Climate change and climate change velocity analysis across Germany

Although there are great concerns to what extent current and future climate change impacts biodiversity across different spatial and temporal scales, we still lack a clear information on different climate change metrics across fine spatial scales. Here we present an analysis of climate change and climate change velocity at a local scale (1 × 1 km) across Germany. We focus on seasonal climate variability and velocity and investigate changes in three time periods (1901–2015, 1901–1950 and 1951–2015) using a novel statistical approach. Our results on climate variability showed the highest trends for the 1951–2015 time period. The strongest (positive/negative) and spatially the most dispersed trends were found for Summer maximum temperature and Summer minimum temperatures. For precipitation the strongest positive trends were most pronounced in the summer (1951–2015) and winter (1901–2015). Results for climate change velocity showed that almost 90% of temperature velocities were in the range of 0.5 to 3 km/year, whereas all climate velocities for precipitation were within the range of −3.5 to 4.5 km/year. The key results amplify the need for more local and regional scale studies to better understand species individualistic responses to recent climate change and allow for more accurate future projections and conservation strategies

An inclusive future: Disabled populations in the context of climate and environmental change

Climate and environmental change impacts are projected to increase, constituting a significant challenge for meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) while disproportionately affecting disabled populations. However, current research lacks knowledge on context-specific impacts of climate and environmental change on disabled populations. We use the environmental justice perspective that emphasises distributional, recognitional, and procedural dimensions regarding disabled populations to understand impacts and adaptation concerns and their implications for achieving the SDGs

Changes in the geographical distribution of plant species and climatic variables on the West Cornwall peninsula (South West UK)

Recent climate change has had a major impact on biodiversity and has altered the geographical distribution of vascular plant species. This trend is visible globally; however, more local and regional scale research is needed to improve understanding of the patterns of change and to develop appropriate conservation strategies that can minimise cultural, health, and economic losses at finer scales. Here we describe a method to manually geo-reference botanical records from a historical herbarium to track changes in the geographical distributions of plant species in West Cornwall (South West England) using both historical (pre-1900) and contemporary (post-1900) distribution records. We also assess the use of Ellenberg and climate indicator values as markers of responses to climate and environmental change. Using these techniques we detect a loss in 19 plant species, with 6 species losing more than 50% of their previous range. Statistical analysis showed that Ellenberg (light, moisture, nitrogen) and climate indicator values (mean January temperature, mean July temperature and mean precipitation) could be used as environmental change indicators. Significantly higher percentages of area lost were detected in species with lower January temperatures, July temperatures, light, and nitrogen values, as well as higher annual precipitation and moisture values. This study highlights the importance of historical records in examining the changes in plant species’ geographical distributions. We present a method for manual geo-referencing of such records, and demonstrate how using Ellenberg and climate indicator values as environmental and climate change indicators can contribute towards directing appropriate conservation strategies

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Climate concerns and the disabled community

Climate change and the loss of ecosystem services are likely to disproportionately affect the world’s disabled populations by accentuating inequalities and increasing marginalization of the most vulnerable members of society (1, 2). Disabled populations may experience a limited access to knowledge, resources, and services to effectively respond to environmental change (3). Compromised health may make people more vulnerable to extreme climate events, ecosystem services loss, or infectious disease exposure (4), and those with disabilities are more likely to have difficulties during required evacuations or migrations (5, 6).publishe

Craterellus cornucopioides Edible Mushroom as Source of Biologically Active Compounds

© The Author(s) 2019 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions Here we determined the phenolic compounds and antioxidant, antimicrobial, genotoxic, and anticancer potential of edible mushrooms Craterellus cornucopioides. The phytochemical analysis was evaluated using high-performance liquid chromatography. Antioxidant activity was evaluated by free radical scavenging, superoxide anion scavenging, and reducing power. Craterellus cornucopioides extract had potent antioxidant activity. Further, the antimicrobial potential was determined by a microdilution method, where minimum inhibitory concentration values ranged from 0.1 to 10 mg/mL. Genotoxic potential was determined by cytokinesis block micronucleus test. The separate treatment did not show genotoxic effect, whereas the combined treatment with mitomycin C significantly reduced the micronuclei frequency in a dose-dependent manner. The highest concentration significantly reduced nuclear division index in comparison to untreated human peripheral blood lymphocytes, whereas in combined treatment, the extract did not significantly affect this parameter. Finally, the cytotoxic activity was tested using microculture tetrazolium test where measured IC50 values ranged from 65.5 to 131.7 μg/mL

Investigation of biological activities and secondary metabolites of hydnum repandum acetone extract

© 2019, Romanian Society for Pharmaceutical Sciences. All rights reserved. This study aimed to evaluate the biological activities and polyphenolic contents of the acetone extract of H. repandum mushroom. Polyphenolic compounds were evaluated by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The antioxidant activity was assessed by radical scavenging activity assays and reducing power. The antimicrobial activity was established based on the values of the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) using microdilution method. Cytotoxic activity was determined by 3-4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT). The genotoxic and antimutagenic activities were tested using cytokinesis block micronucleus (CBMN) assay on human peripheral blood lymphocytes in vitro. Among the determined polyphenolic compounds, ferulic acid and quercetin were mostly found. The extract showed high free radical scavenging activity, while the reducing power was less emphasized and concentration-dependent. The MIC fluctuated in a range of 0.009-10 mg/mL. The cytotoxic activity (based on IC50) ranged from 116.5 to 158.33 µg/mL, when HeLa cells were the most sensitive. The highest tested concentrations of the extract showed significant genotoxic activity, while against mitomycin C, the extract caused protective activity. The results indicated that H. repandum acetone extract contained secondary metabolites which showed biological activities such as antioxidant, antimicrobial, cytotoxic, genotoxic and protective against chemotherapeutics, indicating that their inclusion in nutrition could be of great importance in the prevention and treatment of various pathological conditions

Evaluation of biological activities of acetone extract of the mushroom leccinum scabrum

Bioactivity of acetone extract of Leccinum scabrum was evaluated. Antioxidant activity was evaluated by free radical scavenging activity, reducing power and determination of total phenolic content. The microdilution plate method was used to detect antimicrobial activity. Cytotoxic activity was tested by MTT assay. Genotoxic potential was evaluated by comet assay. Results showed a stronger free radical scavenging activity, but the reducing power was less pronounced. The total content of phenols in the extract was 14.91 µg PE/mg. The minimum inhibitory concentration related to the tested microorganisms fluctuated in the range 0.039-10 mg/mL. The most sensitive was Bacillus cereus. A strong cytotoxic activity was revealed with IC50 values ranging between 73.64 and 200.00 µg/mL, among which HeLa was the most sensitive. Results showed that the extract was not genotoxic and it decreased the H2O2-induced GDI values in comparison to the positive control. L. scabrum possesses bioactivities such as antioxidant, antimicrobial, cytotoxic, no genotoxic and protective against H2O2, and in the highest tested concentration it showed a synergistic activity

Cytotoxic and Antimicrobial Activity of Dehydrozingerone based Cyclopropyl Derivatives

A small series of 1-acetyl-2-(4-alkoxy-3-methoxyphenyl)cyclopropanes was prepared, starting from dehydrozingerone (4-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)-3-buten-2-one) and its O-alkyl derivatives. Their microbiological activities toward some strains of bacteria and fungi were tested, as well as their in vitro cytotoxic activity against some cancer cell lines (HeLa, LS174 and A549). All synthesized compounds showed significant antimicrobial activity and expressed cytotoxic activity against tested carcinoma cell lines, but they showed no significant influence on normal cell line (MRC5). Butyl derivative is the most active on HeLa cells (IC50 = 8.63 m), while benzyl one is active against LS174 and A549 cell lines (IC50 = 10.17 and 12.15 m, respectively)