Search Results (4,118)

Nance fruits are produced worldwide in small cultivars and are valued for their characteristic aroma, flavor, and rich vitamins and fiber, as well as for their antioxidant characteristics. The use of herbal infusions in various communities is common, and considerable knowledge behind such usage remains empirical. In this work, we investigated the bioactive profile of nance fruit pulp water and ethanol extracts obtained at various temperatures, as well as their feasibility to inhibit selected pathogenic bacteria strains and biofilm formation. The extracts showed a significant content of vitamin C that increased from 11 to 17 mg/100 mL when temperatures rose to 75–90 °C. Antioxidant capacity by DPPH• and ABTS•⁺ also increased with extraction temperature (75–90 °C), and phenolic compounds correspondingly depicted maximum values of 8.0 and 11.2 mg GAE/100 mL at the same temperatures. The higher values of bioactive compounds and antioxidant capacity at high extraction temperatures was possibly due to the disruption of cell walls and membranes at these temperatures that allowed for the release of bioactive compounds. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy bands indicated that the aqueous extracts of nance pulp contained a combination of hydroxyl, amide, and methylene functional groups, demonstrating the coexistence of phenolic compounds, amino acids, and lipids, which supported the presence of molecules with potential biological activity. Inhibition of microbial growth by aqueous extracts obtained at 20 °C was observed against S. aureus and P. aeruginosa, and none of the extracts prevented biofilm formation against S. aureus. Full article

Africa’s food systems, dominated by smallholder farmers, have yet to benefit from the transformative potential of digital technologies. While large-scale farms have widely integrated digital solutions, smallholder farms have lagged behind. This disparity creates unequal opportunities in the sector. African governments are not oblivious to the severe impact of the digital divide. Therefore, several policy frameworks and strategies are being adopted to address the challenge. This article examines current policy frameworks and strategies to address the digital divide in Africa’s food systems. It also explores the impact of these policy frameworks and strategies. The article draws from a qualitative review methodology underpinned by a review of primary and secondary sources, both in grey and academic formats. The article reveals that at the regional level, policies such as the African Union (AU) Digital Transformation Strategy, the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme, the AU Digital Agriculture Strategy and the African Continental Free Trade Area Digital Protocol are being adopted to address the digital divide. There are also several Regional Economic Communities Initiatives that focus on several intertwined areas to address the digital divide. In addition, countries adopt notional strategies and policies to address country-specific challenges related to the digital divide. The article concludes that policies aimed at addressing the digital divide have had a limited impact in Africa due to poor implementation. Accountability must be built into the policy lifecycle, from planning and implementation to monitoring and evaluation, to address the digital divide in Africa’s food systems effectively. This can be achieved through a combination of political oversight, legal and regulatory frameworks, civil society engagement, and the establishment of measurable performance metrics. Full article

Benthic foraminifera are effective indicators of heavy metal contamination in marine ecosystems. Traditional methods for benthic foraminiferal identification and biodiversity assessment rely predominantly on stereomicroscopic analysis. However, this approach is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and cannot effectively identify small or morphologically similar species. In this study, we aimed to enhance the utility of benthic foraminifera as bioindicators. To this end, we investigated the responses of benthic foraminiferal communities to varying concentrations of Cd under controlled laboratory conditions using both morphological assessments and metabarcoding analyses. Cd exposure reduced the abundance of benthic foraminifera. High Cd concentrations led to Cd enrichment in foraminiferal tests and altered the contents of other elements. Quinqueloculina, Ammonia, and Miliammina exhibited tolerance to Cd, whereas Parasorites and Ovammina were more sensitive. This study provides an effective approach for evaluating the short-term effects of heavy metal pollution on benthic foraminiferal communities. Full article

Sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L.) leaves are rich in nutrients and bioactive constituents, with great potential for fermented tea development. It has been demonstrated that Fuzhuan brick tea processing can improve sea buckthorn leaf tea flavor, but the underlying microbial succession remains unexplored. Therefore, we characterized the dynamic succession and interrelationships of bacterial and fungal communities via Illumina NovaSeq 6000 sequencing. β-diversity analysis revealed successive shifts in microbial community structure, with fungal communities changing mainly in the early stage and bacterial communities varying more in the late stage of fermentation. The relative abundance of Pseudomonas, a genus frequently associated with flavor formation and tea quality, increased steadily. Fungal taxonomic analysis revealed that the genus Aspergillus, particularly the species Aspergillus chevalieri, remained dominant throughout the fermentation process. Linear discriminant analysis effect size indicated an enrichment of microbial taxa typical of fermentation, accompanied by a relative reduction in putative opportunistic microbes. Additionally, Aspergillus exhibited significant negative correlations with five key differentially abundant bacterial genera. Interestingly, microbial co-occurrence networks suggested an overall tendency toward coexistence rather than mutual exclusion between the bacterial and fungal communities. This work provides a theoretical foundation for the development of novel fermented sea buckthorn leaf tea products. Full article

This study applies the Actor-Centered Power (ACP) framework to analyze urban green-space governance in three Asian cities, focusing on how power is distributed and exercised among actors in the management of their representative multipurpose parks: Seoul Forest in Seoul, Da’an Forest Park in Taipei, and Yoyogi Park in Tokyo. Conventionally used in large-scale forest governance in the Global South, ACP is extended here to East Asian cities of the Global North. This can provide nascent insight into how coercion, (dis)incentives, and information operate across different institutions. The study found that the initial formation of the parks was driven by potent actors through coercive measures in all three cities. While Seoul maintains centralized statutory governance under the national act, Taipei adopts a decentralized governance model that foregrounds subordinate actors, notably exemplified by the higher education-oriented foundation. This organization promotes citizen science involvement and community-based stewardship. Tokyo, by contrast, uses a public–private partnership model that supports private sector commercial collaboration. This comparative case study demonstrates that the ACP framework is well-suited for analyzing urban green-space governance, as it distinguishes between power subjects (potentates and subordinates) and power sources (coercion, incentives, and information), providing theoretical and managerial implications. Through the lens of the ACP framework, this study argues that distinct institutional arrangements produce divergent power configurations for urban green-space management even within similarly developed urban contexts. Full article

This study examines public perceptions and discourse on climate change using artificial intelligence (AI)-based analysis of social media data, with implications for climate adaptation and sustainability policy. A dataset of 29,576 posts from the X platform (December 2025) was analyzed through an integrated framework combining text mining, TF-IDF-based word analysis, deep learning-based sentiment analysis, and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modelling. The findings reveal that climate change discourse is predominantly characterized by negative sentiment, reflecting high levels of concern, perceived risk, and urgency, while positive content emphasizes awareness, solutions, and collective action. Topic modelling identifies three main themes: skepticism shaped by daily weather experiences, scientific and policy-oriented climate debates, and discussions on carbon emissions and human impact. These results demonstrate that social media serves not only as a space for emotional expression but also as a dynamic platform for information exchange and public opinion formation. From an adaptation perspective, AI-driven social media analytics provide valuable insights into public risk perception, misinformation patterns, and knowledge gaps, supporting evidence-based climate communication and policy development. Full article

Conservation tillage has an influence on the cultivation and sustainable utilization of farmland. However, the microbial mechanism driving soil nutrient cycling in conservation tillage and its regulation pathway remain unclear. Based on a positioning experiment in black soil areas, this study systematically compared the effects of no-tillage (NT) and moldboard tillage (MT) combined with different straw returning amounts (straw non-returning, NS; straw half-returning, HS; straw full-returning, TS) on the composition of soil carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) and focused on the role of microbial community structure succession and functional changes in soil nutrient cycling. Microbial community remodeling driven by tillage measures was mainly regulated by C and N components. Bacterial modules 2 and 4 and fungal modules 1 and 2 were key for regulating the C, N and P cycle, of which 87 bacteria and 45 fungi taxa represented the core driving microorganisms. The total amount of no-tillage straw return reduced the formation and accumulation of labile organic carbon fractions by enriching yeast-like fungi and inhibiting the expression of complex organic matter decomposition genes. Tillage mainly promoted the accumulation of labile organic carbon fractions and nutrient release by regulating the bacterial community, while no-tillage straw returning promoted the accumulation of total organic carbon and organic nitrogen fixation by promoting the fungal community. This study revealed the biological pathway of conservation tillage that drives soil nutrient cycling by regulating key microbial communities. It also provides a microbiological basis for sustainable soil management in black soil areas. Full article

This paper investigates the formation tracking problem for a group of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) operating under quantized communication and actuation. A novel adaptive learning framework is proposed, capable of extracting cooperative control policies directly from quantized relative measurements and quantized input signals. Unlike conventional approaches that rely on continuous signal assumptions, the developed method enables each AUV to learn and adapt its behavior in real time from coarsely quantized data, thereby enhancing robustness in digital and bandwidth-limited environments. Within a backstepping control structure, an improved quantized consensus mechanism and a hysteresis quantizer compensation strategy are integrated to mitigate quantization effects. Using Lyapunov stability theory, it is proven that all closed-loop signals remain bounded and the formation tracking errors converge to an adjustable neighborhood of zero. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed learning-based controller achieves accurate formation tracking and exhibits strong adaptability under dual quantization constraints. Full article

Daqu is the core saccharifying and fermenting agent in Baijiu production and a pivotal factor in flavor formation. Challenges that often hinder traditional strong-flavor Daqu brewing include low enzymatic activity and insufficient aroma. Therefore, we have developed a novel Daqu brewing system. Furthermore, we investigated the differences in flavor profiles between traditional and novel Daqu by performing headspace solid-phase microextraction gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC-MS). We comparatively analyzed the microbial communities, metabolic functions, and flavor compositions in the two Daqu types via absolute quantitative metagenomics. Functional microorganisms were significantly enriched in the novel Daqu, which exhibited enhanced carbohydrate metabolism and a highly robust acidic environment owing to the fostering of core functional genera such as Aspergillus, Saccharomyces, and Pediococcus. This significantly increased the aldehyde and organic acid levels, which resulted in pronounced aldehydic and acidic sensory characteristics. Carbohydrate-Active EnZyme (CAZy) profiling confirmed the significantly elevated abundance of glycoside hydrolases (GHs) and glycosyltransferases (GTs) in novel Daqu, which improved starch bioconversion and synthesis of flavor precursors. Thus, this study shows that novel Daqu promotes ethanol accumulation and the synthesis of flavor compounds like acetals by strengthening the core microbiota and metabolic networks. These findings provide a theoretical foundation for enriching the aromatic complexity of Baijiu. Full article

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are ubiquitous combustion-derived contaminants that represent a significant cross-cutting threat to human, animal, and environmental health. Viewed through an explicit One Health lens, this review shows how the shared combustion sources, evolutionarily conserved toxicological mechanisms, and food-web linkages connecting environmental contamination to wildlife and human exposure justify an integrated, cross-domain approach to PAH risk assessment and management. PAHs are generated predominantly through incomplete combustion of organic materials and are globally distributed through atmospheric transport, aquatic runoff, and food-web transfer, persisting in soils and sediments for decades. The present review synthesizes current knowledge on PAHs through an explicit One Health lens, examining shared sources, environmental fate, and convergent health effects across species and health domains, while also highlighting the need to move beyond the classical US EPA priority PAHs to include high-molecular-weight PAHs (>302 Da), alkylated homologues, and transformation products such as oxy- and nitro-PAHs. Common pathways such as dietary intake of grilled and smoked foods, inhalation of contaminated air, and occupational exposure create parallel toxicological burdens in both human and wildlife populations, particularly through genotoxic mechanisms mediated by aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) activation and CYP1A1/CYP1B1-catalyzed bioactivation to reactive diol epoxides. The resulting DNA adduct formation links environmental PAH exposure to carcinogenicity, reproductive toxicity, immunosuppression, and developmental impairment across vertebrate species with remarkable mechanistic consistency. Wildlife, especially fish, marine mammals, and seabirds, serve as critical sentinels for environmental PAH contamination, while simultaneously facing direct health impacts on immune function, reproduction, and population viability. Vulnerable human populations, including children, subsistence communities, occupational workers, and residents near combustion-intensive industries, bear disproportionate burdens reflecting underlying environmental justice concerns. Integrated intervention strategies encompassing source control, dietary exposure reduction, site remediation, and coordinated biomonitoring are urgently needed. By incorporating emerging PAH classes with distinct persistence, trophic behavior, and toxicological potency, the One Health paradigm provides a more comprehensive conceptual framework for modern environmental surveillance, food safety, and integrated risk assessment, recognizing that the health of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems is inseparable from that of the animals and humans within them. Full article

Microplastics are emerging contaminants widely present in aquatic environments, yet their toxic effects on submerged plants and associated microbial communities under saline conditions remain unclear. In this study, Myriophyllum spicatum was exposed to polystyrene (PS) microplastics (0, 10, 30, 60, and 100 mg·L⁻¹) under 0.5% salinity. We investigated plant growth, physiological responses, nitrogen and phosphorus removal, transcriptomic changes, and phyllosphere microbial communities. Results showed a concentration-dependent response, with low-dose stimulation and high-dose inhibition. At 30 mg·L⁻¹, PS promoted growth, maintained membrane integrity and photosynthetic pigment levels, and enhanced nutrient removal. In contrast, 100 mg·L⁻¹ PS caused membrane damage, photosynthetic inhibition, oxidative stress, and reduced nutrient uptake, indicating clear toxic effects. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that high PS significantly affected genes related to photosynthesis, antioxidant defense, energy metabolism, and nutrient transport. Microplastics promoted biofilm formation on leaf surfaces but did not significantly alter overall microbial community structure or diversity, instead shifting functionally related taxa associated with plant oxidative responses and nutrient removal. These findings demonstrate that PS microplastics exert phytotoxic effects under saline conditions by disrupting physiological processes and are associated with shifts in functional microbial groups, with potential implications for aquatic ecosystem health. Full article

As the core repository of historical memory, the revitalisation and utilisation of cultural heritage (CH) are paramount to cultural transmission. Currently, virtual reality (VR) has become a mainstream method for public engagement with cultural heritage, but existing research mainly focuses on knowledge transfer efficiency while neglecting emotional factors’ key role in heritage identification and dissemination. This study examines the VR-based CH experience for Tianjin Marco Polo Square via multi-stakeholder collaboration, exploring how emotional design affects users’ CH learning and identity formation. Findings show emotionally driven VR games enhance immersion, engagement, resonance and learning outcomes through multisensory immersion, goal-oriented interaction and narrative connections. Theoretically, a three-tier “instinct–behaviour–reflection” emotional design framework integrated with constructivist learning theory is built to tackle emotional deficiency in CH communication. Practically, it verifies that affective VR games upgrade CH transmission from unidirectional dissemination to dynamic inheritance, establishing a new participatory culture paradigm. Full article

Blockchain technology offers promising solutions to some of the challenges that IKS face, such as secure long-term preservation. This study aims to develop a blockchain-based framework for sustainable management and preservation of Indigenous knowledge systems. A qualitative document analysis is adopted in this study, which is based on a critical literature review on how blockchain technology can be leveraged to enhance the digital preservation of IKS. The findings revealed that innovative technologies possess attractive solutions to both revitalize, manage and preserve IKS, although there are some risks to be shrouded such as data loss due to system failure and cyberattacks. Blockchain technology offers promising solutions to some of the challenges that IKS face, such as secure long-term preservation. The study further established that the Indigenous data sovereignty can inform the design of the blockchain-based framework by ensuring that Indigenous communities remain in charge of their resources that are expressed in digital formats. This study adds to the existing body of knowledge by proposing a framework that is built on blockchain technology to serve as a guide in designing and developing secure and sustainable digital IKS preservation solutions. This framework places Indigenous communities at the core of all digitization processes so that they direct and control the implementation of blockchain technology to ensure that it aligns with their values and priorities. In addition, placing Indigenous communities at the center of building digital systems ensures that they remain the sole proprietors of their resources. The study recommended that the capacity building and digital literacy be provided, given that blockchain technology requires expertise to implement and manage it. Furthermore, the implementation of blockchain-based framework should be led by Indigenous communities, allowing them to test, refine and adapt the technologies to diverse local contexts and specific IKS domains. Full article

Although the entrepreneurial incubation performance of the platform-led entrepreneurial ecosystem is remarkable, existing research lacks insights into how to empower startups and how to effectively improve their performance as important ecosystem participants. To address this gap, this study analyzed the questionnaire data from 368 employees of startups associated with platform enterprises established for less than 8 years. Research findings indicate that within these ecosystems, the coupling relationship between startups and platform ecosystem participants facilitates the formation of interest communities within the platform ecosystem’s inner circles. Crucially, this study reveals that formal platform governance significantly moderates these relationships, acting as an institutional safeguard that curbs opportunistic behavior and amplifies the performance-enhancing effects of coupling. This synergistic interplay between coupling and formal governance mechanisms drives collective value creation across the entire platform, and thus improves startup performance. Finally, based on the coupling intensity and governance maturity, this study has built a practical decision-making matrix, which provides clear strategic rules for startups, large enterprises and policymakers, so as to enhance sustainable collaboration and resource allocation among all ecosystem participants. Full article

This article offers a comprehensive theorization of stiob as a historically sedimented, culturally specific, yet increasingly globalized modality of ironic discourse whose logic of deadpan overidentification has migrated from late-Soviet conceptualist counterculture into twenty-first-century political communication. Revisiting the folkloric, carnivalesque, and double-voiced foundations of stiob, this study situates the phenomenon within the longue durée of Russian humor, holy foolishness (юрoдствo), and the grotesque tradition described by Dmitry Likhachev, Aleksandr Panchenko, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Sergei Averintsev. The argument proceeds to demonstrate how contemporary political actors—most prominently Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin—have appropriated stiob and its adjacent practices (holy foolishness, trolling, strategic sacrilege, and carnivalesque inversion) as powerful rhetorical instruments capable of destabilizing discursive norms, undermining institutional authority, and creating a semi-permanent state of “infernal laughter.” Drawing on examples from political speech, social media, public performance, and mediatized spectacle, the article contends that both Trump and Putin deploy a repertoire of ironic aggression, misdirection, double-voiced innuendo, and taboo-breaking parody that weaponizes cultural archetypes of the jester, trickster, and holy fool. This mode of communication, simultaneously theatrical and destructive, produces a new form of political carnivalesque in which hierarchical orders are inverted, outrage is instrumentalized, and the distinction between sincerity and mockery collapses. Ultimately, this article argues that stiob, trolling, and holy foolishness now constitute a transnational discursive formation reshaping public culture in the twenty-first century. Full article