion of cultivated land by 16.4% and 10.81%, respectively. After having evaluated the LULCC at the basin scale, the watershed was divided into 18 sub-watersheds, which contained 176 Hydrologic Response Units (HRUs), having a specific LULC. Accounting for such a detailed subdivision of the Fincha’a watershed, the SWAT model was firstly calibrated and validated on past data, and then applied to infer information on the hydrological response of each HRU on LULCC. The modelling results pointed out a general increase of average water flow, both during dry and wet periods, as a consequence of a shift of land coverage from forest and grass towards settlements and build-up areas. The present analysis pointed out the need of accounting for past and future LULCC in modelling the hydrological responses of rivers at the watershed scale.

Land engineering is a specific new academic discipline in China. Although the undergraduate major of land engineering was officially approved and established lately since 2017, the birth of land engineering as an academic discipline dates back 40 years ago. It has passed through four development stages: the incubation stage in 1978-1985, the initial stage in 1986-1997, the growth stage in 1998-2011, and the expanding stage from 2012 to present. However, land engineering as an academic discipline remains immature and seriously lags behind practice. There are still no unified academic community and broad academic consensus. After a historical overview of the four development stages, this study gave a strategic consideration to five key questions. We argue that the study object of the discipline is land engineering activity, which is defined as the artificial transformation of a land complex combined by various natural and human elements. The uniqueness of the discipline is rooted in its ability to study the comprehensive and integrated reorganization or rebuilding of various elements of land as a complex, with the theory of land complex reconstruction being the core theory. The discipline of land engineering is based on land pure science and land technology, and is one basis of land management. It consists of two modules (rural land engineering and urban land engineering), five secondary disciplines of each module (land development, land rearrangement, land improvement, land protection, and land remediation), and more than 30 research directions. Various technologies are only instrumental but not essential components of land engineering as an academic discipline.

Land price sustainability issues have been addressed by many authors in the past. Most of these researchers used land prices (from land price maps) as the primary data source in their studies. Only a few papers analysed official land price maps, which are available very rarely. For this reason, we studied the spatial and temporal changes of land prices in the city of Olomouc based on an analysis of official land price maps from 1993 to 2017. We proposed several research hypotheses to confirm some general statements about land price development. We concluded that some macroeconomic indicators had a significant impact on changes in land prices. In the residential and commercial areas and historical centre, land prices are significantly higher than in other monitored aspects (land-use types). We also concluded that no link existed between land-use stability and land price stability. Surprisingly, no long-term stable areas were found in the area of interest. The analysis also confirmed that land price and its change over time varied in different spatial aspects. Surprisingly, the smallest influence was reflected in the economic aspect. Regarding natural events in recent decades, we observed a significant drop in land prices in the vicinity of watercourses threatened by flooding. These findings can assist in better understanding local development and changes in land price.

Remote sensing technologies are critical for analyzing the escalating impacts of global climate change and increasing urbanization, providing vital insights into land surface temperature (LST), land use and cover (LULC) changes, and the identification of urban heat island (UHI) and surface urban heat island (SUHI) phenomena. This research focuses on the nexus between LULC alterations and variations in LST and air temperature (Tair), with a specific emphasis on the intensified SUHI effect in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Employing an integrated approach, the study analyzes time-series data from Landsat and MODIS satellites, alongside Tair climate records, utilizing machine learning techniques and linear regression analysis. Key findings indicate a statistically significant upward trend in Tair and LST during summer months from 1984 to 2023, with a notable positive correlation between Tair and LST across both datasets. MODIS data exhibit a stronger correlation R² = 0.879, compared to Landsat R² = 0.663. The application of supervised classification through Random Forest algorithms and vegetation indices on LULC data reveals significant alterations, manifested as a 70.3% increase in urban land, concurrently with a decrement in vegetative cover, especially 15.5% reduction in dense vegetation and a 62.9% decrease in sparse vegetation. Change detection analysis elucidates a 24.6% conversion of sparse vegetation into urban land, underscoring a pronounced trajectory towards urbanization. Temporal and seasonal LST variations across different LULC classes were analyzed using kernel density estimation (KDE) and boxplot analysis. Urban areas and sparse vegetation had the smallest average LST fluctuations, at 2.09°C and 2.16°C, respectively, but recorded the most extreme LST values. Water and dense vegetation classes exhibited slightly larger fluctuations of 2.30°C and 2.24°C, with the bare land class showing the highest fluctuation 2.46°C, but fewer extremes. Quantitative analysis with the application of Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests across various LULC classes substantiated the normality of LST distributions p &gt; 0.05 for both monthly and annual data sets. Conversely, the Shapiro-Wilk test validated the normal distribution hypothesis exclusively for monthly data, indicating deviations from normality in the annual data. Thresholded LST classifies urban and bare lands as warmest classes with 39.51°C, 38.20°C and water by 35.96°C and dense vegetation 35.52°C, sparse vegetation 37.71°C as coldest, a trend consistent annually and monthly. The analysis of SUHI effects demonstrates an increasing trend in UHI intensity, with statistical trends indicating a growth in average SUHI values over time. This comprehensive study underscores the critical role of remote sensing in understanding and addressing the impacts of climate change and urbanization on local and global climates, emphasizing the need for sustainable urban planning and green infrastructure to mitigate UHI effects.

Air quality is a topic of growing relevance on the global agenda. Two key indicators of air quali-ty, nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and carbon monoxide (CO), represent significant hazards to human health and the environment putting the sustainability of natural resources at risk. Therefore, it is imperative to regularly monitor and reduce atmospheric pollutant concentrations to mitigate their harmful consequences. This study presents an analysis of NO2 total and CO emissions in Argentina, utilizing remote sensing data. The research aims to determine the spatiotemporal distribution of NO2 and CO emissions in Argentina from 2019 to 2021. Subsequently, it seeks to establish the influence of land uses and land cover on the emission of NO2 and CO through dif-ferent climatic, anthropic, and natural indicators. The study was carried out in Argentina during the period 2019-2021, where random points were placed for the different land covers with a total of 800 points surveyed. The year with the highest CO concentration (mol/m-2) was 2020. The values were highest for tree covers and herbaceous wetland coverage in the northern part of the country. For total NO2, the highest concentrations were reached during the years 2020 and 2021. Regarding its distribution, throughout the evaluated period, the highest concentrations of total NO2 were found in the built-up and cropland coverages, with the capital of the country and the northern region of the Buenos Aires province being the most affected areas. In addition, the concentration of CO was influenced by climatic variables (atmospheric pressure, wind speed, maximum environment temperature, Palmer index), natural (height, humidity, NDVI), and ur-ban variables (distances to mining extraction, airports, power plants, urban index) for the differ-ent uses and land covers. Finally, the concentrations of total NO2 were influenced by climatic variables (Palmer index and wind speed), natural (height and NDVI), and urban variables (dis-tance to airports, power plants, industries, service stations, and open dumpsites) for the differ-ent uses and land cover. This study contributes to sustainable environmental management, ena-bling the formulation of effective strategies for mitigating emissions and promoting the long-term health and well-being of communities.

Generating early warning signals of reduced resilience in ecosystems is crucial for conservation and management endeavors. However, the practical implications of such early warning signal systems are still limited by the lack of data and uncertainties associated with predicting complex systems such as ecosystems. This research aims to investigate the feasibility of developing an early warning system capable of identifying an upcoming critical transition within mangrove forest ecosystems. Using time series analysis of remote sensing images, the resilience of mangrove forests was explored across two distinct study sites. One site (Qeshm Island) has been adversely affected by land-use and land-cover changes, while the other (Gabrik) serves as a reference ecosystem. The study uses data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite to quantify three remotely sensed indices: the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), the Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (MNDWI), and the Modified Vegetation Water Ratio (MVWR). In addition, Landsat data has been used to explore temporal alterations in land-use and land cover. To identify early warning signals, indicators such as autocorrelation (acf(1)), standard deviation (SD), and skewness (SK) are applied. The findings indicate a signal of reduced resilience by a significant increase in NDVI statistical metrics (acf(1): 0.50, SD: 0.9). Although MNDWI showed significant early warning signals in Qeshm Island (acf(1); 0.86, SD: 0.90), it provided a false alarm in the reference study site. MVWR failed to generate early warning signals of reduced resilience (acf(1); -0.100, SD: -0.07, SK: -0.21). Land-use land-cover change may explain reduced resilience in the forests. This study not only emphasizes the potential of remote sensing in monitoring the state of mangrove forests but also contributes to advancing our understanding of ecosystem dynamics. The findings of this study can be integrated with ecosystem management tools to enhance the effectiveness of conservation efforts aimed at safeguarding mangroves. This is the first report of the successful application of remote sensing in generating early warning signals of reduced resilience within mangrove forests in the Middle East.

Global croplands, pastures, plantations, and human settlement areas have expanded in recent decades, accompanied by large increases in energy, water, and fertilizer consumption, along with considerable losses of biodiversity. In sub-Saharan Africa, policies are implemented without critical consideration e.g., agricultural expansions impair ecosystem services of the several river basins. The current study has studied landuse/cover and associated rate of change for four-time epochs i.e., 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2021. This employed remote sensing and GIS techniques for LULC analysis while future projection was modelled using cellular automata and Markov chain. The Kappa coefficient statistics were used to assess the accuracy of final classified image while reference images for accuracy assessment were developed based on ground truthing. Overall change results between 1991 and 2021, showed that major percentage loss in area were experienced by water, forest, woodland and wetland which decreased by 8,222Ha (44.11%), 426,161Ha (35.72%), 399,584Ha (35.01%) and 105,186Ha (34.82%). On the other hand, percentage increase in area during the same period were experienced in cultivated land, built up areas and grasslands which increased by 659,346Ha (205.28%), 11,894Ha (159.93%) and 33,547Ha (98.47%). However, even with the expanding thirsty sectors water discharged out of the catchment is on increment at a rate of 498.6 m3/s/year. For dualistic benefits, agroforest practices are recommended along with participatory law enforcement and capacity building of local communities through their institutions.

In several Indonesian tropical cities, such as Makassar City, frequent flooding during the peak rainy season poses a significant challenge. This study seeks to address this issue by devising effective policies to reduce flood exposure. The main obstacle lies in accurately determining the flood inundation area. To overcome this, the study utilizes multiple satellite data sources on a cloud platform, integrating them with land use data, and DEM data, aligning these with the local government's urban land use plan and existing drainage networks. The research aims to quantify the affected area, identify the predominant inundated land cover, and assess the efficiency of Makassar's drainage system and urban land use plan. The study reveals that an uncoordinated drainage system in the Tamalanrea, Biringkanaya, and Mangala sub-districts results in severe flooding, encompassing a total area of 35.28 km². The most affected land use type is cultivation, constituting approximately 43.5% of the flooded area. Furthermore, 82.26% of the urban land use plan, covering 29.02 km², is submerged. It is imperative for the local government and stakeholders to prioritize the enhancement of drainage systems and urban land use plans, particularly in low-lying and densely populated regions

Land use and land cover (LULC) datasets for Jinan in 1992, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2011, 2017, and 2022 were developed from Landsat images using the Random Forest (RF) classification approach. The relationships between social-economic, political factors and time-series LULC data were exam-ined for the periods between 1992 and 2022. The results showed the effectiveness of using the RF classification method for LULC classification with time series of Landsat images. Combined with driving forces analysis, our research can effectively explain the detailed LULC change tra-jectories corresponding to different stages and give new insights into Jinan LULC change pat-terns. The results show a significant increase in impervious surface which opposite change to bare land which experienced a huge decline declined by 95%, due to urbanization and rapid in-crease of population. The driving forces behind these changes are related to population growth, economic development, and climate change. Moreover, the present research employed Principal Components Analysis (PCA) methodology in order to understand the relative significance of disparate driving factors. The analysis results prove that the economy (population, GDP) and climate change were the primary factors that have an obvious impact on land use/land cover changes and that the driving factors for impervious surface, bare land, woodland, farmland, and water were distinct. Government policies also have a substantial impact on LULC change as well, such as the Construction of Harmonious Jinan (COHJ). The results were helpful for better understanding the mechanisms of LULC change and can provide useful knowledge for effective land resource management and planning.

Satellite-based data classification performance remains a challenge for research community in the field of land use/land cover mapping. Here we investigated supervised per-pixel classifications performance under different scenarios, based on single and seasonal multispectral data combi-nations of different sensors (Landsat-8 OLI and Sentinel-2 MSI). In case of Landsat, seasonal spectral indices (EVI and NDMI) were included. A typical Mediterranean watershed with a complex landscape comprised of various forest and wetland ecosystems, crops, artificial surfaces, and lake water was selected to test our approach. All available geospatial data from national databases (Forest Map, LPIS, Natura2000 habitats, cadastral parcels, etc.) are used as ancillary data for clas-sification training and validation. We examined and compared the performance of ML, RF, KNN and SVM classifiers under different scenarios for land use/land cover mapping, according to Copernicus Land Cover (CLC2018) nomenclature. In total, eight land use/land cover classes were identified in Landsat-8 OLI and nine in Sentinel-2a MSI for an acceptable overall accuracy over 85%. A comparison of the overall classification accuracies shows that Sentinel-2a overall accuracy was slightly higher than Landsat-8 (96.68% vs. 93.02%). Respectively, the best-performed algorithm was ML in Sentinel-2 while in Landsat-8 was KNN. However, machine-learning algorithms have similar results regardless the type of sensor. We concluded that best classification performances achieved using seasonal multispectral data. Future research should be oriented towards inte-grating time-series multispectral data of different sensors and geospatial ancillary data for land use/land cover mapping.

Land use land cover change analysis is one of the most particular techniques to understand how land was used in the past, what types of changes are to be expected in the future, as well as the forces and processes behind the changes. Thus, the objective of this study was to investigate the land use land cover changes and its driving forces in Mago National Park, southern Ethiopia. Satellite image of Landsat5 TM (1988, 1998 and 2008) and Landsat8 OLI/TIRS (2018) with a time span of 30 years were employed. In addition, field observation, and social survey were conducted to study the drivers of land use land cover changes. QGIS 3.2 and SPSS (for social data analysis) software’s’ were used for satellite image processing, accuracy assessment, map preparation and descriptively analyze the driving forces of LULCC respectively. Supervised classification with maximum likelihood algorithm was conducted for satellite image analysis and generation of information using Quantum GIS 3.2 Post classification change detection method was applied to quantify the land use/land cover change. The result of the study indicated riverine forest, woodland, grassland, water body, degraded land and bare land as a major land use land cover class in the park. The result of land use land cover classification showed that in 1988 most of the study area was covered by woodland and grass land. In the first period (1988-1998), woodland, riverine forest, water body and bare land decreased by 6.76%, 37.98%, 22.37% and 70.14% respectively, while grass land, and degraded land increased by 16.11% and 85.67% respectively. In the second period, (1998 -2008), woodland, riverine forest and degraded land were decreased by 5.44%, 4.61%, and 80.74% respectively, while grass land, water body and bare land is increased by 14.74%, 3.76% and 52.58% respectively. From 2008-2018 riverine forest, grassland, water body and bare land decreased by 1.33%, 15.16% and 4.82% and 25.02% respectively, while woodland increased by 11.84%, and degraded land increased by 85.49% respectively. Riverine forest, water body, grass land and bare land showed decrement and that of woodland, degraded land indicated increment during study period. From 1988-2018, woodland, riverine forest, water body and bare land indicated decrement and the remaining grass land and bare land cover types indicated increment during study period. The result of social survey indicated that expansion of agriculture, human induced fire, overgrazing and hunting are proximate driving forces of the change in Mago National Park. Population pressure from a different area, poverty, decreased farmlands productivity; education, weak law enforcement and cultural factors are the major underlying causes of the observed changes. Therefore, proper land use planning, legal support, and strong law enforcement are the key recommendations to sustain natural resources of the study area.

This study focuses on land cover and land management changes in relation to food security and environmental services in a semi-arid area of East Nusa Tenggara (ENT) – Indonesia. The study was conducted in Central Sumba District of ENT Province. Classification and regression tree (CART) for land cover classification has been analyzed using machine learning techniques using Google Earth Engine. A survey with Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and followed with in-depth interviews were conducted for primary data collection involving a total of 871 respondents. The Socio-economic data analyzed statistics descriptively and non-parametric tests. The study showed that: 1). There has been a substantial land use change during the devo-lution era that has both positive and negative implications for food security and envi-ronmental services. 2). There has been population pressure in the fertile or agricultur-al land as the direct impact of the development of city infrastructures; and 3). Nation-al intervention through the Food Estate program has fostered and shaped land use change and land management in Central Sumba District. The study highlights the importance that the devolution spirit should help to well manage the limited ara-ble/agricultural land in dominated semi-arid to ensure food security and environment services.

Biodiversity loss has been identified as one of the environmental impacts where humankind has been tres-passing planetary boundaries most significantly. Going beyond the pressures causing damages (calling them ‘direct drivers’) and analysing their underlying driving forces, IPBES, the Intergovernmental Sci-ence-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, also identified a series of indirect drivers. The Montreal-Kunming Global Biodiversity Framework GBF including its suggested monitoring approach is intended to and claims to be a policy response to such analyses. However, to assess the human impact on ecosystems as a basis for planning conservation and restoration, as foreseen in the GBF, monitoring ecosystem typologies (in the GBF with reference to the UN statistical standard SEEA ES, which in turn refers to the IUCN ecosystem classification) is not enough. It needs to be complemented with data on the severity of human impacts, and on the history of places, i.e. how and when the current ecosystem status was brought about. In this conceptual paper we suggest LUI, a deliberately simple ordinal scale index for land use intensity changes, to address these two gaps. It is based on the hemeroby concept, measuring the human impact as deviation from naturalness. This makes it an information collection and presentation tool for those working in landscape planning and management. LUI’s simple and intuitively understandable structure makes it suitable for citizens’ science applications, and thus for participative monitoring when extensive statistical data gathering is not feasible, and past data are not available. Of course is can also be used as a simple too for communicating when detailed statistical data series are available. While the aggregate index is expected to communicate well, its components are more relevant to motivate and help policy makers to prioritise their decisions according to the severity of recent anthropogenic ecosystem disturabances.

There are many new land use and land cover (LULC) products emerging yet there is still a lack of in-situ data for training, validation, and change detection purposes. The LUCAS (Land Use Cover Area frame Sample) survey is one of the few authoritative in-situ field campaigns, which takes place every three years in European Union member countries. More recently, a study has considered whether citizen science and crowdsourcing could complement LUCAS survey data, e.g., through the FotoQuest Austria mobile app and crowdsourcing campaign. Although the data obtained from the campaign were promising when compared with authoritative LUCAS survey data, there were classes that were not well classified by the citizens, and the photographs submitted through the app were not always of sufficient quality. For this reason, in the latest FotoQuest Go Europe 2018 campaign, several improvements were made to the app to facilitate interaction with the citizens contributing and to improve their accuracy in LULC identification. In addition to extending the locations from Austria to Europe, a change detection component (comparing land cover in 2018 to the 2015 LUCAS photographs) was added, as well as an improved LC decision tree and a near real-time quality assurance system to provide feedback on the distance to the target location, the LULC classes chosen and the quality of the photographs. Another modification was the implementation of a monetary incentive scheme in which users received between 1 to 3 Euros for each successfully completed quest of sufficient quality. The purpose of this paper is to present these new features and to compare the results obtained by the citizens with authoritative LUCAS data from 2018 in terms of LULC and change in LC. We also compared the results between the FotoQuest campaigns in 2015 and 2018 and found a significant improvement in 2018, i.e., a much higher match of LC between FotoQuest Go Europe and LUCAS. Finally, we present the results from a user survey to discuss challenges encountered during the campaign and what further improvements could be made in the future, including better in-app navigation and offline maps, making FotoQuest a model for enabling the collection of large amounts of land cover data at a low cost.

Analysis of the hourly Canadian Prairie data for the past 60 years has transformed our quantitative understanding of land-atmosphere-cloud coupling. The key reason is that trained observers made hourly estimates of opaque cloud fraction that obscures the sun, moon or stars, following the same protocol for 60 years at all stations. These 24 daily estimates of opaque cloud data are of sufficient quality that they can be calibrated against Baseline Surface Radiation Network data to give the climatology of the daily short-wave, longwave and total cloud forcing (SWCF, LWCF and CF). This key radiative forcing has not been available previously for climate datasets. Net cloud radiative forcing reverses sign from negative in the warm season to positive in the cold season, when reflective snow reduces the negative SWCF below the positive LWCF. This in turn leads to a large climate discontinuity with snow cover, with a systematic cooling of 10°C or more with snow cover. In addition, snow cover transforms the coupling between cloud cover and the diurnal range of temperature. In the warm season, maximum temperature increases with decreasing cloud, while minimum temperature barely changes; while in the cold season with snow cover, maximum temperature decreases with decreasing cloud and minimum temperature decreases even more. In the warm season, the diurnal ranges of temperature, relative humidity, equivalent potential temperature and the pressure height of the lifting condensation level are all tightly coupled to opaque cloud cover. Given over 600 station-years of hourly data, we are able to extract, perhaps for the first time, the coupling between cloud forcing and the warm season imbalance of the diurnal cycle; which changes monotonically from a warming and drying under clear skies to a cooling and moistening under cloudy skies with precipitation. Because we have the daily cloud radiative forci, which is large, we are able to show that the memory of water storage anomalies, from precipitation and the snowpack, goes back many months. The spring climatology shows the memory of snowfall back through the entire winter, and the memory in summer goes back to the months of snowmelt. Lagged precipitation anomalies modify the thermodynamic coupling of the diurnal cycle to the cloud forcing, and shift the diurnal cycle of mixing ratio which has a double peak. The seasonal extraction of the surface total water storage is a large damping of the interannual variability of precipitation anomalies in the growing season. The large land-use change from summer fallow to intensive cropping, which peaked in the early 1990s, has led to a coupled climate response that has cooled and moistened the growing season, lowering cloud-base, increasing equivalent potential temperature, and increasing precipitation. We show a simplified energy balance of the Prairies during the growing season and its dependence on reflective cloud.

In urban area, one of the great problem is the rise of temperature, which leads to form the urban heat island effect. This paper refers to the trend of the urban surface temperature extracted from the Landsat images from which to consider changes in the formation of surface urban heat island for the north of Ho Chi Minh city in period 1995-2015. Research has identified land surface temperature from thermal infrared band, according to the ability of the surface emission based on characteristics of normalized difference vegetation index NDVI. The results showed that temperature fluctuated over the city with a growing trend and the gradual expansion of the area of the high-temperature zone towards the suburbs. Within 20 years, the trend of the formation of surface urban heat island with two typical locations showed a clear difference between the surface temperature of urban areas and rural areas with space expansion of heat island in 4 times in 2015 compared to 1995. An extreme heat island located in the inner city has an area of approximately 18% compared to the total area of the region. Since then, the solution to reduce the impact of urban heat island has been proposed, in order to protect the urban environment and the lives of residents in Ho Chi Minh City becoming better

The abilities of quantitative description of noise are restricted due to its origin and only the statistical and spectral analysis methods can be applied while an exact time evolution cannot be defined or predicted. It emphasizes the challenges faced in many applications including communication systems where noise can play, on one hand, a vital role impacting signal-to-noise ratio but possessing, on the other hand, unique properties such as infinite entropy (infinite information capacity), exponentially decaying correlation function and so on. Despite the deterministic nature of chaotic systems, the predictability of chaotic signals is limited for a short time window putting them close to random noise. In this article, we propose and experimentally verify an approach to achieve Gaussian-distributed chaotic signals by processing the outputs of chaotic systems. The mathematical criteria, on which the main idea of the study is based on, is the Central Limit Theorem which states that the sum of a large number of independent random variables with similar variances approaches a Gaussian distribution. The study involves more than 40 mostly three-dimensional continuous-time chaotic systems (Chua’s, Lorenz’s, Sprott’s, memristor-based, etc.) whose output signals are analyzed according to criteria that encompass the probability density functions of a chaotic signal itself and its envelope and phase, statistical and entropy-based metrics such as skewness, kurtosis, and entropy power. We found that two chaotic signals of Chua’s and Lorenz’s systems exhibited superior performance across the chosen metrics. Furthermore, our focus extended to determining the minimum number of independent chaotic signals necessary to yield a Gaussian-distributed combined signal. The analytic and experimental results indicate that the sum of at least three non-Gaussian chaotic signals closely approximates Gaussian distribution. It allows generation of reproducible Gaussian-distributed deterministic chaos by modeling simple chaotic systems.

Central Asian countries are the core area of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, as part of the former Soviet Union, we know very little about the urbanization processes in these countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Here, were used land-cover type data, vegetation index data, and grided population data to quantify the urban expansion, urban population changes, and urban environment changes across cities in Central Asia from 2000 to 2020, and took Xinjiang, China as a reference. We found that the urbanization in the study area was uneven. Specifically, the urban expansion in Xinjiang, China and Kazakhstan was faster than in the other countries in the study area. Due to rapid urban expansion, the urban population density in Xinjiang, China decreased from 2000 to 2020, but rapid urban population growth was maintained. Consequently, the pressure of the urban population growth in Xinjiang, China was less than that in the other countries of Central Asia. On average, more than 35% of the urban built-up areas underwent significant greening in Xinjiang, China and more than 3.63 million residents directly benefited from the increase in urban greenness. Although the urban greenness in Xinjiang increased significantly, the overall greenness was still lower than in most cities in Central Asia. In the future, the cities in Xinjiang, China should continue to promote the construction of urban ecological civilization and strengthen their role as a link in the Belt and Road Initiative.

Primary central nervous system and brain tumors are one of the global burdens that are continuously increasing in cases and requiring more treatment options. Surgery has been the leading treatment option for tumors, however, the localization of the tumor and its infiltrating nature make this option challenging. DNA microarray expression profiles of different CNS tumors provide insight into potential biomarkers for identifying different tumor types and subtypes. Here, we utilized the differentially expressed genes common in four expression profiles, GSE66354, GSE68848, GSE74195, and GSE43290 to reconstruct the gene co-expression network. In this study, we were able to identify preserved cluster genes, hub genes, co-regulating transcription factors, miRNA families, and candidate repurposed drugs. Fourteen identified hub genes, which were, CACNA1A, DNM1, GABRA1, GRIA2, MAPT, SLC17A7, SNAP25, SNAP91, STXBP1, SYT1, COL1A1, COL6A2, FBN2, and FN1 appeared to play a role in tumor progression and may serve as drug targets. We also reported the DEGs in each tumor type, which were ATRT, EPN, PA, MED, PNET, MEN, ACM, ODG, and GBM. Five identified miRNA families, which were, let-7 family, mir-124 family, mir-1 family, mir-103 family, and mir-27 family described in the literature to have tumor-suppressing characteristics. Drug-gene and drug-transcription factor network revealed 32 candidate repurposed drugs and 13 were validated through connectivity map analysis. Here, two main repurposed drugs fit the regulatory requirement for gene interaction, these were, quercetin and vorinostat. Future validation in experimental studies may utilize the future use of the candidate repurposed drugs. Our study provides insights into drug repurposing prospects and understanding tumor expressions.

This study examines the geopolitical dynamics of water conflicts in Central Asia, with a specific focus on Uzbekistan and its neighbors. Drawing upon a mixed methods approach within the framework of political geography, the research investigates the interactions among regional nations and the implications of population growth, agricultural industrialization, and economic competition, which heavily rely on shared irrigation systems and watersheds. The study establishes clear research objectives aimed at evaluating the water crisis in the region, addressing challenges in water management, and analyzing contentious issues. By uncovering historical and contemporary factors influencing water conflicts, regional power dynamics, and the complexities of water governance, the study highlights the potential for conflict, regional instability, and disruptions to peace resulting from population growth and economic competition within shared watersheds. The study concludes by providing recommendations to enhance regional cooperation, promote sustainable water management, and foster peacebuilding efforts. These recommendations draw on “soft power theory” and advocate for collaborative approaches. The findings of this research offer valuable insights for policymakers, researchers, and stakeholders involved in water management and regional cooperation amid evolving geopolitical challenges. By contributing to informed decision-making and promoting strategies for sustainable development in the region, this study aims to support efforts toward effective water resource management and long-term stability in Central Asia. The implications of this research extend beyond the immediate region, serving as a reference for other areas facing similar water-related conflicts and providing a foundation for future studies in the field of geography.

This study explores the geopolitical dynamics of water conflicts in Central Asia, focusing on Uzbekistan and its neighboring countries. Using a mixed methods approach within the framework of political geography, the research analyzes interactions among regional countries and the implications of population growth, agricultural industrialization, and economic competition, which heavily rely on shared irrigation systems and watersheds. It establishes research objectives, evaluates the water crisis, addresses challenges in water management, and examines contentious issues like hydropower, resource hegemony, and ethnic conflict. Also, the study uncovers historical and contemporary factors influencing water conflicts, regional power dynamics, and the complexities of water governance. The findings highlight the potential for conflict, regional instability, and disruptions to peace resulting from population growth and economic competition within shared watersheds. The study concludes with recommendations to enhance regional cooperation, sustainable water management, and peacebuilding, drawing on soft power theory and advocating for collaborative approaches. This research provides valuable insights for policymakers, researchers, and stakeholders involved in water management and regional cooperation amid evolving geopolitical challenges, contributing to informed decision-making, and promoting strategies for sustainable development in the region.

Although, central venous pressure (CVP) is among the most frequent estimated hemodynamic parameters in the critically ill setting, extremely little is known on how intensive care unit (ICU) nurses use this index in their decision-making process. The purpose of the study was to develop a new questionnaire for accessing how ICU nurses use CVP measurements to address patients’ he-modynamics investigating its validity and reliability. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 120 ICU nurses from four ICUs of Greece. Based on a comprehensive literature review and the evaluation of a five-experts panel a new questionnaire, named “CVP-Score”, was created having 8 items. The construct validity and the reliability of the questionnaire were examined. The half of the study participants’ (51.7%) was working at a specialized ICU, and they had a mean [±Standard Deviation (SD)] ICU experience of 13(±7.1) years. The estimated construct validity of the new-developed tool was acceptable, while the internal consistency reliability as measured by Cronbach alpha was excellent (0.901). CVP Score had acceptable test-retest reliability (r=0.996, p<0.001) and split-half reliability (0.855). CVP Score is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring how critical care nurses use CVP measurements in their decision-making process.

Agricultural wastes have posed as a treat to the environment over the years and they are found in large quantities due to domestic and industrial utilization of such materials in under developed and developing countries. The inability to recycle this waste has led to researches on how to use them in carrying out productive industrial activities. The aim of this study is to use Central Composite Design (CCD) to optimize the bleaching effects by snail shell as adsorbents on crude palm oil. The predictive ability of the model was close to accurate using MINITAB 19 software with the design application for the process simulation for % FFA yield to have 75.856% for experimental and 77.587% for predicted yield with just 1.731% residual. The saponification value increased with adsorption, and it indicates that palm oil can be used for soap making.

The worldwide number of migrants has had a rapid increase during the last fifteen years. Despite the extensive research studies that elucidate the increase in migrants' recipient countries, we know little about the relationship between the climate factors and human mobility in the countries of origin. Hence, this study focuses on the effects of weather and the propensity of individuals to leave a territory by measuring the importance of rain precipitation or the lack of it in one of the critical food corridors of Central America, formed by El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. To study the mobility process, we develop a stochastic frontier model; the main result shows a greater propensity to migrate when there is a significant drought event in the place of origin. Some other factors that motivate people to leave their homeland are the effect of other climate events measured through the control system (ENSO), homicide levels, economic performance, and exchange rate. The findings allow differentiating between drought and excess precipitation on a population and mobility to other territories. In addition, these results permit us to derive observable implications of the different effects of flooding and drought and create public policies of prevention, mitigation, and resilience.

According to the World Health Organization 94% of global malaria cases and 94% of global malaria deaths have been reported from Africa. Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine the exact prevalence of disease in some African countries due to a large number of asymptomatic cases. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of malaria infections in seemingly healthy children living in the Central African Republic (CAR). CareStartTM Malaria HRP2 Pf Ag RDT targeting Plasmodium falciparum was used to test a group of 500 asymptomatic children aged 1-15 years old (330 settled Bantu and 170 semi-nomadic BaAka Pygmies) inhabiting the villages in the Dzanga Sangha region (south-west CAR) in March 2020. 32.4% of asymptomatic Bantu and 40.6% of asymptomatic Pygmy children had a positive result of malaria RDT. The mean age of the study participants with RDT (+) was 8.7 in Bantu and 7.0 years in Pygmies; the mean body temperature was 36.8oC in both groups; the mean haemoglobin level was 10.6 g/dL and 10.1 g/dL, respectively. Our findings allowed us to demonstrate the high prevalence of asymptomatic malaria infections in south-west CAR. RDTs seem to be a useful tool for the detection of Plasmodium falciparum in areas with limited possibilities of using other diagnostic methods, such as light microscopy and molecular biology.

With confirmed COVID-19 cases surpassing the 8.5 million mark around the globe, there is an imperative need to deepen the efforts from the international scientific community to gain comprehensive understanding of SARS-CoV-2. Although the main clinical manifestations are associated with respiratory or intestinal symptoms, reports of specific and non-specific neurological signs and symptoms, both at presentation or during the course of the acute phase, are increasing. Approximately 25-40% of the patients present neurological symptoms. The etiology of these neurological manifestations remains obscure, and probably involves several direct pathways, not excluding the direct entry of the virus to the Central Nervous System (CNS) through the olfactory epithelium, circumventricular organs, or disrupted blood-brain barrier (BBB). Furthermore, neuroinflammation might occur in response to the strong systemic cytokine storm described for COVID-19, or due to dysregulation of the CNS angiotensin system. Descriptions of neurological manifestations in patients in the previous coronavirus (CoV) outbreaks have been numerous for the SARS-CoV and lesser for MERS-CoV. Strong evidence from patients and experimental models suggests that some human variants of CoV have the ability to reach the CNS and that neurons, astrocytes and/or microglia can be target cells for CoV. A growing body of evidence shows that astrocytes and microglia have a major role in neuroinflammation, responding to local CNS inflammation and/or to dysbalanced peripheral inflammation. This is another potential mechanism for SARS-CoV-2 damage to the CNS. In this work we will summarize the known neurological manifestations of SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, explore the potential role for astrocytes and microglia in the infection and neuroinflammation, and compare them with the previously described human and animal CoV that showed neurotropism. We also propose possible underlying mechanisms by focusing on our knowledge of glia, neurons, and their dynamic intricate communication with the immune system.

We describe a 90-year-old male presenting with disequilibrium, loss of balance and difficulty walking for three days prior to initial presentation. Interestingly, he denied cough, fever or dyspnea prior to arrival. Over the course of 48 hours, the patient developed acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) requiring intubation, diagnosed with COVID-19 infection and was treated in the intensive care unit where he died. Since the initial cases in Wuhan China in Dec 2019, the medical and epidemiological communities have learned much about the presenting features, symptomatology, epidemiology, transmission and common physical, laboratory and radiological findings of this disease. Although common symptoms are already established, it is very important to learn and record atypical symptoms or presentations of this highly contagious disease. By doing so, we will be able to recognize earlier atypical symptoms and prevent the environmental exposure to Health care workers and future patients as well. We report that Central disequilibrium may be such as initial presenting sign and symptom of impending respiratory failure from SARS-CoV-2 virus. These atypical findings such as presyncope may precede common respiratory complications of SARS-CoV-2.

Cameroon territory is experiencing significant land use and land cover (LULC) changes since its independence in 1960. But the main relevant impacts are recorded since 1990 due to intensification of agricultural activities and urbanization. LULC effects and dynamics vary from one region to another according to the type of vegetation cover and activities. Using remote sensing, GIS and subsidiary data, this paper attempted to model the land use and land cover (LULC) change in the Centre Region of Cameroon that host Yaoundé metropolis. The rapid expansion of the city of Yaoundé drives to the land conversion with farmland intensification and forest depletion accelerating the rate at which land use and land cover (LULC) transformations take place. This study aims at assessing the impacts of both agriculture and urbanization on the LULC change in the Centre Region of Cameroon. A detailed LULC map from MAPBOX high resolution images and three LULC maps were produced from Landsat TM-OLI images (1984-2015). A maximum likelihood classification techniques using ERDAS Imagine, showed forest decline with a total loss of 54% in thirty years. Also, Landsat and MAPBOX images to which we added 1951 aerial photograph and SPOT 6 (2006) were used to analyse urban growth in the city of Yaoundé. The results show a remarkable urban spatial spread of the metropolis between 1951 and 2015, with a peak in 2000. Images processing enabled us to analyse the long term dynamics of LULC change since the 1950s in this Region using ArcGIS & QGIS software’s. Based on this dynamic, a LULC projection map was produced using Markov model on IDRISI Selva, demonstrating the decrease of the dense forest (45% in 2015 to 0.25% in 2050). It was estimated that by 2050, the entire dense forest can be depleted if nothing is done, while only 12.67% of the secondary forest would remain in the Region. Such a projected map is very useful to decision makers for council development and urban planning. This effective forest depletion ties with the hypothesis that urbanization of Yaoundé and its secondary surrounding satellite cities (within a radius of 30-100km) is a veritable driving force of deforestation.

The main central goal and statistical power of any statistical tool is to present the reader about the level, degree and strength of variations within or between datasets in a clear and precise interpretation that allows a researcher to make a rational and empirical conclusion. The current tools used for measure of dispersion have been challenged with some limitations. A new novel approach, called optinalytic (statistical) mirroring is proposed in this article to address some of the limitations other measure of dispersion methods have failed to solve and resolve. An optinalytic (statistical) mirrors are designed sequence images on which a sequence or set of sequences can optinalytically and intermetrically reflects to give an inferential information about their comparisons (similarity and dissimilarity). Method validation and comparisons with some most important tools of dispersion measures (e.g: variance, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, variance-to-mean ratio) was established to assess the suitability of the new proposal as an alternative measure of dispersion using different sets of logically generated univariate sequences with different problems and complications. The results of comparison shows that optinalytic (statistical) mirroring is more resistant to extreme outliers, more inferential and works efficiently with negative values with a very meaningful interpretation of result to the common understanding of a non-expert of statistics, which all other methods cannot provide.

The function of sleep in mammal and other vertebrates is one of the great mysteries of biology. Many hypotheses have been proposed, but few of these have made even the slightest attempt to explain the essence of sleep - the uncompromising need for reversible unconsciousness. During sleep, epiphenomena - often of a somatic character - occur, but these cannot explain the core function of sleep. One answer could be hidden in the observations made for long periods of time of the function of the central nervous system (CNS). The CNS is faced with conflicting requirements on stability and excitability. A high level of excitability is desirable, and is also a prerequisite for sensitivity and quick reaction times; however, it can also lead to instability and the risk of feedback, with life-threatening epileptic seizures. Activity-dependent negative feedback in neuronal excitability improves stability in the short term, but not to the degree that is required. A hypothesis is presented here demonstrating how calibration of individual neurons - an activity which occurs only during sleep - can establish the balanced and highest possible excitability while also preserving stability in the CNS. One example of a possible mechanism is the observation of slow oscillations in EEGs made on birds and mammals during slow wave sleep. Calibration to a genetically determined level of excitability could take place in individual neurons during the slow oscillation, so that action potentials are generated during the oscillations “up-phase”. This can only take place offline, which explains the need for sleep. The hypothesis can explain phenomena such as the need for unconsciousness during sleep, with the disconnection of sensory stimuli, slow EEG oscillations, the relationship of sleep and epilepsy, age, the effects of sleep on neuronal firing rate and the effects of sleep deprivation and sleep homeostasis. This is with regard primarily to mammals, including humans, but also all other vertebrates.

In recent years, many libraries and archives have started digitizing their collections thus making maps by Indigenous peoples more easily available for scholars to study. While a number of these maps were discussed by G. Malcolm Lewis in the History of Cartography series (volume 2, book 3, Chapter 4: 1984), more have since been found and disseminated. These maps are critical in understanding the historic and current land tenure of Indigenous groups. Further, Indigenous claims to land can be seen in their connections via toponymy. European concepts of territory and political boundaries did not coincide with First Nation/American Indian views resulting in the mistaken view that Natives did not have formal concepts of their territories. Further, Tribes/First Nations with cross-border territory have special jurisdictional problems. This paper will illustrate how many Native residents were very spatially cognizant of their own lands, as well as neighboring nations’ lands, overlaps between groups, hunting territories, populations, and trade networks. Currently, the Sinixt First Nation provides a perfect example of how an Aboriginal people are inputting and using a GIS representation of their territory with proper toponymy and use areas.

Indonesia has a large area of degraded land, i.e. 30 million ha, which could potentially be utilized for biofuel plantations. The leguminous tree pongamia (Pongamia pinnata syn. Milettia pinnata) could be utilized to produce biofuel while restoring degraded land. Here, we explore the potential of pongamia as a source of biofuel and for restoring degraded land in Indonesia. Pongamia occurs across Indonesia, in Sumatra, Java, Bali, West Nusa Tenggara and Maluku. It grows to a height of 15–20 m and can grow in a range of environmental conditions. Its seeds can generate up to 40% crude oil by weight. It can help to restore degraded land and improve soil properties. Pongamia also provides wood, fodder, medicine, fertilizer and biogas. Therefore, as a multipurpose species, pongamia holds great potential to combat Indonesia’s energy crisis and to restore much of the degraded land.

The natural and man-made landscape settings in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province of Northern Pakistan have significantly changed in the last decade due to increasing demands of urbanized populace, migration, two major natural disasters, and climate change. The aim of this study is to analyze land possession, income and land-use diversification of KPK administered Charsadda district. Field data is collected through a sample survey. Furthermore, freely available Landsat 7 satellite images are used to classify land-use classes (e.g. vegetation, built-up) for two different years (e.g. 2005 and 2017) for cross-verification and comparison. The highest 45% of 80% land-owners occupy land-area between 1-10 hectares. Annually, the highest 57.5% of the total farmers / employed in-habitants of surveyed regions earn more than Rs. 100,000 or ~ $ 970 from agriculture activities. About 41.9% land-area covered by agricultural-land is transformed into built-up area since 2007, which is attributed to the increasing demand for buildings and commercial markets. The highest diversification is reported in Naguman area of Charsadda district followed by Rajjar and Niami. Population growth and huge migration of displaced persons from neighboring tribal areas are likely to be few factors which contributed to such a drastic change in land-use pattern since 2007 to 2017. Urgent attention of the policy makers, agricultural experts and society is required to minimize land degradation and to thwart further agricultural-land loss.

The natural and man-made landscape settings in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province of Northern Pakistan have significantly changed in the last decade due to increasing demands of urbanized populace, migration, two major natural disasters, and climate change. The aim of this study is to analyze land possession, income and land-use diversification of KPK administered Charsadda district. Field data is collected through a sample survey. Furthermore, freely available Landsat 7 satellite images are used to classify land-use classes (e.g., vegetation, built-up) for two different years (e.g., 2005 and 2017) for cross-verification and comparison. The highest 45% of 80% land-owners occupy land-area between 1–10 hectares. Annually, the highest 57.5% of the total farmers / employed in-habitants of surveyed regions earn more than Rs. 100,000 or ~$970 from agriculture activities. About 41.9% land-area covered by agricultural-land is transformed into built-up area since 2007, which is attributed to the increasing demand for buildings and commercial markets. The highest diversification is reported in Naguman area of Charsadda district followed by Rajjar and Niami. Population growth and huge migration of displaced persons from neighboring tribal areas are likely to be few factors which contributed to such a drastic change in land-use pattern since 2007 to 2017. Urgent attention of the policy makers, agricultural experts and society is required to minimize land degradation and to thwart further agricultural-land loss.

Land-use planning plays an important role in agricultural development, however it lacks tools to support planner in proposing land-use planning solutions especially, under saltwater intrusion condition in the coastal regions. This study aims to apply optimization in analyzing land-use solutions for agricultural land-use planning. In which a multi-objective optimization model is developed to optimize land-use area including land-use allocation taking into account socio-economic and environmental factors. The model has been applied in three districts of Soc Trang province, Vietnam (Long Phu, My Xuyen and Tran De) representing three ecological regions including salt water, brackish water and freshwater in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. The results showed that two multi-objective optimization scenarios (in terms of profit, labor, environment benefits and risk reduction) have been implemented: (i) Multi-objective optimization of agricultural land-use until 2030 under normal conditions; (ii) Optimizing agricultural land-use until 2030 under climate change conditions similar to the 2016 drought and saltwater intrusion phenomenon in the Mekong Delta. The results showed that the second scenario is the option considered for implementing land-use plan thanks to the balance between good profits and minimizing economic and environmental risk. The land allocation was carried out taking into account household economic, the influence of adjacent production types, local traffic and canal systems factors to allocate optimal land-use areas. The combination of land-use optimization and spatial allocation process can help planners improve the quality of agricultural land-use planning.