Nickel (Ni) is an essential element in plants and animals, but elevated levels can exert toxicity in living beings, as recently highlighted by the European Food Safety Authority opinion. However, literature regarding the presence of nickel in the environment is scarce. In 2016, the EU Commission Recommendation n°1110 recommended monitoring the presence of Ni in feed in order to set maximum levels or to adopt other risk management measures to ensure a high level of animal health protection and consequently of human health. A total of 200 samples of feedingstuffs, drinking water, and milk were collected from dairy cow farms in Piedmont, and analyzed for Ni concentration by Z-ETA-AAS. Results showed the presence of nickel in feedingstuffs in a range from 0.20 to 16 mg/kg, while Ni concentrations in water and milk were close to or below the limit of quantitation. There was no carry-over from feed to milk in this food chain. Nickel concentrations were not of concern for animal health despite being in the upper range of those observed in vegetables from Europe.

The ecological restoration of mining areas has always been emphasized in ecological research. This study has investigated herb species diversity of plantations in a reclamation area of the Antaibao opencast coal mine in China after 6 years, aiming to investigate the changes over time and spontaneous succession patterns. One hundred fifty-six species of naturally colonizing herb belonging to 26 families and 86 genera in the six plantations were chosen. Most of 24 herb-dominant species belong to Gramineae, Compositae, and Papilionaceae. Species diversity, meteorology, and soil were recorded. Over time, although the dominant degree of Gramineous has decreased and the degree of Labiatae and Polygonaceae has increased, it still indicated that Gramineae, Compositae, and Papilionaceae occupied an important position in the herb community and played an important role in natural vegetation recovery in reclamation area of the Antaibao opencast coal mine. The diversity of herb species showed significant differences between different plots and years. Correlation analysis indicates that the most important factors for herb species diversity are soil bulk density, average winter temperature, and the mean autumn rainfall.

In Lake Erhai, water quality was affected by the basin nutrient discharge and climate change. To analyze the relationships between the water quality (total nitrogen [TN], total phosphorus [TP], chemical oxygen demand [CODmn], ammonia [NH₄], and trophic level index [TLI]) and basin nutrient discharge (TNd, TPd, and CODd) combined with climate changes (air temperature [AT], precipitation [pre], wind speed [wind], and sunshine hours [SHs]), the generalized additive model (GAM) was employed to explore the nonlinear relationships with their interactions using data sets ranging from 1999 to 2012. Our findings revealed that the water quality in Lake Erhai deteriorated in the early twentieth century, and the basin discharge and AT appeared significant (p < 0.05) rising trends in a long time, while the precipitation decreased significantly (p < 0.05) in the study period. Single-factor GAM results indicated that the basin nutrient discharge was the main explanatory factor for the variations of TN and TP in lake, while precipitation was the main driver for CODmn and NH₄. Besides, the water quality displayed nonlinear responses to the basin discharge, but all of the water quality variables went up as the emission levels increased in the lower range. The results showed that the water quality deteriorated in the lower rainfall, and TN rose as the AT increases, while TP was elevated accompanied by the ascending SHs there. The GAM interaction results suggested that the increase of AT and TPd had a promoting effect on TP in Lake Erhai. Stricter nutrient management measures should be implemented when the impacts of climate change are taken into account.

Surface sediments from the Danshui River basin were collected and analyzed for persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethanes (DDTs). The total concentrations of each category ranged from 96 to 3803 ng g⁻¹ for PAHs, 0.02 to 54.9 ng g⁻¹ for PCBs, and from below the detection limit to 10.3 ng g⁻¹ for DDTs. These values are within the ranges observed for river and estuarine sediments of industrial and urbanized areas in Taiwan and worldwide. A decreasing trend of POP levels was observed in comparison with the levels reported in previous studies. Significant correlations between the levels of compounds and black carbon (BC) were found, suggesting that these POPs and BC may have similar transport processes. Based on sediment quality guidelines (SQGs), the ecological risk posed by these POPs toward sediment-dwelling organisms in the Danshui River basin is relatively low. Long-term monitoring of contaminant levels is necessary to develop appropriate management tools due to the importance of the Danshui river basin as a water source for metropolitan areas.

School resilience is characterized as risk management techniques to build a safe environment for students. Recognizing the need of building disaster resilience for the education sector, this study is aimed at assessing flood disaster resilience of elementary schools in four extremely vulnerable districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. This paper established the assessment tool by incorporating climate resilience indices and 16 tasks of the Hyogo Framework for action designed for the education sector. It discusses four dimensions: physical conditions of elementary schools, human resources, institutional issues, and external relationships, each with three parameters and five variables. The data were obtained for 60 variables from 20 randomly selected elementary schools. Indicators of resilience were identified, and an index-based approach was used to get the composite values of the four dimensions of resilience. Correlations between the dimensions, components, and indicators were also checked in the current study. Results show that schools in Nowshera, followed by Charsadda, Peshawar, and Dera Ismail Khan, are the most resilient to flood disasters. For all 12 parameters under 4 dimensions, the relative resilience of study districts is the same. The findings further indicated that there is a strong correlation between the pairs of human resources and institutional issues as well as institutional issues and external relationships that can also enhance human resources and external relationships. Furthermore, institutional issues are also correlated with external relationships and human resources, which indicate that there is a triangular relationship among human resources, institutional issues, and external relationships. The findings would encourage policymakers and practitioners to develop an effective plan to improve the resilience of schools using the overall resilience situation. In short, education sector disaster resilience can be achieved by integrated planning and implementation approach. In this respect, disaster managers, public and private education sectors, school staff, students, and parents need to establish synergies to devise a comprehensive plan of action to enhance disaster education.

Fruits are the valuable and important components of human diet. Among them, Prunus persica is a rich source of different minerals and dietary fibers. In Pakistan, the total annual production of P. persica is approximately 837,000 tons. In order to enhance agricultural yield and quality, the plant protection agents are employed during fruit production. Ultimately, this in turn leads to the incorporation of pesticide residues in fruits. In present study, an effort has been made for the determination of three selected pesticide residues, i.e., chlorpyrifos (CPF), difenoconazole (DFN), and carbendazim (CRB) in samples of P. persica collected from Swat territory. Samples were analyzed through high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Results revealed the occurrence of all three pesticides in studied samples; however, levels of CPF and DFN were found to be higher than MRLs. Moreover, the effects of different mitigation techniques revealed that highest reduction of CPF, DFN, and CRB (86%, 97%, 89%) residues was obtained by treatment with 10% CH₃COOH followed by 10% NaCl (74%, 78%, 84%). The lowest reduction was obtained by treatment with 10% solution of NaOH (52%, 55%, 63%).

Exposure to suboptimal ambient temperature during pregnancy has been reported as a potential teratogen of fetal development. However, limited animal evidence is available regarding the impact of extreme temperatures on maternal pregnancy and the subsequent adverse pregnancy outcomes. Our objective in this study is to investigate the relationship between temperature and maternal stress during pregnancy in mice. This study used the Naval Medical Research Institute (NMRI) mice during the second and third pregnant weeks with the gestational day (GD) (GD 6.5–14.5 and GD 14.5–17.5). Mice were exposed to suboptimal ambient temperature (1 °C, 5 °C, 10 °C, 15 °C, 40 °C, 42 °C, 44 °C, 46 °C, and 48 °C for the experimental group and 23 °C for the control group) 1 h per day, 7 days a weekin each trimester. Measurements of placental development (placental weight [PW] and placental diameter [PD]) and fetal growth (fetal weight [FW] and crown-to-rump length [CRL]) between experimental and control groups were compared using analysis of variance (ANOVA). Data on the occurrence of preterm birth (PTB) and abnormalities were also collected. The results showed that exposure to both cold and heat stress in the second and third weeks of pregnancy caused significant decreases in measurements of placental development (PW and PD) and fetal growth (FW and CRL). For all temperature exposures, 15 °C was identified as the optimal temperature in the development of the embryo. Most PTB occurrences were observed in high-temperature stress groups, with the highest PTB number seen in the exposure group at 48 °C, whereas PTB occurred only at 1 °C among cold stress groups. In the selected exposure experiments, an approximate U-shaped relation was observed between temperature and number of abnormality occurrence. The highest percentage of these anomalies occurred at temperatures of 1 °C and 48 °C, while no abnormalities were observed at 15 °C and in the control group. Our findings strengthened the evidence that exposure to suboptimal ambient temperatures may trigger adverse pregnancy outcomes and worsen embryo and fetal development in mice.

In this study, partial nitrification algal-bacterial granular sludge system was cultivated when treating ammonium-rich wastewater. With 200 mg/L influent NH₄-N concentration, the effluent NH₄-N, NO₂-N and NO₃-N concentrations were maintained at 62.3 mg/L, 67.1 mg/L, and 7.8 mg/L, making it as an ideal influent for anaerobic ammonia oxidation (Anammox). The combined stress of algae growth and free nitrous acid (FNA) should be responsible for partial nitrification in algal-bacterial granular sludge system. The concentration of N-acyl-homoserine lactones (AHLs, quorum sensing molecule) in the effluent of RL was up to 772.5 ng/L, much higher than that (592.8 ng/L) in the effluent of control without light irradiation (RC), leading to enhanced EPS production and granulation in the partial nitrification algal-bacterial granular sludge system. Because of the growth of algae (Chlorella, Scenedesmus, and Navicula), the lipid content in the algal-bacterial granules was 57.4 mg/g-SS, which was about 1.7 times higher than that in the granules from RC, making the algal-bacterial granule a value-added biomass. The relative abundance of Nitrosomonadaceae (AOB) slightly decreased from 5.4% in RC to 3.8% in RL, while Nitrospiraceae (NOB) was completely inhibited in algal-bacterial granules.

This study aimed to develop Ca-alginate immobilized Providencia vermicola as a reusable biosorbent to recover palladium ions from acidic solutions. To examine the adsorption characteristics and availability of Ca-alginate immobilized P. vermicola for Pd(II) recovery, several experiments such as SEM-EDX, FT-IR, isotherm, kinetics, fixed-bed columns, desorption, and reusability were conducted. The results of SEM-EDX and FT-IR analyses demonstrated that amino and carboxyl groups were the main contributors in the Pd(II) biosorption process and that hydroxyl and phosphate groups were also critical for Pd(II) adsorption. The adsorption isotherms could be well described by the Langmuir model, and the maximum adsorption capacity was 197.23 mg g⁻¹. Kinetic experiments suggested that the biosorbent reached adsorption equilibrium within 60 min. After adsorption, the Pd(II) bound to the Ca-alginate immobilized P. vermicola was easily desorbed with 0.1 M HCl. A regeneration test of this Ca-alginate immobilized P. vermicola biosorbent revealed that it could be used for at least five cycles with high adsorption capacity. These results indicated that Ca-alginate immobilized P. vermicola has the extraordinary potential to adsorb metal ions from industrial wastewater.

In the past decades, the type of chemicals has gradually increased all over the world, and many of these chemicals may have a potentially toxic effect on human health. The zebrafish, as an excellent vertebrate model, is increasingly used for assessing chemical toxicity and safety. This review summarizes the efficacy of zebrafish as a model for the study of developmental toxicity, reproductive toxicity, cardiovascular toxicity, neurodevelopmental toxicity, and ocular developmental toxicity of hazardous chemicals, and the transgenic zebrafish as biosensors are used to detect the environmental pollutants.