Editorial: Machine learning in studies of atmospheric environment and climate change

ISSN:2296-665

Community perspectives of flagship species: can conservation motivators mitigate human-wildlife conflict?

Public perception of endangered species is crucial for successful management of community-based conservation and sustainability of national parks. By the method of choice experiment, our study evaluated conservation preferences and willingness to donate money for flagship and non-flagship species using a choice experiment with 409 residents living near the Lanstang river source of Sanjiangyuan National Park, China. We found that flagship species such as the Snow leopard (Pristine plateau) and White-lipped deer (Przewalskium albirostris) generated more conservation funds than non-flagship species. However, not all flagship species were accepted. Respondents disliked Tibetan brown bears (Ursus arctos pruinosus) due to direct human-wildlife conflicts such as bodily injury and property damage. Heterogeneity of preference was influenced by household income, religious beliefs, ethnicity, culture, and conservation awareness. Results can be used to establish a local community-participative framework by combining conservation motivations that alleviate human-wildlife conflict

Pharmacokinetics and Tissue Distribution of DVDMS-2 in Tumor-bearing Mice.

DVDMS-2 is a novel candidate for photodynamic therapy of tumors. The purpose of the present study was to assess the distribution and elimination of DVDMS-2 in mice bearing hepatoma 22 tumors. DVDMS-2 (1, 2 and 4 mg kg-1 ) was injected intravenously into the mice, extracted from biological tissues and quantified using a fluorescence assay. The data obtained were processed with WinNonlin pharmacokinetic software. The fluorescence assay established for DVDMS-2 quantification was a rapid, reproducible, sensitive and specific method with good linearity. The pharmacokinetics of DVDMS-2 in tumor-bearing mice conformed to a two-compartment model. DVDMS-2 accumulated in tumor tissue to a greater extent than adjacent tissues (skin, muscle) and sustained a relatively high-level concentration 12 to 24 h following administration, which may be the optimal treatment time point. In conclusion, DVDMS-2 selectively accumulated in tumor tissue and was eliminated at a rapid rate in tumor-bearing mice, suggesting that DVDMS-2 may have few side effects, including skin phototoxicity. The present study established the pharmacokinetic characteristics of DVDMS-2, which may be beneficial in future clinical study

Rapid and efficient removal of methylene blue by freshly prepared manganese dioxide

Freshly prepared manganese dioxide was employed as an adsorbent to remove methylene blue (MB) from water. It was demonstrated that the obtained MnO2 outperformed several adsorbents previously reported in the literatures for a rapid and effective removal of MB. The time required to reach adsorption equilibrium was as short as 2 min. The Langmuir isotherm fit well into the experimental data with a linear correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.997. The maximum adsorption capacity was 627.1 mg/g. The removal efficiency of MB increased along with increasing MnO2 dose, whereas decreased over pH 3.0–6.0. The adsorption mechanism was primarily attributed to electrostatic attraction

Active Fire Dynamics in the Amazon: New Perspectives From High-Resolution Satellite Observations

The Amazon region is expected to become an amplified fire-prone system, but the mechanism of fire occurrence is not fully understood. Here, we employed more than 300,000 Sentinel-2 images acquired during 2016–2019 and compiled a high-resolution inventory of active fires (AFs) over the Amazon. We found that the fire activities in the Amazon in 2019 did not stand out compared with those in 2017 as a whole. However, the number of fires increased in 2019 in the absence of an exceptional drought, suggesting increased human disturbance in the Amazon. The high-resolution AF inventory further demonstrated that over 90% of detected AFs were associated with humans clearing deforested fields on forest fringes for agricultural land expansion. Additionally, our inventory indicated that satellite sensors with coarser spatial resolution could miss considerable small fires, especially at the sensitive agriculture–forest interface, which therefore should be targeted as a priority conservation area