Social Consequences of Vehicle Exhaust: A Case Study in Poltava, Ukraine

Intensive urbanization processes, an increase in the number of urban population and transport have led to an increase in the technogenic load on the environment, in particular on the atmospheric air. Among a significant number of sources of environmental pollution, roads and vehicles pose a significant threat. Motor vehicles cause irreparable harm to human health and the environment. Regular assessment of the quality of atmospheric air in residential areas of cities with heavy traffic to establish the level of potential risk to public health is an urgent task. The study purpose is the social consequences of transport emissions; determination of the anthropogenic load on the air and of the indicator of public health risk from the vehicle exhaust impact. The study was carried out on the example of the residential and the most loaded transport area of Poltava (Ukraine). The study demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of the urban population lives in areas where health risk indicators exceed permissible norms. Since the elderly, children and students are most often present on the street and near houses, they are at the greatest risk. The same applies to vehicle drivers who are often idle in "traffic jams". In turn, such high levels of air pollution pose even greater risks to public health, in particular to the development of respiratory diseases. In the study of the peculiarities of Ukrainian legislation in this area, it was established that the mechanism for collecting information about the quality of the environment, however, there is no requirement to inform the population about it.

Occurrence of Viscum album subsp. album L. on Laburnum anagyroides Medik. in Toruń, Poland

This short note presents two localities of the common mistletoe growing on the common laburnum found in central Poland in the city of Toruń in 2020. The common laburnum is one of the rare hosts of this recently rapidly spreading semi-parasite. The presented relationship between the two species has so far been reported in only several publications, mostly from the late 19th and early 20th century.

Presence of native trees in rural tribal homegardens doesn’t necessarily mean conservation: A case study from Mishmi belt of Arunachal Pradesh, India

Increasing human population and various developmental activities in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which lies in one of the most bio-diverse regions of the world, has caused large-scale deforestation, pushing a large number of native tree species to the serious verge of elimination from their native forest. In such tribal-dominated landscapes around the world, myriads of studies have emphasized the potential of homegardens as a site for local biodiversity conservation as they are known to have a huge Indigenous Knowledge System (IKS) on the use of diverse native floras. The present study was, therefore, undertaken to investigate if the native communities of the Mishmi tribe conserved native indigenous tree species in their homegardens and if they are grown then what is the future of these tree species? It was hypothesized that harbouring greater indigenous knowledge implies greater domestication of tree species in their homegardens. Altogether, 103 species of trees were recorded from 243 homegardens in the present study. Although the native species constituted more than half of the species diversity, they, however, greatly lagged in all other aspects of the study such as population share, frequency distribution and regeneration potential. Native tree species constituted just 37% of the total tree population. Only two species, Bauhinia variegata L. and Alnus nepalensis D. Don, made up the major bulk of the native population. In terms of frequency distribution, only a handful of native species maintained a decent presence in the homegardens. Most of the native species grew naturally in unmanaged homegardens. The regeneration potential of all native species was very poor, including B. variegata. The study demonstrates that out of the 76 native species recorded from the region, only 7 species can rightfully be regarded as being domesticated by virtue of IKS of the Mishmi community. Our study concludes that the native species do exist in large number in homegardens of the rural tribal areas, but most of the native wild species exist in the rural homegardens not because they are planted/preferred but because they just happen to randomly grow there since most of the homegardens of tribal household are unmanaged or poorly managed, thereby giving way to wild species to germinate, at least until the owner decides to weed them out.

Biofortification of Oryza sativa L. with agri-food waste to improve the dietary value of crops

Due to the low dietary value of crops, Zn-deficient soils and insufficient intake of other minerals, soil fortification is often necessary. Fortification is defined as the addition of one or more crucial nutrients to a food to reduce poverty in a population or specific population groups. Currently available technologies for rice fortification with vitamins and minerals are high-energy and time-consuming methods. Therefore, mineral enrichment of crops has received much attention from scientists. The originality of the current study consists in determining the optimal use of hard hazelnut shells, orange peel and rice husks for enrichment of paddy soil and simultaneous immobilization of heavy metals. The combination of the identified wastes, namely hazelnut shells, orange peel and rice husks, showed good potential for immobilization/elimination or reduction of heavy metals to less than permissible limits. Therefore, the use of this combination could be an effective strategy to both introduce new micronutrients into rice grain and remove heavy metals.

The effectiveness of acaricidic drugs based on herbal raw material

Limitation the number of ixodes ticks is one of the most important tasks of modern science and requires the search for new, highly effective and environmentally hazardous acaricides, so our experiment was aimed at identifying acaricidal properties of essential oils and their individual active components in the population of ixodes ticks in Zaporizhzhia region. The study of acaricidal properties of essential oils was performed in the laboratory conditions. Tampons with wool were soaked in various concentrations of 0.5%, 1%, 3%, 5% and 10% aqueous emulsion of essential oils such as Caryophyllus floris aetheroleum and Limonis aetheroleum, and essential oils of Thymus serpyllum L., Рinus sylvestris L., Salvia officinalis L., Mentha x piperita L. and Eucalyptus viminalis Labill. The essential oils had a significant effect on the lifespan of adult ticks. The results showed the acaricidal effect of Thymus serpyllum essential oils. When searching the acaricidal and repellent properties of individual essential oils components thymole, menthol and citral showed the high activity as acaricides. In the same time, eugenol and borneol proved the effectiveness as repellent. Our research schowed that essential oils are promising as alternative methods of controlling the number of Ixodes ticks in areas where there are conditions for infection with tick infections.

Progeny testing of Pinus sylvestris L. of seed orchard in different environmental conditions

Evaluation of the progeny test of plus trees of Scots pine - a necessary condition for determining the prospects the use of improved seeds in different environmental conditions. The paper presents the results of the study of the progeny test of groups of clones of plus trees of Scots pine selected according to certain characteristics in Northern Steppe and South Forest-Steppe of Ukraine. Analysis of results showed: a significant improvement in the growth rates of the all testing progenies of seed orchard in the better climatic and soil conditions of South Forest-Steppe between the ages of 3 and 10 years. At the same time 4 out of 5 studied progenies worsened their growth indicators relative to local control at the age of 3 to 26 years in less optimal climatic and soil conditions of Northern Steppe. The leader in the steppe conditions was the progeny of a fraction of three clones, which had the highest seed productivity. The selection of the fastest growing clones and the rejection of the slowest growing ones had a positive effect on the growth of progenies of seed orchards at both test points.

Resources and dynamics of halophytes in agricultural and industrial landscapes of the western part of Kujawy, Central Poland

This article is dedicated to the memoryof tireless researcher of saline vegetation in KujawyProfessor Jadwiga Wilkoń-Michalska (1921–2005) This paper presents the status and comparison of the halophytic flora on two research plots in the Upper Noteć catchment, distinguished by the intensity of human activity and the type of landscape: 1 – Lake Gopło (G) and 2 – the area located by the Noteć Canal (N) in the western part of the Kujawy region. Fishery on the twelfth largest lake in Poland and agriculture are the main forms of economy in the former plot. A significant part of this plot is a Natura 2000 site, legally protected in compliance with the EU directives. The development of halophytes, mainly facultative ones, in the G plot is conditioned by natural factors, i.e. the inflow of saline groundwater. In the N plot, the agricultural landscape was transformed into the industrial and urbanised landscape following the years of development of two soda factories and the municipal and housing infrastructure of the nearby town of Inowrocław. Strong human impact led to the fact that already several decades ago this plot was classified as one of the most ecologically endangered areas in Poland. The abundance of halophytes in the N plot, including many obligatory ones, is related to the geomorphology of the area and the associated pattern of salt deposit leaching, as well as brine exploitation and soda industry. The species composition and population resources of individual halophyte species at 65 sites on the G plot and 90 sites on the N plot were compared using numerical classification methods. The distribution of the sites and their species richness are presented on the maps of the study area. The results of our analysis were compared with the results of observations made by other authors in the same area at different times. Based on the comparative analysis, we have arrived at conclusions regarding the protection of halophytes and the anticipated effects of technological changes in agriculture, salt and soda industry, as well as spatial management. We believe that the data provided in the tables and the resulting maps will constitute reference points for assessing the effectiveness of undertaken conservation recommendations and the correctness of scenarios formulated by different authors for the development of natural systems in the study area.

Rainfall Prediction using Artificial Neural Network in Semi-Arid mountainous region, Saudi Arabia

Rainfall prediction using Artificial Intelligence technique is gaining attention nowadays. Semi-arid region receives rainfall below potential evapotranspiration but more than arid region. However, in mountainous semi-arid region high rainfall intensity makes it highly variable. This renders rainfall prediction difficult by applying normal techniques and calls for data pre-processing. This study presents rainfall prediction in semi-arid mountainous region of Abha, KSA. The study adopted Moving Average (Method) for data pre-processing based on 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, 5 years and 10 years. The Artificial Neural Network (ANN) was trained for a period of 1978-2016 rainfall data. The neural network was validated against the existing data of period 1997-2006. The trained neural network was used to predict for period of 2017-2025. The performance of the model was evaluated against AAE, MAE, RMSE, MASE and PP. The mean absolute error was observed least in 2 years moving average model. However, the most accurate prediction models were obtained from 2 years moving average and 5 year moving average. The study concludes that ANN coupled with MA have potential of predicting rainfall in Semi-Arid mountainous region.