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  1. Environmental and ecological signals predict food shortages for subtropical populations of Australian flying foxes, reservoirs of Hendra virus

    Lagergren, John H. ; Ruiz-Aravena, Manuel ; Becker, Daniel J. ; ... - Biology Letters (Online)
    Food availability determines where and how animals use space across a landscape and, therefore, affects the risk of encounters leading to zoonotic spillover. This relationship is evident in Australian flying foxes (Pteropus spp.; fruit bats), where acute food shortages precede clusters of Hendra virus spillovers. Using machine learning, we predicted months of food shortages from climatological and ecological covariates (1996–2022) in subtropical Australia. Overall accuracy in predicting months of low food availability on a test set from 2018 up to 2022 reached 93.33 and 92.59% based on climatological and bat-level features, respectively. Seasonality and the Oceanic El Niño Index weremore » the most important environmental features, while the number of bats in rescue centres and their body weights were the most important bat-level features. These models support predictive signals up to nine months in advance, facilitating action to mitigate spillover risk.« less

  2. Complex Adsorption Behavior of Neodymium and Ytterbium on Structurally-Distinct Alumina Surfaces

    Fang, Yihang ; Lee, Sang Soo ; Ledingham, Greg J. ; ... - Environmental Science and Technology
    New sources of rare earth elements (REEs) are needed to support a green energy transition. REEs adsorbed to aluminum-rich clays in weathering deposits represent important resources but the mechanisms responsible for their retention and ease of extraction are unresolved. Disordered coordination and co-occurrence of multiple species pose challenges to investigating REE adsorption processes via established spectroscopic methods. In this study, we applied element-specific surface crystallography methods to obtain a new perspective on the complexity of REE adsorption mechanisms and affinities. Alumina (001) and (012) crystal surfaces were utilized to evaluate surface-specific controls on Nd(III) and Yb(III) adsorption behavior. The REEsmore » displayed similar total adsorption to alumina (001) as a mixture of inner- and outer-sphere complexes, but Nd displayed a greater proportion of inner-sphere binding. Adsorption of ordered inner- and outer-sphere REE species was substantially lower on alumina (012). These distinct behaviors reflect differences in the surface functional group charging and topography of the two surfaces. However, alumina (012) also hosted a substantial population of disordered adsorbed species, especially for Nd, potentially associated with Al vacancy surface defects. Here, the accumulation of light versus heavy REEs via adsorption in weathering deposits likely results from multiple, competing reactions affected by clay particle morphology. Leaching procedures for resource recovery should account for differential rates of desorption by coexisting inner- and outer-sphere REE surface complexes.« less

  3. Integrated supermarket refrigeration for very high ambient temperature

    Purohit, Nilesh ; Sharma, Vishaldeep ; Sawalha, Samer ; ... - Energy
    This paper analytically investigates and compares the performance of a proposed ‘all-natural’ NH3/CO2 cascaded booster system to a conventional R404A direct expansion system as well as to an ‘all-CO2’ system with multi-ejector unit and flooded evaporator. Performance comparison is made based on the annual combined COP and Life Cycle Climate Performance (LCCP) for operation in selected cities of Middle East and India. Our results show that in extreme warm climate, the energy efficiency of the proposed configuration exceeds that of all-CO2 configuration by a maximum of about 12.23% and the total emissions are lower by up to 11.20%. However, themore » all-CO2 multi ejector system performs better in cold and mild warm climate. In the NH3/CO2 cascade, the high temperature NH3 system can be designed to be isolated from the accessible locations of the supermarket. Here, the work presented is expected to help adoption of natural refrigerants such as CO2 and NH3 for commercial application in extreme warm climate conditions prevailing in many cities of Middle East and India.« less

  4. Techno-economic and resource analysis of hydroprocessed renewable jet fuel

    Tao, Ling ; Milbrandt, Anelia ; Zhang, Yanan ; ... - Biotechnology for Biofuels

  5. The value of protein structure classification information-Surveying the scientific literature

    Fox, Naomi K. ; Brenner, Steven E. ; Chandonia, John -Marc - Proteins
    The Structural Classification of Proteins (SCOP) and Class, Architecture, Topology, Homology (CATH) databases have been valuable resources for protein structure classification for over 20 years. Development of SCOP (version 1) concluded in June 2009 with SCOP 1.75. The SCOPe (SCOP-extended) database offers continued development of the classic SCOP hierarchy, adding over 33,000 structures. We have attempted to assess the impact of these two decade old resources and guide future development. To this end, we surveyed recent articles to learn how structure classification data are used. Of 571 articles published in 2012-2013 that cite SCOP, 439 actually use data from themore » resource. We found that the type of use was fairly evenly distributed among four top categories: A) study protein structure or evolution (27% of articles), B) train and/or benchmark algorithms (28% of articles), C) augment non-SCOP datasets with SCOP classification (21% of articles), and D) examine the classification of one protein/a small set of proteins (22% of articles). Most articles described computational research, although 11% described purely experimental research, and a further 9% included both. We examined how CATH and SCOP were used in 158 articles that cited both databases: while some studies used only one dataset, the majority used data from both resources. Protein structure classification remains highly relevant for a diverse range of problems and settings.« less
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