Association between Global Monkeypox Cases and Meteorological Factors

The emergence of an outbreak of Monkeypox disease (MPXD) is caused by a contagious zoonotic Monkeypox virus (MPXV) that has spread globally. Yet, there is no study investigating the effect of climatic changes on MPXV transmission. Thus, studies on the changing epidemiology, evolving nature of the virus, and ecological niche are highly paramount. Determination of the role of potential meteorological drivers including temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, dew point, wind speed, and surface pressure is beneficial to understand the MPXD outbreak. This study examines the changes in MPXV cases over time while assessing the meteorological characteristics that could impact these disparities from the onset of the global outbreak. To conduct this data-based research, several well-accepted statistical techniques including Simple Exponential Smoothing (SES), Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA), Automatic forecasting time-series model (Prophet), and Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average with Explanatory Variables (ARIMAX) were applied to delineate the correlation of the meteorological factors on global daily Monkeypox cases. Data on MPXV cases including affected countries spanning from 6 May 2022, to 9 November 2022, from global databases and meteorological data were used to evaluate the developed models. According to the ARIMAX model, the results showed that temperature, relative humidity, and surface pressure have a positive impact [(51.56, 95% confidence interval (CI): -274.55 to 377.68), (17.32, 95% CI: -83.71 to 118.35) and (23.42, 95% CI: -9.90 to 56.75), respectively] on MPXV cases. In addition, dew/frost point, precipitation, and wind speed show a significant negative impact on MPXD cases. The Prophet model showed a significant correlation with rising MPXD cases, although the trend predicts peak values while the overall trend increases. This underscores the importance of immediate and appropriate preventive measures (timely preparedness and proactive control strategies) with utmost priority against MPXD including awareness-raising programs, the discovery, and formulation of effective vaccine candidate(s), prophylaxis and therapeutic regimes, and management strategies.Peer reviewe

A comparative study of artificial intelligence models for predicting monthly river suspended sediment load

When high precision modelling is required, for example, with the estimation of suspended sediment load (SSL), data-driven models are preferred over physically-based numerical models for their real-time, short-horizon prediction ability. The investigation of SSL, as an important index in engineering practices assessment, like design and operation of the hydraulic structures not only shows the hydrological behaviour of the river, but also illustrates the valuable information about the water quality deterioration, surface-groundwater interaction and land-use changes of the watershed. The following data-driven methods were compared in order to predict SSL at the Seyra gauging station on the Karaj River in Iran: Fuzzy logic (FL), two adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems (i.e., ANFIS-GP and ANFIS-FCM models), an artificial neural network (ANN), and least squares support vector machine (LSSVM). Monthly average river flow and SSL data for 50 years were obtained from the Tehran Regional Water Authority (TRWA). The data was first divided into training, validation and test sets and the SSL was then predicted using the ANN, FL, ANFIS, and LSSVM models. The reliability of the applied models was evaluated by the correlation coefficient (R), root mean square error (RMSE), and mean absolute error (MAE). The results showed that the ANFIS models outperformed the ANN, FL, and LSSVM models for predicting SSL using the given input and output data. Overall, the performances of the artificial intelligence models used in the present study were satisfactory in predicting the non-linear behaviour of the SSL

Analiza porównawcza modeli opartych na logice rozmytej do oceny jakości wód podziemnych na podstawie wskaźników nawadniania

Groundwater quality modelling plays an important role in water resources management decision making processes. Accordingly, models must be developed to account for the inherent uncertainty that arises from the sample measurement stage through to the data interpretation stages. Artificial intelligence models, particularly fuzzy inference systems (FIS), have been shown to be effective in groundwater quality evaluation for complex aquifers. Applying fuzzy set theory to groundwater-quality related decision-making in an agricultural production context, the Mamdani, Sugeno, and Larsen fuzzy logic-based models (MFL, SFL, and LFL, respectively) were used to develop a series of new, generalized, rule-based fuzzy models for water quality evaluation using widely accepted irrigation indices. Rather than drawing upon physiochemical groundwater quality parameters, the present study employed widely accepted agricultural indices (e.g., irrigation criteria) when developing the MFL, SFL and LFL groundwater quality models. These newly-developed models, generated significantly more consistent results than the United States Soil Laboratory (USSL) diagram, addressed the inherent uncertainty in threshold data, and were effective in assessing groundwater quality for agricultural uses. The SFL model is recommended because it had the best performance in terms of accuracy when assessing groundwater quality using irrigation indices.Modelowanie jakości wód podziemnych odgrywa ważną rolę w procesach podejmowania decyzji dotyczących zarządzania zasobami wodnymi. W związku z tym należy opracować modele uwzględniające naturalną niepewność, która pojawia się od etapu pomiaru próbki, aż do interpretacji danych. Wykazano, że modele sztucznej inteligencji, w szczególności systemy wnioskowania rozmytego (FIS), są skuteczne w ocenie jakości wód podziemnych w odniesieniu do złożonych warstw wodonośnych. Zastosowanie teorii zbiorów rozmytych do podejmowania decyzji związanych z jakością wód podziemnych w kontekście produkcji rolnej, modele oparte na logice rozmytej Mamdaniego, Sugeno i Larsena (odpowiednio MFL, SFL i LFL) zostały wykorzystane do opracowania serii nowych, uogólnionych modeli, opartych na regułach rozmytych, do oceny jakości wody z wykorzystaniem powszechnie akceptowanych wskaźników nawadniania. Zamiast czerpać z jakościowych parametrów fizykochemicznych wód gruntowych, w niniejszym badaniu zastosowano powszechnie przyjęte wskaźniki rolne (np. kryteria nawadniania) podczas opracowywania modeli jakości wód podziemnych MFL, SFL i LFL. Za pomocą tych nowo opracowanych modeli, wygenerowano znacznie bardziej spójne wyniki niż z zastosowaniem diagramu Amerykańskiego Laboratorium Gleby (USSL), uwzględniono nieodłączną niepewność danych progowych. Modele te były skuteczne w ocenie jakości wód podziemnych do zastosowań rolniczych. Model SFL jest zalecany, ponieważ miał najlepszą efektywność pod względem dokładności w ocenie jakości wód podziemnych z użyciem wskaźników nawadniania

A sustainable trend in COVID-19 research : An environmental perspective

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread across the globe producing hundreds of thousands of deaths, shutting down economies, closing borders and causing havoc on an unprecedented scale. Its potent effects have earned the attention of researchers in different fields worldwide. Among them, authors from different countries have published numerous research articles based on the environmental concepts of COVID-19. The environment is considered an essential receptor in the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is academically significant to look into publications to follow the pathway of hot topics of research and upcoming trends in studies. Reviewing the literature can therefore provide valuable information regarding the strengths and weaknesses in facing the COVID-19 pandemic, considering the environmental viewpoint. The present study categorizes the understanding caused by environmental and COVID-19-related published papers in the Scopus metadata from 2020 to 2021. VOSviewer is a promising bibliometric tool used to analyze the publications with keywords "COVID-19*" and "Environment." Then, a narrative evaluation is utilized to delineate the most interesting research topics. Co-occurrence analysis is applied in this research, which further characterizes different thematic clusters. The published literature mainly focused on four central cluster environmental concepts: air pollution, epidemiology and virus transmission, water and wastewater, and environmental policy. It also reveals that environmental policy has gained worldwide interest, with the main keyword "management" and includes keywords like waste management, sustainability, governance, ecosystem, and climate change. Although these keywords could also appear in other environmental policy-related research studies, the importance of the COVID-19 pandemic requires such comprehensive research. The fourth cluster involves governance and management concerns encountered during the pandemic. Mapping the research topics in different clusters will pave the way for researchers to view future potential ideas and studies better. The scope for further research needs from the perspective of environmental concepts is reviewed and recommended, which can expand the vital role and value of environmental sciences in alerting, observing, and COVID-19 prediction for all four clusters. In other words, the research trend would shift from qualitative studies and perspectives to quantitative ones.Peer reviewe