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Noise pollution is increasingly present in aquatic ecosystems, causing detrimental effects on growth, physiology and behaviour of organisms. However, limited information exists on how this stressor affects animals in early ontogeny, a critical period for development and establishment of phenotypic traits. We tested the effects of chronic noise exposure to increasing levels (130 and 150 dB re 1 μPa, continuous white noise) and different temporal regimes on larval zebrafish (Danio rerio), an important vertebrate model in ecotoxicology. The acoustic treatments did not affect general development or hatching but higher noise levels led to increased mortality. The cardiac rate, yolk sac consumption and cortisol levels increased significantly with increasing noise level at both 3 and 5 dpf (days post fertilization). Variation in noise temporal patterns (different random noise periods to simulate shipping activity) suggested that the time regime is more important than the total duration of noise exposure to down-regulate physiological stress. Moreover, 5 dpf larvae exposed to 150 dB continuous noise displayed increased dark avoidance in anxiety-related dark/light preference test and impaired spontaneous alternation behaviour. We provide first evidence of noise-induced physiological stress and behavioural disturbance in larval zebrafish, showing that both noise amplitude and timing negatively impact key developmental endpoints in early ontogeny.

Malacca Portuguese Creole (MPC) (ISO 639-3; code: mcm), popularly known as Malacca Portuguese or locally as (Papiá) Cristang, belongs to the group of Portuguese-lexified creoles of (South)east Asia, which includes the extinct varieties of Batavia/Tugu (Maurer 2013) and Bidau, East Timor (Baxter 1990), and the moribund variety of Macau (Baxter 2009). MPC has its origins in the Portuguese presence in Malacca, and like the other creoles in this subset, it is genetically related to the Portuguese Creoles of South Asia (Holm 1988, Cardoso, Baxter & Nunes 2012).

Seafloor massive sulfide (SMS) deposits are important deep-sea mineral resources expected to occur predominantly on slow- and ultraslow-spreading mid-ocean ridges. Resource estimates are already available for some of the largest SMS deposits on slow-spreading ridges but not on ultraslow-spreading ridges. Based on geological mapping and sampling, this study investigates the distribution and content of sulfide-rich deposits in the Yuhuang-1 hydrothermal field (YHF), located on the ultraslow-spreading Southwest Indian Ridge. The sulfide-rich deposits in the YHF are composed of two areas ∼500 m apart: the southwest sulfide area (SWS) and the northeast sulfide area (NES). We calculated the volume of sulfide-rich mounds in the YHF and arrived at a total accumulation of ∼10.6 × 106 tons, including at least ∼7.5 × 105 tons of copper and zinc and ∼18 tons of gold. Furthermore, considering the coverage of layered hydrothermal sediment mixed with sulfide-rich breccias, which may have underlying massive sulfide deposits, the maximum total mass was estimated at ∼45.1 × 106 tons. This suggests that the YHF is one of the largest SMS deposits worldwide and confirm that ultraslow-spreading ridges have the greatest potential to form large-scale SMS deposits.

Mangroves are a unique group of plants growing along tropical and sub-tropical coastlines, with the ability to remove several types of contaminants such as heavy metals and other persistent organic compounds in coastal waters. However, little attention has been given to the possible role of mangroves in the removal of organochlorinated pesticides (OCPs) from the environment. Used worldwide, these pesticides were banned in the late 80s, withal they can still be quantified in aquatic environments due to their high stability. Moreover, as persistent and lipophilic compounds, OCPs are known for their tendency to bioaccumulate and biomagnify through the food chain, affecting local ecosystems, and potentially human health. This work aimed to investigate the potential benefits of mangrove ecosystems as OCP phytoremediators. For this purpose, a total of seventy-three articles from non-mangrove and mangrove areas around the world were gathered, integrated and re-analysed as a whole. These data include information from four different matrices (water, sediment, benthic fauna and mangrove plants). A common trend of less pesticide contamination in mangrove areas was observed for all the selected matrices. As a complement, average concentrations were discussed considering International Directives, such as the European legislation 2013/39/EU for water policy and the Dutch List together with the International Sediment Quality Guideline, for sediments. Additionally, theoretical risk assessments were also included. Since information regarding OCPs in mangroves ecosystem is very scarce compared to non-mangrove areas, this review provides valuable insights regarding these environments, and the importance of preserving them as a relevant remediation unit.

The role of hormones as modulators of aggressive behavior in fish remains poorly understood. Androgens and corticosteroids, in particular, have been associated with aggressive behavior in fish but it is still not clear if animals adjust the secretion of these hormones to regulate behavior during ongoing fights, in response to fight outcomes in order to adjust aggressive behavior in subsequent fights, or both. With its stereotyped displays and high aggression levels, the Siamese fighting fish Betta splendens is an excellent model to investigate this question. Here, we compared the behavioral and endocrine response of male B. splendens to fights where there is no winner or loser by presenting them with a size-matched live interacting conspecific behind a transparent partition or with a mirror image. The aggressive response started with threat displays that were overall similar in frequency and duration towards both types of stimuli. Fights transitioned to overt attacks and interacting with a live conspecific elicited a higher frequency of attempted bites and head hits, as compared with the mirror image. There was a pronounced increase in plasma androgens (11-ketotestosterone and testosterone) and corticosteroids (cortisol) levels in response to the aggression challenge, independent of stimulus type. Post-fight intra-group levels of these hormones did not correlate with measures of physical activity or aggressive behavior. A linear discriminant analysis including all behavioral and endocrine data was a poor classifier of fish from the conspecific and mirror trials, showing that overall the behavioral and endocrine response to mirror images and conspecifics was similar. The results show that fight resolution is not necessary to induce an evident increase in peripheral levels of androgens and corticosteroids in B. splendens. However, the function of these hormones during present and future aggressive contests remains to be clarified.

The Qiyugou gold deposit, located in the Xiong’ ershan area of the North China Craton, contains abundant bismuth-sulfosalts that are closely associated with gold mineralization. Pyrite is the dominant Au-hosted mineral, and has been formed in three generations (Py1, Py2, and Py3). Py1 grains, generally intergrown with milky quartz, are coarse (>1 mm), euhedral in shape, and Au-depleted in composition. In contrast, subhedral Py2 grains, associated with light gray quartz, are medium to coarse (0.2–3 mm) and are enriched in gold that is both invisible and visible. Py3 grains (0.1–0.5 mm), intergrown with abundant sulfide minerals, are relatively fine and Au-depleted. The time-resolved LA-ICP-MS depth profiles of the Py2 grains indicate that invisible gold occurs as either solid solution or nano-particles of native gold and electrum. Visible gold occurs as small blebs in the Py2 grains where inclusions of native bismuth, galenobismutite, lillianite homologs, tetradymite, and galena are also present. In addition, it is common that electrum in microfracture infillings or along grain boundaries of the Py1 and Py2, are intergrown with bismuthinite derivatives, Bi-Cu sulfosalts, emplectite, tetradymite, chalcopyrite, galena, and Py3. Based on textural relationships and mineral assemblages, calculation of physicochemical conditions show that gold was formed in conditions of fTe2 = ~10−11 and fS2 = ~10−11 to 10−12 for Py2, and fTe2 = ~10−9 to 10-11and fS2 = ~10−10 to 10−11 for Py3. We thus proposed that such physicochemical conditions may have triggered the precipitation of Bi melt, and sulfidation driven by cooling or increase in sulfur content results in the transformation of the Au-Bi liquid into a stable assemblage of native gold and bismuthinite. These bismuth minerals are associated with native gold/Au-bearing minerals, indicating that the Au mineralization of the Qiyugou gold deposit might be genetically associated with Bi melt. The present study highlights the role of Bi as important gold scavengers in arsenic-deficient ore-forming fluid.

Introduction This study aimed to investigate elite athletes’ mental well-being, and to ascertain whether the personal factor resilience and the social factor social support can play a role in promoting mental well-being and life satisfaction. In addition, this is one of the first studies to investigate well-being among elite athletes who are from a region belonging to an unrecognised National Olympic Committee and are not eligible to join the Olympic Games. Material and methods Eighty-four full-time elite athletes (37 males, 47 females) with mean age of 22.36 years old participated in this quantitative research study. Formal letters describing the purpose and organiser of the study were sent to the sport entities in Macao asking their permission for the researchers to contact the elite athletes to participate in this study. After gaining the permission, the elite athletes belonging to these entities were approached individually, to inform them of the purpose of the study and receive their consent. Results Regression revealed that emotional support and adaptability of resilience were strong positive predictors of mental well-being. Additionally, mental well-being was found to be a strong positive predictor of life satisfaction. The results reflected that in elite athletes possessing high adaptability and receiving more emotional support could help to maintain their mental well-being. Conclusions Implications (based on the findings) are discussed in order to provide insights for policy makers or coaches how to promote elite athletes’ mental well-being.

In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, the fashion industry was surprised and quickly had to adapt to digital media. However, the relationship between fashion and the multiplicity of screens is not new. Fashion emerged and took its first steps with Cinema, in Modernity. Although there are times when these two systems are further apart from each other, the alliance survived. To analyse contemporaneity, we take as main reference the studies of Gilles Lipovetsky, and his reflections on aesthetic capitalism. The fashion system has many Western fields of life, including art and technology. In this article we discuss how this relationship of fashion adapts and develops with aesthetic capitalism and post-digital art while we analyse representative artefacts from/about fashion. We propose to put the recent digital fashion artefacts in dialogue with post-digital aesthetics theories, discussing the blurred boundaries between the digital and the post-digital, and proposing the instantiation of a post-digital creation cycle applied to fashion artefacts.

No existing review has synthesized key questions about acculturation experiences among international migrant workers. This review aimed to explore (1) What are global migrant workers’ experiences with acculturation and acculturative stress? (2) What are acculturative stress coping strategies used by migrant workers? And (3) how effective are these strategies for migrant workers in assisting their acculturation in the host countries? Peer-reviewed and gray literature, without time limitation, were searched in six databases and included if the study: focused on acculturative stress and coping strategies; was conducted with international migrant workers; was published in English; and was empirical. Eleven studies met the inclusion criteria. Three-layered themes of acculturation process and acculturative stress were identified as: individual layer; work-related layer; and social layer. Three key coping strategies were identified: emotion-focused; problem-focused; and appraisal-focused. These coping strategies were used flexibly to increase coping effectiveness and evidence emerged that a particular type of acculturative stress might be solved more effectively by a specific coping strategy. Migrant workers faced numerous challenges in their acculturative process. Understanding this process and their coping strategies could be used in developing research and interventions to improve the well-being of migrant workers.

Would the existence of extraterrestrial intelligent life (ETI) conflict in any way with Christian belief? We identify six areas of potential conflict. If there be no conflict in any of these areas—and we argue ultimately there is not—we are confident in declaring that there is no conflict, period. This conclusion underwrites the integrity of theological explorations into the existence of ETI, which has become a topic of increasing interest among theologians in recent years.

The Dayingezhuang gold deposit in the Jiaodong district, eastern margin of the North China Craton is hosted in Mesozoic granitic rocks and consists of quartz-sulfide veins/veinlets and sulfide disseminations in alteration envelopes. Previous studies mainly focused on the geochronology, sources of ore-forming fluids and metals to investigate the ore genesis. However, enrichment mechanism of Au and other associated trace metals remain unclear. In this study, we present detailed textures and in-situ LA-ICP-MS trace-element compositions of different generations of pyrite, as well as EMP analysis of Au-bearing minerals to discuss the occurrence and enrichment mechanism of Au at this deposit. Three generations of pyrite (Py1, Py2 and Py3) formed during three hydrothermal ore stages (I, II, and III) at Dayingezhuang. Py1 occurs as disseminations in sericitic alteration assemblages and is characterized by low Au (mean 0.15 ppm), Ag, As and Te contents. The time-resolved depth-concentration profiles indicate that Au in Py1 mainly occurs as nanoparticles and/or micron-sized inclusions. Py2 can be further divided into the early undeformed Py2a and later Py2b, which is the product of deformed Py2a with different degrees of brittle to plastic deformation and recrystallization. Py2a in pyrite-siderite-quartz veins is relatively enriched in invisible Au (mean 0.41 ppm), Ag, As, and Te compared to Py1, and contains numerous micron-sized Au inclusions. In contrast, Py2b contains lesser invisible Au (0.21 ppm) and host abundant gold minerals along the grain boundaries and microfractures. Py3 in polymetallic sulfide veins has little Au. As a whole, Au in pyrite is positively correlated with Ag and Te, which is consistent with the results of EMP analysis showing the occurrence of Au as electrum, native gold and minor petzite in pyrite. Such evidences show that the deformation and recrystallization of auriferous Py2a potentially caused local remobilization of Au (mainly as micron-sized inclusion Au) via solid-state ductile flow and subsequent reconcentration of Au in microfractures of Py2b. The pyrite deformation and Au remobilization events were suggested to be related to the continuous reactivation of the regional Zhaoping Fault contemporaneous with gold mineralization. Our study highlights the importance of remobilization and reconcentration of Au triggered by syn-ore tectonic activities at Dayingezhuang and possibly other Au deposits in the Jiaodong district.

China’s return to social work education, after a nearly 35-year absence, opened the door for partnerships like the 2012 China Collaborative partnership between the Council on Social Work Education’s (CSWE) Katherine A. Kendall Institute, the China Association of Social Work Education (CASWE) and the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW). The University of Alabama School of Social Work (UA SSW) was selected to participate in the collaborative and was connected to the Southwest China Region, specifically partnered with Yunnan University. This manuscript will share the strategies used to engage faculty and students from each partnering institution. Data collected by UA SSW over the five-year partnership will be utilised to contribute to the discussion of the extent to which Western knowledge and theory about social work education might usefully be applied to the Chinese context.

In this essay, we respond to Dustin Crummett’s argument that one cannot consistently appeal to body count reasoning to justify being a single-issue pro-life voter if one is also committed to the usual response to the embryo rescue case. Specifically, we argue that a modified version of BCR we call BCR* is consistent with the usual response. We then move to address concerns about the relevance of BCR* to Crummett’s original thesis.

To solve the problem of one-sided pursuit of the shortest distance but ignoring the tourist experience in the process of tourism route planning, an improved ant colony optimization algorithm is proposed for tourism route planning. Contextual information of scenic spots significantly effect people’s choice of tourism destination, so the pheromone update strategy is combined with the contextual information such as weather and comfort degree of the scenic spot in the process of searching the global optimal route, so that the pheromone update tends to the path suitable for tourists. At the same time, in order to avoid falling into local optimization, the sub-path support degree is introduced. The experimental results show that the optimized tourism route has greatly improved the tourist experience, the route distance is shortened by 20.5% and the convergence speed is increased by 21.2% compared with the basic algorithm, which proves that the improved algorithm is notably effective.

Robotics are being used in the intervention with children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in many places and already for many years. Many robots were developed and different studies are being made in order to evaluate its effectiveness. “Socially Assistive Robotics” is shown to be effective in different areas mainly in social and emotional development. Milo, a robot developed by a team led by Richard Margolin for the Robots4Autism program (RoboKind, 2020), is one of the robots whose use is reported to be successful. In Macao there is no report of studies or experiences on the use of robots in the intervention with children with ASD. In a collaboration between the Macao Science Centre, the Macao Autism Association (MAA) and the University of Saint Joseph, an exploratory study was developed to understand the applicability of Milo to the work with children with ASD in Macao. The study showed that the robot is able to facilitate social and emotional competences of children with ASD. However, several limitations including language, cultural differences, the inexperienced facilitators and the level of sessions are too simple for the participants to be aware of that may affect the effectiveness of the intervention. It is important to show that the adoption of Milo in Macao for intervening children with ASD can be further implemented, with better practical solutions.

The occurrence of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) is a major issue for marine and coastal environments in the proximity of urban areas. The occurrence of EDCs in the Pearl River Delta region is well documented but specific data related to Macao is unavailable. The levels of bisphenol-A (BPA), estrone (E1), 17α-estradiol (αE2), 17β-estradiol (E2), estriol (E3), and 17α-ethynylestradiol (EE2) were measured in sediment samples collected along the coastline of Macao. BPA was found in all 45 collected samples with lower BPA concentrations associated to the presence of mangrove trees. Biodegradation assays were performed to evaluate the capacity of the microbial communities of the surveyed ecosystems to degrade BPA and its analogue BPS. Using sediments collected at a WWTP discharge point as inoculum, at a concentration of 2 mg l−1 complete removal of BPA was observed within 6 days, whereas for the same concentration BPS removal was of 95% after 10 days, which is particularly interesting since this compound is considered recalcitrant to biodegradation and likely to accumulate in the environment. Supplementation with BPA improved the degradation of bisphenol-S (BPS). Aiming at the isolation of EDCs-degrading bacteria, enrichments were established with sediments supplied with BPA, BPS, E2 and EE2, which led to the isolation of a bacterial strain, identified as Rhodoccoccus sp. ED55, able to degrade the four compounds at different extents. The isolated strain represents a valuable candidate for bioremediation of contaminated soils and waters.

This essay presents a mapping of the historical concepts that contributed to the emergence of post-digital aesthetics and their connections to the concept of post-media in historical terms. It also analyzes the transition from techno-positivism to discourse of resistance against the effects of the capital technological industrial complex and how these advances in technology influence artistic discourses, practices and are the leverage of art and technology which is nothing more than a representation of the aesthetics of capital. Following art and capitalism as an ideology of innovation. Is proposed an unstinting theory about technology, geology, and the importance of these conditions to the post-digital aesthetics in terms of material disponible and conceptual articulation. Producing a reconfiguration of the post-digital conceptual approach as I propose beyond the dysfunctional aesthetics and connected with the concept of radical ecology centered in the usability of electronic garbage and technical obsolescent technologies in the arts.

The place of theology is under threat in the modern university. It is denied a place, except insofar as it is useful in the training of religious professionals or as a phenomenon in its own right, on the grounds that relate to an unscientific scientism that both makes metaphysical assumptions it itself does not recognise as scientific or denies its own epistemological commitments. This article argues that the notion of education in ‘liberal knowledge’ or ‘universal knowledge’, the idea at the heart of John Henry Newman’s The Idea of a University provides a sufficiently robust counter to these assaults on the place of theology proper in the modern university and that refusing such a place to it undermines the claim of universities to use the name at all. It is precisely the uselessness of theology that guarantees its place in the university committed to universal knowledge and universal enquiry.