Marine biota, especially commercially important species, serves as a basis for human nutrition. However, millions of tons of plastic litter are produced and enter the marine environment every year, with potential adverse impacts on marine organisms. In the present study, we investigated the occurrence and characteristics of microplastic (MP) pollution in the digestive tracts of 13 species of wild nektons from 20 stations sampled in the South China Sea (SCS) and the Indian Ocean (IO), and assessed the human health risks of MPs. The detection rate of MPs ranged from 0.00% to 50.00% from the SCS, which was dramatically lower than that from the IO (10.00-80.00%). The average abundance of MP was 0.18 ± 0.06 items g wet weight-1 (ww-1) in the SCS, which was significantly lower than that in the IO with a concentration of 0.70 ± 0.16 items g ww-1. Most MPs were fibers in type, black in color, and polyester (PES) in polymer composition in both the SCS and IO. Interestingly, distinct profiles of MP pollution were found between the benthic and pelagic nektons: 1) The predominant MP composition was PES in the benthic nektons, whereas polyamide (PA) accounted for a larger part of the total MP count in the pelagic nektons within the SCS; 2) The abundance of MP in the benthic nektons (0.52 ± 0.24 items individual-1) was higher than that in the pelagic nektons (0.30 ± 0.11 items individual-1). Accordingly, the mean hazard score of MPs detected in the benthic nektons (220.66 ± 210.75) was higher than that in the pelagic nektons (49.53 ± 22.87); 3) The mean size of the MP in the pelagic nektons (0.84 ± 0.17 mm) was larger than that in the benthic nektons (0.49 ± 0.09 mm). Our findings highlight the need to further investigate the ecological impacts of MPs on wild nekton, especially commercially important species, and its potential implications for human health.
Pencemaran air di Tasik Chini, Pahang kian meruncing akibat pembangunan sekitar yang tidak terkawal menyebabkan kemusnahan rantaian makanan sekaligus mengancam kelangsungan hidup komuniti asli. Justeru, kajian telah dijalankan bagi mengenal pasti faktor, impak dan keberkesanan strategi dengan menggunapakai Teori Pengambilalihan. Selain itu, kajian ini dipilih untuk memenuhi kelompangan kajian terdahulu yang lebih menekankan kepentingan pengekalan biodiversiti flora dan fauna berbanding kajian terhadap kehidupan komuniti setempat. Maka, kajian deskritif tinjauan telah digunakan melalui kaedah pemerhatian, temu bual mendalam bersama empat orang informan, dianalisis secara transkripsi, triangulasi dan analisis kandungan. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan faktor pencemaran air berpunca daripada pembinaan empangan air, projek pembangunan, aktiviti pembalakan, aktiviti perlombongan dan hakisan tanih. Sementara, pertanian komersial juga menjejaskan kegunaan domestik, hidupan akuatik terganggu, perubahan sifat air, kehilangan sumber pendapatan, dan tahap kesihatan terjejas. Oleh itu, cadangan memperluaskan program advokasi seperti pengawalan pembuangan sampah sarap, pematuhan Penilaian Impak Alam Sekitar (EIA), penglibatan pihak awam dan swasta, pemantauan kesihatan, kesedaran awam, dan melakukan penyelidikan lanjutan. Kajian mendapati dua buah syarikat China mengeksport bijih besi yang diperoleh sekitar Tasik Chini menggunakan permit AP (Eksport dan Import) dari negeri lain, bukannya Pahang. Meskipun syarikat tersebut tidak mempunyai lesen melombong tetapi mereka mempunyai segala kelengkapan alatan memproses dan menjalankan operasinya hingga kini. Diharapkan isu pencemaran air di Tasik Chini dapat dipulihkan demi menjamin kelestarian sejagat.
The novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has quickly evolved from a provincial health scare to a global meltdown. While it has brought nearly half the world to a standstill it has affected the financial markets in unseen ways by eroding a quarter of wealth in nearly a month. This paper investigates the reaction of financial markets globally in terms of their decline and volatility as Coronavirus epicentre moved from China to Europe and then to the US. Findings suggest that the earlier epicentre China has stabilized while the global markets have gone into a freefall especially in the later phase of the spread. Even the relatively safer commodities have suffered as the pandemic moves into the US.
Chinese bayberry fruit were treated with hot air (HA) at 48 ℃ for 3 h and then stored at 4 ℃ for 15 d. Changes in fungal communities were analyzed by high-throughput sequencing (HTS), and decay and fruit quality were monitored during storage. The results showed that HA treatment effectively maintains fruit quality and the richness and diversity of fungal communities. Heat treatment inhibited decay development and reduced the growth of fungi in the genera Botryotinia spp., Davidiella spp., Hanseniaspora spp., and Candida spp. Canonical correspondence analysis further revealed that Botryotinia spp. and Davidiella spp. were positively correlated with fruit decay and weight loss. FUNGuild analysis demonstrated that HA-treated bayberries had a lower relative abundance within the plant pathogen guild, but higher relative abundance within the endophyte guild. The results suggest that HA treatment reduces pathogens by favoring the increase of endophytes, providing new insight into the decay development and quality changes during the storage of postharvest Chinese bayberries.
The heavy metal contents (Cr, Cu, Zn, Cd, Pb, Hg, and As) of 88 surface sediment samples from the western Sunda Shelf were analyzed to determine their spatial distribution patterns and contamination status. The results demonstrated that high enrichment regions of heavy metals were focused in the Kelantan, Pahang, and Ambat river estuaries, and deep water regions of the study area. These high enrichment regions were mainly controlled by riverine inputs and their hydrodynamic conditions. The enrichment factor (EF), geoaccumulation index (Igeo), and potential ecological risk index (PERI) were used to assess heavy metal accumulation. The results indicated that the study area was not significantly contaminated overall at the time of the study; however, Cd, As, and Hg were at levels corresponding to moderate contamination at many stations located in the Pahang River estuary, Kelantan River estuary, and north-eastern region of the study area, primarily because of anthropogenic activities.
Synthetic adhesives in the plywood industry are usually volatile compounds such as formaldehyde-based chemical which are costly and hazardous to health and the environment. This phenomenon promotes an interest in developing bio-boards without synthetic adhesives. This study proposed a novel application of natural mycelium produced during mushroom cultivation as natural bio-adhesive material that convert spent mushroom substrate (SMS) into high-performance bio-board material. Different types of spent mushroom substrates were compressed with specific designed mould with optimal temperature at 160 °C and 10 mPa for 20 min. The bio-board made from Ganoderma lucidum SMS had the highest internal bonding strength up to 2.51 mPa. This is far above the 0.4-0.8 range of China and US national standards. In addition, the material had high water and fire resistance, high bonding and densified structures despite free of any adhesive chemicals. These properties and the low cost one step procedure show the potential as a zero-waste economy chain for sustainable agricultural practice for waste and remediation.
Acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease (AHPND) is a severe disease affecting recently stocked cultured shrimps. The disease is mainly caused by V. parahaemolyticus that harbors the pVA1 plasmid; this plasmid contains the pirA and pirB genes, which encode a delta-endotoxin. AHPND originated in China in 2009 and has since spread to several other Asian countries and recently to Latin America (2013). Many Asian strains have been sequenced, and their sequences are publicly accessible in scientific databases, but only four strains from Latin America have been reported. In this study, we analyzed nine pVA1-harboring V. parahaemolyticus sequences from strains isolated in Mexico along with the 38 previously available pVA1-harboring V. parahaemolyticus sequences and the reference strain RIMD 2210633. The studied sequences were clustered into three phylogenetic clades (Latin American, Malaysian, and Cosmopolitan) through pangenomic and phylogenomic analysis. The nucleotide sequence alignment of the pVA1 plasmids harbored by the Asian and Latin American strains confirmed that the main structural difference in the plasmid between the Asian and Latin American strains is the absence of the Tn3 transposon in the Asian strains; in addition, some deletions in the pirAB region were found in two of the Latin American strains. Our study represents the most robust and inclusive phylogenomic analysis of pVA1-harboring V. parahaemolyticus conducted to date and provides insight into the epidemiology of AHPND. In addition, this study highlights that disease diagnosis through the detection of the pirA and pirB genes is an inadequate approach due to the instability of these genes.
This study presents a bibliometric analysis of the publications on melatonin research from the Scopus database during the period 2015-2019. Based on the keywords used, which are related to melatonin in the article title, the study retrieved 4411 documents for further analysis using various tools. We used Microsoft Excel to conduct the frequency analysis, VOSviewer for data visualization, and Harzing's Publish or Perish for citation metrics and analysis. This study reports the results using standard bibliometric indicators such as the growth of publications, authorship patterns, collaboration, and prolific authors, country contribution, most active institutions, preferred journals, and top-cited articles. Based on our findings, there is a continuous growth of publications on melatonin research for 5 years since 2015. China was the largest contributor to melatonin research, followed by the United States. The Journal of Pineal Research published the most number of publications related to melatonin research. Our findings suggest that the role of melatonin in plant and food sciences, as well as in cancer, may in later years take over the clusters that earlier dominated melatonin research.
Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was discovered in Wuhan, China in December 2019, and has affected millions of lives worldwide. On 29th April 2020, Malaysia reported more than 5,000 COVID-19 cases; the second highest in the Southeast Asian region after Singapore. Recently, a forecasting model was developed to measure and predict COVID-19 cases in Malaysia on daily basis for the next 10 days using previously-confirmed cases. A Recurrent Forecasting-Singular Spectrum Analysis (RF-SSA) is proposed by establishing L and ET parameters via several tests. The advantage of using this forecasting model is it would discriminate noise in a time series trend and produce significant forecasting results. The RF-SSA model assessment was based on the official COVID-19 data released by the World Health Organization (WHO) to predict daily confirmed cases between 30th April and 31st May, 2020. These results revealed that parameter L = 5 (T/20) for the RF-SSA model was indeed suitable for short-time series outbreak data, while the appropriate number of eigentriples was integral as it influenced the forecasting results. Evidently, the RF-SSA had over-forecasted the cases by 0.36%. This signifies the competence of RF-SSA in predicting the impending number of COVID-19 cases. Nonetheless, an enhanced RF-SSA algorithm should be developed for higher effectivity of capturing any extreme data changes.
The pursuit for higher degrees is accelerating in the country. With mushrooming foreign and local graduates from non-university and university status institutions, it is critical to explore the types of qualification awarded and the existing platform for recognition and accreditation purposes. The objectives of this study are: (i) to gather information with regard to current policies and practices pertaining to recognition and accreditation systems of the higher education sector, with specific reference to Malaysia and china (ii) to review the existing policy between accreditation and recognition agencies/providers and (iii) to recommend best practices, guidelines and strategies for practical implementation in Malaysia. The methodology pursuit in Malaysia and china involved inspection of documents and purposive interviews. The research was implemented from May 2009 to november 2009. The results of the research revealed that though the worldview of mutual recognition agreement is to liberalise the education sector, the authentic situations prevailing in the country requires the purposive liberalization of the education sector, with periodic reviews for its appropriateness and relevance for the needs of the country (provisional and conditional), thereby ensuring regulatory, review and quality sustainability. The customized regulatory framework would be a prerequisite (conditional), with due attention be given to either implicit or explicit conditions in the recognition of academic degrees. In deliberating the mutual recognition agreement with jurisdiction including those which are more educationally advanced, selective emerging 'niche' areas and/or supportive (conditional) have been proposed. Finally, to strengthen the existing regulatory frame work, innovative provision in this legal framework is recommended.
The massive 2008 Sichuan earthquake brought unprecedented international humanitarian aid to China. The monstrous damages and casualties aroused all human's sympathy. I took the opportunity to join a Malaysian voluntary medical relief team to Sichuan in June 2008. This essay recounts the immediate events post-earthquake and reports on my experience during the mission.
Seven species of Strongylophthalmyia are described as new species: Strongylophthalmyia armipes n. sp. (Malaysia), S. biloba n. sp. (Indonesia), S. bukittinggiana n. sp. (Indonesia), S. minutissima n. sp. (Thailand), S. prominens n. sp. (Vietnam), S. strigosa n. sp. (China), S. vichrevi n. sp. (Russia). New data on morphology and distribution of S. bifasciata Yang et Wang 1992 and S. malayensis Evenhuis, 2016 are provided.
The genus Molpa Walker was previously considered to be disjunctly distributed in broad-leaf rain forests in India and Malaysia. Here we report one new species Molpa dulongensis sp. nov. from subtropic broad-leaf rain forests in southwestern Yunnan Province in China. This is a part of the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot area. So we can infer that Molpa is continuously distributed in broad-leaf rain forests found in Oriental Region. Redescription of the genus Molpa and description of the new species Molpa dulongensis sp. nov. are provided. The types are deposited in Insect Collection of Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China (IZCAS).
We report here for the first time horsehair worms (Nematomorpha) from Hong Kong (China). Most specimens belong to the genus Chordodes, and can be assigned to C. bipilus, C. caledoniensis and to C. cf. moutoni. Two specimens have a cuticular pattern resembling the South American species C. peraccae or C. bouvieri, but for Southeast Asia this pattern is new. These two specimens are reported here as Chordodes sp. Additionally, Gordionus chinensis was found. One new species, Acutogordius koljai, is described from Malaysia. It has a characteristically-structured region posterior to the postcloacal crescent which sets it apart from previously described species in this genus.
The Cyana bianca (Walker, 1856) species-group is revised. Cyana bianca malayana Bucsek, 2012 is upgraded to the species level. A new species, C. indosinica Volynkin Černý, sp. nov. (China: Yunnan, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam) and a new subspecies, C. quadripartita vieta Volynkin Černý, ssp. nov. (Vietnam) are described.
Two new species of Biantes Simon, 1885 (Biantidae: Biantinae) are described: Biantes calyptroideus sp. nov. (male and female) from China and Biantes spatulatus sp. nov. (male and female) from Malaysia. Biantidae is recorded from China for the first time.
The selection criteria play an important role in the portfolio optimization
using any ratio model. In this paper, the authors have considered the mean return as
profit and variance of return as risk on the asset return as selection criteria, as the first
stage to optimize the selected portfolio. Furthermore, the sharp ratio (SR) has been
considered to be the optimization ratio model. In this regard, the historical data taken
from Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) has been considered. A metaheuristic technique
has been developed, with financial tool box available in MATLAB and the particle swarm
optimization (PSO) algorithm. Hence, called as the hybrid particle swarm optimization
(HPSO) or can also be called as financial tool box particle swarm optimization (FTBPSO).
In this model, the budgets as constraint, where as two different models i.e. with
and without short sale, have been considered. The obtained results have been compared
with the existing literature and the proposed technique is found to be optimum and better
in terms of profit.
In China, waste sorting practice is not strictly followed, plastics, especially food packaging, are commonly mixed in food waste. Supercritical water gasification (SCWG) of unsorted food waste was conducted in this study, using model unsorted food waste by mixture of pure food waste and plastic. Different operating parameters including reaction temperature, residence time, and feedstock concentration were investigated. Moreover, the effect of three representative food additives namely NaCl, NaHCO3 and Na2CO3 were tested in this work. Finally, comparative analysis about SCWG of unsorted food waste, pure food waste, and plastic was studied. It was found that higher reaction temperature, longer residence time and lower feedstock concentration were advantageous for SCWG of unsorted food waste. Within the range of operating parameters in this study, when the feedstock concentration was 5 wt%, the highest H2 yield (7.69 mol/kg), H2 selectivity (82.11%), total gas yield (17.05 mol/kg), and efficiencies of SCWG (cold gas efficiency, gasification efficiency, carbon gasification efficiency, and hydrogen gasification efficiency) were obtained at 480 °C for 75 min. Also, the addition of food additives with Na+ promoted the SCWG of unsorted food waste. The Na2CO3 showed the best catalytic performance on enhancement of H2 and syngas production. This research demonstrated the positive effect of waste sorting on the SCWG of food waste, and provided novel results and information that help to overcome the problems in the process of food waste treatment and accelerate the industrial application of SCWG technology in the future.
The species of Estheria Robineau-Desvoidy (Diptera: Tachinidae) from the East Palearctic and Oriental regions are reviewed. Eighteen species are recognized: the fourteen previously described, E. acuta (Portschinsky, 1881), E. alticola Mesnil, 1967, E. bucharensis (Kolomiets, 1974), E. cinerella Mesnil, 1967, E. cristata (Meigen, 1826), E. decolor (Pandellé, 1896), E. flavipennis Herting, 1968, E. lacteipennis Mesnil, 1967, E. maculipennis Herting, 1968, E. magna (Baranov, 1935), E. nigripes (Villeneuve, 1920), E. pallicornis (Loew, 1873), E. petiolata (Bonsdorff, 1866) and E. picta (Meigen, 1826), and four species described as new to science, E. hirtinerva Zhang Shima sp. nov. (W China, Nepal), E. prostata Zhang Shima sp. nov. (W China, Nepal), E. tibetensis Zhang Shima sp. nov. (W China, Nepal) and E. wangi Zhang Liang sp. nov. (W China, Pakistan). Estheria acuta and E. decolor are newly recorded for China, E. magna is newly recorded for Malaysia, Pakistan and Vietnam, and E. pallicornis is newly recorded for Nepal. An identification key to the 18 species of Estheria so far known from the East Palearctic and Oriental regions is included, together with 126 figures of heads and habitus of males and females, and male terminalia and known distributions.