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Fulltext The impact of fiscal decentralization, green energy, and economic policy uncertainty on sustainable environment: a new perspective from ecological footprint in five OECD countries

Zahra S, Badeeb RA

Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2022 Aug;29(36):54698-54717.
PMID: 35305216 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-022-19669-y

The paper explores the short-run and long-run asymmetric impact of fiscal decentralization, green energy, and economic policy uncertainty on environmental sustainability proxied by ecological footprint. Using the Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed lag (NARDL) approach in selected five OECD countries, we find that ecological footprint responds to positive and negative fiscal decentralization asymmetrically in the long run and short run. However, the nature of the response varies significantly across countries. The result also suggests that green energy is a major factor in reducing the ecological footprint in all countries except Canada. Finally, economic policy uncertainty plays a negative and significant role in the ecological footprint in the UK, USA, and Germany while insignificant in Australia and Canada. Implications for effective environmental policies are discussed.
Fulltext Invariant Feature Matching for Image Registration Application Based on New Dissimilarity of Spatial Features

Mousavi Kahaki SM, Nordin MJ, Ashtari AH, J Zahra S

PLoS One, 2016;11(3):e0149710.
PMID: 26985996 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0149710

An invariant feature matching method is proposed as a spatially invariant feature matching approach. Deformation effects, such as affine and homography, change the local information within the image and can result in ambiguous local information pertaining to image points. New method based on dissimilarity values, which measures the dissimilarity of the features through the path based on Eigenvector properties, is proposed. Evidence shows that existing matching techniques using similarity metrics--such as normalized cross-correlation, squared sum of intensity differences and correlation coefficient--are insufficient for achieving adequate results under different image deformations. Thus, new descriptor's similarity metrics based on normalized Eigenvector correlation and signal directional differences, which are robust under local variation of the image information, are proposed to establish an efficient feature matching technique. The method proposed in this study measures the dissimilarity in the signal frequency along the path between two features. Moreover, these dissimilarity values are accumulated in a 2D dissimilarity space, allowing accurate corresponding features to be extracted based on the cumulative space using a voting strategy. This method can be used in image registration applications, as it overcomes the limitations of the existing approaches. The output results demonstrate that the proposed technique outperforms the other methods when evaluated using a standard dataset, in terms of precision-recall and corner correspondence.
Fulltext Combined Multivariate Statistical Techniques and Water Quality Index (WQI) to Evaluate Spatial Variation in Water Quality

Begum S, Firdous S, Naeem Z, Chaudhry GE, Arshad S, Abid F, et al.

Trop Life Sci Res, 2023 Sep;34(3):129-149.
PMID: 37860095 DOI: 10.21315/tlsr2023.34.3.7

In present study, Water Quality Index (WQI) has been assessed of the Rawal Lake which is a major source of drinking water for people in the Federal Capital, Islamabad, and its adjacent city Rawalpindi in Pakistan. For this, the principal component analysis (PCA) and WQI were applied as an integrated approach to quantitatively explore difference based on spatial variation in 11 water quality parameters of the five major feeding tributaries of the Rawal Lake, Pakistan. The results of temperature in water, total dissolved solids, pH, electrical conductivity, chlorides and sulfates were well within the allowable World Health Organisation's (WHO) limits. However, the heavy metals like cadmium and lead were above permissible limits by the WHO in tributaries of Bari Imam and Rumli. Moreover, this has been proven by the Pearson correlation which suggested strong positive correlation (0.910*) between lead and cadmium. The results of present study were subjected to statistical analysis, i.e., PCA which gave three major factors contributing 96.5% of the total variance. For factor 1, pH, TDS, alkalinity, chlorides, sulfates and zinc have highest factor loading values (>0.60) and presented that these parameters were among the most significant parameters of first factor. As per the WQI results, the water was categorised in two major classes indicating that water of Bari Imam and Rumli is highly contaminated with heavy metals and totally unsuitable for drinking purposes. Based on the results of the present study, it is suggested to make heavy metals consideration as an integrated component in future planning for maintaining water quality of the Rawal Lake and its tributaries.
Dental aesthetic related popularity and peer pressure, a survey of adolescents in Pakistan

Shahzad HB, Awais F, Kazmi F, Arshad AI, Manzar S, Rashid S, et al.

Int J Adolesc Med Health, 2023 Jun 01;35(3):283-290.
PMID: 37145020 DOI: 10.1515/ijamh-2023-0032

OBJECTIVES: Most research has focused on determining how popularity and peer pressure impact behaviours, rather than identifying a key feature such as dental aesthetics and studying its impacts in relation to popularity and peer pressure.
METHODS: A cross sectional study was conducted on a sample of 527 children from four schools located in Lahore, Pakistan. A 14-point questionnaire was developed, using existing measures of peer pressure, and popularity. The selected questions were modified to investigate the issues of dental aesthetics and integrated into the WHO oral health questionnaire for children.
RESULTS: More than 50 % of the participants indicated popularity issues regarding dental aesthetics. 63.5 % of the responses indicated an influence of relatives and friends, whereas 38 % responses reported of harassment and bullying at schools. Regression analysis shows that the females were 1.99 times more likely to get comments from relative or friends about their teeth and 2.17 times more likely to be bullied or harassed at school due to their teeth when compared to the males. Fathers with a higher education brought about higher popularity and peer pressure issues. Mothers with a higher education were less likely to cause popularity and peer pressure issues than mothers with a lower education. Popularity and peer pressure were both significantly related to higher dental visitation.
CONCLUSIONS: Popularity and peer pressure have a direct link to dental aesthetics in an individual and are impacted by gender, family relatives and parental influences. The area of popularity and peer pressure related to dental aesthetics can be targeted in health education programs to empower children to adopt better oral health behaviours.
Fulltext Introducing a global database of entomopathogenic fungi and their host associations

De Wint FC, Nicholson S, Koid QQ, Zahra S, Chestney-Claassen G, Seelan JSS, et al.

Sci Data, 2024 Dec 21;11(1):1418.
PMID: 39709508 DOI: 10.1038/s41597-024-04103-4

Pathogens significantly influence natural and agricultural ecosystems, playing a crucial role in the regulation of species populations and maintaining biodiversity. Entomopathogenic fungi (EF), particularly within the Hypocreales order, exemplify understudied pathogens that infect insects and other arthropods globally. Despite their ecological importance, comprehensive data on EF host specificity and geographical distribution are lacking. To address this, we present EntomoFun 1.0, an open-access database centralizing global records of EF-insect associations in Hypocreales. This database includes 1,791 records detailing EF species, insect host taxa, countries of occurrence, life stages of hosts, and information sources. EntomoFun 1.0 is constructed based on 600 literature sources, as well as herbarium specimens of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew. This database is intended to test hypotheses, identify knowledge gaps, and stimulate future research. Contents of the EntomoFun 1.0 database are visualized with a global map, taxonomic chart, bipartite community network, and graphs.
Fulltext Pomegranate peels waste hydrolyzate optimization by Response Surface Methodology for Bioethanol production

Chaudhary A, Hussain Z, Aihetasham A, El-Sharnouby M, Abdul Rehman R, Azmat Ullah Khan M, et al.

Saudi J Biol Sci, 2021 Sep;28(9):4867-4875.
PMID: 34466060 DOI: 10.1016/j.sjbs.2021.06.081

Unwanted agricultural waste is largely comprised of lignocellulosic substrate which could be transformed into sugars. The production of bioethanol from garbage manifested an agreeable proposal towards waste management as well as energy causation. The goal of this work is to optimize parameters for generation of bioethanol through fermentation by different yeast strains while Saccharomyces cerevisiae used as standard strain. The low cost fermentable sugars from pomegranate peels waste (PPW) were obtained by hydrolysis with HNO3 (1 to 5%). The optimum levels of hydrolysis time and temperature were elucidated via RSM (CCD) ranging from 30 to 60 min and 50 to 100 °C respectively. The result shows that optimum values (g/L) for reducing sugars was 61.45 ± 0.01 while for total carbohydrates was 236 ± 0.01. These values were found when PPW was hydrolyzed with 3% HNO3, at 75 °C for one hour. The hydrolyzates obtained from the dilute HNO3 pretreated PPW yielded a maximum of 0.43 ± 0.04, 0.41 ± 0.03 g ethanol per g of reducing sugars by both Metchnikowia sp. Y31 and M. cibodasensis Y34 at day 7 of ethanologenic experiment. The current study exhibited that by fermentation of dilute HNO3 hydrolyzates of PPW could develop copious amount of ethanol by optimized conditions.