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Rising CO 2 levels may induce nutritional deficits (protein, minerals, and vitamins) in the highest rice-consuming countries.

Surfactants are one of the major pollutants in laundry powder, which have an impact on the environment and human health. Carbon quantum dots (CQDs) are spherical zero-dimensional fluorescent nanoparticles with great potential for fluorescent probing, electrochemical biosensing and ion sensing. Herein, a bottom-up approach was developed for the synthesis of CQDs from biomass to detect laundry detergent and laundry powder. Waste chicken bones were used as carbon precursors after being dried, crushed and reacted with pure water at 180 °C for 4 h to generate CQDs, which exhibited a monodisperse quasi-spherical structure with an average particle size of 3.2 ± 0.2 nm. Functional groups, including -OH, C=O, C=C and C-O, were identified on the surface of the prepared CQDs. The optimal fluorescence excitation wavelength of the yellow-brown CQDs was 380 nm, with a corresponding emission peak at 465 nm. CQDs did not significantly increase cell death in multiple cell lines at concentrations of 200 µg·mL−1. Fluorescence enhancement of CQDs was observed after addition of sodium dodecyl benzene sulphonate, a major anionic surfactant in laundry powder. A linear relationship between fluorescence enhancement CQDs and the concentration of laundry powder was established. Thus, a hydrothermal method was developed to generate CQDs from waste biomass that may be used as a fluorescent probe to detect laundry powder.

The core of the digital transition is the representation of all kinds of real-world entities and processes and an increasing number of cognitive processes by digital information and algorithms on computers. These allow for seemingly unlimited storage, operation, retrieval, and transmission capacities that make digital tools economically available for all domains of society and empower human action, particularly combined with real-world interfaces such as displays, robots, sensors, 3D printers, etc. Digital technologies are general-purpose technologies providing unprecedented potential benefits for sustainability. However, they will bring about a multitude of potential unintended side effects, and this demands a transdisciplinary discussion on unwanted societal changes as well as a shift in science from analog to digital modeling and structure. Although social discourse has begun, the topical scope and regional coverage have been limited. Here, we report on an expert roundtable on digital transition held in February 2017 in Tokyo, Japan. Drawing on a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, our discussions highlight the importance of cultural contexts and the need to bridge local and global conversations. Although Japanese experts did mention side effects, their focus was on how to ensure that AI and robots could coexist with humans. Such a perspective is not well appreciated everywhere outside Japan. Stakeholder dialogues have already begun in Japan, but greater efforts are needed to engage a broader collection of experts in addition to stakeholders to broaden the social debate.

Eutrophication and hypoxia are major problems affecting the health of coastal ecosystems throughout the world. Tokyo Bay, Japan, is a eutrophic coastal area where the abundance of the megabenthic community has been decreasing. To assess factors associated with the impaired biota, seasonal surveys of the megabenthic community and water and sediment quality were conducted in the bay. Cluster analysis showed a difference in the community structure between the northern and southern parts of the bay. The density of species and species diversity were high throughout the year in the southern part of the bay, whereas in the northern part of the bay species diversity was low and defaunation occurred in August. At this time, bottom hypoxia due to temperature and salinity stratification, and high concentrations of nutrients, chlorophyll a, and organic matter in the water column and/or sediment, dominated the northern part of the bay. In October, bottom hypoxia was less severe but was still present in the northern part of the bay, and recolonization by mobile fishes and sessile mussels occurred. Multivariate analyses of the megabenthic community and environmental parameters in August showed the spatial pattern of the community could be explained by concentrations of dissolved oxygen and particulate organic carbon in the bottom water, and total sulfide and total organic carbon in the sediments. In particular, impairment of the biota in the northern area could be explained by the threshold concentrations of dissolved oxygen 20.3 mg g(-1).

AbstractIt has been known that the Cucurbitaceae family takes up a large amount of persistent organic pollutants from soils and that the translocation of those compounds in cucurbits is higher than those in non‐cucurbits. To understand the persistent organic pollutant uptake mechanisms of plant species, we compared the dieldrin absorption and transportation potentials of several plants in hydroponic medium. Sorghum (Sorghum vulgare Moench), sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.), soybean (Glycine max), komatsuna (Brassica rapa var. peruviridis), white‐flowered gourd (Lagenaria siceraria var. hispida), cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.), and zucchini (Cucurbita pepo L.) were grown in a dieldrin‐added hydroponic medium for 10 d, and then the amount of dieldrin in their shoots and roots was measured. All of the roots contained dieldrin, whereas only the cucurbits (white‐flowered gourd, cucumber, and zucchini) contained considerable amounts of dieldrin in their shoots. The dieldrin uptake to the roots depended on the concentration of the n‐hexane soluble components in the roots, regardless of whether the dieldrin in the roots was translocated to shoots or not. The dieldrin uptake from the solution to the roots was thought to be due to a passive response, such as adsorption on the roots. The translocation of dieldrin from the roots to the shoots was probably through the xylems. The amounts of dieldrin in the shoots per transpiration rates were higher for cucurbits than for non‐cucurbits. It seems likely that cucurbits have uptake mechanisms for hydrophobic organic chemicals. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 2010;29:142–148. © 2009 SETAC

In 2014, the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) reported that the highest prevalence of symptoms of severe asthma was found in the low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), including Nigeria. While exposure to biomass fuel use may be an important risk factor in the development of asthma, its association with asthma symptoms severity has not been well-established. The aim of this study is to extend the spectrum of environmental risk factors that may be contributing towards increasing asthma morbidity, especially asthma symptoms severity in rural schoolchildren in Nigeria and to examine possible asthma underdiagnosis among this population.Authors conducted a cross-sectional survey in three rural communities in Nigeria. Asthma symptoms were defined according to the ISAAC criteria. Information on the types of household fuel used for cooking was used to determine household cooking fuel status. Asthma symptoms severity was defined based on frequencies of wheeze, day- and night-time symptoms, and speech limitations. Logistic regression analyses were used to explore associations.A total of 1,690 Nigerian schoolchildren participated in the study. Overall, 37 (2.2%) had diagnosed asthma and 413 (24.4%) had possible asthma (asthma-related symptoms but not diagnosed asthma). Children from biomass fuel households had higher proportion of possible asthma (27.7 vs. 22.2%; p < 0.05) and symptoms of severe asthma (18.2 vs. 7.6%; p = 0.048). In adjusted analyses, biomass fuel use was associated with increased odds of severe symptoms of asthma [odds ratios (OR) = 2.37; 95% CI: 1.16-4.84], but not with possible asthma (OR = 1.22; 95% CI: 0.95-1.56).In rural Nigerian children with asthma symptoms, the use of biomass fuel for cooking is associated with an increased risk of severe asthma symptoms. There is additional evidence that rural children might be underdiagnosed for asthma.

A subchronic (180-day) toxicity study was conducted to evaluate the effects of ethyl tertiary-butyl ether (ETBE), a biomass fuel, in male and female rats. ETBE was administered at dose levels of 0, 5, 25, 100 and 400 mg/kg/body weight (b.w.)/day by gavage. No treatment-related adverse effects were observed at 5, 25 or 100 mg/kg. Centrilobular hypertrophy of hepatocytes was observed in males and females and their relative liver weights were increased, suggesting enhanced metabolic activity. From these results, we concluded that the no observed adverse effect level of ETBE was 100 mg/kg b.w./day under the conditions tested.

L particles, composed of the L protein of the hepatitis B virus surface antigen, are candidates for a specific gene and drug delivery system. We previously constructed stably transfected insect cells for L particle production. In this study, the cells were successfully immobilized within porous biomass support particles (BSPs) in shake-flask culture. The immobilized cells showed a high specific productivity, comparable to the maximum productivities in static and shake-flask cultures of nonimmobilized cells.