Search Results (7,871)

Background: Recent pan-cancer transcriptome analyses have identified ENST00000453316 as a cancer biomarker candidate, showing consistent and significant deregulation across multiple cancer types. Methods: This study investigated the transcript as a regulatory RNA in cancer-associated processes and its potential as a biomarker using a bioinformatics approach. Results: In silico characterization classified ENST00000453316 as a non-coding transcript with regulatory features and stable structure. Curated annotations documented the binding of 21 RNA-binding proteins across the transcript region, with core spliceosomal factors at the unique splice junction and cytoplasmic 3′-end factors at the terminal exon, in agreement with the sequence-based predictions. Promoter analysis revealed a TATA-less, CpG-poor region with multiple putative transcriptional regulator binding sites. Its expression was higher in most solid tumor types analyzed, with minimal expression in non-tumor tissues, indicating a tumor-associated pattern. Discrimination between tumor and adjacent non-tumor tissue within TCGA was good in five of the ten tissue types with sufficient adjacent-normal samples, with the area under the ROC curve reaching 0.82 in the lung, 0.78 in the bladder and 0.71–0.75 in the colon, breast and stomach, but close to chance in the kidney, thyroid and prostate. Conclusions: These results suggest that ENST00000453316 is a cancer-associated, promoter-driven non-coding transcript with potential regulatory relevance. Despite its revised annotation, it exemplifies how alternative promoter usage generates biologically and clinically meaningful transcripts contributing to tumor-specific gene regulation. Future experimental validation is needed to confirm the role of ENST00000453316 as a functional regulatory RNA and assess its clinical potential as a cancer biomarker. Full article

The alpine mining area of the Qilian Mountains features a fragile ecosystem, severe soil degradation due to mining disturbances, and slow natural recovery. To clarify the ecological restoration potential of rhizosphere microorganisms associated with native dominant plants, this study investigated the community structure, diversity, and functional differentiation patterns of rhizosphere bacterial and fungal communities associated with seven native dominant plant species in the Tianzhu mining area. Using Illumina NovaSeq 6000 high-throughput sequencing, we amplified the bacterial 16S rRNA V3–V4 region and the fungal ITS1 region. A total of 24 sequencing libraries (seven plant species + bare soil, three replicates each) were analyzed. Bioinformatics analyses examined ASV distributions, alpha/beta diversity, species composition, and differentially enriched taxa, followed by functional predictions. Bacterial alpha diversity (Chao1: 623.39–1553.25; Shannon: 7.49–9.67) varied significantly among plant species, with Allium przewalskianum (AP) showing the highest bacterial richness and diversity (Chao1 = 1553.25 ± 35.89, Shannon = 9.67 ± 0.02). Fungal alpha diversity also showed significant variation (Chao1:69.66–488.56; Shannon: 3.24–4.96), with Dasiphora fruticosa (DF) exhibiting the highest fungal diversity (Chao1 = 488.56 ± 18.71, Shannon = 7.32 ± 0.06). At the phylum level, Proteobacteria (32.22–50.32%) and Actinobacteriota (15.04–23.19%) were core bacterial groups, and Ascomycota (45.54–96.07%) dominated fungal communities. PERMANOVA confirmed significant differences in community composition among plant species (bacteria: R² = 0.78, p < 0.001; fungi: R² = 0.84, p < 0.001). Different plant species were associated with distinct predicted functional taxa, which may serve as candidate biomarkers for soil remediation. However, all functional interpretations are predictive and require experimental validation. In conclusion, rhizosphere microbial community composition and predicted functional profiles differed among native plant species, providing correlative evidence and candidate targets for future vegetation–microbe synergy studies in alpine mining area restoration. Full article

The relationship between two-phase flow behavior and pore microstructure in low-permeability gas reservoirs remains poorly understood, particularly during gas accumulation (gas displacing water) and subsequent development (water displacing gas). To address this, five plug cores with permeabilities ranging from 0.02 to 20.92 mD were selected from a low-permeability sandstone gas reservoir in the Tarim Oilfield. A comprehensive experimental program was carried out, including pore-throat structure characterization, wettability measurements, and both steady-state and unsteady-state gas–water relative permeability tests. These data were further integrated with capillary pressure curves derived from high-pressure mercury injection, centrifugation, and semipermeable membrane methods, enabling systematic comparison and parametric modeling. The results indicate that the reservoir is generally characterized by low permeability, fine pore throats, and moderate water-wetness, with contact angles between 49° and 60°. As permeability declines, pore-throat dimensions decrease and pore connectivity worsens: the mercury injection saturation median pressure increases from 0.752 to 16.477 MPa, while mercury withdrawal efficiency drops from 78.59% to 40.54%. These trends suggest that finer throats impose greater resistance to nonwetting phase invasion and that the “ink-bottle” effect intensifies fluid entrapment. Relative permeability measurements show that the unsteady-state method is more responsive to gas breakthrough and localized flow channeling, yielding lower endpoint gas relative permeability compared to the steady-state approach. With deteriorating reservoir quality, irreducible water saturation during gas displacement rises from 29.03% to 45.20%, residual gas saturation during water displacement increases from 17.60% to 38.90%, and the two-phase coexisting flow zone narrows markedly from 53.37% to 15.90%. The consistent trends observed between relative permeability and mercury injection data confirm that reduced pore-throat size and heightened capillary resistance not only hinder the formation of continuous nonwetting phase pathways but also promote water retention and gas trapping. Through normalization, representative Corey-type gas–water relative permeability curves were established for the study area (with Corey exponents of 2.393 and 1.534 for the gas and water phases, respectively, under gas-displacing-water conditions), along with Brooks–Corey-type capillary pressure curves (with equivalent displacement pressures ranging from 0.025 to 0.133 MPa). These results provide essential parameters for seepage characterization and numerical simulation of underground gas storage in low-permeability gas reservoirs. Full article

Phyllostachys edulis (Moso bamboo) is a subtropical bamboo species endemic to China and holds substantial economic and ecological value. Ongoing climate change is reshaping the geographic distribution of its suitable habitats. To reveal these climate-driven dynamics, we calibrated the maximum entropy (MaxEnt) species distribution model using the ENMeval R package version 4.5.2 and evaluated model robustness via spatially independent block cross-validation. We identified nine critical environmental predictors to model spatiotemporal variations in suitable habitats for Moso bamboo, examining both present-day climate and four future periods under four Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) scenarios. Model performance was optimized at regularization multiplier (RM) of 1.5 with the feature class combination LQHPT, yielding a spatial validation AUC of 0.9104 and robust predictive capacity. Environmental controls were dominated by mean temperature of the coldest quarter (bio11, 63.9% relative contribution) and precipitation of the driest quarter (bio17, 31.2%), while soil clay and organic carbon content modulated suitability at local scales. Under current conditions, the total suitable habitat area encompasses approximately 218.88 × 10⁴ km², with the majority distributed throughout the subtropical zone of southeastern China. Under nearly all future scenarios, high-suitability habitats showed a general contracting trend of 20.94%–95.29% relative to the current baseline, while moderate-suitability habitats exhibited a fluctuating expansion trend, reaching a peak increase of 47.90% in the 2030s under SSP585, but contracted by 18.65% in the 2090s. Meanwhile, habitat centroids underwent small-scale oscillatory shifts in multiple directions and remained entirely within Hunan Province across all periods. MESS analysis confirmed that 90.60%–99.82% of China’s land area fell within climate-analogous ranges, indicating low extrapolation risk for core habitat projections. Core climate refugia with high cross-scenario stability were primarily concentrated in the traditional bamboo-producing regions of southeastern China. This study provides a scientific basis for the sustainable management of Moso bamboo resources, biodiversity conservation, and ecological risk prevention in the context of ongoing climate change. Full article

Landscape heterogeneity is the core attribute of land cover landscape patterns, and a critical factor that must be considered in land cover accuracy assessment. This paper regards sampling in land cover accuracy assessment as essentially a multi-objective optimization problem, where uniform distribution avoids spatial autocorrelation while accounting for landscape heterogeneity to enhance the robustness of evaluation results. This paper proposes a land cover accuracy assessment method based on landscape index-improved simulated annealing sampling. By adopting a perturbation function that considers spatial equilibrium, it uses the Aggregation Index (AI) and Landscape Shape Index (LSI) to modify the objective function, optimizing the sample uniformity in low-heterogeneity areas and increasing the sample coverage in high-heterogeneity regions to achieve dual sampling optimization. Taking Jiangxi Province as the study area, the performance of the proposed method is verified through two experiments. In the first experiment, accuracy assessment is carried out on three sets of 30 m land cover products, namely GlobeLand30, CLCD and GLC_FCS. The two sample sets generated by LSI optimization and AI optimization yield highly consistent results in terms of User’s Accuracy (UA), Producer’s Accuracy (PA), area-weighted overall accuracy and Kappa coefficient, which demonstrates that the proposed method has stable cross-product generality. The second comparative experiment with four types of traditional sampling methods shows that the traditional methods cannot complete the accuracy assessment of three rare land categories including wetland, shrubland and bare land, and supplementary samples are required through secondary sampling. The optimized method can complete the PA and UA assessment of all land categories in a single run, while ensuring that the global overall accuracy and Kappa coefficient are consistent with those of traditional methods. Full article

Understanding the distribution of Emys orbicularis in Andalusia is essential for assessing its conservation status within one of the most fragmented sectors of its Iberian range. In this study, we applied a modelling framework integrating environmental favourability, spatial structure, and their intersection to identify the factors determining the species’ presence across the Andalusian territory. All presence records were obtained from field surveys and long-term monitoring programmes conducted by the authors, while environmental and spatial predictors were compiled from publicly available databases and processed following the modelling methodology developed by Santoro et al. A consistent pattern emerged across all models: E. orbicularis is strongly associated with forested riparian systems, stable aquatic habitats, and low levels of disturbance, while its distribution is constrained by a marked north–south gradient associated with the Sierra Morena mountain range. The species also shows a historical and continuous presence in Huelva province, including coastal areas, and traditionally occupied parts of the western Betic systems and the Cádiz coastline. Integrating environmental and spatial components allowed us to capture both habitat suitability and the spatial processes limiting the species’ presence. The intersection model, which synthesises the results of both analyses, provided the most reliable representation of the species’ potential distribution by reducing false positives and highlighting core areas of persistence associated with hydrological stability and landscape connectivity. We also observed a marked reduction in the area of occupancy derived from the records, consistent with the initial hypothesis regarding the species’ current status. Full article

Commercial format diversity serves as a key indicator indicative of the health and resilience of the commercial structure in rail transit station areas. This study focuses on the rail transit station areas in Shanghai, integrates multi-source geospatial data with Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), and systematically examines the differential influence paths of six categories of factors—urban form, location, facility configuration, passenger flow, land rent, and commercial spatial form—on commercial format diversity between urban core and suburban areas. Multi-group analysis (MGA) is further used to test whether path coefficients differ across concentric zones around stations. The findings are as follows: (1) Passenger flow characteristics are the primary contributing factors to commercial format diversity and serve as a key mediator through which most other factors influence diversity. Location characteristics, particularly the distance to the rail transit station, primarily play a moderating role to commercial format richness. Urban form characteristics function as the “spatial framework” providing a fundamental regulatory influence, with significant interaction effects with station distance. (2) In urban core areas, the temporal rhythm of passenger flow dominates: weekday passenger flow is positively associated with commercial format richness, whereas weekend passenger flow shows a more complex pattern—associated with an increase in format count but declines in both diversity and dominance concentration, indicating a structural reorganization rather than a simple directional effect. In suburban areas, an initial increase followed by a decrease is observed, with an “optimal synergistic zone” existing approximately 600–1000 m from stations where rail transit and other public service facilities jointly promote commercial format diversity. (3) Land rent is mainly associated with the number of format categories rather than their evenness or dominance. These findings reveal systematic differences in the influence paths of commercial format diversity between urban core and suburban rail transit station areas, as well as the distance-dependent zonal variation patterns of these effects, providing empirical evidence for differentiated spatial design in the context of station-city integration. Full article

Vegetation greenness helps cool cities, but how its cooling effect changes over time in newly expanded and existing old built-up areas (BUAs) across different urban development stages remains poorly understood. This study investigated the spatiotemporal trends of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and land surface temperature (LST) within newly expanded and old BUAs across cities of different development stages from 1992 to 2020. Utilizing the ESA CCI dataset for BUA delineation and Landsat-derived NDVI and LST, we applied the Mann–Kendall test and Sen’s slope estimator to analyze 26 core cities. City sizes were classified into five categories from small cities to super megacities based on their status, and then assigned to urban development stages ranging from Stage 4 (least developed) to Stage 1 (most developed). The results revealed a significant decrease in NDVI across all areas in both new BUA (average significant slope = −0.0009, p < 0.05) and old BUA (average significant slope = −0.0002, p < 0.05), and a significant increase in LST in both new BUA (average significant slope = 0.0818, p < 0.05) and old BUA (average significant slope = 0.0245, p < 0.05). In addition, NDVI trends in BUA expansion varied significantly across urban development stages (p for trend = 0.016). Excluding Stage 1 (Shanghai only), vegetation loss attenuated from the sharpest decline in Stage 4 (average significant slope = −0.0021, 36.60% significant, p < 0.05) to a moderate decline in Stage 3 (−0.0011, 26.03%), and reversed to a slight vegetation gain in Stage 2 (0.0031, 19.14%), whereas LST showed no significant stage-dependent pattern. These findings underscore the widespread decreasing NDVI and increasing LST in both newly expanded and old BUAs, with the stage-wise vegetation differences potentially reflecting varying policy and economic contexts. Full article

The co-evolution of urban–rural spatial transformation and ecosystem services represents a key scientific issue for high-quality basin development and metropolitan ecological governance. As a core growth pole in the lower Yellow River Basin, the Jinan Metropolitan Area (JMA) faces the overlapping pressures of rapid urbanization and ecological constraints, making it an appropriate case for exploring the interactions between the urban–rural gradient and ecosystem service value (ESV). Based on multisource spatiotemporal datasets for 2000–2024, this study deploys a modified equivalent-factor method, a multidimensional urban–rural gradient model, and a geographic detector to investigate ESV dynamics, the evolution of the urban–rural gradient, and their coupling relationship at a 1 km × 1 km grid scale. The results show that: (1) Total ESV in the JMA increased slightly from 2000 to 2024, with pronounced spatial heterogeneity. High-ESV areas were distributed in the southern mountainous region and along the Yellow River, whereas low-ESV areas were mainly distributed across the northern plains and urban built-up areas. Forestland and water bodies provided the primary foundation for regional ESV stability. (2) Inner-suburban areas expanded rapidly and became the dominant urban–rural transition zone, while rural areas continued to contract. Urban areas exhibited both polarization and sprawl along transportation corridors. (3) The coupling coordination between ESV and the urban–rural gradient exhibited a “high-periphery, low-middle” spatial pattern and declined slightly over time. Land-use change, population density and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) serve as core driving factors, with nonlinear threshold effects; pairwise factor interactions exert stronger explanatory power than individual factors. This study advances the analytical framework for examining ESV in basin-metropolitan areas and provides a reference for integrated urban–rural development and ecological protection in similar regions. Full article

Marine pollution in the Philippine archipelago poses increasing threats to biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human health due to rapid urbanization, population growth, and inadequate waste management. As a core region of the Coral Triangle, the Philippines is particularly vulnerable to pollutants transported across interconnected marine ecosystems. This review synthesizes current knowledge on the occurrence, sources, analytical approaches, risk assessment, and knowledge gaps associated with conventional and emerging major marine pollutants, including oil, heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, persistent organic pollutants, pharmaceuticals and personal care products, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, plastics, and additional stressors such as nutrients, pathogens, and shipping-related contaminants. Available evidence indicates widespread contamination of coastal waters, sediments, and marine biota, with pollution hotspots commonly associated with urbanized coastlines, river systems, industrial zones, shipping routes, aquaculture areas, and tourism centers. Emerging pollutants such as plastics and microplastics are increasingly detected even in remote environments, highlighting limitations in current monitoring and management frameworks. However, significant gaps remain in long-term monitoring, standardized methodologies, human health risk assessment, and interdisciplinary integration. This review emphasizes the need for harmonized monitoring programs, improved waste management infrastructure, strengthened regulatory enforcement, expanded analytical capacity, and integrated science-based policies to support sustainable marine management and ocean governance in the Philippines. Full article

Ash dieback, together with altered hydrological conditions and limited natural regeneration, threatens narrow-leaved ash (Fraxinus angustifolia Vahl) forests in Croatian floodplains. This study evaluated whether individual-tree attributes and stand structure were associated with crown damage and short-term radial-growth resilience. Ten stands in the middle Sava River floodplain were sampled using 41 circular plots. Stand density, basal area, and growing stock were estimated at the plot level. Diameter, height, crown dimensions, and crown damage were assessed on a subsample of 154 trees, from which increment cores were also collected. Ring-width measurements were used to calculate the Resilience index (Rs_3/6). Relationships among variables were evaluated using linear correlation and one-way analysis of variance was used for testing differences in crown damage and resilience index between categorized tree and stand variables. Mean crown damage was 24.4%, while the mean Rs_3/6 value of 0.90 indicated that radial growth had generally not returned to its previous level. Crown damage was negatively correlated with growth resilience. Trees in the 15–30 cm diameter class and the 21–40-year age class showed the lowest crown damage and highest resilience. The most favorable values of both indicators occurred at stand densities of 800–1200 trees ha⁻¹, while crown damage was lowest at basal areas below 15 m² ha⁻¹. Although the observed associations were moderate and should not be interpreted as causal effects, the combined use of crown condition and radial-growth recovery can support the identification of vigorous trees and inform adaptive, site-specific management of declining narrow-leaved ash stands. Full article

This study adopts the contingent valuation method (CVM), Logit model, and quantile regression to evaluate the compensation level of public welfare forests and identify the influencing factors of compensation standards from the perspective of forest farmers’ willingness to accept compensation. The results show that the forest farmers’ expected compensation standard ranges from 1034 to 1128 CNY·ha⁻¹·year⁻¹, more than three times the current official compensation standard. Based on forest farmers’ willingness to accept, the current forest ecological compensation level only reaches 30.6%–33.4% of the expected standard, which is insufficient to mobilize the enthusiasm of forest farmers for forest management and protection. Therefore, it is necessary to further raise the public welfare forest compensation standard and implement diversified compensation measures that adapt to the differentiated demands of forest farmers. In addition, analysis of zero-willingness samples reveals that poor policy cognition is the main reason for zero compensation bids among partial respondents, rather than the overall sample. A better understanding of ecological compensation policies can significantly promote farmers’ willingness to accept compensation, suggesting that targeted policy publicity should be strengthened to improve forest protection awareness and policy satisfaction among forest farmers. Furthermore, household age, annual household income, forestland area, forest management cost, and policy understanding degree are core factors affecting compensation willingness. Quantile regression results indicate that these influencing factors show heterogeneous effects at different compensation levels, which provides evidence for the formulation of differentiated compensation schemes. The robustness test and heterogeneity analysis further confirm the reliability of the research conclusions. This study provides a practical reference for governments to optimize forest ecological compensation policies, balance household welfare, and promote sustainable forest resource protection. Full article

The unclear coupled temperature–pressure control mechanism of deep coalbed methane (CBM) occurrence and the poorly understood transformation law of adsorbed and free gas during geological history have severely restricted the accurate evaluation of CBM resources in the southern margin of the Junggar Basin. Taking the No. 42 main coal seam in the Fukang mining area as the research object, this study combines isothermal adsorption experiments, thermodynamic analysis, and basin numerical simulation to identify the methane adsorption characteristics of coal and their main controlling factors, establishes a CBM content prediction model coupled with coal maceral composition and temperature–pressure conditions, and reconstructs the complete CBM accumulation evolution process over geological time. Isothermal adsorption experiments were conducted at 30 °C over 0–8 MPa (6 pressure points) for all seven core samples, and variable-temperature adsorption experiments were performed on representative sample No. 42-5 at 30, 50, 70, and 90 °C over 0–22 MPa (10 pressure points per temperature). The results show that the average equilibrium moisture-based Langmuir volume of coal samples in the study area is 22.36 m³/t, and the adsorption capacity is significantly positively correlated with fixed carbon content. Pressure dominates the positive adsorption effect in the low-temperature and low-pressure range, while temperature dominates the negative adsorption effect in the high-temperature and high-pressure range. The total gas content first increases and then decreases with depth, reaching a peak of 12.56 m³/t at 900 m; free gas accounts for a larger proportion than adsorbed gas below 3600 m. The central-southern main area of the study area, with a gas content of 11–13 m³/t, is a favorable exploration target. The accumulation evolution four stages: pure adsorption, free gas occurrence, excessive gas expulsion, and uplift adjustment. The proportion of free gas reached its peak during the maximum burial period in the Late Cretaceous. After the Paleogene uplift, hydrocarbon generation ceased, and the total gas content remained at 13.16 m³/t. The coupled research method of “experimental determination–model prediction–evolution simulation” established in this paper realizes cross-validation of CBM content through multiple methods, and can provide theoretical support for deep low-rank CBM accumulation research and resource evaluation. Full article

Nature-Based Solutions (NBSs) are increasingly recognized as strategic tools for climate adaptation and urban regeneration, yet their implementation requires balancing environmental performance, territorial identity, and governance feasibility. This article investigates the application of the euPOLIS H2020 methodology in Palermo, Italy, focusing on the proposed transformation of Villa Turrisi—a residual peri-urban agricultural area representing one of the last remnants of the historical Conca d’Oro landscape—into a new public green infrastructure within the framework of the new Municipal Development Plan (PRG/PUG). This study examines how a structured co-design process involving municipal actors, citizens, and local associations can be coupled with ecosystem service assessments. Rather than selecting a single optimal design, the analysis evaluates two alternative vision scenarios—a multifunctional framework aligned with euPOLIS principles and an intensive urban forest model—to generate quantitative and qualitative baseline data. Environmental indicators (carbon sequestration, microclimatic regulation, and hydrological resilience) are used not as deterministic selection criteria but as theoretical decision-support evidence within a predominantly qualitative, value-driven local planning process. The core contribution of this work lies in demonstrating the operational transferability of the euPOLIS framework from front-runner to follower cities within a Mediterranean planning context. The Palermo case shows how quantitative environmental simulations can effectively inform—rather than dictate—participatory governance, heritage preservation, and regulatory feasibility. Ultimately, this article offers a transferable planning and policy framework that bridges European NBS research with municipal decision-making, providing actionable insights for integrating climate-resilient green infrastructure into local urban plans. Full article

Arid-zone agricultural heritage systems (AHSs) face severe challenges from ecological fragility, water scarcity, and socioeconomic pressures; scientifically understanding their system resilience is a critical prerequisite for achieving sustainable development. This study constructs a three-dimensional resilience evaluation indicator system following the Pressure–State–Response (PSR) framework tailored to arid oasis conditions. Drawing on the entropy weight method, GIS spatial analysis, the ARIMA model, and the obstacle degree model, it adopts statistical and remote sensing data of Xinjiang from 2015 to 2024 to systematically analyze the resilience levels, spatiotemporal evolution characteristics, future development trends, and core obstacle factors of six AHSs. The results reveal that the overall resilience of AHSs in Xinjiang exhibited a fluctuating upward trend over the decade, showing an obvious spatial differentiation pattern of “high in Northern Xinjiang, low in Eastern and Southern Xinjiang.” ARIMA forecasting indicates that resilience will maintain a positive growth trajectory from 2025 to 2028, yet inter-site hierarchical gaps persist. The primary constraints hindering resilience improvement include industrial structure upgrading index, per capita regional GDP, annual NDVI, vegetation coverage, and the number of intangible cultural heritage items, with a clear differentiation between long-term structural bottlenecks and temporary short-term constraints. The study concludes that, although the resilience of AHSs in Xinjiang possesses long-term improvement potential, persistent challenges such as fragile ecological foundations, low-end industrial structures, and insufficient cultural inheritance remain prominent. Targeted differentiated strategies—short-term emergency regulation, medium-term industrial–cultural integration, and long-term adaptive governance—are therefore required to enhance systemic resilience in the future. These findings enrich empirical research on AHS resilience in arid regions and provide case references for the scientific conservation, revitalized utilization, and sustainable development of AHSs in Xinjiang and other global dryland areas. Full article