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Osteoarthritis is closely related to aging. Tribbles homologue 3 (TRB3) is found to display age-related expression and contributes to the regulation of cell proliferation, differentiation and fibrosis. In this study, we aimed to investigate the potential involvement of TRB3 in cartilage autophagy and aging in osteoarthritis.Cartilage tissue samples were collected from osteoarthritis patients who received joint replacement and cadaveric donors. In osteoarthritis cartilage tissue, we analyzed autophagy- and senescence-associated proteins using immunohistochemistry and western blot (WB),We found increased level of p62, decreased level of microtubule-associated protein 1A/1B-light chain 3 (LC3) and beclin-1 in cartilage, and increased level of p16 and p21 in tissue samples collected from osteoarthritis patients, indicating decreased autophagy and increased cell senescence. TRB3 knockdown significantly rescued,Interfering with TRB3 expression in cartilage may serve as a target in the prevention and treatment of age-related osteoarthritis.

Biodiversity conservation is increasingly being recognized as an important co-benefit in climate change mitigation programmes that use nature-based climate solutions. However, the climate co-benefits of biodiversity conservation interventions, such as habitat protection and restoration, remain understudied. Here we estimate the forest carbon storage co-benefits of a national policy intervention for tiger (Panthera tigris) conservation in India. We used a synthetic control approach to model avoided forest loss and associated carbon emissions reductions in protected areas that underwent enhanced protection for tiger conservation. Over a third of the analysed reserves showed significant but mixed effects, where 24% of all reserves successfully reduced the rate of deforestation and the remaining 9% reported higher-than-expected forest loss. The policy had a net positive benefit with over 5,802 hectares of averted forest loss, corresponding to avoided emissions of 1.08 ± 0.51 MtCO2 equivalent between 2007 and 2020. This translated to US$92.55 ± 43.56 million in ecosystem services from the avoided social cost of emissions and potential revenue of US$6.24 ± 2.94 million in carbon offsets. Our findings offer an approach to quantitatively track the carbon sequestration co-benefits of a species conservation strategy and thus help align the objectives of climate action and biodiversity conservation.

Aims Human-induced pressures such as deforestation cause anthropogenic range contractions (ARCs). Such contractions present dynamic distributions that may engender data misrepresentations within species distribution models. The temporal bias of occurrence data-where occurrences represent distributions before (past bias) or after (recent bias) ARCs-underpins these data misrepresentations. Occurrence-habitat mismatching results when occurrences sampled before contractions are modelled with contemporary anthropogenic variables; niche truncation results when occurrences sampled after contractions are modelled without anthropogenic variables. Our understanding of their independent and interactive effects on model performance remains incomplete but is vital for developing good modelling protocols. Through a virtual ecologist approach, we demonstrate how these data misrepresentations manifest and investigate their effects on model performance. Location Virtual Southeast Asia. Methods Using 100 virtual species, we simulated ARCs with 100-year land-use data and generated temporally biased (past and recent) occurrence datasets. We modelled datasets with and without a contemporary land-use variable (conventional modelling protocols) and with a temporally dynamic land-use variable. We evaluated each model's ability to predict historical and contemporary distributions. Results Greater ARC resulted in greater occurrence-habitat mismatching for datasets with past bias and greater niche truncation for datasets with recent bias. Occurrence-habitat mismatching prevented models with the contemporary land-use variable from predicting anthropogenic-related absences, causing overpredictions of contemporary distributions. Although niche truncation caused underpredictions of historical distributions (environmentally suitable habitats), incorporating the contemporary land-use variable resolved these underpredictions, even when mismatching occurred. Models with the temporally dynamic land-use variable consistently outperformed models without. Main conclusions We showed how these data misrepresentations can degrade model performance, undermining their use for empirical research and conservation science. Given the ubiquity of ARCs, these data misrepresentations are likely inherent to most datasets. Therefore, we present a three-step strategy for handling data misrepresentations: maximize the temporal range of anthropogenic predictors, exclude mismatched occurrences and test for residual data misrepresentations.

Forest carbon projects can deliver multiple benefits to society. Within Southeast Asia, 58% of forests threatened by loss could be protected as financially viable carbon projects, which would avoid 835 MtCO2e of emissions per year from deforestation, support dietary needs for an equivalent of 323,739 people annually from pollinator-dependent agriculture, retain 78% of the volume of nitrogen pollutants in watersheds yearly and safeguard 25 Mha of Key Biodiversity Areas.

International trade is responsible for connecting human and natural systems across distant countries, and has profound implications for sustainability. In particular, telecoupling, the socioeconomic and environmental interactions between distant countries as a result of, among others, global trade, typically leaves less affluent nations bearing the largest environmental impacts. Telecoupling effects are likely to be pervasive to those trying to achieve the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but little is known about how telecoupling affects the SDGs beyond a subset of environment-related targets. Here, we take a broad global network analysis approach to address this gap, and assess the vulnerability of the SDGs' indicators and their interactions to telecoupling across 180 countries. We find that a majority (~78%) of the SDG indicators are significantly correlated (p-value

Objective Complex base fractures of the fifth metacarpal bone and dislocation of the fifth carpometacarpal joint are more prone to internal rotation deformity of the little finger sequence after fixation with a transarticular plate. In the past, we have neglected that there is actually a certain angle of external rotation in the hamate surface of transarticular fixation. This study measured the inclination angle of the hamate surface relative to the fifth metacarpal surface for clinical reference. Methods In a prospective single‐center study, we investigated the tilt angle of 60 normal hamates. The study included thin‐layer computed tomography (CT) data from 60 patients from the orthopaedic clinic and inpatient unit from January 2017 to March 2020, including 34 men and 26 women who were 15~59 years old, average 35 years old. The CT data of 60 cases in Dicom format of the hand was input into Mimics and 3‐Matics software for three‐dimensional (3D) reconstruction and measuring the angle α between hamate surface and the fifth metacarpal surface. According to the possible placement of the transarticular plate on the fifth metacarpal surface, we measured the angle β between the hamate surface 1 and the fifth metacarpal surface and the angle γ between the hamate surface 2 and the fifth metacarpal surface. Results The average angle between the hamate surface and the fifth metacarpal surface was 11.66°. The hamate surfaces 1 and 2 have an external rotation angle of 7.30° and 7.51° on average with respect to the fifth metacarpal surface, respectively. There is no statistically significant difference in the angles between the two groups (P > 0.05). Conclusions The horizontal angle of the dorsal side of the hamate is different from the back of the fifth metacarpal surface, and the hamate has a certain external rotation angle with respect to the fifth metacarpal surface. No matter how the transarticular plate is placed, the plate always has a certain external rotation angle relative to the fifth metacarpal surface. When the fixation is across the fifth carpometacarpal joint, if the plate does not twist and shape, it will inevitably cause internal rotation of the fifth metacarpal, resulting in internal rotation deformity of the little finger sequence., When the fixation across the fifth carpometacarpal joint, if the plate does not twist and shape, it will inevitably cause internal rotation of the fifth metacarpal, resulting in internal rotation deformity of the little finger sequence.The left of Figure a shows that if the plate is pre‐bent, the normal position of the metacarpal bone can be guaranteed. The right of Figure a shows that if it is not pre‐bent, the internal rotation of the metacarpal bone will appear according to the original plane of the plate.Figure b shows the deformity of the internal rotation of the little finger.

Protected areas safeguard biodiversity, ensure ecosystem functioning, and deliver ecosystem services to communities. However, only ~16% of the world’s land area is under some form of protection, prompting international calls to protect at least 30% by 2030. We modeled the outcomes of achieving this 30 × 30 target for terrestrial biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation, and nutrient regulation. We find that the additional ~2.8 million ha of habitat that would be protected would benefit 1134 ± 175 vertebrate species whose habitats currently lack any form of protection, as well as contribute to either avoided carbon emissions or carbon dioxide sequestration, equivalent to 10.9 ± 3.6 GtCO 2 year −1 (28.4 ± 9.4% of the global nature-based climate-change mitigation potential). Furthermore, expansion of the protected area network would increase its ability to regulate water quality and mitigate nutrient pollution by 142.5 ± 31.0 MtN year −1 (28.5 ± 6.2% of the global nutrient regulation potential).

Land and environmental defenders are a major bulwark against environmental destruction and biodiversity loss resulting from unsustainable nature resource extraction. Resultant conflicts can lead to violence against and deaths of these defenders. Along with mounting environmental pressures, homicides of these defenders are increasing globally. Yet, this issue has only recently started to receive scientific attention. While existing studies indicate the importance of socio-economic processes in driving such murders, spatially explicit global analyses considering environmental components are largely missing. Here, we take a broad spatial approach to assess relative contributions of environmental factors to the killing of environmental defenders. We find higher rates of such homicides are typically found in areas where limited or underutilized resources (e.g., freshwater, land and forests) are more available. Our results point towards a prevalent global land scarcity that results in industries targeting the last remaining strongholds for biodiversity and the environmental defenders within. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13280-021-01557-3.

Objective. In the field of endoscopic imaging, Super-Resolution (SR) plays an important role in Manufactured Diagnosis, physicians and machine Automatic Diagnosis. Although many recent studies have been performed, by using deep convolutional neural networks on endoscopic SR, most of the methods have large parameters, which limits their practical application. In addition, almost all of these methods treat each channel equally based on the real-valued domain, without considering the difference among the different channels. Our objective is to design a SR model named Quaternion Attention Multi-scale Widening Network (QAMWN) for endoscopy images to address the above problem. Approach. QAMWN contains a stacked Quaternion Attention Multi-Scale Widening Block, that composed of Multi-scale Feature Widening Aggregation Module (MFWAM) and Quaternion Residual Channel Attention (QRCA). The MFWAM adopts multi-scale architecture with step-wise widening on feature channels for better feature extraction; and in QRCA, quaternion is introduced to construct Residual Channel Attention Mechanism, which obtains adaptively scales features by considering compact cross-channel interactions in the hyper-complex domain. Main results. To verify the efficacy of our method, it is performed on two public endoscopic datasets, CVC ClinicDB and Kvasir dataset. The experimental results show that our proposed method can achieve a better trade-off in model size and performance. More importantly, the proposed QAMWN outperforms previous state-of-the-art methods in both metrics and visualization. Significance. We propose a lightweight SR network for endoscopy and achieves better performance with fewer parameters, which helps in clinical diagnosis of endoscopy.

Investigating non-native species’ impacts on recipient communities in the context of local habitat conditions is vital to understanding their potential invasiveness. This study used comparative functional response experiments to assess the potential predatory impacts of the non-native Oriental river prawn Macrobrachium nipponense compared to the native Malayan river prawn Macrobrachium malayanum in Singapore. Functional responses of these species were compared under different water temperature and pH conditions, representing Singapore’s warmer, near-neutral artificial/modified fresh waters, and cooler, more acidic natural forest streams, where the two species are respectively abundant. Four water condition treatments of different temperature-pH permutations were tested: A (26 °C, pH 5.5), B (26 °C, pH 6.5), C (29 °C, pH 5.5) and D (29 °C, pH 6.5). Results found both species to exhibit Type II functional response across all treatments, but M. nipponense responses were significantly higher than those of M. malayanum in all of them. Overall, its functional response was also significantly amplified when water conditions resembled that of the artificial habitat, with higher attack rate, lower handling time, and higher maximum feeding rate. Results imply that M. nipponense can inflict ecological impact in Singapore in terms of predation on the invertebrate prey community. The predatory impact of M. nipponense can also be exacerbated by changes in water parameters (i.e. increasing temperature and/or pH) associated with anthropogenic change, highlighting the importance for conservation of natural freshwater habitats in Singapore.

Carbon finance projects that protect tropical forests could support both nature conservation and climate change mitigation goals. Global demand for nature-based carbon credits is outpacing their supply, due partly to gaps in knowledge needed to inform and prioritize investment decisions. Here, we show that at current carbon market prices the protection of tropical forests can generate investible carbon amounting to 1.8 (±1.1) GtCO2e yr−1 globally. We further show that financially viable carbon projects could generate return-on-investment amounting to $46.0b y−1 in net present value (Asia-Pacific: $24.6b y−1; Americas: $19.1b y−1; Africa: $2.4b y−1). However, we also find that ~80% (1.24 billion ha) of forest carbon sites would be financially unviable for failing to break even over the project lifetime. From a conservation perspective, unless carbon prices increase in the future, it is imperative to implement other conservation interventions, in addition to carbon finance, to safeguard carbon stocks and biodiversity in vulnerable forests., Investing in forest protection is a way to generate tradable carbon credits to support biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation. Here the authors assess and map the global supply of tropical forest carbon credits with the goal of informing climate policy and investments.

Identifying effective regulatory mechanisms will be significant for Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) diagnosis and treatment.The expressions of miR-22 and miR-372 in placenta tissues from 75 pregnant women with GDM and 75 matched healthy controls and HRT8/SVneo cells (a model of insulin resistance) were analyzed by qPCR. The expressions of PI3K, AKT, IRS, and GLUT4 in high glucose-treated HRT8/SVneo cells transfected with miR-22 or miR-372 mimics or inhibitors was assessed by Western blot. A luciferase gene reporter assay was employed to verify miRNAs' target genes.The expressions of miR-22 and miR-372 in placental tissues from GDM patients and HRT8/SVneo cells were significantly decreased compared with the respective controls. The GLUT4 expression was significantly decreased in the placenta tissues of GDM and HRT8/SVneo cells with high glucose transfected with miR-22 and miR-372 inhibitors. We confirmed that SLC2A4, the gene encoding GLUT4, was a direct target of miR-22 and miR-372. In this study, we report that the lower expressions of miR-22 and miR-372 in placental tissue from GDM patients.Our results further suggested that the downregulations of miR-22 and miR-372 may contribute to GDM through regulating the PI3K/GLUT4 pathway.

Natural climate solutions (NCS) are an essential complement to climate mitigation and have been increasingly incorporated into international mitigation strategies. Yet, with the ongoing population growth, allocating natural areas for NCS may compete with other socioeconomic priorities, especially urban development and food security. Here, we projected the impacts of land-use competition incurred by cropland and urban expansion on the climate mitigation potential of NCS. We mapped the areas available for implementing 9 key NCS strategies and estimated their climate change mitigation potential. Then, we overlaid these areas with future cropland and urban expansion maps projected under three Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) scenarios (2020-2100) and calculated the resulting mitigation potential loss of each selected NCS strategy. Our results estimate a substantial reduction, 0.3-2.8 GtCO

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were designed to reconcile environmental protection with socioeconomic development. Here, we compare SDG indicators to a suite of external measures, showing that while most countries are progressing well towards environmental SDGs, this has little relationship with actual biodiversity conservation, and instead better represents socioeconomic development. If this continues, the SDGs will likely serve as a smokescreen for further environmental destruction throughout the decade. Comparing relevant indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals with other indicators of biodiversity trends shows little relation between the two, because the former more strongly reflect socioeconomic indicators.

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the role of ceftriaxone sodium combined with dexamethasone on the treatment of infant purulent meningitis (PM) and to measure brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels in children with PM. Of the 177 patients enrolled into the present study, 92 patients received ceftriaxone sodium+dexamethasone (combination group) and 85 patients received ceftriaxone sodium alone (monotherapy group). The time taken for the body temperature, peripheral blood (PB) and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) white blood cell (WBC) counts to recover back to normal levels were compared between the two groups. In addition, changes in the CSF WBC counts, CSF protein and sugar concentrations, BDNF levels, effective treatment rates and incidence of adverse reactions three days before treatment (T1), after one week of treatment (T2) and after two weeks of treatment (T3) were compared between the two groups. In the combination group, the recovery time of body temperature, WBC counts in both PB and CSF were significantly lower compared with those in the monotherapy group. The combination group also exhibited lower CSF protein concentrations and higher CSF sugar concentrations at T2 and T3 compared with those in the monotherapy group (P

Objective. Acute inflammation and oxidative stress are present in large numbers in patients with acute lung injury (ALI). This investigation probed miR-135a-5p/TBK1 axis within ALI together with its new therapeutic target. Methods. MLE-12 cultures were treated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and transfected with miR-135a-5p mimics or TBK1 vector. An ALI mouse model was also established. Analysis was done on the relationships between TBK1 and miR-135a-5p. Inflammatory components, SOD, MDA, and ROS content were all assessed. Results. Obvious inflammatory lesions were observed in lung tissues of ALI mice. Overexpression of miR-135a-5p or TBK1 knockdown remarkably decreased IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α serum concentrations and increased IL-10 level within lung tissues. Activated NRF2/TXNIP pathway and oxidative stress were additionally found within ALI murines, which were regulated by miR-315a-5p and TBK1. Further research revealed that miR-135a-5p negatively regulated TBK1 expression to mediate proinflammatory response and oxidative stress. Conclusion. miR-135a-5p targeted TBK1 to regulate inflammatory/oxidative stress responses in ALI. Such results might bring a new potential target for ALI treatment.

In this paper, spherical calcium carbonate particles were prepared by using CaCl2 aqueous solution + NH3·H2O + polyoxyethylene octyl phenol ether-10 (OP-10) + n-butyl alcohol + cyclohexane inverse micro emulsion system. Then, nanoscale spherical silica was deposited on the surface of micron calcium carbonate by Stöber method to form the composite material. Scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were used to characterize the morphology and structure of the composite material. It is found that the surface of the composite material has a micro-nano complex structure similar to the surface of a “lotus leaf”, making the composite material show hydrophobicity. The contact angle of the cubic calcium carbonate, spherical calcium carbonate and CaCO3@SiO2 composite material were measured. They were 51.6°, 73.5°, and 76.8°, respectively. After modification with stearic acid, the contact angle of cubic and spherical CaCO3 were 127.1° and 136.1°, respectively, while the contact angle of CaCO3@SiO2 composite was 151.3°. These results showed that CaCO3@SiO2 composite had good superhydrophobicity, and the influence of material roughness on its hydrophobicity was investigated using the Cassie model theory.

As climate change continues to threaten human and natural systems, the search for cost-effective and practical mitigation solutions is gaining momentum. Reforestation has recently been identified as a promising nature-based climate solution. Yet there are context-dependent biophysical, financial, land-use and operational constraints to reforestation that demand careful consideration. Here, we show that 121 million ha of presently degraded land in Southeast Asia, a region noted for its significant reforestation potential, are biophysically suitable for reforestation. Reforestation of this land would contribute 3.43 ± 1.29 PgCO2e yr−1 to climate mitigation through 2030. However, by taking a combination of on-the-ground financial, land use and operational constraints into account, we find that only a fraction of that mitigation potential may be achievable (0.3–18%). Such constraints are not insurmountable, but they show that careful planning and consideration are needed for effective landscape-scale reforestation. Reforestation has been recently identified as a promising climate mitigation option. In Southeast Asia, 120 million ha of land are biophysically suitable for reforestation. However, financial, land-use and operational factors constrain mitigation potential to a fraction of its total possible value.

Despite its social and economic benefits, the trade in ornamental species (henceforth, ‘ornamental trade’) has become a major source of non-native fish introductions into freshwater ecosystems. However, the ornamental trade as a vector for introductions of non-native freshwater fishes is not well defined. We developed a framework incorporating elements of the biological invasion process and a typical ornamental fish trade supply chain to fill this gap. Records of non-native ornamental fishes introduced to freshwater environments of Australia, Belgium (Flanders), Canada (British Columbia), China (Guangdong), the Philippines, Poland, Singapore, the United Kingdom (England), and the United States of America (Florida) were reviewed to explore the pervasiveness of these introduced fishes in the wild. These regional case studies confirmed the prominence of the ornamental trade as a global vector for freshwater fish introductions beyond their natural range. Additionally, we examined freshwater fishes associated with the ornamental trade to identify ‘risky’ species that could establish in recipient regions based on climate match. All regions assessed were at risk of new fish introductions via the ornamental trade, with the number of ‘risky’ species ranging from seven to 256. Further, there appears to be taxonomic bias in the freshwater ornamental fish trade, with 74% of the species belonging to just 10 families (of 67). Current prevention and management approaches and associated polices, regulations and legislation on aquatic non-native species within assessed regions fit five general categories: import controls, risk assessment, whitelist, blacklist, and release ban. However, these prevention/management efforts may not be sufficient to reduce the invasion risk associated with the ornamental fish trade. Recommendations including species- and vector-based risk assessments, better recording of species import consignments, increased public education and industry engagement, and early detection and rapid response are discussed in this review.