This study aims to shed light on the determinants of energy poverty by examining the role of financial development. Notably, the study analyses the multidimensional effects of financial development (including two subsectors and three dimensions on five indicators of energy poverty). Various estimates are applied with a global sample of 65 economies, consisting of 36 low- and lower-middle-income economies and 29 upper-middle-income economies for 2002–2015. First, financial development can alleviate energy poverty. Second, the results are properly consistent across the two subsectors and three dimensions. Third, the two subsectors and three dimensions of financial development are found to reduce energy poverty in low- and lower-middle-income economies but have heteroscedastic effects in upper-middle-income economies.

CO₂ uptake due to carbonation is an important issue for sustainability in the concrete industry. This study presents an analysis model of CO₂ uptake of slag-blended concrete considering the service stage and the recycling stage. First, a slag-blended cement hydration model is used to evaluate the content of carbonatable substances, porosity, and diffusivity. Regarding the service stage, a one-dimensional carbonation model is proposed to evaluate carbonation depth. For the recycling stage, an unreacted core model is proposed to evaluate the carbonation fraction of crushed, spherical concrete. Second, CO₂ uptake in the service stage and recycling stage is determined based on the carbonated fraction, shape of the concrete element, concrete component, and exposure conditions. The total CO₂ uptake ratio is determined based on the content of CO₂ uptake and CO₂ emissions. Third, the analysis results show that for concrete with a water-to-binder ratio of 0.3, as the slag replacement ratio increases from 0 to 50%, the total CO₂ uptake ratio increases from 21.43 to 28.87%. For concrete with 50% slag as the binder, as the water-to-binder ratio increases from 0.30 to 0.35, the total CO₂ uptake ratio increases from 28.87 to 30.59%. The sizes and types of the structural elements and the diameter of the crushed concrete can impact the rate of CO₂ uptake, but do not modify the total CO₂ uptake ratio.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a well-known sexually transmitted disorder globally. Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the 3rd most common cancer that causes cervical carcinoma, and globally it accounts for 275,000 deaths every year. The load of HPV-associated abrasions can be lessened through vaccination. At present, three forms of prophylactic vaccines, Cervarix, Gadrasil, and Gardasil 9, are commercially accessible but all these prophylactic vaccines have not the ability to manage and control developed abrasions or infections. Therefore, a considerable amount of the population is not secured from HPV infectivity. Consequently, the development of therapeutic HPV vaccines is a crucial requirement of this era, for the treatment of persisting infections, and to stop the progression of HPV-associated cancers. Therapeutic vaccines are a developing trial approach. Because of the constitutive expression of E6 and E7 early genes in cancerous and pre-cancerous tissues, and their involvement in disturbance of the cell cycle, these are best targets for this therapeutic vaccine treatment. For the synthesis and development of therapeutic vaccines, various approaches have been examined comprising cell-based vaccines, peptide/protein-based vaccines, nucleic acid–based vaccines, and live-vector vaccines all proceeding towards clinical trials. This review emphasizes the development, progress, current status, and future perspective of several vaccines for the cure of HPV-related abrasions and cancers. This review also provides an insight to assess the effectiveness, safety, efficacy, and immunogenicity of therapeutic vaccines in the cure of patients infected with HPV-associated cervical cancer.

Nowadays, the aviation industry is one of the significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. An optimum solution to this concern is the substitution of conventional electricity consumption with clean energy sources. Barren lands are available in airport sites as buffer zones. These lands can be utilized to generate electricity from clean energy sources like solar, wind, and others. This study proposed a 5 MW grid-connected solar power plant at airport sites by utilizing the substantial barren area of the airport. The targeted airports for this study are Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, Dhaka, and Shah Amanat International Airport, Chittagong, Bangladesh. Mathematical and simulation analyses have been performed for this purpose. Besides, sustainability analysis has also been incorporated for the grid-connected solar power plant. The energy efficiency varies from 18.74 to 7.79% for the Shah Amanat International Airport, and for the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, it ranges from 17.71 to 7.45%. Based on the project outcome, the revenue earned was 25% higher if the total cost was invested in power plants rather than keeping it in the bank as a deposit. On the other hand, emission analysis presented that a gross reduction of 3827.5 tons of CO₂/MWh can be achieved from the Shah Amanat International Airport, while 3926 tons of CO₂/MWh can be removed from the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport. Based on the sustainability analysis, the energy depletion ratio for Shahjalal Airport varies from 0.82 to 0.93, while for Shah Amanat Airport, it is in the range of 0.81 and 0.92. The findings of this study suggested that investment in grid-connected solar power plants is economically viable and environmentally benign.

The aim of this research is to gain a better understanding of the effects of climate change with a comprehensive and dynamic perspective. Therefore, by using the System Dynamics (SD) approach to simulate the effects of climate change on the quality and quantity of the Karoun River and regarding the water supply and demand systems in the region and their feedback relations, a model was developed in Vensim. CGCM3 outputs under A2, B1, and A1B emission scenarios have been used to investigate the effects of climate change on both the quality/quantity of the water resources system. Also, to determine the effects of climate change on agricultural demand, the water requirement of selected crops for the next period (2015–2050) has been calculated via CROPWAT model. The results show that the maximum and minimum temperature and evaporation will increase. The results of the developed SD model show that if the current development process continues under all three climate change scenarios, the system will be able to meet the domestic, industrial, and environmental demand. However, the supply of agricultural demand will be deficient. Also, the average EC value in Ahvaz station under three emission scenarios has increased more than 21%, compared to the 15-year average. The average pH value did not change much. Then, several proposed management scenarios were evaluated to improve system performance. The results show that the scenario of optimal operation of upstream dams has the best performance. However, due to the unrealistic growing trend, despite applying this scenario, the development of the agricultural sector will fail down after a few years. Therefore, to reach a long-term solution to the problem of water shortage, the growth trend of this sector for the next period should be reviewed in light of the effects of climate change.

Soil enzymes quickly respond to the disturbances caused in environmental pollution originating from human activities. Computation of enzyme activities has been used as indexes of microbial functionality, soil fertilization, biochemical cycling of numerous components in soil, extent of contamination, and ecosystem succession. Soil enzyme activity is one of the soil biological properties used as an indicator of soil quality due to their interrelationship to soil biology, being sensitive, integrative, ease to measure, “biological fingerprints” of previous soil management, indicator of biological symmetry, fertility, and changes in biological status of soil due to pollution. Dehydrogenase (DHG) enzymes are one of the most important components of soil enzymatic assay, as they determine the correct order of all biochemical pathways in soil biogeochemical cycles. While dehydrogenase activity (DHA) is calculated utilizing the procedures INT and TTC substrate in soil at the same time, a number of authors expressed their views about the unsatisfactory results when TTC has applied as substrate. Most of the researchers have applied incubation periods of 24 h at 37 °C, but some are modified it to 6 h 37 °C with either glucose or yeast extract as electron-donating substrate. Generally, in coal mine spoil, DHG functionality seems to lower, could be owing to the damage microflora, lack of soil organic matter. Measurement of DHA is frequently used as an extent of any disturbance owing to fertilizers, heavy metals, or other soil amendment (for management) practices, or, instantaneously degree of microbial functionality of soil.

Sustainable development is significantly contributing the environmental degradation due to improvements in financial sector in One Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) region. Thus, the present research work constructs the sustainable development index for BRI. Afterwards, it unfolds the nexus of sustainable development-environmental degradation and also evaluates the role of financial development indicators in BRI economies. By utilizing the robust mean group, the present study quantifies the long-run marginal impacts of sustainable development, financial development indicators, energy consumption, and urban sprawl on environmental degradation, respectively. The marginal impacts infer an inverted U-shaped sustainable development environmental Kuznets curve in BRI region. The sustainable development, energy consumption, and urban sprawl are enriching the environmental degradation, whereas the financial development indicators have an adverse impact on environmental degradation by induction of interaction of sustainable development-financial development. Therefore, the improvements in financial development indicators will help to achieve the sustainable development. Note: + and _ depict the significant positive and negative impact respectively while illustrates ⇒ causal direction.

Understanding the effects of environmental contaminants on honeybees is essential to minimize their impacts on these important pollinating insects. The aim of this study was to assess the ecotoxicological status of honeybees in environments undergoing different anthropic pressure: a wood (reference site), an orchard, an agricultural area, and an urban site, using a multi-biomarker approach. To synthetically represent the ecotoxicological status of the honeybees, the responses of the single biomarkers were integrated by the Integrated Biological Response (IBRv2) index. Overall, the strongest alteration of the ecotoxicological status (IBRv2 = 7.52) was detected in the bees from the orchard due to the alteration of metabolic and genotoxicity biomarkers indicating the presence of pesticides, metals, and lipophilic compounds. Honeybees from the cultivated area (IBRv2 = 7.18) revealed an alteration especially in neurotoxicity, metabolic, and genotoxicity biomarkers probably related to the presence of pesticides, especially fungicides. Finally, in the urban area (IBRv2 = 6.60), the biomarker results (GST, lysozyme, and hemocytes) indicated immunosuppression in the honeybees and the effects of the presence of lipophilic compounds and metals in the environment.

Many factors influence bay waters, including greater concentration of people in cities, industrial production, how land is used, dynamics of flow in water systems, and climate change. Water management remains one of the greatest human challenges. Scientists continue to respond to water-related challenges through the research to improve both human and environmental health. Study in the Varna Bay, providing key knowledge on hydrological and hydrochemical characteristics, was done over 2015–2018. Unified methods for marine waters were used. An increase in SST was ascertained. The range of SSS monthly fluctuations increased almost twice compared to a long-term range. Nitrate nitrogen range was bigger than phosphate phosphorus range. A sharp increase in organic matter was ascertained but generally the range decreased compared to a long-term range.

Water eutrophication caused by the extensive expansion of slope farming has caused the high attention of the Chinese government. We choose Lake Tianmu basin as the study area because it can represent vast majority of basins plagued by water eutrophication derived from slope tillage in southern China. The water ecosystem in the reservoir Daxi and Shahe within the basin has been seriously threatened by multiple pollution sources related to many intricate human activities especially agricultural production. For the first time, we identified the critical source areas (CSAs) within the basin based on nutrient load and nutrient load intensity (NLI), and on this basis, we further excavated the main causes of pollution and proposed pertinent remediation measures. The results based on the calibrated Soil and Water Assessment Tool model indicated that the TN load of each reservoir remarkably exceeded their respective water environmental capacity from 2014 to 2018. Accordingly, six main tributaries with great nutrient contributions and their corresponding sub-basins were then identified. Overall, tea and rice plantations appear to be the major nutrient contributors to reservoir Daxi. And the main nutrient sources for reservoir Shahe are tea plantations, orchards, farmland, forestland, and point sources. Regarding the CSAs identified only by nutrient load, agronomic measures such as reducing fertilizer amount, biochar application, straw incorporation, and plastic mulch coverage can be employed to improve soil water retention and curb soil erosion. Regarding the CSAs identified by nutrient load intensity (NLI), the CSAs with narrow areas should be turned directly into forestland. For the CSAs with large areas, engineering measures such as constructing ecological riparian zone, filtration, and sedimentation tank can be employed to prevent pollutants from entering downstream reaches. Overall, the present results can provide the decision-making support for the safe and efficient management of watershed land use in southern China.