We conducted a 10-year field experiment to study the effects of potassium chloride, wood ash, zinc, and manganese on reducing 137Cs uptake by young leaves and green shoots of common dwarf shrubs and tree species near the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant. While the results were inconsistent, we found significant interactions between fertilizers and time since application. Potassium chloride and micronutrients increased 137Cs uptake in some plant species initially, but rates declined over time. Combining potassium chloride with wood ash was the most effective countermeasure, reducing 137Cs uptake by up to 60% in most species. Our research indicates that fertilising forest soil contaminated with 137Cs using 100 kg of potassium per hectare may not be as effective as previously believed in reducing radiocaesium transfer. However, a combination of potassium chloride and wood ash can still be an effective solution for reducing 137Cs transfer in most common forest plants.

To characterize sheep farming in arid regions, a survey was carried out among 161 agro-farmers, interviewed with the support of third parties presenting themselves as local resources, to facilitate contact and entry into these closed regions. The sampling carried out, attributed to the presentation of the different sheep farming systems encountered in the Tebessa region and the presentation of the data and information gathered, highlights 02 sheep flock methods, and the alternative use of feed in the ration, the integration of crops in the feeding of flocks, almost all in association (pasture, barley, and coarse bran). These trends appear to be incomplete solutions to the shortage of resources. Nevertheless, they may provide food for thought for possible solutions to the shortage of resources in the steppe's environment by reducing the animal load on grazing land. Analysis of the farming system confirmed the diversity of tribal affiliations and the associated traditional and extensive aspects. Sheep farming has shown satisfactory economic performance, achieved through direct grazing. The difficulties associated with sheep farming are far from being resolved, especially in the case of large flocks and areas larger than 20 ha. The results show that semi-sedentary livestock farming is a highly dual sector. Nearly 2/3 (70%) of farms are often classified as traditional, while 30% are moving towards semi-intensive farming. These two groups differ mainly in terms of genetic selection and feed. In economic terms, the consistency of the sample tends to indicate a lack of profitability of the activity in terms of financial input, caused by several factors contributing to intensifying this situation, namely dietary constraints, herd management, socio-economic conditions, and climate change.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of school libraries in achieving the Free Senior High School Policy in Ghana through the provision of the needed information resources to support teaching and learning. Focusing on funding provisions made under the FSHS policy for school libraries; how FSHS policy integrates school libraries and conditions of school Libraries in terms of adequate facilities under the FSHS policy. A descriptive quantitative survey method was used. In all, three senior high schools were used for this study. A total of 60 students including five (5) head teachers and school teacher-librarians were interviewed. Findings revealed that all the schools lack purpose-built libraries and are poorly funded, lack of qualified library professionals to manage the school libraries, outdated collections as well as lack of computers and the internet at the libraries of most of these schools.

Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) has made community protection a high priority, but the unique and contextual nature of communities makes risk efforts quickly unworkable, ineffective, or unsustainable. Considering the limitations of top-down approaches, vulnerabilities, and priorities, the pressure for greater community participation in DRR has been growing and valued. But how can community sociocultural conditions be reconciled with DRR? The community-based approach has gained prominence in DRR and is based on four principles: 1) social participation; 2) valuing diversity and inclusivity; 3) integration of local and indigenous knowledge; and 4) autonomy through local capacity building. Through representativeness, decentralization, participatory governance, co-production or social learning, each component contributes to making DRR efforts more adapted, effective, and sustainable by tuning into communities' uniqueness, strengths, and specific needs. Facing several challenges and issues, it might be described as difficult to implement, however, it remains a promising avenue for invaluable contribution to community resilience.

In the ecologically fragile area of inland northwest China, energy development has caused groundwater damage that may have wider ecological consequences. To explore whether this has led to vegetation degradation and to determine the source of vegetation moisture, NDVI data from a mining area on the edge of the Mu Us Sandy Land was used to analyse the ecological changes of the vegetation over many years. Meanwhile, a variety of parameters such as stable isotope composition, soil water content, and groundwater depth were measured to verify the relationship between vegetation and various potential water sources. The results indicated that the NDVI in the northern part of the Ningdong mining area showed an overall growth trend with a growth rate of 68.41% from 2000 to 2019, during which NDVI grew the fastest between 2005 and 2012, at a rate of 0.0521. This indicates that the ecological environment of the vegetation in the region is gradually improving. The groundwater table depth suitable for vegetation growth in this area was 3-4m, and the growth of vegetation was mainly affected by soil water. Through qualitative and quantitative analyses, it was found that the vegetation in this area was more inclined to absorb and utilise soil water in the 50-70cm soil layer in the early stage of growth. Specifically, out of all potential water sources, the 50-70cm middle soil water contributed the greatest proportion to total plant water (31.6%), followed by 100-120cm deep soil water (26.3%), groundwater (22.4%), and 5-20cm shallow soil water (19.7%). The study indicates that coal mining's effect on groundwater levels hasn't significantly impacted local vegetation. It offers an in-depth look at how human activities affect vegetation's water sources in arid desert areas, enhancing our knowledge of water usage by plants in such regions.

The error margin in the measurement between ground and satellite is significant in some geographical stations. Hence, the possibility of retrieving missing datasets in such locations is statistically below 15%. This study proposes a method that uses another meteorological dataset to retrieve missing datasets. In this research, the meteorologically derived AOD was proposed. Twelve years of ground and satellite dataset assimilation was carried out. The satellite observations were obtained from the Multi-angled Imaging Spectro-Reflectometry (MISR), the ground observations were obtained from AERONET, and the meteorological observations were obtained from the Nigeria Meteorological Center (NIMET). Analysis was categorized into satellite dataset, ground dataset and derived dataset. The datasets were analyzed in pairs i.e., satellite-derived, satellite-ground and derived-ground. The results presented showed that satellite-derived, satellite-ground and derived-ground had above 70% trends in the regression performance on a yearly basis. The difference between the actual and calculated chi-square estimates showed that ground-derived observation and satellite-derived observation were within a magnitude of 30 while ground-satellite observation was within a magnitude of 49. This result agrees well with the individual results obtained from the derived-meteorological model. It was shown that the shortcoming of the meteorologically derived aerosol optical depth in West Africa is the yearly Sahara dust influx. However, it is recommended that further work be carried out on the regional particle transport to strengthen the meteorological-derived model and to adopt the hybrid approach of the trio for a better understanding of AOD impacts on the climate, ecology, weather and the environment.

A nanoparticle is a particle that has a dimension ranging between 1 to 100 nm. There are various metal nanoparticles such as gold, silver, copper, palladium, platinum, zinc oxide, and titanium dioxide. There are several methods for synthesizing nanoparticles, including co precipitation, hydrothermal synthesis, inert gas condensation, ion sputtering scattering, sol-gel, spark discharge, micro emulsion, microwave, pulse laser ablation, template synthesis, and biological synthesis. Green synthesis of nanoparticles has increased significant importance in recent years as it has several merits such as it is simple, cost-effective, and nanoparticles formed have good stability. Metal nanoparticles (Ag, Au, Pt) have been used in several biomedical applications such as anticancer, radiotherapy enhancement, drug delivery, thermal ablation, antibacterial, diagnostic assays, antifungal, gene delivery, and many others. Researches capturing the high efficiency of green-synthesized metal nanoparticles (NPs) in targeting mosquito vectors of the world's main infectious diseases suggest the NPs’ possible utilization as bio-insecticides. Some plant families (e.g., Meliaceae, Poaceae, Lamiaceae) have produced NPs with a particularly high efficiency larvicidal and pupicidal activity. The current article evaluates the role of synthesized metal nanoparticles that have been investigated so far for the control of vector mosquitoes, with a detailed focus on the mechanism of action of these metal nanoparticles in this regard.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether educational use of the recently popular social network site WhatsApp can effect university students’ engagement and grades. A quasi-experimental, pre-test/post-test control group design was employed. A total of 94 second-year university students (45 in the experimental group and 49 in the control group), aged 18-20 years, participated as subjects. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. The data obtained during a semester-long application reveals that the experimental group displayed a significant increase in engagement compared to the control group, and earned significantly higher semester grade-point averages (GPAs). The comments of these students regarding educational uses of WhatsApp, both negative and positive, are also presented and discussed.

This study addressed Persian monolingual and Kurdish-Persian bilingual learners' resetting of pronoun parameters of English as a second and third language and the effect of instruction on beginner learners' resetting of those parameters in relation to the predictions made by UG-based non-primary language learning hypotheses. A number of male and female EFL learners (22 Persian monolingual and 72 Kurdish-Persian bilingual learners) were selected following convenience sampling. They were assigned to three proficiency levels, i.e., beginner, intermediate and advanced levels based on their performance on the Oxford Placement Test. A grammaticality judgment test and a translation test were used to collect the data. The results of ANOVA revealed that intermediate and advanced Kurdish- Persian bilingual learners of English as an L3 and Persian monolingual learners of English as an L2 had managed to reset the parameters in question, but the beginner learners had not. The findings could best be interpreted and justified based on the Direct Access (DA) hypothesis, the Full Transfer/Full Access (FTFA) hypothesis and the Modulated Structure Building Hypothesis (MSBH). The results of paired-samples t-test indicated that beginner learners also managed to reset the parameters after instruction.

To protect themselves from hazardous conditions, workers must utilize personal protective equipment (PPE) to ensure their safety and well-being. One way to determine the level of comfort provided by PPE is by conducting an air permeability test, which assesses the fabric's air flow capability. Air permeability is a commonly employed term in the textile industry for describing the fundamental properties of fabrics. This technical knowledge is commonly used by manufacturers of PPE to illustrate the practical functionality of their products. The air permeability of textile material measures how quickly air flows through the fabric's structure in a vertical position under specific parameters, such as the speed required to create a specific drop in pressure, under specific conditions. Different test conditions can be assessed using established standards for air permeability. The air permeability of five selected samples was studied through a laboratory simulation, and the results are documented in this paper for both dry and wet conditions. The samples were conditioned in a saline solution to replicate the sweat conditions of the worker. The comfort properties of wet fabrics can be influenced by exposing them to saline solution during the conditioning process, as concluded by laboratory experiments.

This article has two objectives first to describe the state of the art of the semiotics of architecture, and second, to open semiotics to more significant developments in relation to the current architectural practices and theories. Some theoretical difficulties are not because of the negative positions of the architects in the field, but because a theoretical weakness of the semiotic and other theories of architecture. The aim of this paper is to uncover it and to rediscover new ways of an open semiotics on architecture.

A proposed method to solve the problem of the need to having the drivers for the used measurement instruments, is presented. Then a new automated system for wide-band antenna gain measurement is built based on it. Reducing the complexity of the wide-band antenna gain measurement process by eliminating the need of a modular or many modular antennas, reducing the cost and reducing the required time are the contributions of this new automated measurement system. The novelty of this new automated measurement system can be divided into two branches. First branch improving the standard approach of wide-band antenna gain measurement that requires modular or many modular antennas that cover entire band by reducing the complexity of measurement mechanism. Second branch modifying the structure of the software of the traditional remote access applications by mixing the operational instructions of the instrument with the direct SCPI commands so eliminating the need of the instrument's drivers. The resulted software has the ability to remotely drive many instruments synchronically reducing the number of experienced people needed to complete the measurement process.

In our attempt towards the development of effective antimicrobial, a novel series of 5'-benzylidene-3'-phenylspiro [indoline-3,2'-thiazolidine]-2,4'(1H)-diones 6a-d and spiro[indoline-3,2'-thiazolo [5,4-e] pyrimido[1,2-a] pyrimidin]-2(1H)-one 9a-d derivatives were synthesized. All the newly synthesized compounds were evaluated for antifungal and anti-candidiasis activity by using Disc Diffusion and Modified Microdilution method. The antimicrobial experiments displayed that the synthesized compounds had selectively and broad-spectrum antifungal activity in vitro. Among them, 9a-9d compounds had stronger antifungal activity against Trichophyton rubrum, Trichophyton mentagrophytes and Candida albicans meanwhile 6a-d compounds also showed significant antifungal activity against selected fungal strains as compared to Ketoconazole, standard antifungal drug. The evaluation of antifungal activity against drug-resistant fungi variants showed these designed compounds had significant antifungal activity against these tested variants. The combination of compounds (6a-d) and (9a-d) exhibited that the synthesized compounds had synergistic effects or additive effects with current used drugs in clinic. These results demonstrated that these synthesized compounds were chitin synthase inhibitors and had selective and broad-spectra antifungal activities. The present results concluded that Novel Spiro pyrimidine derivatives can be used as an active pharmaceutical ingredient for novel drug candidate for treatment of dermatophytosis and other fungal agents.