Search Results (1,138)

China is a major global marine fishing country, and exploring the sustainable development potential of its marine fisheries is critical to the global fisheries sector’s Blue Transformation. Based on sustainable development connotations, this study adopts the GM(1,1) model and entropy weight-TOPSIS model to predict and evaluate the marine fisheries’ sustainable development potential from 2021 to 2030, building an evaluation framework spanning economic, social, and resource-environmental dimensions. The results show an overall upward trend in the sustainable development potential during the period, with a notable 2022 trough driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, policy transitions, and complex international conditions. As adverse factors ease and long-term policies advance, the potential will continue to improve steadily. Finally, targeted policy recommendations are proposed, focusing on industrial transformation, technological innovation, resource-environment conservation, and factor guarantee to facilitate the sector’s sustainable development and Blue Transformation. Full article

The integrity of certification processes in the agrifood and fishing industries is essential for combating fraud, ensuring food safety, and meeting rising consumer expectations for transparency and sustainability. Yet, current certification systems remain fragmented, and they are vulnerable to tampering and highly dependent on manual or centralized procedures. This study addresses these gaps by providing a comprehensive survey that systematically classifies blockchain-based certification technologies and methodologies applied to the fisheries sector. The survey examines how the blockchain enhances trust through immutable record-keeping, smart contracts, and decentralized verification mechanisms, ensuring authenticity and accountability across the supply chain. Special attention is given to case studies and implementations that focus on ensuring food safety, verifying sustainability claims, and fostering consumer trust through transparent labeling. Furthermore, the paper identifies technological barriers, such as scalability and interoperability, and puts forward a collection of functional and non-functional requirements for holistic blockchain implementation. By providing a detailed overview of current trends and gaps, this study aims to guide researchers, industry stakeholders, and policymakers in adopting and optimizing blockchain technologies for certification. The findings highlight the potential of blockchain to innovate certification systems, easing the way for more resilient, sustainable, and consumer-centric agrifood and fishing industries. Full article

Since the 1960s, Grassy Narrows First Nation, Canada, has been exposed to methylmercury (MeHg) from fish consumption following Hg discharge from a chloralkali plant. Prenatal exposure to MeHg is known to affect the neurodevelopment of fetuses and the retina is sensitive to neurodevelopmental damage. The multidisciplinary, cross-sectional Niibin study, developed with Grassy Narrows First Nations, included visual examinations with retinal evaluation using optical coherence tomography (OCT). The present analyses focused on the 59 participants (116 eyes) with umbilical cord Hg measurements, sampled between 1971 and 1992. Associations between cord blood Hg and retinal thickness layers surrounding the optic nerve head (RNFL) and inner macula (GC-IPL) were examined using mixed-effect models. Higher cord blood Hg was significantly associated with reduced thickness of GC-IPL layers across all macular sectors; less pronounced associations were observed for RNFL. A qualitative clinical assessment of the OCT results showed that persons with cord blood Hg concentrations ≥ 5.8 µg/L were more likely to present bilateral abnormal retinal thinning (OR = 3.51; [95% CI: 1.06–11.53]). These findings suggest that, in this Indigenous community, prenatal MeHg exposure may have enduring effects on retinal thickness and underline the importance of OCT technology in providing tailored eye care. Full article

Background: Biopolymer-based active packaging has experienced significant growth in the food industry due to its capacity to enhance product stability and reduce reliance on synthetic preservatives. However, its application in cosmetics remains limited, despite increasing consumer demand for sustainable and preservative-free solutions. Objective: This review evaluates the feasibility of transferring biopolymer-based active packaging technologies from the food sector to cosmetic applications, identifying relevant materials, processing methods, and implementation challenges. Methodology: A bibliographic search was conducted across nine databases (2000–2025) using the keywords “active packaging,” “antioxidant,” “antimicrobial,” and “biopolymers.” Results: The most recurrent biopolymers identified were chitosan, fish gelatin, zein, and kafirin, all of which exhibit biodegradability, film-forming capacity, and compatibility with natural additives. Although their intrinsic antioxidant and antimicrobial properties are limited, these can be enhanced through the incorporation of bioactive compounds. Processing techniques such as casting, coating, dry forming, and electrospinning were found to be the most effective, enabling customized packaging designs. Key challenges include cost, sensory attributes, mechanical limitations, and regulatory compliance. Conclusion: Active packaging systems based on biopolymers—either alone or combined with natural bioactive ingredients—offer a viable innovation pathway for the cosmetics industry. These systems support clean-label claims and ecological positioning, representing a strategic opportunity to adapt validated technologies from the food sector to meet emerging cosmetic market demands. Full article

Addressing the current situation where in situ observations in the Arctic primarily target physical and a few biogeochemical parameters, leaving a gap in systematic direct observation of biological populations beneath sea ice, this study developed a polar ice-based ecological observation buoy system. Building upon conventional meteorological and oceanographic hydrographic sensors, this system innovatively integrates an underwater imaging module and key technologies such as machine learning-based automatic fish target recognition and reliable dual-channel satellite data transmission in polar environments. Its successful deployment during the 2025 15th Chinese National Arctic Research Expedition verified the system’s stability. During the initial one-month operation period (designed for a monitoring cycle of not less than one year), the data return rates for conventional and image data reached 100% and 96.8%, respectively, achieving quasi-real-time continuous observation of physical and ecological parameters at the air–sea interface in the Arctic Ocean, and it is capable of acquiring not only physical parameters but also visual observations of under-ice fauna. The system successfully acquired and transmitted images containing suspected biological targets and reference objects, providing the first in situ, image-based biological observation dataset for the central Arctic Ocean. This work establishes a new methodological capability for direct ecological monitoring, offering essential equipment support for quantifying biological presence, studying population dynamics, and informing evidence-based polar ecosystem governance. Full article

With the rapid development of remote sensing technology and deep learning, the port ship detection based on a single-stage algorithm has achieved remarkable results in optical imagery. However, most of the existing methods are designed and verified in specific scenes, such as fixed viewing angle, uniform background, or open sea, which makes it difficult to deal with the problem of ship detection in complex environments, such as cloud occlusion, wave fluctuation, complex buildings in the harbor, and multi-ship aggregation. To this end, ES-YOLO framework is proposed to solve the limitations of ship detection. A novel edge perception channel, Spatial Attention Mechanism (EACSA), is proposed to enhance the extraction of edge information and improve the ability to capture feature details. A lightweight spatial–channel decoupled down-sampling module (LSCD) is designed to replace the down-sampling structure of the original network and reduce the complexity of the down-sampling stage. A new hierarchical scale structure is designed to balance the detection effect of different scale differences. In this paper, a remote sensing ship dataset, TJShip, is constructed based on Gaofen-2 images, which covers multi-scale targets from small fishing boats to large cargo ships. The TJShip dataset was adopted as the data source, and the ES-YOLO model was employed to conduct ablation and comparison experiments. The results show that the introduction of EACSA attention mechanism, LSCD, and multi-scale structure improves the mAP of ship detection by 0.83%, 0.54%, and 1.06%, respectively, compared with the baseline model, also performing well in precision, recall and F1. Compared with Faster R-CNN, RetinaNet, YOLOv5, YOLOv7, and YOLOv8 methods, the results show that the ES-YOLO model improves the mAP by 46.87%, 8.14%, 1.85%, 1.75%, and 0.86%, respectively, under the same experimental conditions, which provides research ideas for ship detection. Full article

This review provides an in-depth look at the key process limitations and (structural) defects encountered in the production of polymer films via film blowing extrusion technology. Film blowing is the most widely used method for producing plastic films across various industries, with its increasing demand driven by flexible packaging needs. Overcoming the challenges of this complex production process is essential for ensuring high quality and meeting the growing demand for modern applications, taking into account polymer circularity. In the first part of this paper, the focus is on conventional films, generally polyolefin single-layer films. Common defects such as bubble instability, gauge variations, wrinkles, melt fractures, optical defects, blocking, and surface imperfections like fish eyes are discussed. The most important causes behind these issues are elaborated on, including various molecular and processing parameters, with this paper also offering practical mitigating strategies. In the second part, the specific process limitations and defect types associated with emerging sustainable film technology are focused on, covering films made from recycled materials, biodegradable polymers, polymer blends, and multilayer and machine-direction oriented (MDO) films. While these innovative films offer significant advantages in terms of sustainability and property enhancement, they also present additional points of attention. Also, effective mitigation strategies for addressing these technical issues are incorporated. Overall, this study provides a comprehensive review of film blowing defects, contributing to improved process control, reduced waste, and the production of high-quality films that meet modern requirements. By identifying the root causes of common defects and discussing viable solutions, this review plays a key role in advancing the efficiency, consistency, and sustainability of film blowing technology by presenting a combined experimental and modelling approach that can be used in future work. Full article

To provide a theoretical basis for sound barrier technology for fish, the effects of sound intensity and frequency on negative phonotaxis in adult bighead carp, Hypophthalmichthys nobilis, (weight 1.42–2.20 kg, body length 45.1–54.8 cm) were tested using underwater sound equipment in a pool with sound absorbing material to reduce sound reflection. There were two primary findings: (1) The cumulative times that fish remained in the high, medium and low sound intensity areas were significantly different (p < 0.001). The cumulative time decreased as sound intensity increased, demonstrating negative phonotaxis by the test fish towards high sound intensity. The cumulative time that fish remained in the high sound intensity area was less than in the control area and the difference was highly significant (p < 0.001). This strongly negative phonotaxic response can be exploited in developing sound barriers for guiding fish. Negative phonotaxis could be used to guide fish away from hazards and along migration routes, to help prevent exotic fish invasion, and to improve spawning success by preventing migration into tributaries where habitat has been severely impacted by dams or other human activities. (2) Adult H. nobilis respond differently to different frequencies of single-frequency sound. Higher-frequency sound (300–1000 Hz) produced a stronger negative phonotaxic response than lower-frequency sound (50–200 Hz), and the difference in cumulative times was highly significant (p < 0.001). Thus, high-frequency sound is more effective than low-frequency sound for producing negative phonotaxis. This research demonstrates that negative phonotaxis is affected by sound intensity and frequency. However, for a given application and target species, additional research should be carried out to determine the most effective combination of acoustic parameters. Full article

Sustainable aquaculture requires innovative systems that enhance production efficiency while minimizing environmental impact. Among emerging technologies, biofloc technology (BFT) and recirculating aquaculture Systems (RAS) are widely adopted for intensive fish culture; however, their integration with aquaponics remains underexplored. This study aimed to compare the growth performance and water quality in aquaponic (AP) systems combining Japanese eel (A. japonica) and caipira lettuce (L. sativa) using BFT and RAS technologies for 28 days. This study compared four aquaculture configurations: BFT, RAS, BFT-AP (BFT with aquaponics), RAS-AP (RAS with aquaponics). Results showed that aquaponics integration seems to be improve the fish growth and apparent feed efficiency. Eels reared in BFT-AP achieved the highest final weight, weight gain, specific growth rate and apparent feed efficiency, which were relatively greater than in BFT, RAS, or RAS-AP systems. The growth of caipira lettuce was markedly enhanced in BFT-AP, with total biomass nearly four times that of RAS-AP. Electrical conductivity and total dissolved solids were relatively higher in BFT-AP than in RAS-AP, indicating nutrient enrichment beneficial for plants. In conclusion, integrating aquaponics with BFT substantially enhanced both eel and production of caipira lettuce. The BFT-AP configuration represents a more efficient and ecologically balanced model for sustainable aquaculture intensification compared with traditional RASs. Full article

Egg products are a convenient and safe form of eggs, possessing valuable nutritional and functional properties. The egg processing industry is responsible for the enormous amounts of biomass in the form of animal by-products (ABPs). According to EU legislation, the ABPs are under strict control from the formation to the disposal of biomass, as they carry a risk to the ecosystem and public health. For this reason, restrictions have been introduced on their use after disposal, ranging from bioactive applications in medical, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical products, as well as feed. The shells are subject to special conditions for processing and use. The by-products of egg breaking are divided into solid (eggshells and eggshell membranes) and liquid (technical albumen) by-products. The biological value is determined by the composition, which varies significantly across the by-products. In the context of the circular economy, all egg by-products contain valuable substances that can be used in food and non-food industries. First, eggshells are the leading by-product, composing 95% of the inorganic substance calcium carbonate, which, after processing, can be used in agriculture, food and feed industries, and medicine. Second, there is a liquid by-product containing proteins from the egg white and a small part of fats from the yolk. Literature data on this by-product are scarce, but there is information about its use as a feed additive, while the extracted and purified proteins can be useful in pharmacy. Egg membranes constitute only 1% of the egg mass, but humanity has long known about the benefits of collagen, keratin, and glycosaminoglycans, including hyaluronic acid, which compose this material. The processed membranes can be used as a food additive, in cosmetics, medicine, or pharmacy, just like other egg by-products mentioned above. This literature review focuses on the possible methods and techniques for processing by-products and their potential application. The literature sources in this review have been selected according to their scientific and practical applicability. The utilization of these by-products not only reduces the impact on the environment but also facilitates the creation of value-added materials. Full article

As an important component of the global fishery economy, the crab breeding and processing industry faces the dual challenges of sustainable development and technological upgrading. This paper first systematically analyzes the regional distribution and core biological characteristics of major global economic crab species, laying a foundation for the targeted design of processing technologies and equipment. Secondly, based on advances in crab processing technology, the industry is categorized into two systems: live crab processing and dead crab processing. Live crab processing has formed a full-chain technological system of “fishing–temporary rearing–depuration–grading–packaging”. Dead crab processing focuses on high-value utilization: high-pressure processing enhances the quality of crab meat; liquid nitrogen quick-freezing combined with modified atmosphere packaging extends shelf life; and biological fermentation and enzymatic hydrolysis facilitate the green extraction of chitin from crab shells. In terms of intelligent equipment application, sensor technology enables full coverage of aquaculture water quality monitoring, precise classification during processing, and vitality monitoring during transportation. Automation technology reduces labor costs, while fuzzy logic algorithms ensure the process stability of crab meat products. The integration of the Internet of Things (IoT) and big data analytics, combined with blockchain technology, enables full-link traceability of the “breeding–processing–transportation” chain. In the future, cross-domain technological integration and multi-equipment collaboration will be the key to promoting the sustainable development of the industry. Additionally, with the support of big data and artificial intelligence, precision management of breeding, processing, logistics, and other links will realize a more efficient and environmentally friendly crab industry model. Full article

Background: Falls are a major cause of injury, functional decline, and reduced quality of life among older adults, posing a significant public health challenge. Social prescribing is gaining relevance in gerontology, offering structured strategies to engage individuals in preventive activities, including fall prevention strategies, through engagement in community-based activities. Aim: To examine older adults’ perception of the relevance of personal protection and development activities (e.g., prevention against falling) and compare sociodemographic, behavioural, and engagement profiles between those who agree and those who disagree with its relevance. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with 613 older adults aged 65–93 years. Data collection included sociodemographic, health-related, and behavioural/social engagement variables (including perceptions regarding the benefits of social prescribing and interest in community-based activities). For this analysis, participants were dichotomized based on their agreement with the relevance of personal protection and development activities (e.g., prevention against falling). Of the 569 participants included, 538 (94.5%) agreed with its relevance and 31 (5.5%) disagreed. Descriptive and exploratory analyses were conducted to compare the two groups across variables. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to explore independent predictors of agreement across sociodemographic, behavioural, social prescribing, and health-related variables. Results: Significant differences were observed between the groups in awareness of active ageing (p = 0.018), volunteering (p < 0.001), participation in social and community activities (p < 0.001), and hobbies like gardening, fishing, or cooking (p = 0.002). Those who agreed with the importance of personal protection and development activities were significantly more likely to value a range of initiatives, including social activities in recreational organizations, physical activity in the community (e.g., hiking), artistic and creative activities (e.g., visual arts, music), technical or technological activities (e.g., do-it-yourself, computers), and cultural enrichment activities (e.g., visiting museums), (p < 0.001). Multivariate analyses showed no effects of sociodemographic or health-related factors, whereas behavioural and engagement-related variables—including volunteering, hobbies, and several social prescribing activities—significantly predicted agreement with the relevance of personal protection and development activities. Discussion: The findings suggest that older adults who perceive fall prevention as relevant are more actively engaged in diverse health-promoting activities, including volunteering, hobbies, and community-based programmes. This pattern may reflect higher health literacy, stronger social networks, and proactive attitudes towards ageing. Conclusions: Perceptions of fall prevention are closely linked to broader patterns of engagement in health-promoting activities among older adults. Recognizing and addressing differences in how these activities are valued can inform more inclusive and targeted gerontological interventions. Full article

The global aquaculture industry faces a number of challenges, including the risk of infection spreading in closed aquatic ecosystems. Since 1942, vaccination has become a mainstream approach in fish cultivation. However, the immune system of cold-blooded organisms differs significantly from that of mammals, which must be taken into account when developing vaccines for aquaculture. Modern technology employs delivery systems for antigens to protect them from degradation in the water and the digestive tract. Packaging the antigen into a biodegradable structure protects the protein or target gene from degradation and enhances antigen delivery to immune cells. The combination of chitosan and alginate is widely used for the development of various types of nano- and microcarriers. New vaccines based on these polysaccharides are more effective, increasing survival rates in some fish species by up to 100% compared to 20% in the control group. However, the correlation between the observed effects and the physicochemical characteristics of the polysaccharides/carriers, and the mechanisms of their action, remains unclear. This review summarizes and analyzes the data on the use of chitosan and alginate in aquaculture vaccines. Particular focus is given to the physicochemical properties and sources of the polysaccharides, and their potential implementation in aquaculture vaccination practices. Full article

Phenotyping technologies are essential for modern aquaculture, particularly for precise analysis of individual morphological traits. This study focuses on critical phenotype segmentation tasks for fish carcass and fins, which have significant applications in phenotypic assessment and breeding. In high-density underwater environments, fish frequently exhibit structural overlap and indistinct boundaries, making it difficult for conventional segmentation methods to obtain complete and accurate phenotypic regions. To address these challenges, a double-branch segmentation network is proposed for fish phenotype segmentation in high-density underwater scenes. An auxiliary saliency object detection (SOD) branch is introduced alongside the primary segmentation branch to localize structurally complete targets and suppress interference from overlapping or incomplete fish while inter-branch skip connections further enhance the model’s focus on salient targets and their boundaries. The network is trained under a multi-task learning framework, allowing the branches to specialize in edge detection and accurate region segmentation. Experiments on large yellow croaker (Larimichthys crocea) images collected under real farming conditions show that the proposed method achieves Dice scores of 97.58% for carcass segmentation and 88.88% for fin segmentation. The corresponding ASD values are 0.590 and 0.364 pixels, and the HD95 values are 3.521 and 1.222 pixels. The method outperforms nine existing algorithms across key metrics, confirming its effectiveness and reliability for practical aquaculture phenotyping. Full article

Hydrogels based on gelatin–chitosan mixtures have great potential for practical application in the development of new materials in food technology and biomedicine. This study examines the effect of chitosan on the gelling properties, rheological, and structural characteristics of fish gelatin type A hydrogels in the acidic pH range of 3.2–3.9. It was shown that an increase in the chitosan-to-gelatin mass ratio up to 0.15 resulted in a growth in the hydrogel thermal stability and an increase in the elastic modulus, hardness, and yield stress. The structural strength of the fish gelatin–chitosan hydrogel increased due to the strengthening of the binding zones in the fish gelatin gel network in the presence of chitosan. According to scanning electron microscopy, the supramolecular microstructure of the gels demonstrated a significant compaction upon the addition of chitosan to fish gelatin. UV and IR spectroscopy data, as well as changes in zeta potential, showed the formation of supramolecular complexes of fish gelatin with chitosan as a result of hydrophobic interactions between biomacromolecules and the establishment of hydrogen bonds; in this case, electrostatic interactions between macromolecules of fish gelatin and chitosan are practically absent in the acidic pH region. The ability to form supramolecular complexes of different compositions at different mass ratios of polysaccharide-to-fish gelatin makes it possible to obtain hydrogels with high gelling properties, strength, elasticity, and thermal stability comparable to hydrogels of mammalian gelatin. Full article