Hasil untuk "General. Including nature conservation, geographical distribution"

Geraldo Willson Fernandes, Gabriel Arvelino de Paula, Mariana G. Bender et al.

Brazil’s General Environmental Licensing Law (No. 15,190/2025) redefines environmental governance under the banner of “simplification” but effectively dismantles preventive safeguards. The law introduces self-declared licensing, automatic license renewals, and broad exemptions for agriculture and livestock, while restricting public participation. Although partial presidential vetoes removed some unconstitutional provisions, these vetoes may still be overturned by Congress. Key omissions, such as the absence of vetoes on Articles 7 and 9, preserve mechanisms that weaken oversight and accountability. Within Brazil’s decentralized system, where most authorizations are issued by state agencies, the law consolidates existing permissive practices and deepens regulatory asymmetry. This new framework lowers the national baseline for environmental protection, threatens biodiversity, and jeopardizes Brazil’s ability to meet international climate and biodiversity commitments. Instead of modernizing procedures or strengthening institutional capacity, the law normalizes shortcuts that externalize environmental costs and undermine democratic participation.

Aarish Shah Mohsin, Mohammed Tayyab Ilyas Khan, Mohammad Nadeem et al.

Vision-Language Models (VLMs) are known to inherit and amplify societal biases from their web-scale training data with Indian being particularly misrepresented. Existing fairness-aware datasets have significantly improved demographic balance across global race and gender groups, yet they continue to treat Indian as a single monolithic category. The oversimplification ignores the vast intra-national diversity across 28 states and 8 Union Territories of India and leads to representational and geographical bias. To address the limitation, we present IndicFairFace, a novel and balanced face dataset comprising 14,400 images representing geographical diversity of India. Images were sourced ethically from Wikimedia Commons and open-license web repositories and uniformly balanced across states and gender. Using IndicFairFace, we quantify intra-national geographical bias in prominent CLIP-based VLMs and reduce it using post-hoc Iterative Nullspace Projection debiasing approach. We also show that the adopted debiasing approach does not adversely impact the existing embedding space as the average drop in retrieval accuracy on benchmark datasets is less than 1.5 percent. Our work establishes IndicFairFace as the first benchmark to study geographical bias in VLMs for the Indian context.

Guo Zhong, Longwu Wang, Wei Liang

Egg color polymorphism and egg mimicry are important adaptations in the game process between hosts and brood parasites at the egg stage. The ability of hosts to recognize and reject parasitic eggs based on effective egg characteristics is a crucial factor in determining the outcome of this arms race. The evolution of linear markings on eggs has been identified in several parasitic systems of common cuckoos Cuculus canorus, yet little is known about the functional adaptation of this egg characteristic. Here, we examined the recognition and utilization methods of maculation signals of eggs in the common cuckoo hosts, south rock bunting Emberiza yunnanensis, which lays eggs with linear mimetic spots, and yellow‐throated bunting Emberiza elegans, which lays eggs with dotted mimetic spots. The results demonstrated that both species of bunting hosts show moderate recognition and rejection levels towards interspecific eggs (spotted versus streaked). Moreover, during recognition, they utilized the contrast between the maculation and the egg background rather than the contrast between the maculations themselves. Our study is the first to demonstrate that two species of open‐nesting buntings use achromatic contrast (not chromatic contrast) between pattern features and egg background color to identify and reject foreign eggs. However, whether other differences in pattern features, such as pattern density, distribution, and proportion are utilized by the hosts requires further verification.

Cedric Khayale, Erustus Kanga, Patrick Omondi et al.

The black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) experienced precipitous declines across Africa during the 1970s and 1980s, primarily driven by poaching. The decline was particularly severe for the eastern subspecies (D. b. michaeli). Kenya’s population, which once supported a significant proportion of the species, declined from approximately 20,000 to 370 individuals by 1989, at the time that the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) was established. Over the last three decades, considerable effort and resources have been deployed, and an enabling policy and legislative framework have been enacted to recover rhino populations. As a result, the declining trend has been reversed, and the number of indigenous black rhinos is increasing. Remarkable progress has been achieved through strategic interventions and population recovery initiatives, with Kenya’s black rhinos reaching a confirmed total of 1,059 individuals in 2024—marking a historic milestone. We document Kenya’s rhino conservation progression, including the current population status, challenges and future strategies aimed at supporting the long-term vision of achieving 2,000 individuals, thereby securing the future of D. b. michaeli.

Rodrigo A. Estévez, Natalio Godoy, Miguel Araya et al.

Abstract Marine recreational fisheries often lack necessary information to perform assessments and develop sustainable management strategies. In Chile, although reef‐fish fisheries have been signaled as overexploited, there are still no commercial or recreational regulations regarding bans, catch limits, or size limits. We implemented an expert elicitation protocol to propose management measures to regulate recreational reef‐fish harvests of 17 reef‐fish species. Sixteen experts estimated minimum legal sizes, temporal closures, and maximum number of individuals harvested per person per trip (known as “bag limits”). Experts also prioritized management measures for each of 17 reef‐fish species. Maximum number of individuals harvested per person per trip varied between 1 and 7. In addition, permanent bans were recommended for some species, such as acha (Medialuna ancietae), pejeperro (Semicossyphus darwini), and San Pedro (Oplegnathus insignis). We concluded that information gathered through expert elicitation can play a key role to inform data‐poor recreational fishery management. Expert elicitation protocols that include iterative process, based on individual estimates and an open expert discussion phase, provide the necessary enabling environment to identify a variety of management measures. While future challenges include the development of mechanisms to promote acceptability and compliance for recreational fisheries management, the approach presented here is important to initiate much needed discussions.

Yaamini R. Venkataraman, Amanda Shore, Sukanya Dayal et al.

IntroductionSeagrass meadows serve as an integral component of coastal ecosystems but are declining rapidly due to numerous anthropogenic stressors including climate change. Eelgrass wasting disease, caused by opportunistic Labyrinthula spp., is an increasing concern with rising seawater temperature. To better understand the host-pathogen interaction, we paired whole organism physiological assays with dual transcriptomic analysis of the infected host and parasite. MethodsEelgrass (Zostera marina) shoots were placed in one of two temperature treatments, 11° C or 18° C, acclimated for 10 days, and exposed to a waterborne inoculation containing infectious Labyrinthula zosterae (Lz) or sterile seawater. At two- and five-days post-exposure, pathogen load, visible disease signs, whole leaf phenolic content, and both host- and pathogen- transcriptomes were characterized. ResultsTwo days after exposure, more than 90% of plants had visible lesions and Lz DNA was detectable in 100% percent of sampled plants in the Lz exposed treatment. Concentrations of total phenolic compounds were lower after 5 days of combined exposure to warmer temperatures and Lz, but were unaffected in other treatments. Concentrations of condensed tannins were not affected by Lz or temperature, and did not change over time. Analysis of the eelgrass transcriptome revealed 540 differentially expressed genes in response to Lz exposure, but not temperature. Lz-exposed plants had gene expression patterns consistent with increased defense responses through altered regulation of phytohormone biosynthesis, stress response, and immune function pathways. Analysis of the pathogen transcriptome revealed up-regulation of genes potentially involved in breakdown of host defense, chemotaxis, phagocytosis, and metabolism. DiscussionThe lack of a significant temperature signal was unexpected but suggests a more pronounced physiological response to Lz infection as compared to temperature. Pre-acclimation of eelgrass plants to the temperature treatments may have contributed to the limited physiological responses to temperature. Collectively, these data characterize a widespread physiological response to pathogen attack and demonstrate the value of paired transcriptomics to understand infections in a host-pathogen system.

Xiruo Ding, Zhecheng Sheng, Brian Hur et al.

Foundation models are a current focus of attention in both industry and academia. While they have shown their capabilities in a variety of tasks, in-depth research is required to determine their robustness to distribution shift when used as a basis for supervised machine learning. This is especially important in the context of clinical data, with particular limitations related to data accessibility, lack of pretraining materials, and limited availability of high-quality annotations. In this work, we examine the stability of models based on representations from foundation models under distribution shift. We focus on confounding by provenance, a form of distribution shift that emerges in the context of multi-institutional datasets when there are differences in source-specific language use and class distributions. Using a sampling strategy that synthetically induces varying degrees of distribution shift, we evaluate the extent to which representations from foundation models result in predictions that are inherently robust to confounding by provenance. Additionally, we examine the effectiveness of a straightforward confounding adjustment method inspired by Pearl's conception of backdoor adjustment. Results indicate that while foundation models do show some out-of-the-box robustness to confounding-by-provenance related distribution shifts, this can be considerably improved through adjustment. These findings suggest a need for deliberate adjustment of predictive models using representations from foundation models in the context of source-specific distributional differences.

Eslam Gabreil, Haitao Wu, Haitao Wu et al.

In this study, a three-dimensional (3D) numerical model based on the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) approach was developed to simulate the near-shore current flows over a rough topographic surface in the coastal area, where the flows are shallow and demonstrate strong turbulent characteristics. The numerical program is based on the open-source code SPHysics (http://www.sphysics.org), and two major improvements are made to treat the turbulence and rough boundary effects: A modified sub-particle-scale (SPS) eddy viscosity model is developed to address the turbulence transfer of flows, and a drag force equation is included in the momentum equations to account for the influence of roughness element on the bed and lateral boundaries. The computed results of flow velocity, shear stress, and free surface characteristics are compared with the laboratory measurements for a variety of test conditions. It has shown that the present SPH model can accurately simulate 3D-free surface near-shore current flows over a realistic topography with roughness.

Xi-wen Xu, Xi-wen Xu, Zhangfan Chen et al.

Yu Huang, Xiyang Chen, Haoyue Shu et al.

Recently, the prevalence of hypertension has become a global challenge. Therefore, tremendous efforts have been made to identify and purify antihypertensive peptides (AHTPs) from food-derived proteins to aid the discovery of new hypotensive drugs with fewer side effects. In this study, we performed high-throughput prediction of AHTPs based on multi-omics data, providing an overview of AHTPs in the lined seahorse proteins and suggesting their potential application as bioactive agents to lower blood pressure. We identified 14,695 AHTP-derived genes in the lined seahorse, and most of them were supported by transcriptomic evidence, whereas only 495 genes were further detected by proteome sequencing. Among these predicted AHTP-derived genes, the longest titin had the most hits with 104 AHTPs, some of which were clustered in exon 158, 194, and 204. Another AHTP-rich group was in the collagen family, and four AHTP-rich collagens exhibited much higher transcription in the pouch than in other examined tissues, including brain, testis, and embryos. Additionally, antihypertensive triplets, comprised of the permutations of Gly, Pro, and Lys, prevailed in all collagen sequences due to the representative XaaYaaGly repeat units. In summary, our present findings provide a solid basis for understanding the abundance of various AHTPs in the lined seahorse as well as shed light on the development of antihypertensive products and drugs using seahorses as an important resource.

Longhe Yang, Fan Hu, Yajun Yan et al.

Microalgae extracts have a wide range of uses in the field of healthcare and nutrition. However, the use of microalgae extracts in anti-inflammatory properties and their mechanism of action have not yet been fully studied. Here, we show that extracts from Chlorella sp. WZ13 (CSE-WZ13) dose-dependently reduced nitrite production, inhibited the expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) protein, and decreased the production of the gene and inflammatory cytokines tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-6 (IL-6), in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated RAW264.7 cells. Using high-content imaging analysis, it was found that CSE-WZ13 inhibited the translocation of nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) from the cytoplasm to the nucleus. CSE-WZ13 also exerted anti-inflammatory effects in an ear edema mouse model induced by 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA). CSE-WZ13 inhibited edema by 36.17% and 25.66% at a dose of 0.3 and 0.1 mg/ear, respectively. Histological analysis showed that topical application of CSE-WZ13 decreased TPA-induced inflammatory cell infiltration. Our results indicate that CSE-WZ13 may be a useful candidate for the purpose of decreasing inflammation.

Moses Fayngold

Conservation laws are discussed in conjunction with quantum-mechanical indeterminacies of the corresponding observables. The considered examples show that the connections between energy and its indeterminacy may be quite intricate. The indeterminacies of the parts of a composite system may be correlated in such a way that the net value of the considered observable is definite. This may be the case with specific entangled superposition of eigenstates in a composite system. In some cases the fact of energy conservation cannot be convincingly established and generally the concept of conserving observable is not universally defined to embrace all possible situations under one rule. Keywords: energy, conservation, indeterminacy, photon

Jamie Behan, Bai Li, Yong Chen

The Gulf of Maine (GOM) is a highly complex environment and previous studies have suggested the need to account for spatial nonstationarity in species distribution models (SDMs) for the American lobster (Homarus americanus). To explore impacts of spatial nonstationarity on species distribution, we compared models with the following three assumptions : (1) large-scale and stationary relationships between species distributions and environmental variables; (2) meso-scale models where estimated relationships differ between eastern and western GOM, and (3) finer-scale models where estimated relationships vary across eastern, central, and western regions of the GOM. The spatial scales used in these models were largely determined by the GOM coastal currents. Lobster data were sourced from the Maine-New Hampshire Inshore Bottom Trawl Survey from years 2000–2019. We considered spatial and environmental variables including latitude and longitude, bottom temperature, bottom salinity, distance from shore, and sediment grain size in the study. We forecasted distributions for the period 2028–2055 using each of these models under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 “business as usual” climate warming scenario. We found that the model with the third assumption (i.e., finest scale) performed best. This suggests that accounting for spatial nonstationarity in the GOM leads to improved distribution estimates. Large-scale models revealed a tendency to estimate global relationships that better represented a specific location within the study area, rather than estimating relationships appropriate across all spatial areas. Forecasted distributions revealed that the largest scale models tended to comparatively overestimate most season × sex × size group lobster abundances in western GOM, underestimate in the western portion of central GOM, and overestimate in the eastern portion of central GOM, with slightly less consistent and patchy trends amongst groups in eastern GOM. The differences between model estimates were greatest between the largest and finest scale models, suggesting that fine-scale models may be useful for capturing effects of unique dependencies that may operate at localized scales. We demonstrate how estimates of season-, sex-, and size- specific American lobster spatial distribution would vary based on the spatial scale assumption of nonstationarity in the GOM. This information may help develop appropriate local adaptation measures in a region that is susceptible to climate change.

Rui Cheng, Zhaoyu Wang, Yifei Guo et al.

Conservation voltage reduction (CVR) has been widely implemented in distribution networks and helped utilities effectively reduce energy and peak load. However, the increasing penetration level of solar photovoltaic (PV) has affected voltage profiles and the performance of CVR. It remains an outstanding question how CVR and solar PV interact with each other. Understanding this interaction is important for utilities in implementing CVR and assessing its performance. This paper studies the impact of solar PV on CVR in a real distribution system in the Midwest U.S. using comprehensive simulations. We have considered various PV allocations and penetration levels, as well as different inverter control modes according to IEEE Std 1547-2018. Three metrics are used to quantify the impact of solar PV on CVR: voltages at the substation, voltage distribution across the network, and energy consumption reduction due to CVR. The results show that the allocations of solar PV have the most significant effect on the CVR performance, where a dispersed allocation of solar PV will help flatten voltage profile and achieve deeper voltage reductions at the substation, less energy consumption and line losses.

Nichole Flynn, Naweed I. Syed

The mechanism of postsynaptic neurotransmitter receptor clustering has been best described at the neuromuscular junction (NMJ), where pockets of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) in muscle fiber are redistributed to the synaptic site upon motor neuron innervation. This process of receptor localization is facilitated by agrin signaling, and the stability of the resulting nAChR clusters depends upon the activation of Src family kinases (SFKs). In contrast to the NMJ, however, the cellular signaling mechanisms orchestrating the clustering of nAChRs in the central nervous system (CNS) remain poorly defined. Furthermore, our understanding of the role of SFKs in the CNS is also limited. Here, we provide evidence that SFK activation is required for synapse formation between pairs of identified neurons isolated from the CNS of Lymnaea stagnalis. Furthermore, we suggest that SFKs are involved in the functional redistribution of nAChRs to the synaptic contact sites in isolated axons. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to demonstrate a role for SFKs in the clustering of nAChRs in central neurons, suggesting that the mechanisms of receptor clustering between the peripheral nervous system (PNS) and CNS are likely conserved.

Lauren A. Harrington, David W. Macdonald, Neil D’Cruze

In response to growing reports of otters in the pet trade, and suggestions that the popularity of pet otters on social media may be driving demand, we collated YouTube videos of pet otters to test for trends in the number of videos published, their exposure (number of views) and popularity. We used English-language search terms to provide a global overview, as well as local language search terms for four South East Asian countries identified as being of potential importance in the pet otter trade (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam), and Japan. We found that not only had the number of videos depicting pet otters increased in the last two to three years (2016–2018), but that their popularity and/or engagement had also increased. Notwithstanding some country-level differences in the details of effects observed, the greatest increases in both the number of videos produced and their popularity occurred in Indonesia and Japan. At a global-level, commercial “viral” video sites appeared to be influential in terms of posting highly popular pet otter videos. At a national level, potentially influential videos tended to be produced by four or five individual otter owners. The appearance of phrases such as “I want one” in the comments section of the English-language videos, although not necessarily a statement of actual intent, suggests that these videos may be driving demand amongst their viewers and followers; similar analyses of video comments in each local language are warranted. Our results show an increase in social media activity that may not only be driving the apparent increase in popularity, but also amplifying awareness of the availability of these animals as pets, as well as creating and perpetuating the (erroneous) perception of otters as a suitable companion animal. At a global level, there are welfare concerns associated with otters in the pet trade, and, in South East Asia specifically, there are serious conservation concerns. We recommend increased regulation of these activities on social media, increased public awareness of the negative impacts of the pet trade on otters, and increased international protection. Specifically, we suggest the need to uplist both small-clawed and smooth-coated otters (Aonyx cinereus and Lutrogale perspicillata, respectively) to CITES Appendix 1.