scholarly journals Use of Aquatic Biota to Detect Ecological Changes in Freshwater: Current Status and Future Directions

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 1611
Author(s):  
José Maria Santos ◽  
Maria Teresa Ferreira

Freshwater ecosystems have been severely damaged worldwide by a multitude of human pressures, such as pollution, nutrient enrichment, damming or overexploitation, and this has been more intense over the past five decades. It is therefore important that the impacts of such stressors can be effectively detected, monitored and assessed in order to provide adequate legislative tools and to protect and restore freshwater ecosystems. The use of aquatic biota to detect, measure and track changes in the environment is often known as freshwater biomonitoring and is based on the premise that the presence or absence of biotic assemblages at a given site reflects its degree of environmental quality. For over a century, since the early pollution-oriented indicators, freshwater monitoring has been developing and testing progressively more complex indicator systems, and increasing the plethora of pressures addressed, using different biological groups, such as benthic macroinvertebrates, macrophytes, fish, phytoplankton and phytobenthos. There is an increasing demand for precision and accuracy in bioassessment. In this Special Issue, five high-quality papers were selected and are briefly presented herein, that cover a wide range of issues and spatial contexts relevant to freshwater biomonitoring.

Author(s):  
Anayatullah Khan ◽  
Anuradha Mishra ◽  
Syed Misbahul Hasan ◽  
Afreen Usmani ◽  
Mohd Ubaid ◽  
...  

Abstract Objectives The increasing demand for herbal drugs for the human application is causing a growing demand for the cultivation of Medicinal Plants. This demand has developed because of cost-effective, plant-derived products rather than commercially available synthetic drugs. Cucumis sativus Linn. (Ver. Kheera) is a vegetable climber, species belongs to family Cucurbitaceae This species has a wide range of medicinal and biological applications thanks to its richness in carbohydrate, proteins, minerals (calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc) and secondary metabolites like alkaloids, tannins, flavonoids, saponins, and phenolic compounds These phytoconstituents may be responsible for allied therapeutic application. So, C. sativus possess wider applications for preventing certain ailments. Content The literature in various national and international journals and reports pertaining to the medicinal and nutritional uses were reviewed. The result revealed the current therapeutic applications of C. sativus whole plants other than the nutritional value. C. sativus pharmacological action includes antioxidant, anti-diabetic, UV protectant, hepatoprotective, gastroprotective, anti-helminthic, wound healing, antimicrobial, and anticancer. So, it could be useful for both preventive and additive therapy along with modern medicine for the better management of certain disorders. Summary and Outlook This review furnishes updated information about the phytoconstituents and their medicinal applications so that it can pose a path for the young researchers to do future findings.


2007 ◽  
Vol 59 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 376-399
Author(s):  
Ivana Popovic-Petrovic

The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is one of the World Trade Organization's most important agreements. This accord is the first and only set of multilateral rules covering international trade in services. It is a framework for international trade in services and a legal basis for resolving conflicting national interests. For the past two decades, trade in services has grown faster than merchandise trade. Currently, they represent more than two thirds of the World Gross Domestic Product. As the term services covers a wide range of intangible and heterogeneous products and activities, there has been an increasing demand for detailed, relevant and internationally comparable statistical information on trade in services. In the last ten years, the share of transportation services in international trade in commercial services was steady and amounted to about one quarter.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
qahhar muhammad qadir ◽  
Alexander A. Kist ◽  
ZHONGWEI ZHANG

Transmission of video traffic over the Internet has grown exponentially in the past few years<br>with no sign of waning. This increasing demand for video services has changed user expectation of quality. Various mechanisms have been proposed to optimise the Quality of Experience (QoE) of end users’ video. Studying these approaches are necessary for new methods to be proposed or combination of existing ones to be tailored. We discuss challenges facing the optimisation of QoE for video traffic in this paper. It surveys and classifies these mechanisms based on their functions. The limitation of each of them is identified and future directions are highlighted.


Author(s):  
Qahhar Muhammad Qadir

Transmission of video traffic over the Internet has grown exponentially in the past few years with no sign of waning. This increasing demand for video services has changed user expectation of quality. Various mechanisms have been proposed to optimise Quality of Experience (QoE) of end user's video. Studying these approaches are necessary for new methods to be proposed or combination of existing ones to be tailored. We discuss challenges facing the optimisation of QoE for video traffic in this paper. It surveys and classifies these mechanisms based on their functions. The limitation of each of them is identified and future directions are highlighted.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hassan Sadozai ◽  
Dorsa Saeidi

Recent advances in nanomedicine have been studied in the veterinary field and have found a wide variety of applications. The past decade has witnessed a massive surge of research interest in liposomes for delivery of therapeutic substances in animals. Liposomes are nanosized phospholipid vesicles that can serve as delivery platforms for a wide range of substances. Liposomes are easily formulated, highly modifiable, and easily administered delivery platforms. They are biodegradable and nontoxic and have long in vivo circulation time. This review focuses on recent and ongoing research that may have relevance for veterinary medicine. By examining the recent developments in liposome-based therapeutics in animal cancers, vaccines, and analgesia, this review depicts the current significance and future directions of liposome-based delivery in veterinary medicine.


2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 767-795 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiaozhen Chen ◽  
Wenxuan Xu ◽  
Qingchun Ge

Abstract Forward osmosis (FO) has developed rapidly over the past decade. The development of draw solutes, a key component of FO processes, has also progressed remarkably. A wide range of synthetic draw solutes have been explored in recent years. Synthetic draw solutes exhibit superiority over the conventional draw solutes obtained commercially in terms of lower reverse solute fluxes and less energy consumption in draw solute recycling. However, there are still some big challenges for synthetic draw solutes, such as complicated synthetic procedures, low water fluxes, severe concentration polarization (CP) and decreased water recovery efficiency when recycled draw solutes are reused in FO. These challenges are also the current research focus on the exploration of novel draw solutes. This article aims to review the recent progress especially on synthetic draw solutes. Their design strategies, synthesis routes and FO performance are assessed. Some representative applications involving the synthetic draw solutes-facilitated FO processes are exemplified. The advantages and disadvantages of the existing synthetic draw solutions are evaluated. The challenges and future directions in exploring novel draw solutes are highlighted.


Biologia ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 72 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaroslav Stoklasa ◽  
Daniela Dobríková ◽  
Lucia Sochuliaková ◽  
Radovan Pipík ◽  
Ladislav Hamerlík

AbstractPaleolimnological research in the territory of Slovakia has relatively short history with the beginning in the 1990s primarily as a response to the ecological changes in mountain lakes due to air pollution and missing data from the pre-industrial period as well as a need to quantify anthropic impact on the landscape. In the present paper, we reviewed 53 publications, including research papers, monographs, conference abstracts and theses, dealing with aquatic proxies in Holocene lake sediments to identify (1) the location of surveyed sites, (2) proxies used, and (3) the object of the paleolimnological reconstructions. The vast majority (37) of the analysed paleolimnological localities (51) took place in the High Tatra Mountains, focusing on the alpine lakes of glacial origin. The most frequently used biological proxy was Chironomidae remains (44%). In contrast, Cladocera, Ostracoda, loss-on-ignition, molluscs and stable isotopes were used only in 10–12% of studies. Most studies (84%) focused on a simple ecological reconstruction of the past environment, and only 24% of the studies attempted to reconstruct specific ecological variables, properties and processes, such as acidification (10%), temperature (8%) and eutrophication (4%). Only 2% of the studies used molecular techniques. Sixteen out of the 51 cores analysed (i.e., 31%) were dated by radiometric methods. In the end of our review we pinpoint the weaknesses of the local paleolimnological research and sketch possible future directions.


Processes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 722
Author(s):  
Sai Kranthi Vanga ◽  
Jin Wang ◽  
Shesha Jayaram ◽  
Vijaya Raghavan

There is increasing demand among consumers for food products free of chemical preservatives, minimally processed and have fresh-like natural flavors. To meet these growing demands, the industries and researchers are finding alternative processing methods, which involve nonthermal methods to obtain a quality product that meets the consumer demands and adheres to the food safety protocols. In the past two decades’ various research groups have developed a wide range of nonthermal processing methods, of which few have shown potential in replacing the traditional thermal processing systems. Among all the methods, ultrasonication (US) and pulsed electric field (PEF) seem to be the most effective in attaining desirable food products. Several researchers have shown that these methods significantly affect various major and minor nutritional components present in food, including proteins and enzymes. In this review, we are going to discuss the effect of nonthermal methods on proteins, including enzymes. This review comprises results from the latest studies conducted from all over the world, which would help the research community and industry investigate the future pathway for nonthermal processing methods, especially in preserving the nutritional safety and integrity of the food.


Contact ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 251525642110344
Author(s):  
Yotam David ◽  
Inês G. Castro ◽  
Maya Schuldiner

Contact sites are areas of close apposition between two membranes that coordinate nonvesicular communication between organelles. Such interactions serve a wide range of cellular functions from regulating metabolic pathways to executing stress responses and coordinating organelle inheritance. The past decade has seen a dramatic increase in information on certain contact sites, mostly those involving the endoplasmic reticulum. However, despite its central role in the secretory pathway, the Golgi apparatus and its contact sites remain largely unexplored. In this review, we discuss the current knowledge of Golgi contact sites and share our thoughts as to why Golgi contact sites are understudied. We also highlight what exciting future directions may exist in this emerging field.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
qahhar muhammad qadir ◽  
Alexander A. Kist ◽  
ZHONGWEI ZHANG

Transmission of video traffic over the Internet has grown exponentially in the past few years<br>with no sign of waning. This increasing demand for video services has changed user expectation of quality. Various mechanisms have been proposed to optimise the Quality of Experience (QoE) of end users’ video. Studying these approaches are necessary for new methods to be proposed or combination of existing ones to be tailored. We discuss challenges facing the optimisation of QoE for video traffic in this paper. It surveys and classifies these mechanisms based on their functions. The limitation of each of them is identified and future directions are highlighted.


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