TY - JOUR TI - Intersex Brain Transcriptome in Female-Mimicking Males of a Fish with Sequential Alternative Reproductive Tactics. AU - CARDOSO S.D., GONÇALVES D., GOESSMAN A., CANÁRIO A.V.M., OLIVEIRA R.F. T2 - Molecular Ecology ER - TY - JOUR TI - Neurogenomic plasticity underlying alternative reproductive tactics in the peacock blenny (Salaria pavo) males AU - Cardoso, S.D. AU - Gonçalves, David Manuel Flores AU - Goessman, A. AU - Canário, Adelino Vicente Mendonça AU - Oliveira, R.F. T2 - Molecular Ecology ER - TY - JOUR TI - Kinetics of the adsorption of bovine serum albumin contained in a model wine solution by non-swelling ion-exchange resins AU - Sarmento, M. R. AU - Oliveira, J. C. AU - Slatner, M. AU - Boulton, R. B. T2 - Journal of Food Engineering AB - Adsorption of wine proteins is an essential step in the production of white and rosé wines. In order to develop environmentally friendly adsorption processes, non-swelling adsorbents are required. The performance of selected non-swelling ion-exchange resins (Macro-Prep™ 50S and Streamline® SP) was studied by describing the process kinetics of the adsorption of BSA in a model wine solution. The process was assumed to be diffusion controlled and a shrinking core model was applied. Experiments were performed in the 5–35°C temperature range and with different equilibrium partition coefficients. The results obtained with the shrinking core model were theoretically consistent and the apparent diffusivity values correlated very well with theoretically estimated effective diffusivities combined with a linear dependence of porosity with temperature. Separating the temperature effect on porosity, the apparent diffusivity followed an Arrhenius type dependency with temperature with 16.9 kJ/mole activation energy. DA - 1999/01/01/ PY - 1999 DO - 10.1016/S0260-8774(98)00147-2 DP - ScienceDirect VL - 39 IS - 1 SP - 65 EP - 71 J2 - Journal of Food Engineering LA - en SN - 0260-8774 UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0260877498001472 Y2 - 2023/04/12/03:42:12 KW - Diffusion KW - Mass transfer KW - Protein adsorption KW - Wine stability ER - TY - JOUR TI - Selection of low swelling materials for protein adsorption from white wines AU - Sarmento, Miguel R. AU - Oliveira, Jorge C. AU - Boulton, Roger B. T2 - International Journal of Food Science & Technology AB - The protein adsorption capacity of different materials was evaluated to assess their potential efficacy as alternative adsorbents for the removal of proteins from wines, with the purpose of finding suitable low-swelling materials that could be used in a percolated bed. The adsorbents tested were thermally treated sodium bentonite, low-swelling adsorbing clays, ion exchange resins and other protein adsorbents (silica gel, hydroxyapatite and alumina). The materials were evaluated by analysing both the capacity to stabilize untreated white wines, according to a heat test, and by characterizing the adsorption isotherms of bovine serum albumin (BSA) in a model wine (water, ethanol and K-bitartrate). Breakthrough curves in a packed bed were determined experimentally for some materials, showing the influence of the adsorption isotherm shape. Some ion-exchange resins showed a favourable behaviour and have good potential as alternative adsorbents. DA - 2000/// PY - 2000 DO - 10.1046/j.1365-2621.2000.00340.x DP - Wiley Online Library VL - 35 IS - 1 SP - 41 EP - 47 LA - en SN - 1365-2621 UR - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1365-2621.2000.00340.x Y2 - 2023/04/12/03:41:25 KW - Bentonite KW - percolated beds KW - sorption isotherms KW - wine stability ER - TY - JOUR TI - Geochemistry and stable isotope constraints on high-temperature activity from sediment cores of the Saldanha hydrothermal field AU - Dias, Ágata AU - Früh-Green, G.L. AU - Bernasconi, S.M. AU - Barriga, F.J.A.S. T2 - Marine Geology DA - 2011/01// PY - 2011 DO - 10.1016/j.margeo.2010.10.017 VL - 279 IS - 1-4 SP - 128 EP - 140 J2 - Marine Geology LA - en SN - 00253227 UR - https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0025322710002884 Y2 - 2021/03/30/07:34:19 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Plasticity in reproductive behaviour in two populations of the peacock blenny AU - Oliveira, Rui F. AU - Simões, Mariana G. AU - Gonçalves, David AU - Saraiva, João L. T2 - Behaviour DA - 2011/// PY - 2011 DO - 10.1163/156853911X617089 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) VL - 148 IS - 14 SP - 1457 EP - 1472 J2 - Behav SN - 0005-7959, 1568-539X UR - https://brill.com/view/journals/beh/148/14/article-p1457_3.xml Y2 - 2021/02/19/09:02:52 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Social cues in the expression of sequential alternative reproductive tactics in young males of the peacock blenny, Salaria pavo AU - Fagundes, Teresa AU - Simões, Mariana G. AU - Gonçalves, David AU - Oliveira, Rui F. T2 - Physiology & Behavior DA - 2012/10// PY - 2012 DO - 10.1016/j.physbeh.2012.07.011 VL - 107 IS - 3 SP - 283 EP - 291 J2 - Physiology & Behavior LA - en SN - 00319384 UR - https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0031938412002740 Y2 - 2021/02/19/09:01:16 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Interpopulational variation of the mating system in the peacock blenny Salaria pavo AU - Saraiva, João L. AU - Pignolo, Giulia AU - Gonçalves, David AU - Oliveira, Rui F. T2 - acta ethologica DA - 2012/04// PY - 2012 DO - 10.1007/s10211-011-0104-y DP - DOI.org (Crossref) VL - 15 IS - 1 SP - 25 EP - 31 J2 - acta ethol LA - en SN - 0873-9749, 1437-9546 UR - http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10211-011-0104-y Y2 - 2021/02/19/09:00:17 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Efficient isolation of polymorphic microsatellites from high-throughput sequence data based on number of repeats AU - Cardoso, Sara D. AU - Gonçalves, David AU - Robalo, Joana I. AU - Almada, Vitor C. AU - Canário, Adelino V.M. AU - Oliveira, Rui F. T2 - Marine Genomics DA - 2013/09// PY - 2013 DO - 10.1016/j.margen.2013.04.002 VL - 11 SP - 11 EP - 16 J2 - Marine Genomics LA - en SN - 18747787 UR - https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1874778713000226 Y2 - 2021/02/19/08:56:47 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Ecological modulation of reproductive behaviour in the peacock blenny: a mini-review AU - Saraiva, J. L. AU - Gonçalves, David AU - Oliveira, R. F. T2 - Fish Physiology and Biochemistry DA - 2013/02// PY - 2013 DO - 10.1007/s10695-012-9658-5 VL - 39 IS - 1 SP - 85 EP - 89 J2 - Fish Physiol Biochem LA - en SN - 0920-1742, 1573-5168 ST - Ecological modulation of reproductive behaviour in the peacock blenny UR - http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10695-012-9658-5 Y2 - 2021/02/19/08:52:59 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Potential Ecological Risk of Heavy Metal Distribution in Cemetery Soils AU - Amuno, S. A. T2 - Water, Air, & Soil Pollution AB - In this paper, preliminary investigation was conducted to evaluate the potential ecological risk of heavy metals contamination in cemetery soils. Necrosol samples were collected from within and around the vicinity of the largest mass grave in Rwanda and analyzed for heavy metal concentrations using total digestion–inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and instrumental neutron activation analysis. Based on the concentrations of As, Cu, Cr, Pb, and Zn, the overall contamination degree (Cdeg) and potential ecological risks status (RI) of the necrosols were determined. The preliminary results revealed that the associated cemetery soils are only contaminated to a low degree. On the other hand, assessment of the potential ecological risk index (RI) revealed that cumulative heavy metal content of the soil do not pose any significant ecological risks. These findings, therefore, suggest that, while cemetery soils may be toxic due to the accumulation of certain heavy metals, their overall ecological risks may be minimal and insignificant. DA - 2013/01/23/ PY - 2013 DO - 10.1007/s11270-013-1435-2 DP - Springer Link VL - 224 IS - 2 SP - 1435 J2 - Water Air Soil Pollut LA - en SN - 1573-2932 UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-013-1435-2 Y2 - 2023/04/11/12:11:27 KW - Cemetery soils KW - Environmental management KW - Heavy metals KW - Mass graves ER - TY - JOUR TI - Alternative pathway history in a fish with plastic reproductive tactic AU - Gonçalves, David T2 - Functional Ecology DA - 2014/// PY - 2014 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Oestradiol and prostaglandin F2α regulate sexual display in female of a sex-role reversed fish AU - Gonçalves, David DA - 2014/// PY - 2014 VL - 281 IS - 1778 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Birth date predicts alternative life‐history pathways in a fish with sequential reproductive tactics AU - Fagundes, Teresa AU - Simões, Mariana G. AU - Saraiva, João L. AU - Ros, Albert F. H. AU - Gonçalves, David AU - Oliveira, Rui F. T2 - Functional Ecology A2 - Grindstaff, Jennifer DA - 2015/12// PY - 2015 DO - 10.1111/1365-2435.12465 VL - 29 IS - 12 SP - 1533 EP - 1542 J2 - Funct Ecol LA - en SN - 0269-8463, 1365-2435 UR - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1365-2435.12465 Y2 - 2021/02/19/08:51:47 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Neurogenomic mechanisms of social plasticity AU - Cardoso, Sara D. AU - Teles, Magda C. AU - Oliveira, Rui F. T2 - Journal of Experimental Biology AB - Skip to Next Section Group-living animals must adjust the expression of their social behaviour to changes in their social environment and to transitions between life-history stages, and this social plasticity can be seen as an adaptive trait that can be under positive selection when changes in the environment outpace the rate of genetic evolutionary change. Here, we propose a conceptual framework for understanding the neuromolecular mechanisms of social plasticity. According to this framework, social plasticity is achieved by rewiring or by biochemically switching nodes of a neural network underlying social behaviour in response to perceived social information. Therefore, at the molecular level, it depends on the social regulation of gene expression, so that different genomic and epigenetic states of this brain network correspond to different behavioural states, and the switches between states are orchestrated by signalling pathways that interface the social environment and the genotype. Different types of social plasticity can be recognized based on the observed patterns of inter- versus intra-individual occurrence, time scale and reversibility. It is proposed that these different types of social plasticity rely on different proximate mechanisms at the physiological, neural and genomic level. DA - 2015/01/01/ PY - 2015 DO - 10.1242/jeb.106997 DP - jeb.biologists.org VL - 218 IS - 1 SP - 140 EP - 149 LA - en SN - 0022-0949, 1477-9145 UR - https://jeb.biologists.org/content/218/1/140 Y2 - 2021/02/10/10:45:13 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Vocal differentiation parallels development of auditory saccular sensitivity in a highly soniferous fish AU - Vasconcelos, Raquel O. AU - Alderks, Peter W. AU - Ramos, Andreia AU - Fonseca, Paulo J. AU - Amorim, M. Clara P. AU - Sisneros, Joseph A. T2 - Journal of Experimental Biology AB - Vocal differentiation is widely documented in birds and mammals but has been poorly investigated in other vertebrates, including fish, which represent the oldest extant vertebrate group. Neural circuitry controlling vocal behaviour is thought to have evolved from conserved brain areas that originated in fish, making this taxon key to understanding the evolution and development of the vertebrate vocal-auditory systems. This study examines ontogenetic changes in the vocal repertoire and whether vocal differentiation parallels auditory development in the Lusitanian toadfish Halobatrachus didactylus (Batrachoididae). This species exhibits a complex acoustic repertoire and is vocally active during early development. Vocalisations were recorded during social interactions for four size groups (fry: <2 cm; small juveniles: 2–4 cm; large juveniles: 5–7 cm; adults >25 cm, standard length). Auditory sensitivity of juveniles and adults was determined based on evoked potentials recorded from the inner ear saccule in response to pure tones of 75–945 Hz. We show an ontogenetic increment in the vocal repertoire from simple broadband-pulsed ‘grunts’ that later differentiate into four distinct vocalisations, including low-frequency amplitude-modulated ‘boatwhistles’. Whereas fry emitted mostly single grunts, large juveniles exhibited vocalisations similar to the adult vocal repertoire. Saccular sensitivity revealed a three-fold enhancement at most frequencies tested from small to large juveniles; however, large juveniles were similar in sensitivity to adults. We provide the first clear evidence of ontogenetic vocal differentiation in fish, as previously described for higher vertebrates. Our results suggest a parallel development between the vocal motor pathway and the peripheral auditory system for acoustic social communication in fish. DA - 2015/09/01/ PY - 2015 DO - 10.1242/jeb.123059 DP - Silverchair VL - 218 IS - 18 SP - 2864 EP - 2872 J2 - Journal of Experimental Biology SN - 0022-0949 UR - https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.123059 Y2 - 2022/09/21/08:17:19 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Mesozoic Granitic Magmatism in Macao, Southeast China AU - Quelhas, P. M. AU - Mata, J. AU - Lou, U. T. AU - Ribeiro, M. L. AU - Dias, Ágata T2 - AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts AB - Macao ( 30 Km2) is a territory characterized by small granitic intrusions, located along the coastal region of Southeast China (Cathaysia Block). Granitoids occur as different facies, including microgranite dykes, with distinct textural, mineralogical and geochemical features, for which a middle-upper Jurassic age ( 164 Ma) has been proposed. New data suggest that these granitoids are mostly high-K calc-alkaline metaluminous (A/CNK = 0.8 - 1.1) biotite granites, consistent with total absence of primary muscovite. They show variable amounts of SiO2 (67-77%), reflecting different degrees of magmatic evolution. There is also variability in terms of trace elements, particularly Rare Earth Elements (REEs), evidenced by decreasing (La/Sm)N, (Gd/Lu)N, (Ce/Yb)N and (Eu/Eu*)N towards the more evolved samples, which can be partly attributed to fractional crystallization processes. Most of the granitoids are characterized by (La/Yb)N = 3 - 10.8, showing negative Ba, Nb, Sr, Zr, P, Ti and Eu anomalies. On the other hand, microgranite dykes, along with a few more evolved granites, show an opposite tendency, being usually enriched in HREEs relatively to LREEs with (La/Yb)N = 0.4 - 1.1. Our data suggests intermediate genetic affinities between I-type and A-type granites. Although these granitoids are mostly metaluminous (characteristic of I-types), Ga/Al ratios, usually used to identify A-types, are close to the accepted boundary between A-type and other granite types. The affinities with A-type granites are more marked for the more evolved facies, which depict higher values of FeOt/MgO (14 - 60) and K2O/MgO (60 - 250). Their trace element characteristics are also transitional between WPG (Within-plate granites) and Syn-COLG (Collision Granites). We interpret those transitional characteristics (A/I and WPG/Syn-COLG) of Macao granitoids as reflecting an origin by melting of infracrustal sources over a period of high heat transfer from mantle to crust during an extensional tectonic setting probably contemporaneous with the subduction of the paleo-Pacific plate beneath the Eurasia, whose paleo-suture is thought to be located in the east flank of the Central Range, Taiwan. DA - 2016/12/01/ PY - 2016 VL - 11 J2 - AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts UR - http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFM.V11B2775Q Y2 - 2021/03/30/08:21:09 KW - 8499 General or miscellaneous KW - VOLCANOLOGY ER - TY - JOUR TI - Temporal variation in brain transcriptome is associated with the expression of female mimicry as a sequen-tial male alternative reproductive tactic in fish. AU - Cardoso, S.D., Gonçalves, D., Goesmann, A., Canário, A.V.M., & Oliveira, R.F. T2 - Molecular Ecology DA - 2017/// PY - 2017 DO - : 10.1111/mec.14408 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Social network predicts loss of fertilizations in nesting males of a fish with alternative reproductive tactics AU - Cardoso, Sara D. AU - Faustino, Ana I. AU - Costa, Silvia S. AU - Valério, Fábio AU - Gonçalves, David AU - Oliveira, Rui F. T2 - acta ethologica AB - Alternative reproductive tactics (ARTs) evolve when there is strong intra-sexual competition between conspecifics for access to mates. Typically, larger “bourgeois” males reproduce by securing the access to reproductive resources while smaller “parasitic” males reproduce by stealing fertilizations from larger males. A number of factors can influence the reproductive success of each tactic, including intrinsic (e.g. size) and extrinsic (e.g. tactic relative frequency) variables. An example where plastic ARTs occur is the peacock blenny Salaria pavo, with large males reproducing by defending nests and attracting females (bourgeois tactic) and small males reproducing by achieving sneaked fertilizations (parasitic tactic). In this study, we conducted field observations on individually tagged animals to determine their social network and collected eggs from 11 nests to determine the fertilization success of each male tactic. Paternity estimates for 550 offspring indicated an average fertilization success for nest-holder males of 95%. Nest-holder male morphological traits and social network parameters were tested as predictors of fertilization success, but only the number of sneakers present in the nest-holder’s social networks was found to be a predictor of paternity loss. Although male morphological traits had been previously found to be strongly correlated with reproductive success of nest-holder males, as measured by the number of eggs collected in the male’s nest, no correlation was found between any of the measured morphological traits and fertilization success for these males. The results suggest a stronger influence of the social environment than of morphological variables in the proportion of lost fertilizations by nest-holder males of this species. DA - 2017/02/01/ PY - 2017 DO - 10.1007/s10211-016-0249-9 VL - 20 IS - 1 SP - 59 EP - 68 J2 - acta ethol LA - en SN - 1437-9546 UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10211-016-0249-9 Y2 - 2021/02/01/05:08:39 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Use of stable isotopes to understand food webs in Macao wetlands AU - Chen, Qian AU - Liu, Yang AU - Ho, Wei-Tim AU - Chan, Shek Kiu AU - Li, Qiu-hua AU - Huang, Jian-Rong T2 - Wetlands Ecology and Management AB - In this study, components of the food-web in Macao wetlands were quantified using stable isotope ratio techniques based on carbon and nitrogen values. The δ13C and δ15N values of particulate organic matter (δ13CPOM and δ15NPOM, respectively) ranged from −30.64 ± 1.0 to −28.1 ± 0.7 ‰, and from −1.11 ± 0.8 to 3.98 ± 0.7 ‰, respectively. The δ13C values of consumer species ranged from −33.94 to −16.92 ‰, showing a wide range from lower values in a freshwater lake and inner bay to higher values in a mangrove forest. The distinct dietary habits of consumer species and the location-specific food source composition were the main factors affecting the δ13C values. The consumer 15N-isotope enrichment values suggested that there were three trophic levels; primary, secondary, and tertiary. The primary consumer trophic level was represented by freshwater herbivorous gastropods, filter-feeding bivalves, and plankton-feeding fish, with a mean δ15N value of 5.052 ‰. The secondary consumer level included four deposit-feeding fish species distributed in Fai Chi Kei Bay and deposit-feeding gastropods in the Lotus Flower Bridge flat, with a mean δ15N value of 6.794 ‰. The tertiary consumers group consisted of four crab species, one shrimp species, and four fish species in the Lotus Flower Bridge Flat, with a mean δ15N value of 13.473 ‰. Their diet mainly comprised organic debris, bottom fauna, and rotten animal tissues. This study confirms the applicability of the isotopic approach in food web studies. DA - 2017/02/01/ PY - 2017 DO - 10.1007/s11273-016-9502-2 DP - Springer Link VL - 25 IS - 1 SP - 59 EP - 66 J2 - Wetlands Ecol Manage LA - en SN - 1572-9834 UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-016-9502-2 Y2 - 2021/02/10/09:01:46 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Ontogenetic development of the inner ear saccule and utricle in the Lusitanian toadfish: Potential implications for auditory sensitivity AU - Chaves, Patrícia P. AU - Valdoria, Ciara M. C. AU - Amorim, M. Clara P. AU - Vasconcelos, Raquel O. T2 - Hearing Research AB - Studies addressing structure-function relationships of the fish auditory system during development are sparse compared to other taxa. The Batrachoididae has become an important group to investigate mechanisms of auditory plasticity and evolution of auditory-vocal systems. A recent study reported ontogenetic improvements in the inner ear saccule sensitivity of the Lusitanian toadfish, Halobatrachus didactylus, but whether this results from changes in the sensory morphology remains unknown. We investigated how the macula and organization of auditory receptors in the saccule and utricle change during growth in this species. Inner ear sensory epithelia were removed from the end organs of previously PFA-fixed specimens, from non-vocal posthatch fry (<1.4 cm, standard length) to adults (>23 cm). Epithelia were phalloidin-stained and analysed for area, shape, number and orientation patterns of hair cells (HC), and number and size of saccular supporting cells (SC). Saccular macula area expanded 41x in total, and significantly more (relative to body length) among vocal juveniles (2.3–2.9 cm). Saccular HC number increased 25x but HC density decreased, suggesting that HC addition is slower relative to epithelial growth. While SC density decreased, SC apical area increased, contributing to the epithelial expansion. The utricule revealed increased HC density (striolar region) and less epithelial expansion (5x) with growth, contrasting with the saccule that may have a different developmental pattern due to its larger size and main auditory functions. Both macula shape and HC orientation patterns were already established in the posthatch fry and retained throughout growth in both end organs. We suggest that previously reported ontogenetic improvements in saccular sensitivity might be associated with changes in HC number (not density), size and/or molecular mechanisms controlling HC sensitivity. This is one of the first studies investigating the ontogenetic development of the saccule and utricle in a vocal fish and how it potentially relates to auditory enhancement for acoustic communication. DA - 2017/09/01/ PY - 2017 DO - 10.1016/j.heares.2017.06.008 DP - ScienceDirect VL - 353 SP - 112 EP - 121 J2 - Hearing Research LA - en SN - 0378-5955 ST - Ontogenetic development of the inner ear saccule and utricle in the Lusitanian toadfish UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378595517300977 Y2 - 2021/02/10/10:30:58 KW - Auditory sensitivity KW - Batrachoididae KW - Hair cell KW - Ontogeny KW - Saccule KW - Utricle ER - TY - JOUR TI - Temporal variation in brain transcriptome is associated with the expression of female mimicry as a sequential male alternative reproductive tactic in fish AU - Cardoso, Sara D. AU - Gonçalves, David AU - Goesmann, Alexander AU - Canário, Adelino V. M. AU - Oliveira, Rui F. T2 - Molecular Ecology AB - Distinct patterns of gene expression often underlie intra- and intersexual differences, and the study of this set of coregulated genes is essential to understand the emergence of complex behavioural phenotypes. Here, we describe the development of a de novo transcriptome and brain gene expression profiles of wild-caught peacock blenny, Salaria pavo, an intertidal fish with sex-role reversal in courtship behaviour (i.e., females are the courting sex) and sequential alternative reproductive tactics in males (i.e., larger and older nest-holder males and smaller and younger sneaker males occur). Sneakers mimic both female's courtship behaviour and nuptial coloration to get access to nests and sneak fertilizations, and later in life transition into nest-holder males. Thus, this species offers the unique opportunity to study how the regulation of gene expression can contribute to intersex phenotypes and to the sequential expression of male and female behavioural phenotypes by the same individual. We found that at the whole brain level, expression of the sneaker tactic was paralleled by broader and divergent gene expression when compared to either females or nest-holder males, which were more similar between themselves. When looking at sex-biased transcripts, sneaker males are intersex rather than being either nest-holder or female-like, and their transcriptome is simultaneously demasculinized for nest-holder-biased transcripts and feminized for female-biased transcripts. These results indicate that evolutionary changes in reproductive plasticity can be achieved through regulation of gene expression, and in particular by varying the magnitude of expression of sex-biased genes, throughout the lifetime of the same individual. DA - 2018/// PY - 2018 DO - https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.14408 VL - 27 IS - 3 SP - 789 EP - 803 LA - en SN - 1365-294X UR - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/mec.14408 Y2 - 2021/02/10/10:37:37 KW - RNA-seq KW - Salaria pavo KW - alternative reproductive tactics KW - behavioural plasticity KW - neurogenomic state KW - sex-biased gene expression ER - TY - JOUR TI - Chromosome-level reference genome of the Siamese fighting fish Betta splendens, a model species for the study of aggression AU - Fan, Guangyi AU - Chan, Judy AU - Ma, Kailong AU - Yang, Binrui AU - Zhang, He AU - Yang, Xianwei AU - Shi, Chengcheng AU - Law, Henry AU - Ren, Zhitao AU - Xu, Qiwu AU - Liu, Qun AU - Wang, Jiahao AU - Chen, Wenbin AU - Shao, Libin AU - Gonçalves, David AU - Ramos, Andreia AU - Cardoso, Sara D AU - Guo, Min AU - Cai, Jing AU - Xu, Xun AU - Wang, Jian AU - Yang, Huanming AU - Liu, Xin AU - Wang, Yitao T2 - GigaScience DA - 2018/07/11/ PY - 2018 DO - 10.1093/gigascience/giy087 LA - en SN - 2047-217X UR - https://academic.oup.com/gigascience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/gigascience/giy087/5054042 Y2 - 2021/02/19/08:48:24 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Acoustic communication in marine shallow waters: testing the acoustic adaptive hypothesis in sand gobies AU - Amorim, Maria Clara P. AU - Vasconcelos, Raquel O. AU - Bolgan, Marta AU - Pedroso, Silvia S. AU - Fonseca, Paulo J. T2 - Journal of Experimental Biology AB - Skip to Next Section Acoustic communication is an important part of social behaviour of fish species that live or breed in shallow noisy waters. Previous studies have shown that some fish species exploit a quiet window in the background noise for communication. However, it remains to be examined whether hearing abilities and sound production of fish are adapted to marine habitats presenting high hydrodynamism. Here, we investigated whether the communication system of the painted (Pomatoschistus pictus) and the marbled (Pomatoschistus marmoratus) gobies is adapted to enhance sound transmission and reception in Atlantic shallow water environments. We recorded and measured the sound pressure levels of social vocalisations of both species, as well as snapshots of ambient noise of habitats characterised by different hydrodynamics. Hearing thresholds (in terms of both sound pressure and particle acceleration) and responses to conspecific signals were determined using the auditory evoked potential recording technique. We found that the peak frequency range (100–300 Hz) of acoustic signals matched the best hearing sensitivity in both species and appeared well adapted for short-range communication in Atlantic habitats. Sandy/rocky exposed beaches presented a quiet window, observable even during the breaking of moderate waves, coincident with the main sound frequencies and best hearing sensitivities of both species. Our data demonstrate that the hearing abilities of these gobies are well suited to detect conspecific sounds within typical interacting distances (a few body lengths) in Atlantic shallow waters. These findings lend support to the acoustic adaptive hypothesis, under the sensory drive framework, proposing that signals and perception systems coevolve to be effective within local environment constraints. DA - 2018/11/15/ PY - 2018 DO - 10.1242/jeb.183681 DP - jeb.biologists.org VL - 221 IS - 22 LA - en SN - 0022-0949, 1477-9145 ST - Acoustic communication in marine shallow waters UR - https://jeb.biologists.org/content/221/22/jeb183681 Y2 - 2021/02/10/10:49:30 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Surface sediment composition and distribution of hydrothermal derived elements at the Duanqiao-1 hydrothermal field, Southwest Indian Ridge AU - Dias, Ágata AU - Liao, Shili AU - Tao, Chunhui AU - Su, Xin AU - Yang, Zhen AU - Ni, Jianyu AU - Liang, Jin AU - Yang, Weifang AU - Liu, Jia AU - Li, Wei AU - Dong, Chuanwan T2 - Marine Geology DA - 2019/10// PY - 2019 DO - 10.1016/j.margeo.2019.105975 VL - 416 SP - 105975 J2 - Marine Geology LA - en SN - 00253227 UR - https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0025322719300969 Y2 - 2021/03/30/07:30:43 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Environmental characterization of 4,4′-dichlorobenzophenone in surface waters from Macao and Hong Kong coastal areas (Pearl River Delta) and its toxicity on two biological models: Artemia salina and Daphnia magna AU - Ivorra, Lucia AU - Cardoso, Patricia G. AU - Chan, Shek Kiu AU - Tagulao, Karen AU - Cruzeiro, Catarina T2 - Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety DA - 2019/04// PY - 2019 DO - 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2018.12.054 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) VL - 171 SP - 1 EP - 11 J2 - Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety LA - en SN - 01476513 ST - Environmental characterization of 4,4′-dichlorobenzophenone in surface waters from Macao and Hong Kong coastal areas (Pearl River Delta) and its toxicity on two biological models UR - https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0147651318313472 Y2 - 2022/11/09/10:05:07 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Characterization of the Natural Soundscape of Zebrafish and Comparison with the Captive Noise Conditions AU - Lara, Rafael A. AU - Vasconcelos, Raquel O. T2 - Zebrafish AB - Zebrafish is a well-established model organism in hearing research. Although the acoustic environment is known to shape the structure and sensitivity of auditory systems, there is no information on the natural soundscape of this species. Moreover, zebrafish are typically reared in large-scale housing systems (HS), although their acoustic properties and potential effects on hearing remain unknown. We characterized the soundscape of both zebrafish natural habitats and laboratory captive conditions, and discussed possible impact on auditory sensitivity. Sound recordings were conducted in five distinct zebrafish habitats (Southwest India), from quieter stagnant environments with diverse biological/abiotic sounds to louder watercourses characterized by current and moving substrate sounds. Sound pressure level (SPL) varied between 98 and 126 dB re 1 μPa. Sound spectra presented most energy below 3000 Hz and quieter noise windows were found in the noisiest habitats matching the species best hearing range. Contrastingly, recordings from three zebrafish HS revealed higher SPL (122-143 dB) and most energy below 1000 Hz with more spectral peaks, which might cause significant auditory masking. This study establishes an important ground for future research on the adaptation of zebrafish auditory system to the natural soundscapes, and highlights the importance of controlling noise conditions in captivity. DA - 2019/04// PY - 2019 DO - 10.1089/zeb.2018.1654 DP - PubMed VL - 16 IS - 2 SP - 152 EP - 164 J2 - Zebrafish LA - eng SN - 1557-8542 KW - Animals KW - Animals, Laboratory KW - Auditory Threshold KW - Batrachoidiformes KW - Ecosystem KW - Environment KW - Female KW - Hair Cells, Auditory KW - Hearing KW - Housing, Animal KW - India KW - Male KW - Neuronal Plasticity KW - Noise KW - Saccule and Utricle KW - Seasons KW - Sexual Behavior, Animal KW - Sound KW - Species Specificity KW - Vocalization, Animal KW - Zebrafish KW - ambient noise KW - hearing sensitivity KW - natural habitat KW - sound pressure level KW - soundscape ER - TY - JOUR TI - Macao air quality forecast using statistical methods AU - Lei, Man Tat AU - Monjardino, Joana AU - Mendes, Luisa AU - Ferreira, Francisco T2 - International Journal of Environmental Impacts: Management, Mitigation and Recovery DA - 2019/07/19/ PY - 2019 DO - 10.2495/EI-V2-N3-249-258 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) VL - 2 IS - 3 SP - 249 EP - 258 J2 - Int. J. EI LA - en SN - 2398-2640, 2398-2659 UR - http://www.witpress.com/doi/journals/EI-V2-N3-249-258 Y2 - 2022/09/21/08:23:59 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Artificial selection for male winners in the Siamese fighting fish Betta splendens correlates with high female aggression AU - Ramos, A. AU - Gonçalves, D. T2 - Frontiers in Zoology AB - In Southeast Asia, males of the Siamese fighting fish Betta splendens have been selected across centuries for paired-staged fights. During the selection process, matched for size males fight in a small tank until the contest is resolved. Breeders discard losing batches and reproduce winner batches with the aim of increasing fight performance. We assessed the results of this long-term selection process by comparing under standard laboratory conditions male and female aggressive behaviour of one strain selected for staged fights (“fighters”) and one strain of wild-types. The aggressive response of adult fish was tested against their mirror image or a size-matched conspecific. Fighter males were more aggressive than wild-type males for all measured behaviours. Differences were not only quantitative but the pattern of fight display was also divergent. Fighter males had an overall higher swimming activity, performing frequent fast strikes in the direction of the intruder and displaying from a distance. Wild-type males were less active and exhibited aggressive displays mostly in close proximity to the stimuli. Females of the fighter strain, which are not used for fights, were also more aggressive than wild-type females. Aggressive behaviours were correlated across male and female fighter siblings, suggesting common genetic and physiological mechanisms to male and female aggression in this species. The study further shows that results were largely independent of the stimulus type, with the mirror test inducing similar and less variable responses than the live conspecific presentation. These results suggest that selection for male winners co-selected for high-frequency and metabolic demanding aggressive display in males and also enhanced female aggression, opening a wide range of testable hypothesis about the ultimate and proximate mechanisms of male and female aggression in B. splendens. DA - 2019/08/08/ PY - 2019 DO - 10.1186/s12983-019-0333-x DP - BioMed Central VL - 16 IS - 1 SP - 34 J2 - Frontiers in Zoology SN - 1742-9994 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12983-019-0333-x Y2 - 2023/04/11/14:17:52 KW - Aggression KW - Artificial selection KW - Domestication KW - Mirror test KW - Sexual conflict ER - TY - JOUR TI - Macao air quality forecast using statistical methods AU - Lei, Man Tat AU - Monjardino, Joana AU - Mendes, Luisa AU - Gonçalves, David AU - Ferreira, Francisco T2 - Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health AB - The levels of air pollution in Macao often exceeded the levels recommended by WHO. In order for the population to take precautionary measures and avoid further health risks under high pollutant exposure, it is important to develop a reliable air quality forecast. Statistical models based on linear multiple regression (MR) and classification and regression trees (CART) analysis were developed successfully, for Macao, to predict the next day concentrations of NO2, PM10, PM2.5, and O3. All the developed models were statistically significantly valid with a 95% confidence level with high coefficients of determination (from 0.78 to 0.93) for all pollutants. The models utilized meteorological and air quality variables based on 5 years of historical data, from 2013 to 2017. Data from 2013 to 2016 were used to develop the statistical models and data from 2017 was used for validation purposes. A wide range of meteorological and air quality variables was identified, and only some were selected as significant independent variables. Meteorological variables were selected from an extensive list of variables, including geopotential height, relative humidity, atmospheric stability, and air temperature at different vertical levels. Air quality variables translate the resilience of the recent past concentrations of each pollutant and usually are maximum and/or the average of latest 24-h levels. The models were applied in forecasting the next day average daily concentrations for NO2 and PM and maximum hourly O3 levels for five air quality monitoring stations. The results are expected to be an operational air quality forecast for Macao. DA - 2019/09/01/ PY - 2019 DO - 10.1007/s11869-019-00721-9 DP - Springer Link VL - 12 IS - 9 SP - 1049 EP - 1057 J2 - Air Qual Atmos Health LA - en SN - 1873-9326 UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-019-00721-9 Y2 - 2022/09/21/08:23:38 KW - Macao KW - NO2 KW - O3 KW - PM10 KW - PM2.5 KW - Particulate matter ER - TY - JOUR TI - Uptake and depuration kinetics of dicofol metabolite 4,4′-dichlorobenzophenone, in the edible Asiatic clam Meretrix meretrix AU - Ivorra, Lucia AU - Cruzeiro, Catarina AU - Chan, Shek Kiu AU - Tagulao, Karen Araño AU - Cardoso, Patricia G. T2 - Chemosphere AB - Uptake and depuration kinetics of 4,4′-dichlorobenzophenone (main metabolite of dicofol) in the edible clam Meretrix meretrix were evaluated through a mesocosm experiment. M. meretrix was exposed to different dicofol concentrations (environmental concentration, D1 = 50 ng/L; supra-environmental concentration, D2 = 500 ng/L) for 15 days, followed by the same depuration period. To accomplish this goal, an analytical method was successfully optimized for 4,4′-DCBP using QuEChERS as extraction method with a range of concentrations 0.3–76.8 ng/g ww quantified by gas chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry. Our results demonstrated different kinetics of accumulation depending on the two dicofol treatments. For D1, the uptake kinetic was best fitted using a plateau followed by one phase association kinetic model, while for D2 a one phase association kinetic model suited better. Similar bioconcentration factors were obtained for both concentrations but only animals exposed to D2, showed 4,4′-DCBP levels above the limits of quantification after 24 h exposure. These animals also showed lower uptake rate (ku) than organisms exposed to D1. During the depuration period, only organisms exposed to D1 successfully depurated after 24 h. On the other hand, although animals exposed to D2 presented higher elimination factor, they did not reach the original levels after depuration. Moreover, values detected in these clams were higher than the Maximum Residue Level (10 ng/g) established by the European legislation. This indicates that longer periods of depuration time than the ones used in this study, may be needed in order to reach safe levels for human consumption. This work also demonstrated that studies on metabolite kinetics during uptake/depuration experiments, could be a new alternative to understand the impact and metabolism of pesticides in the marine environment. DA - 2019/11/01/ PY - 2019 DO - 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2019.06.155 DP - ScienceDirect VL - 235 SP - 662 EP - 669 J2 - Chemosphere LA - en SN - 0045-6535 UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653519313967 Y2 - 2022/11/09/10:10:30 KW - Bivalves KW - GC-MS/MS KW - Organochlorine pesticides KW - QuEChERS bioconcentration KW - Seafood ER - TY - JOUR TI - High-precision geochronology of Mesozoic magmatism in Macao, Southeast China: Evidence for multistage granite emplacement AU - Quelhas, Pedro AU - Dias, Ágata AU - Mata, João AU - Davis, Donald Wayne AU - Ribeiro, Maria Luísa T2 - Geoscience Frontiers DA - 2020/01// PY - 2020 DO - 10.1016/j.gsf.2019.04.011 VL - 11 IS - 1 SP - 243 EP - 263 J2 - Geoscience Frontiers LA - en SN - 16749871 ST - High-precision geochronology of Mesozoic magmatism in Macao, Southeast China UR - https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1674987119301033 Y2 - 2021/03/30/07:30:21 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Statistical Forecast of Pollution Episodes in Macao during National Holiday and COVID-19 AU - Lei, Man Tat AU - Monjardino, Joana AU - Mendes, Luisa AU - Gonçalves, David AU - Ferreira, Francisco T2 - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health AB - Statistical methods such as multiple linear regression (MLR) and classification and regression tree (CART) analysis were used to build prediction models for the levels of pollutant concentrations in Macao using meteorological and air quality historical data to three periods: (i) from 2013 to 2016, (ii) from 2015 to 2018, and (iii) from 2013 to 2018. The variables retained by the models were identical for nitrogen dioxide (NO2), particulate matter (PM10), PM2.5, but not for ozone (O3) Air pollution data from 2019 was used for validation purposes. The model for the 2013 to 2018 period was the one that performed best in prediction of the next-day concentrations levels in 2019, with high coefficient of determination (R2), between predicted and observed daily average concentrations (between 0.78 and 0.89 for all pollutants), and low root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), and biases (BIAS). To understand if the prediction model was robust to extreme variations in pollutants concentration, a test was performed under the circumstances of a high pollution episode for PM2.5 and O3 during 2019, and the low pollution episode during the period of implementation of the preventive measures for COVID-19 pandemic. Regarding the high pollution episode, the period of the Chinese National Holiday of 2019 was selected, in which high concentration levels were identified for PM2.5 and O3, with peaks of daily concentration exceeding 55 μg/m3 and 400 μg/m3, respectively. The 2013 to 2018 model successfully predicted this high pollution episode with high coefficients of determination (of 0.92 for PM2.5 and 0.82 for O3). The low pollution episode for PM2.5 and O3 was identified during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic period, with a low record of daily concentration for PM2.5 levels at 2 μg/m3 and O3 levels at 50 μg/m3, respectively. The 2013 to 2018 model successfully predicted the low pollution episode for PM2.5 and O3 with a high coefficient of determination (0.86 and 0.84, respectively). Overall, the results demonstrate that the statistical forecast model is robust and able to correctly reproduce extreme air pollution events of both high and low concentration levels. DA - 2020/01// PY - 2020 DO - 10.3390/ijerph17145124 DP - www.mdpi.com VL - 17 IS - 14 SP - 5124 LA - en SN - 1660-4601 UR - https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/14/5124 Y2 - 2022/09/21/08:23:35 KW - COVID-19 KW - air pollution KW - air quality forecast KW - modelling KW - national holiday KW - pollution episodes ER - TY - JOUR TI - XRD Identification of Ore Minerals during Cruises: Refinement of Extraction Procedure with Sodium Acetate Buffer AU - Milinovic, Jelena AU - Dias, Ágata AU - Janeiro, Ana I. AU - Pereira, Manuel F. C. AU - Martins, Sofia AU - Petersen, Sven AU - Barriga, Fernando J. A. S. T2 - Minerals AB - The on-board identification of ore minerals during a cruise is often postponed until long after the cruise is over. During the M127 cruise, 21 cores with deep-seafloor sediments were recovered in the Trans-Atlantic Geotraverse (TAG) field along the Mid Atlantic Ridge (MAR). Sediments were analyzed on-board for physicochemical properties such as lightness (L*), pH and Eh. Selected samples were studied for mineral composition by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD). Based on XRD data, sediment samples were separated into high-, low- and non-carbonated. Removal of carbonates is a common technique in mineralogical studies in which HCl is used as the extraction agent. In the present study, sequential extraction was performed with sodium acetate buffer (pH 5.0) to remove carbonates. The ratio between the highest calcite XRD reflection in the original samples (Iorig) vs its XRD-reflection in samples after their treatment with the buffer (Itreat) was used as a quantitative parameter of calcite removal, as well as to identify minor minerals in carbonated samples (when Iorig/Itreat > 24). It was found that the lightness parameter (L*) showed a positive correlation with calcite XRD reflection in selected TAG samples, and this could be applied to the preliminary on-board determination of extraction steps with acetate buffer (pH 5.0) in carbonated sediment samples. The most abundant minerals detected in carbonated samples were quartz and Al- and Fe-rich clays. Other silicates were also detected (e.g., calcic plagioclase, montmorillonite, nontronite). In non-carbonated samples, Fe oxides and hydroxides (goethite and hematite, respectively) were detected. Pyrite was the dominant hydrothermal mineral and Cu sulfides (chalcopyrite, covellite) and hydrothermal Mn oxides (birnessite and todorokite) were mineral phases identified in few samples, whereas paratacamite was detected in the top 20 cm of the core. The present study demonstrates that portable XRD analysis makes it possible to characterize mineralogy at cored sites, in particular in both low- and high-carbonated samples, before the end of most cruises, thus enabling the quick modification of exploration strategies in light of new information as it becomes available in near-real time. DA - 2020/02/12/ PY - 2020 DO - 10.3390/min10020160 VL - 10 IS - 2 SP - 160 J2 - Minerals LA - en SN - 2075-163X ST - XRD Identification of Ore Minerals during Cruises UR - https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/10/2/160 Y2 - 2021/03/30/07:29:51 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Statistical Forecast Applied to Two Macao Air Monitoring Stations AU - Lei, M. AU - Monjardino, J. AU - Mendes, L. AU - Gonçalves, D. AU - Ferreira, F. T2 - IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science AB - The levels of air pollution in Macao often exceeded the levels recommended by WHO. In order for the population to take precautionary measures and avoid further health risks under high pollutant exposure, it is important to develop a reliable air quality forecast. Statistical models based on multiple regression (MR) analysis were developed successfully for Macao to predict the next day concentrations of PM10, PM2.5, and NO2. All the developed models were statistically significantly valid with a 95% confidence level with high coefficients of determination (from 0.89 to 0.92) for all pollutants. The models utilized meteorological and air quality variables based on five years of historical data, from 2013 to 2017. The data from 2013 to 2016 were used to develop the statistical models and data from 2017 were used for validation purposes. A wide range of meteorological and air quality variables were identified, and only some were selected as significant dependent variables. Meteorological variables were selected from an extensive list of variables, including geopotential height, relative humidity, atmospheric stability, and air temperature at different vertical levels. Air quality variables translate the resilience of the recent past concentrations of each pollutant and usually are maximum and/or the average of latest 24-hour levels. The models were applied in forecasting the next day average daily concentrations for PM10, PM2.5, and NO2 for the air quality monitoring stations. The results are expected to be an operational air quality forecast for Macao. DA - 2020/04// PY - 2020 DO - 10.1088/1755-1315/489/1/012018 DP - Institute of Physics VL - 489 IS - 1 SP - 012018 J2 - IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Environ. Sci. LA - en SN - 1755-1315 UR - https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/489/1/012018 Y2 - 2022/09/21/08:23:33 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Noise-induced hearing loss in zebrafish: investigating structural and functional inner ear damage and recovery AU - Breitzler, Lukas AU - Lau, Ieng Hou AU - Fonseca, Paulo J. AU - Vasconcelos, Raquel O. T2 - Hearing Research AB - Exposure to continuous moderate noise levels is known to impair the auditory system leading to Noise-Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL) in animals including humans. The mechanism underlying noise-dependent auditory Temporary Threshold Shifts (TTS) is not fully understood. In fact, only limited information is available on vertebrates such as fishes, which share homologous inner ear structures to mammals and have the ability to regenerate hair cells. The zebrafish Danio rerio is a well-established model in hearing research providing an unmatched opportunity to investigate the molecular and physiological mechanisms of NIHL at the sensory receptor level. Here we investigated for the first time the effects of noise exposure on TTS and functional recovery in zebrafish, as well as the associated morphological damage and regeneration of the inner ear saccular hair cells. Adult specimens were exposed for 24h to white noise at various amplitudes (130, 140 and 150 dB re. 1 μPa) and their auditory sensitivity was subsequently measured with the Auditory Evoked Potential (AEP) recording technique. Sensory recovery was tested at different times post-treatment (after 3, 7 and 14 days) and compared to individuals kept under quiet lab conditions. Results revealed noise level-dependent TTS up to 33 dB and increase in response latency. Recovery of hearing function occurred within 7 days for fish exposed to 130 and 140 dB noise levels, while fish subject to 150 dB only returned to baseline thresholds after 14 days. Hearing impairment was accompanied by significant loss of hair cells only at the highest noise treatment. Full regeneration of the sensory tissue (number of hair cell receptors) occurred within 7 days, which was prior to functional recovery. We provide first baseline data of NIHL in zebrafish and validate this species as an effective vertebrate model to investigate the impact of noise exposure on the structure and function of the adult inner ear and its recovery process. DA - 2020/06/01/ PY - 2020 DO - 10.1016/j.heares.2020.107952 DP - ScienceDirect VL - 391 SP - 107952 J2 - Hearing Research LA - en SN - 0378-5955 ST - Noise-induced hearing loss in zebrafish UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378595519304587 Y2 - 2022/09/21/08:12:14 KW - Fish KW - Hair cells KW - Hearing sensitivity KW - Noise KW - Sound pressure level KW - Temporary threshold shift ER - TY - JOUR TI - Sulfur isotopic compositions of sulfides along the Southwest Indian Ridge: implications for mineralization in ultramafic rocks AU - Dias, Ágata AU - Ding, Teng AU - Tao, Chunhui AU - Liang, Jin AU - Chen, Jie AU - Wu, Bin AU - Ma, Dongsheng AU - Zhang, Rongqing AU - Wang, Jia AU - Liao, Shili AU - Wang, Yuan AU - Yang, Weifang AU - Liu, Jia AU - Li, Wei AU - Zhang, Guoyin AU - Huang, Hui T2 - Mineralium Deposita DA - 2020/10/31/ PY - 2020 DO - 10.1007/s00126-020-01025-0 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) J2 - Miner Deposita LA - en SN - 0026-4598, 1432-1866 ST - Sulfur isotopic compositions of sulfides along the Southwest Indian Ridge UR - http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00126-020-01025-0 Y2 - 2021/03/30/07:28:44 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Personal Care and Cosmetic Products as a Potential Source of Environmental Contamination by Microplastics in a Densely Populated Asian City AU - Bashir, Saidu M. AU - Kimiko, Sam AU - Mak, Chu-Wa AU - Fang, James Kar-Hei AU - Gonçalves, David T2 - Frontiers in Marine Science AB - The prevalence of microplastics in the environment has become a major global conservation issue. One primary source of environmental microplastics is personal care and cosmetic products (PCCPs) containing microbeads. The market availability of PCCPs containing microbeads and the level of contamination of coastal sediments by microplastics was studied in one of the most densely populated cities in the world, Macao in China. We found that PCCPs containing microbeads are still widely available for sale in the region, with over 70% of surveyed PCCPs containing at least one type of microbeads as an ingredient, with polyethylene (PE) being the most common one. In an estimate, the use of PCCPs in the territory may release over 37 billion microbeads per year into the environment via wastewater treatment plants. The density of microplastics in coastal sediments varied between 259 and 1,743 items/L of sediment, amongst the highest reported in the world. The fraction of < 1 mm was the most abundant, representing an average of 98.6% of the total, and correlated positively with the abundance of larger sized fragments. The results show that although environmental pollution with microplastics released from PCCPs usage is significant, other sources, namely fragmentation of larger plastic debris, likely contribute more to the issue. The study highlights the magnitude of the problem at a local level and suggests possible mitigating strategies. DA - 2021/// PY - 2021 DP - Frontiers VL - 8 SN - 2296-7745 UR - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2021.683482 Y2 - 2023/04/11/13:47:08 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Geological Map of the Macao Special Administrative Region (China) AU - Quelhas, P AU - Borgens, R AU - Dias, Ágata AU - Ribeiro, L AU - Costa, P AU - Mata, J T2 - Journal of Maps DA - 2021/// PY - 2021 DO - https://doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2021.1906340 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Geology of the Macao Special Administrative Region (China) AU - Quelhas, Pedro AU - Borges, Ricardo AU - Dias, Ágata Alveirinho AU - Ribeiro, Maria Luísa AU - Costa, Pedro AU - Mata, João T2 - Journal of Maps AB - A 1:12,000 geological map of the Macao Special Administrative Region has been produced through detailed field work supported by petrographic, mineralogical, geochronological and geochemical data obtained in previous studies. This map aims to represent a reliable tool to understand the geological evolution of the region and for management of the territory. The geology of Macao is dominated by two groups of Jurassic granitic rocks belonging to an intrusive suite located along the coast of Southeast China: Macao Group I (MGI: 164.5 ± 0.6 to 162.9 ± 0.7 Ma) and Macao Group II (MGII: 156.6 ± 0.2 to 155.5 ± 0.8 Ma), including the associated microgranite, aplite and pegmatite dikes and quartz veins. Remnants of the metasedimentary wall-rock are present as Devonian xenoliths enclosed within the granites. Younger Jurassic to Cretaceous andesite to dacite dikes (150.6 ± 0.6 to <120 Ma) intrude the granitic rocks. Additionally, Quaternary sedimentary deposits cover the older lithologies. DA - 2021/// PY - 2021 DO - 10.1080/17445647.2021.1906340 DP - Taylor and Francis+NEJM VL - 0 IS - 0 SP - 1 EP - 11 SN - null UR - https://doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2021.1906340 Y2 - 2021/04/07/09:46:37 KW - Jurassic KW - Macao (South China) KW - Mesozoic KW - geological map KW - granites KW - magmatic rocks ER - TY - JOUR TI - Magmatic Evolution of Garnet-Bearing Highly Fractionated Granitic Rocks from Macao, Southeast China: Implications for Granite-Related Mineralization Processes AU - Quelhas, Pedro AU - Mata, João AU - Dias, Ágata T2 - Journal of Earth Science AB - The widespread W-(Mo)-Sn-Nb-Ta polymetallic mineralization in Southeast (SE) China is genetically associated with Mesozoic highly fractionated granitic rocks. Such rocks have enigmatic mineralogical and geochemical features, making its petrogenesis an intensely debated topic. To better understand the underlying magma evolution processes, petrography, garnet chemistry and whole-rock major and trace element data are reported for Jurassic highly fractionated granitic rocks and associated microgranite and aplitepegmatite dikes from Macao and compared with coeval similar granitic rocks from nearby areas in SE China. Despite the fact that the most evolved rocks in Macao are garnet-bearing aplite-pegmatite dikes, the existence of coeval two-mica and garnet-bearing biotite and muscovite granites displaying more evolved compositions (e.g, lower Zr/Hf ratios) indicates that the differentiation sequence reached higher degrees of fractionation at a regional scale. Although crystal fractionation played an important role, late-stage fluid/melt interactions, involving F-rich fluids, imparted specific geochemical characteristics to Macao and SE China highly fractionated granitic rocks such as the non-CHARAC (CHArge-and-RAdius-Controlled) behavior of trace elements, leading, for example, to non-chondritic Zr/Hf ratios, Rare Earth Elements (REE) tetrad effects and Nb-Ta enrichment and fractionation. Such process contributed to the late-stage crystallization of accessory phases only found in these highly evolved facies. Among the latter, two populations of garnet were identified in MGI (Macao Group I) highly fractionated granitic rocks: small grossular-poor euhedral grains and large grossular-rich skeletal garnet grains with quartz inclusions. The first group was mainly formed through precipitation from highly evolved Mn-rich slightly peraluminous melts under low-pressure and relatively low temperature (∼700 °C) conditions. Assimilation of upper crust metasedimentary materials may have contributed as a source of Mn and Al to the formation of garnet. The second group has a metasomatic origin related to the interaction of magmatic fluids with previously crystallized mineral phases and, possibly, with assimilated metasedimentary enclaves or surrounding metasedimentary strata. The highly fractionated granitic rocks in Macao represent the first stage in the development of granite-related W-(Mo)-Sn-Nb-Ta mineralization associated with coeval more evolved lithotypes in SE China. DA - 2021/// PY - 2021 DO - 10.1007/s12583-020-1389-4 DP - Springer Link J2 - J. Earth Sci. LA - en SN - 1867-111X ST - Magmatic Evolution of Garnet-Bearing Highly Fractionated Granitic Rocks from Macao, Southeast China UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/s12583-020-1389-4 Y2 - 2021/04/10/08:37:01 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Physiology, endocrinology and chemical communication in aggressive behaviour of fishes AU - Silva, Melina Coelho da AU - Canário, Adelino Vicente Mendonça AU - Hubbard, Peter Colin AU - Gonçalves, David T2 - Journal of Fish Biology AB - Fishes show remarkably diverse aggressive behaviour. Aggression is expressed to secure resources; adjusting aggression levels according to context is key to avoid negative consequences for fitness and survival. Nonetheless, despite its importance, the physiological basis of aggression in fishes is still poorly understood. Several reports suggest hormonal modulation of aggression, particularly by androgens, but contradictory studies have been published. Studies exploring the role of chemical communication in aggressive behaviour are also scant, and the pheromones involved remain to be unequivocally characterized. This is surprising as chemical communication is the most ancient form of information exchange and plays a variety of other roles in fishes. Furthermore, the study of chemical communication and aggression is relevant at the evolutionary, ecological and economic levels. A few pioneering studies support the hypothesis that aggressive behaviour, at least in some teleosts, is modulated by “dominance pheromones” that reflect the social status of the sender, but there is little information on the identity of the compounds involved. This review aims to provide a global view of aggressive behaviour in fishes and its underlying physiological mechanisms including the involvement of chemical communication, and discusses the potential use of dominance pheromones to improve fish welfare. Methodological considerations and future research directions are also outlined. DA - 2021/// PY - 2021 DO - 10.1111/jfb.14667 J2 - J Fish Biol LA - en SN - 0022-1112, 1095-8649 UR - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jfb.14667 Y2 - 2021/01/26/08:12:46 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Evidence for mixed contribution of mantle and lower and upper crust to the genesis of Jurassic I-type granites from Macao, SE China AU - Quelhas, Pedro AU - Mata, João AU - Dias, Ágata T2 - GSA Bulletin AB - Abstract Much controversy has occurred in the past few decades regarding the nature of the sources, the petrogenetic processes, and the tectonic regime(s) of the Jurassic magmatism within the Southeast China magmatic belt. This study aims to contribute to the discussion with mineral chemistry, and whole-rock element and Sr-Nd-Hf-Pb isotopic geochemical data from granitic rocks and microgranular mafic enclaves from Macao, where two discrete groups of I-type biotite granites have been identified (referred to as Macao Group I [MGI] and Macao Group II [MGII]). It is proposed that the granitic magmas were generated by partial melting of infracrustal medium- to high-K, basaltic Paleoproterozoic to Mesoproterozoic protoliths (Nd depleted mantle model age [TDM2] = 1.7–1.6 Ga and Hf TDM2 = 1.8–1.6 Ga), triggered by underplating of hot mantle-derived magmas in an extensional setting related to the foundering of a previously flat slab (paleo–Pacific plate) beneath the SE China continent. The main differences between the two groups of Macao granites are attributed to assimilation and fractional crystallization processes, during which upper-crustal Paleozoic metasediments were variably assimilated by MGI magmas. This is evidenced by an increase in initial 87Sr/86Sr ratios with degree of evolution, presence of metasedimentary enclaves, and high percentage of zircon xenocrysts with Paleozoic ages. In addition, other processes like late-stage fluid/melt interaction and magma mixing also left some imprints on granite compositions (rare earth element tetrad effect plus non–charge-and-radius-controlled behavior of trace elements and decoupling between different isotope systems, respectively). The distribution of isotopically distinct granites in SE China reflects the nature of the two Cathaysia crustal blocks juxtaposed along the Zhenghe-Dapu fault. DA - 2021/01/01/ PY - 2021 DO - 10.1130/B35552.1 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) VL - 133 IS - 1-2 SP - 37 EP - 56 LA - en SN - 0016-7606, 1943-2674 UR - https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article/133/1-2/37/584581/Evidence-for-mixed-contribution-of-mantle-and Y2 - 2021/03/30/07:27:27 ER - TY - JOUR TI - COVID-19: Psychological and Psychosocial Impact, Fear, and Passion AU - Dey, Nilanjan AU - Mishra, Rishabh AU - Fong, Simon James AU - Santosh, K. C. AU - Tan, Stanna AU - Crespo, Rubén González T2 - Digital Government: Research and Practice DA - 2021/01/31/ PY - 2021 DO - 10.1145/3428088 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) VL - 2 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 4 J2 - Digit. Gov.: Res. Pract. LA - en SN - 2691-199X, 2639-0175 ST - COVID-19 UR - https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3428088 Y2 - 2023/04/11/13:48:11 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Impact of noise on development, physiological stress and behavioural patterns in larval zebrafish AU - Lara, Rafael A. AU - Vasconcelos, Raquel O. T2 - Scientific Reports AB - 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. DA - 2021/03/23/ PY - 2021 DO - 10.1038/s41598-021-85296-1 DP - www.nature.com VL - 11 IS - 1 SP - 6615 J2 - Sci Rep LA - en SN - 2045-2322 UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-85296-1 Y2 - 2022/09/21/08:12:05 KW - Embryology KW - Environmental impact KW - Freshwater ecology ER - TY - JOUR TI - Resource estimation of the sulfide-rich deposits of the Yuhuang-1 hydrothermal field on the ultraslow-spreading Southwest Indian Ridge AU - Yu, Junyu AU - Tao, Chunhui AU - Liao, Shili AU - Dias, Ágata AU - Liang, Jin AU - Yang, Weifang AU - Zhu, Chuanwei T2 - Ore Geology Reviews AB - 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. DA - 2021/04/17/ PY - 2021 DO - 10.1016/j.oregeorev.2021.104169 SP - 104169 J2 - Ore Geology Reviews LA - en SN - 0169-1368 UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169136821001943 Y2 - 2021/04/21/03:36:30 KW - Resource estimate KW - Seafloor massive sulfide deposits KW - Southwest Indian Ridge KW - Yuhuang-1 hydrothermal field ER - TY - JOUR TI - Can mangroves work as an effective phytoremediation tool for pesticide contamination? An interlinked analysis between surface water, sediments and biota AU - Ivorra, Lucia AU - Cardoso, Patricia G. AU - Chan, Shek Kiu AU - Cruzeiro, Catarina AU - Tagulao, Karen Arano T2 - Journal of Cleaner Production AB - 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. DA - 2021/05/01/ PY - 2021 DO - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.126334 DP - ScienceDirect VL - 295 SP - 126334 J2 - Journal of Cleaner Production LA - en SN - 0959-6526 ST - Can mangroves work as an effective phytoremediation tool for pesticide contamination? UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652621005540 Y2 - 2023/04/11/08:13:55 KW - Benthic fauna KW - Intertidal environments KW - Organochlorinated pesticides KW - Persistent organic compounds KW - Toxicological assessment ER - TY - JOUR TI - Androgens and corticosteroids increase in response to mirror images and interacting conspecifics in males of the Siamese fighting fish Betta splendens AU - Ramos, Andreia AU - Alex, Deepa AU - Cardoso, Sara D. AU - Gonçalves, David T2 - Hormones and Behavior AB - 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. DA - 2021/06/01/ PY - 2021 DO - 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2021.104991 DP - ScienceDirect VL - 132 SP - 104991 J2 - Hormones and Behavior LA - en SN - 0018-506X UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0018506X21000702 Y2 - 2023/04/11/13:53:24 KW - Aggression KW - Androgens KW - Corticosteroids KW - Live conspecific test KW - Mirror test ER - TY - JOUR TI - Origin of the Qiyugou gold deposit in the southern margin of the North China Craton: Insights from trace elements of pyrite and mineralogy of Bi-minerals AU - Wu, Qiang AU - Zhao, Tai-Ping AU - Chen, Wei Terry AU - Gao, Xin-Yu AU - Meng, Lei AU - Qiu, Wenhong Johnson T2 - Ore Geology Reviews AB - 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. DA - 2021/06/01/ PY - 2021 DO - 10.1016/j.oregeorev.2021.104085 DP - ScienceDirect VL - 133 SP - 104085 J2 - Ore Geology Reviews LA - en SN - 0169-1368 ST - Origin of the Qiyugou gold deposit in the southern margin of the North China Craton UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169136821001104 Y2 - 2023/04/11/13:54:18 KW - Bi melts scavenging Au KW - Bismuth minerals KW - Qiyugou gold deposit KW - The southern margin of the North China craton KW - Trace element of pyrite ER - TY - JOUR TI - Occurrence and remobilization of gold in the Dayingezhuang deposit in Jiaodong, North China Craton: Evidence from textural and geochemical features of pyrite AU - Yuan, Zhong-Zheng AU - Li, Zhan-Ke AU - Li, Jian-Wei AU - Zhao, Xin-Fu AU - Wu, Ya-Fei AU - Xu, Hai-Jun AU - Sun, Hua-Shan T2 - Ore Geology Reviews AB - 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. DA - 2021/09/01/ PY - 2021 DO - 10.1016/j.oregeorev.2021.104243 DP - ScienceDirect VL - 136 SP - 104243 J2 - Ore Geology Reviews LA - en SN - 0169-1368 ST - Occurrence and remobilization of gold in the Dayingezhuang deposit in Jiaodong, North China Craton UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169136821002699 Y2 - 2023/04/11/13:52:06 KW - Dayingezhuang KW - EBSD KW - Gold remobilization KW - Jiaodong KW - Pyrite deformation ER - TY - JOUR TI - Sediments in the mangrove areas contribute to the removal of endocrine disrupting chemicals in coastal sediments of Macau SAR, China, and harbour microbial communities capable of degrading E2, EE2, BPA and BPS AU - Moreira, Irina S. AU - Lebel, Alexandre AU - Peng, Xianzhi AU - Castro, Paula M. L. AU - Gonçalves, David T2 - Biodegradation AB - 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. DA - 2021/10/01/ PY - 2021 DO - 10.1007/s10532-021-09948-9 DP - Springer Link VL - 32 IS - 5 SP - 511 EP - 529 J2 - Biodegradation LA - en SN - 1572-9729 UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10532-021-09948-9 Y2 - 2023/04/11/13:52:56 KW - Biodegradation KW - Bisphenols KW - EDCs-degrading bacteria KW - Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) KW - Estrogens KW - Mangrove ER - TY - JOUR TI - Constraints of Fe-S-C stable isotopes on hydrothermal and microbial activities during formation of sediment-hosted stratiform sulfide deposits AU - Qiu, Wenhong Johnson AU - Zhou, Mei-Fu AU - Li, Xiaochun AU - Huang, Fang AU - Malpas, John T2 - Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta AB - Microbial and hydrothermal venting activities on the seafloor are important for the formation of sediment-hosted stratiform sulfide (SHSS) deposits. Fe isotopic compositions are sensitive to both microbial and hydrothermal activities and may be used to investigate the formation of these deposits. However, to the best of our knowledge, no Fe isotopic studies have been conducted on SHSS deposits. In the Devonian Dajiangping SHSS-type pyrite deposit (389 Ma), South China, laminated pyrite ores were precipitated from exhalative hydrothermal fluids, whereas black shales were deposited during intervals with no exhalation. Pyrite grains from black shales mostly display positive δ56Fe-py (0.01–0.73‰), higher than marine sediments (ca. 0‰), due to pyrite deriving Fe from basinal shuttled Fe(III) (hydr-)oxides and slowly crystallizing in pores of sediments with equilibrium fractionation, except for negative δ56Fe-py (−0.17‰ to −0.24‰) of two samples caused by mixing of Fe from underlain laminated ores. The positive δ34S-py (3.50–24.5‰) of black shales reflect that sulfur of pyrite originated from quantitative reduction of sulfate in closed pores of sediments. In contrast, pyrite grains of laminated ores have negative δ56Fe-py (−0.60‰ to −0.21‰), which were not only inherited from the negative δ56Fe of hydrothermal fluids but also caused by kinetic fractionation during rapid precipitation of a pyrite precursor (FeS) in hydrothermal plumes. These ores have negative δ34S-py (−28.7‰ to −1.82‰), because H2S for pyrite mineralization was produced by bacterial sulfate reduction (BSR) in a sulfate-rich seawater column or shallow sediments. The δ56Fe-py values of laminated ores co-vary positively with δ34S-py and δ13C-carbonate along the ore stratigraphy, with δ13C-carbonate values ranging from −12.0‰ to −2.50‰. However, they correlate negatively with aluminum-normalized total organic carbon (TOC/Al2O3). Organic carbon is thus considered to enhance the production of H2S by BSR activities, increase pyrite precipitation rates and promote the expression of kinetic fractionation of Fe isotopes. Intriguingly, in the ore units with vigorous hydrothermal venting activities, δ56Fe-py, δ34S-py and δ13C-carbonate values display a consistently increasing trend. Such results suggest that venting hydrothermal fluids significantly inhibited the H2S production of BSR, which then reduced the pyrite crystallization rate and decreased the kinetic fractionation of Fe isotopes. Our study reveals that the formation of SHSS deposits relies on H2S from microbial activities and metals from hydrothermal exhalation on the seafloor, but that vigorous exhalation can inhibit microbial activities and thus sulfide precipitation rates. The integrated use of Fe, S, and C isotopes can effectively elucidate these dynamic interactions between hydrothermal venting and microbial activities during the formation of SHSS deposits. DA - 2021/11/15/ PY - 2021 DO - 10.1016/j.gca.2021.07.036 DP - ScienceDirect VL - 313 SP - 195 EP - 213 J2 - Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta LA - en SN - 0016-7037 UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016703721004634 Y2 - 2023/04/11/13:56:26 KW - Iron isotope KW - Isotope fractionation KW - Sediment-hosted stratiform sulfide deposit KW - Sulfur isotope ER - TY - JOUR TI - Chemical toxicity prediction based on semi-supervised learning and graph convolutional neural network AU - Chen, Jiarui AU - Si, Yain-Whar AU - Un, Chon-Wai AU - Siu, Shirley W. I. T2 - Journal of Cheminformatics AB - As safety is one of the most important properties of drugs, chemical toxicology prediction has received increasing attentions in the drug discovery research. Traditionally, researchers rely on in vitro and in vivo experiments to test the toxicity of chemical compounds. However, not only are these experiments time consuming and costly, but experiments that involve animal testing are increasingly subject to ethical concerns. While traditional machine learning (ML) methods have been used in the field with some success, the limited availability of annotated toxicity data is the major hurdle for further improving model performance. Inspired by the success of semi-supervised learning (SSL) algorithms, we propose a Graph Convolution Neural Network (GCN) to predict chemical toxicity and trained the network by the Mean Teacher (MT) SSL algorithm. Using the Tox21 data, our optimal SSL-GCN models for predicting the twelve toxicological endpoints achieve an average ROC-AUC score of 0.757 in the test set, which is a 6% improvement over GCN models trained by supervised learning and conventional ML methods. Our SSL-GCN models also exhibit superior performance when compared to models constructed using the built-in DeepChem ML methods. This study demonstrates that SSL can increase the prediction power of models by learning from unannotated data. The optimal unannotated to annotated data ratio ranges between 1:1 and 4:1. This study demonstrates the success of SSL in chemical toxicity prediction; the same technique is expected to be beneficial to other chemical property prediction tasks by utilizing existing large chemical databases. Our optimal model SSL-GCN is hosted on an online server accessible through: https://app.cbbio.online/ssl-gcn/home. DA - 2021/11/27/ PY - 2021 DO - 10.1186/s13321-021-00570-8 DP - BioMed Central VL - 13 IS - 1 SP - 93 J2 - Journal of Cheminformatics SN - 1758-2946 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/s13321-021-00570-8 Y2 - 2022/09/21/05:33:31 KW - ADMET KW - Chemical toxicity KW - Deep learning KW - Graph convolutional neural network KW - Mean teacher KW - Semi-supervised learning KW - Tox21 ER - TY - JOUR TI - CCAAT/Enhancer-Binding Protein Alpha Is a Novel Regulator of Vascular Smooth Muscle Cell Osteochondrogenic Transition and Vascular Calcification AU - Chen, Pengyuan AU - Hong, Wanzi AU - Chen, Ziying AU - Gordillo-Martinez, Flora AU - Wang, Siying AU - Fan, Hualin AU - Liu, Yuanhui AU - Dai, Yining AU - Wang, Bo AU - Jiang, Lei AU - Yu, Hongjiao AU - He, PengCheng T2 - Frontiers in Physiology AB - AimsVascular calcification is a common clinical complication of chronic kidney disease (CKD), atherosclerosis (AS), and diabetes, which is associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in patients. The transdifferentiation of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) to an osteochondrogenic phenotype is a crucial step during vascular calcification. The transcription factor CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein alpha (C/EBPα) plays an important role in regulating cell proliferation and differentiation, but whether it regulates the calcification of arteries and VSMCs remains unclear. Therefore, this study aims to understand the role of C/EBPα in the regulation of vascular calcification.Methods and ResultsBoth mRNA and protein expression levels of C/EBPα were significantly increased in calcified arteries from mice treated with a high dose of vitamin D3 (vD3). Upregulation of C/EBPα was also observed in the high phosphate- and calcium-induced VSMC calcification process. The siRNA-mediated knockdown of C/EBPα significantly attenuated VSMC calcification in vitro. Moreover, C/EBPα depletion in VSMCs significantly reduced the mRNA expression of the osteochondrogenic genes, e.g., sex-determining region Y-box 9 (Sox9). C/EBPα overexpression can induce SOX9 overexpression. Similar changes in the protein expression of SOX9 were also observed in VSMCs after C/EBPα depletion or overexpression. In addition, silencing of Sox9 expression significantly inhibited the phosphate- and calcium-induced VSMC calcification in vitro.ConclusionFindings in this study indicate that C/EBPα is a key regulator of the osteochondrogenic transdifferentiation of VSMCs and vascular calcification, which may represent a novel therapeutic target for vascular calcification. DA - 2022/// PY - 2022 DP - Frontiers VL - 13 SN - 1664-042X UR - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2022.755371 Y2 - 2023/04/11/13:43:32 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Selection for winners impacts the endocrine system in the Siamese fighting fish AU - Ramos, A. AU - Gonçalves, D. T2 - General and Comparative Endocrinology AB - In southeast Asia, males of the Siamese fighting fish, Betta splendens, have been selected across centuries for winning paired staged fights and previous work has shown that males from fighter strains are more aggressive than wild-types. This strong directional selection for winners is likely to have targeted aggression-related endocrine systems, and a comparison between fighter and wild-type strains can bring into evidence the key hormones implicated in aggression. Here, we compared the plasma levels of the androgen 11-ketotestosterone (KT) and of the corticosteroid cortisol (F) in F2 males of a fighter and a wild-type strain raised under similar laboratory conditions. We show that F was generally lower in fighter as compared with wild-type males, while no overall differences in KT levels were detected between strains. When presented with a mirror-induced aggressive challenge, post-fight levels of F increased but more significantly so in wild-type males, while KT increased in males of both strains. After the challenge, fighter males had higher levels of KT as compared with wild-type males, while the pattern for F was opposite. As compared with animals in social groups, wild-type males placed under social isolation had lower F levels, while KT decreased for fighters. Taken together, this data suggests that while wild-type males responded to aggression with an increase in circulating levels of both androgens and corticosteroids, males selected for winning fights maintained a blunt F response, increasing only KT levels. These data agree with the hypothesis that a combination of high levels of androgens and low levels of corticosteroids is associated with high aggression. Overall, these results seem to indicate that selection for winning had a stronger impact in the hypothalamus-pituitary-interrenal axis than in the hypothalamus-pituitary–gonadal axis in B. splendens. DA - 2022/03// PY - 2022 DO - 10.1016/j.ygcen.2022.113988 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) VL - 318 SP - 113988 J2 - General and Comparative Endocrinology LA - en SN - 00166480 UR - https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0016648022000132 Y2 - 2023/04/11/10:06:18 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Mangrove Conservation in Macao SAR, China: The Role of Environmental Education among School Students AU - Tagulao, Karen Araño AU - Bernardo, Allan B. I. AU - Kei, Loi Hoi AU - Calheiros, Cristina Sousa Coutinho T2 - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health AB - Mangrove forests are one of the most ecologically valuable ecosystems in the world and provide a wide variety of ecosystem services to coastal communities, including cities. Macao, a highly urbanized coastal city located on the southern coast of China west of the Pearl River, is home to several species of mangroves with many associated flora and fauna. Mangrove forests in Macao are vulnerable to threats due to pressure from rapid and massive urban developments in the area, which led to mangrove loss in the past decades. To address this issue, the local authorities established special Ecological Zones for the management of the local mangroves. To reinforce local conservation efforts, educating the local population about the value of mangroves, especially school students, is of utmost importance. To evaluate the impact of environmental education activities on the environmental orientation, knowledge, and values of students toward mangrove conservation in Macao, a quasi-experimental study was undertaken. The effectiveness of a mangroves exhibition and field visit were evaluated using the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) Scale—Macao version in a group of local school students who participated in the activities. Overall, the results provided consistently positive evaluations of the impact of the environmental education program. The strongest improvements were found in the students’ pro-environmental orientations, knowledge about mangroves, and value for environmental protection. DA - 2022/01// PY - 2022 DO - 10.3390/ijerph19063147 DP - www.mdpi.com VL - 19 IS - 6 SP - 3147 LA - en SN - 1660-4601 ST - Mangrove Conservation in Macao SAR, China UR - https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/6/3147 Y2 - 2023/03/14/19:48:03 KW - NEP-New Ecological Paradigm KW - conservation KW - environmental orientation KW - environmental protection KW - urban mangroves ER - TY - JOUR TI - Trace-element compositions of sulfides from inactive Tianzuo hydrothermal field, Southwest Indian Ridge: Implications for ultramafic rocks hosting mineralization AU - Ding, Teng AU - Wang, Jia AU - Tao, Chunhui AU - Dias, Ágata Alveirinho AU - Liang, Jin AU - Wang, Yuan AU - Chen, Jie AU - Wu, Bin AU - Huang, Hui T2 - Ore Geology Reviews AB - The recently explored inactive Tianzuo hydrothermal field, in the amagmatic segment of the ultraslow-spreading Southwest Indian Ridge (SWIR), is closely associated with detachment faults. In this site, sulfide minerals are hosted by serpentine-bearing ultramafic rocks and include high-temperature (isocubanite, sphalerite, and minor pyrrhotite) and low-temperature (pyrite I, marcasite, pyrite II, and covellite) phases. In this study, trace-element concentrations of isocubanite and pyrite II were used to elucidate mineralization processes in ultramafic rocks hosting sulfides. Results show that isocubanite is enriched in metals such as Cu, Co, Sn, Te, Zn, Se, Pb, Bi, Cd, Ag, In, and Mn, and pyrite II is enriched in Mo and Tl. The marked enrichment in Te, Cu, Co, and In in isocubanite (compared with Se, Zn, Ni, and Sn, respectively) is most likely due to the contribution of magmatic fluids from gabbroic intrusions beneath the hydrothermal field. The intrusion of gabbroic magmas would have enhanced serpentinization reactions and provided a relatively oxidizing environment through the dissolution of anhydrite precipitated previously in the reaction zone, within high temperature and low pH conditions. This might have facilitated the extraction of metals by initial hydrothermal fluids, leading to the general enrichment of most metals in isocubanite. Metals in pyrite II have compositions similar to those of isocubanite, except for strong depletion in magmatically derived Te, Cu, Co, and In. This means that serpentinization processes had a dominating role in pyrite II precipitation as well. The enrichment of pyrite II in Mo and Tl is also indicative of seawater contribution in its composition. The study concludes that serpentinization reactions contribute effectively both to high- and low-temperature sulfide mineralization at Tianzuo hydrothermal field, with gabbroic intrusions further promoting high-temperature sulfide mineralization, providing additional metals, fluids and heat. In contrast, low-temperature sulfide mineralization occurred during the cooling of gabbroic intrusions, with decreasing rates of serpentinization reactions and a significant influence of seawater. DA - 2022/01/01/ PY - 2022 DO - 10.1016/j.oregeorev.2021.104421 DP - ScienceDirect VL - 140 SP - 104421 J2 - Ore Geology Reviews LA - en SN - 0169-1368 ST - Trace-element compositions of sulfides from inactive Tianzuo hydrothermal field, Southwest Indian Ridge UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169136821004479 Y2 - 2022/09/21/13:41:17 KW - SWIR KW - Serpentinization KW - Sulfide KW - Tianzuo KW - Trace-element KW - Ultramafic rocks ER - TY - JOUR TI - How can environmental conditions influence dicofol genotoxicity on the edible Asiatic clam, Meretrix meretrix? AU - Ivorra, Lucia AU - Cruzeiro, Catarina AU - Ramos, Alice AU - Tagulao, Karen AU - Cardoso, Patricia G. T2 - Environmental Pollution AB - Genotoxic effects of dicofol on the edible clam Meretrix meretrix were investigated through a mesocosm experiment. Individuals of M. meretrix, were exposed to environmental concentration (D1 = 50 ng/L) and supra-environmental concentration (D2 = 500 ng/L) of dicofol for 15 days, followed by the same depuration period. DNA damage (i.e., strand breaks and alkali-labile sites) was evaluated at day 1, 7 and 15, during uptake and depuration, using Comet assay (alkaline version) and nuclear abnormalities (NAs) as genotoxicity biomarkers. The protective effects of dicofol against DNA damage induced by ex vivo hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) exposure were also assessed. Comet assay results revealed no significant DNA damages under dicofol exposure, indicating 1) apparent lack of genotoxicity of dicofol to the tested conditions and/or 2) resistance of the animals due to optimal adaptation to stress conditions. Moreover, ex vivo H2O2 exposure showed an increase in the DNA damage in all the treatments without significant differences between them. However, considering only the DNA damage induced by H2O2 during uptake phase, D1 animals had significantly lower DNA damage than those from other treatments, revealing higher protection against a second stressor. NAs data showed a decrease in the % of cells with polymorphic, kidney shape, notched or lobbed nucleus, along the experiment. The combination of these results supports the idea that the clams used in the experiment were probably collected from a stressful environment (in this case Pearl River Delta region) which could have triggered some degree of adaptation to those environmental conditions, explaining the lack of DNA damages and highlighting the importance of organisms’ origin and the conditions that they were exposed during their lives. DA - 2022/01/15/ PY - 2022 DO - 10.1016/j.envpol.2021.118467 DP - ScienceDirect VL - 293 SP - 118467 J2 - Environmental Pollution LA - en SN - 0269-7491 UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749121020492 Y2 - 2023/04/11/08:11:37 KW - Bivalves KW - Comet assay KW - DNA damage KW - Nuclear abnormalities KW - Organochlorine pesticides ER - TY - JOUR TI - Noise-induced hearing loss correlates with inner ear hair cell decrease in larval zebrafish AU - Lara, Rafael A. AU - Breitzler, Lukas AU - Lau, Ieng Hou AU - Gordillo-Martinez, Flora AU - Chen, Fangyi AU - Fonseca, Paulo J. AU - Bass, Andrew H. AU - Vasconcelos, Raquel O. T2 - Journal of Experimental Biology AB - Anthropogenic noise can be hazardous for the auditory system and wellbeing of animals, including humans. However, very limited information is known on how this global environmental pollutant affects auditory function and inner ear sensory receptors in early ontogeny. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is a valuable model in hearing research, including investigations of developmental processes of the vertebrate inner ear. We tested the effects of chronic exposure to white noise in larval zebrafish on inner ear saccular sensitivity and morphology at 3 and 5 days post-fertilization (dpf), as well as on auditory-evoked swimming responses using the prepulse inhibition (PPI) paradigm at 5 dpf. Noise-exposed larvae showed a significant increase in microphonic potential thresholds at low frequencies, 100 and 200 Hz, while the PPI revealed a hypersensitization effect and a similar threshold shift at 200 Hz. Auditory sensitivity changes were accompanied by a decrease in saccular hair cell number and epithelium area. In aggregate, the results reveal noise-induced effects on inner ear structure–function in a larval fish paralleled by a decrease in auditory-evoked sensorimotor responses. More broadly, this study highlights the importance of investigating the impact of environmental noise on early development of sensory and behavioural responsiveness to acoustic stimuli. DA - 2022/04/06/ PY - 2022 DO - 10.1242/jeb.243743 DP - Silverchair VL - 225 IS - 7 SP - jeb243743 J2 - Journal of Experimental Biology SN - 0022-0949 UR - https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.243743 Y2 - 2022/09/21/08:11:47 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Geochemistry, sulfur and lead isotopic composition of hydrothermal sulfide from the Duanqiao hydrothermal field on the Southwest Indian Ridge: implications for ore genesis AU - Yang, Weifang AU - Liao, Shili AU - Alveirinho Dias, Ágata AU - Liang, Jin AU - Li, Wei AU - Ding, Teng AU - Tao, Chunhui T2 - International Geology Review AB - Hydrothermal activities on ultraslow-spreading ridges exhibit diverse characteristics, long histories with multiple participants, and might form large-scale, high-grade sulfide deposits. The Duanqiao hydrothermal field (DHF) is located at the segment with the thickest oceanic crust and a large axial magma chamber on the Southwest Indian Ridge, providing unique perspective of sulfide metallogenesis on ultraslow-spreading ridges. Previous studies revealed that DHF sulfide exhibits distinct features of enrichment of ore-forming elements in comparison with those of hydrothermal fields on sediment-starved mid-ocean ridges. However, the genesis and processes responsible for such differences remain poorly constrained. In this study, mineralogical, geochemical and S and Pb isotopic analyses were performed on relict sulfide mound samples to characterize DHF formation. The samples show clear concentric mineral zonation from the interior to the exterior wall. Assemblages of chalcopyrite, sphalerite, and pyrite are distributed mainly in the interior wall, whereas pyrite and marcasite are distributed mainly in the exterior wall. The low Cu content and Pb isotopic composition of the sulfide indicate that the metals are derived mainly from basement basalts. The δ34S values exhibit positive values distributed over a reasonably narrow range (2.42‰–7.97‰), which suggests approximately 62.1%–88.5% of S with basaltic origin. Compared with most hydrothermal fields along the sediment starved mid-ocean ridges, the DHF sulfide shows particularly high contents of Pb (263–2630 ppm), As (234–726 ppm), Sb (7.32–44.3 ppm), and Ag (35.2 to >100 ppm). The δ34S values exhibit an increasing tendency from the sample exterior to the interior. We propose that these features probably reflect the existence of a subsurface zone refining process. Our results provide new insight into the sulfide formation process and contribute to understanding the metallogenic mechanism of hydrothermal sulfides on ultraslow-spreading ridges. DA - 2022/05/31/ PY - 2022 DO - 10.1080/00206814.2022.2081937 DP - Taylor and Francis+NEJM VL - 0 IS - 0 SP - 1 EP - 17 SN - 0020-6814 ST - Geochemistry, sulfur and lead isotopic composition of hydrothermal sulfide from the Duanqiao hydrothermal field on the Southwest Indian Ridge UR - https://doi.org/10.1080/00206814.2022.2081937 Y2 - 2022/09/21/13:41:13 KW - Hydrothermal sulfide KW - geochemistry KW - southwest Indian ridge KW - sulfur isotope KW - zone refining ER - TY - JOUR TI - A metamorphic devolatilization model for the genesis of the Baiyun gold deposit in the North China Craton: A novel Fe-S isotopes perspective AU - Liu, Shuaijie AU - Chen, Bin AU - Zheng, Jiahao AU - Wu, Yafei AU - Bao, Chuang AU - Zhao, Guochun T2 - Gondwana Research AB - The Mesozoic gold deposits in the North China Craton (NCC) were hosted by the Precambrian basement and Mesozoic intrusions. Thus, most researchers consider that these gold deposits were genetically linked to the Mesozoic intrusions. However, we suggest that a metamorphic devolatilization model provides an alternative based on a combined Fe and in-situ S isotopes study on auriferous pyrites from the Baiyun gold deposit in the NCC. The Triassic Baiyun gold deposit contains the quartz vein and altered rock ores that were developed in the Paleoproterozoic metavolcanic-sedimentary rocks (the Liaohe Group). Our in-situ S isotopic analyses show that pyrites from the quartz vein ores are characterized by negative δ34S values (-10.7 ∼ -5.5‰), while those from the altered rock ores have two distinct groups of δ34S values, one being positive (+13.5 ∼ +16.2‰) and the other negative (-10.6 ∼ -3.0‰). We suggest that pyrite grains with positive δ34S values should be relicts from the host rocks, because they show comparable δ34S values with those from the host rocks schists (+3.3 ∼ +16.1‰). Thus, only the negative δ34S values of pyrites in ores (-10.7 ∼ -3.0‰) and the Fe isotopes of the quartz vein ores (δ56Fe = +0.30 ∼ +0.48‰) can represent the isotopic characteristics of ore-forming fluids at Baiyun. Our study shows that the sulfur were probably from the pyritic volcanic-sedimentary sequences of the Liaohe Group, rather than from magmas. The calculated δ56Fe values of the ore-forming fluids (-0.78 ∼ -0.37‰; pyrite-fluid isotope fractionation) could be modelled in a metamorphic devolatilization model with Fe-species (pyrite&magnetite) of the Liaohe Group as sources. Therefore, our combined S- and Fe- isotope data indicate that the metamorphic devolatilization of the Liaohe Group could account for the genesis of the Baiyun gold deposit. DA - 2022/06/01/ PY - 2022 DO - 10.1016/j.gr.2022.01.003 DP - ScienceDirect VL - 106 SP - 126 EP - 141 J2 - Gondwana Research LA - en SN - 1342-937X ST - A metamorphic devolatilization model for the genesis of the Baiyun gold deposit in the North China Craton UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1342937X22000041 Y2 - 2023/04/11/13:17:30 KW - Baiyun gold deposit KW - Fe isotope KW - Metamorphic devolatilization model KW - Orogenic gold deposits KW - S isotope ER - TY - JOUR TI - A Neuropeptide Y/F-like Polypeptide Derived from the Transcriptome of Turbinaria peltata Suppresses LPS-Induced Astrocytic Inflammation AU - Chen, Qian AU - Liang, Zirong AU - Yue, Qian AU - Wang, Xiufen AU - Siu, Shirley Weng In AU - Pui-Man Hoi, Maggie AU - Lee, Simon Ming-Yuen T2 - Journal of Natural Products AB - Neuropeptides are a group of neuronal signaling molecules that regulate physiological and behavioral processes in animals. Here, we used in silico mining to predict the polypeptide composition of available transcriptomic data of Turbinaria peltata. In total, 118 transcripts encoding putative peptide precursors were discovered. One neuropeptide Y/F-like peptide, named TpNPY, was identified and selected for in silico structural, in silico binding, and pharmacological studies. In our study, the anti-inflammation effect of TpNPY was evaluated using an LPS-stimulated C8-D1A astrocyte cell model. Our results demonstrated that TpNPY, at 0.75–3 μM, inhibited LPS-induced NO production and reduced the expression of iNOS in a dose-dependent manner. Furthermore, TpNPY reduced the secretion of proinflammatory cytokines. Additionally, treatment with TpNPY reduced LPS-mediated elevation of ROS production and the intracellular calcium concentration. Further investigation revealed that TpNPY downregulated the IKK/IκB/NF-κB signaling pathway and inhibited expression of the NLRP3 inflammasome. Through molecular docking and using an NPY receptor antagonist, TpNPY was shown to have the ability to interact with the NPY Y1 receptor. On the basis of these findings, we concluded that TpNPY might prevent LPS-induced injury in astrocytes through activation of the NPY-Y1R. DA - 2022/06/24/ PY - 2022 DO - 10.1021/acs.jnatprod.2c00158 DP - ACS Publications VL - 85 IS - 6 SP - 1569 EP - 1580 J2 - J. Nat. Prod. SN - 0163-3864 UR - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jnatprod.2c00158 Y2 - 2022/09/21/05:33:01 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Instance-based deep transfer learning with attention for stock movement prediction AU - He, Qi-Qiao AU - Siu, Shirley Weng In AU - Si, Yain-Whar T2 - Applied Intelligence AB - Stock movement prediction is one of the most challenging problems in time series analysis due to the stochastic nature of financial markets. In recent years, a plethora of statistical methods and machine learning algorithms were proposed for stock movement prediction. Specifically, deep learning models are increasingly applied for the prediction of stock movement. The success of deep learning models relies on the assumption that massive training data are available. However, this assumption is impractical for stock movement prediction. In stock markets, a large number of stocks do not have enough historical data, especially for the companies which underwent initial public offering in recent years. In these situations, the accuracy of deep learning models to predict the stock movement could be affected. To address this problem, in this paper, we propose novel instance-based deep transfer learning models with attention mechanism. In the experiments, we compare our proposed methods with state-of-the-art prediction models. Experimental results on three public datasets reveal that our proposed methods significantly improve the performance of deep learning models when limited training data are available. DA - 2022/07/12/ PY - 2022 DO - 10.1007/s10489-022-03755-2 DP - Springer Link J2 - Appl Intell LA - en SN - 1573-7497 UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10489-022-03755-2 Y2 - 2022/09/21/05:33:49 KW - Attention mechanism KW - Deep transfer learning KW - Instance-based KW - Stock movement prediction ER - TY - JOUR TI - Trying a board game intervention on children with autism spectrum disorder in Macau: how do they react? AU - Lok, Ka Ieong AU - Chiang, Hsu-Min AU - Lin, Yueh-Hsien AU - Jiang, Chunlian T2 - International Journal of Developmental Disabilities AB - Limited special education and related services are available for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in Macau, especially those who are educated in general education classrooms. No intervention study has been conducted on these children. This study was conducted to explore the relationship between a board game play intervention and board game play behaviors and social communication of children with ASD educated in general education classrooms in Macau. A repeated measures design was used and the results of this study showed the mean occurrence of unprompted board game play behaviors per session during intervention was not significantly different from that during pre- or post-intervention. The mean occurrence of social communication per session during intervention was significantly higher than that during pre- and post-intervention. These findings suggest a positive relationship existed between the board game intervention used in this study and social communication of children with ASD. DA - 2022/07/12/ PY - 2022 DO - 10.1080/20473869.2022.2095861 DP - Taylor and Francis+NEJM VL - 0 IS - 0 SP - 1 EP - 9 SN - 2047-3869 ST - Trying a board game intervention on children with autism spectrum disorder in Macau UR - https://doi.org/10.1080/20473869.2022.2095861 Y2 - 2023/04/11/13:38:07 KW - Autism Spectrum Disorder KW - Macau KW - board game KW - play KW - social communication ER - TY - JOUR TI - Material Source of Sediments from West Clarion–Clipperton Zone (Pacific): Evidence from Rare Earth Element Geochemistry and Clay Minerals Compositions AU - Qiu, Zhongrong AU - Tao, Chunhui AU - Ma, Weilin AU - Dias, Ágata Alveirinho AU - Hu, Siyi AU - Shao, Yuexiao AU - Yang, Kehong AU - Zhang, Weiyan T2 - Journal of Marine Science and Engineering AB - The geochemistry and mineralogy of sediments provide relevant information for the understanding of the origin and metallogenic mechanism of ferromanganese nodules and crusts. At present, there are still few studies on the sediment origin of the Clarion–Clipperton Zone (CCZ) of the east Pacific, particularly on the systematic origin of sediments with a longer history/length. Here, bulk sediment geochemistry and clay mineral compositions were analyzed on a 5.7 m gravity core (GC04) obtained at the CCZ, an area rich in polymetallic nodules. The results indicate that the average total content of rare earth elements (REE), including yttrium (REY), in sediments is 454.7 ppm and the REEs distribution patterns normalized by the North American Shale Composite of samples are highly consistent, with all showing negative Ce anomalies and more obvious enrichment in heavy REE (HREE) than that of light REE (LREE). Montmorillonite/illite ratio, discriminant functions and smear slide identification indicate multiple origins for the material, and are strongly influenced by contributions from marine biomass, while terrestrial materials, seamount basalts and their alteration products and authigenic source also make certain contributions. The REY characteristics of the sediments in the study area are different from those of marginal oceanic and back-arc basins, and more similar to pelagic deep-sea sediments. Based on LREE/HREE-1/δCe and LREE/HREE-Y/Ho diagrams, we conclude that samples from the study area had pelagic sedimentary properties which suffered from a strong “seawater effect”. DA - 2022/08// PY - 2022 DO - 10.3390/jmse10081052 DP - www.mdpi.com VL - 10 IS - 8 SP - 1052 LA - en SN - 2077-1312 ST - Material Source of Sediments from West Clarion–Clipperton Zone (Pacific) UR - https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/10/8/1052 Y2 - 2022/09/21/13:41:06 KW - Clarion–Clipperton Zone KW - material source KW - rare earth elements KW - sediments geochemistry ER - TY - JOUR TI - Multi-Branch-CNN: Classification of ion channel interacting peptides using multi-branch convolutional neural network AU - Yan, Jielu AU - Zhang, Bob AU - Zhou, Mingliang AU - Kwok, Hang Fai AU - Siu, Shirley W. I. T2 - Computers in Biology and Medicine AB - Ligand peptides that have high affinity for ion channels are critical for regulating ion flux across the plasma membrane. These peptides are now being considered as potential drug candidates for many diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and cancers. In this work, we developed Multi-Branch-CNN, a CNN method with multiple input branches for identifying three types of ion channel peptide binders (sodium, potassium, and calcium) from intra- and inter-feature types. As for its real-world applications, prediction models that are able to recognize novel sequences having high or low similarities to training sequences are required. To this end, we tested our models on two test sets: a general test set including sequences spanning different similarity levels to those of the training set, and a novel-test set consisting of only sequences that bear little resemblance to sequences from the training set. Our experiments showed that the Multi-Branch-CNN method performs better than thirteen traditional ML algorithms (TML13), yielding an improvement in accuracy of 3.2%, 1.2%, and 2.3% on the test sets as well as 8.8%, 14.3%, and 14.6% on the novel-test sets for sodium, potassium, and calcium ion channels, respectively. We confirmed the effectiveness of Multi-Branch-CNN by comparing it to the standard CNN method with one input branch (Single-Branch-CNN) and an ensemble method (TML13-Stack). The data sets, script files to reproduce the experiments, and the final predictive models are freely available at https://github.com/jieluyan/Multi-Branch-CNN. DA - 2022/08/01/ PY - 2022 DO - 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2022.105717 DP - ScienceDirect VL - 147 SP - 105717 J2 - Computers in Biology and Medicine LA - en SN - 0010-4825 ST - Multi-Branch-CNN UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010482522004954 Y2 - 2022/09/21/05:32:54 KW - Classification KW - Deep learning KW - Drug discovery KW - Ion channel KW - Multi-Branch-CNN KW - Peptides ER - TY - JOUR TI - Using Machine Learning Methods to Forecast Air Quality: A Case Study in Macao AU - Lei, Thomas M. T. AU - Siu, Shirley W. I. AU - Monjardino, Joana AU - Mendes, Luisa AU - Ferreira, Francisco T2 - Atmosphere AB - Despite the levels of air pollution in Macao continuing to improve over recent years, there are still days with high-pollution episodes that cause great health concerns to the local community. Therefore, it is very important to accurately forecast air quality in Macao. Machine learning methods such as random forest (RF), gradient boosting (GB), support vector regression (SVR), and multiple linear regression (MLR) were applied to predict the levels of particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) concentrations in Macao. The forecast models were built and trained using the meteorological and air quality data from 2013 to 2018, and the air quality data from 2019 to 2021 were used for validation. Our results show that there is no significant difference between the performance of the four methods in predicting the air quality data for 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic) and 2021 (the new normal period). However, RF performed significantly better than the other methods for 2020 (amid the pandemic) with a higher coefficient of determination (R2) and lower RMSE, MAE, and BIAS. The reduced performance of the statistical MLR and other ML models was presumably due to the unprecedented low levels of PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations in 2020. Therefore, this study suggests that RF is the most reliable prediction method for pollutant concentrations, especially in the event of drastic air quality changes due to unexpected circumstances, such as a lockdown caused by a widespread infectious disease. DA - 2022/09// PY - 2022 DO - 10.3390/atmos13091412 DP - www.mdpi.com VL - 13 IS - 9 SP - 1412 LA - en SN - 2073-4433 ST - Using Machine Learning Methods to Forecast Air Quality UR - https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/13/9/1412 Y2 - 2022/09/21/05:32:43 KW - COVID-19 KW - air pollution KW - air quality KW - air quality forecast KW - gradient boosting KW - multiple linear regression KW - random forest KW - support vector regression ER - TY - JOUR TI - Anti-epileptic Kunitz-like peptides discovered in the branching coral Acropora digitifera through transcriptomic analysis AU - Chen, Hanbin AU - Siu, Shirley Weng In AU - Wong, Clarence Tsun Ting AU - Qiu, Jianwen AU - Cheung, Alex Kwok-Kuen AU - Lee, Simon Ming Yuen T2 - Archives of Toxicology AB - Approximately 50 million people are suffering from epilepsy worldwide. Corals have been used for treating epilepsy in traditional Chinese medicine, but the mechanism of this treatment is unknown. In this study, we analyzed the transcriptome of the branching coral Acropora digitifera and obtained its Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), EuKaryotic Orthologous Groups (KOG) and Gene Ontology (GO) annotation. Combined with multiple sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis, we discovered three polypeptides, we named them AdKuz1, AdKuz2 and AdKuz3, from A. digitifera that showed a close relationship to Kunitz-type peptides. Molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation indicated that AdKuz1 to 3 could interact with GABAA receptor but AdKuz2–GABAA remained more stable than others. The biological experiments showed that AdKuz1 and AdKuz2 exhibited an anti-inflammatory effect by decreasing the aberrant level of nitric oxide (NO), IL-6, TNF-α and IL-1β induced by LPS in BV-2 cells. In addition, the pentylenetetrazol (PTZ)-induced epileptic effect on zebrafish was remarkably suppressed by AdKuz1 and AdKuz2. AdKuz2 particularly showed superior anti-epileptic effects compared to the other two peptides. Furthermore, AdKuz2 significantly decreased the expression of c-fos and npas4a, which were up-regulated by PTZ treatment. In addition, AdKuz2 reduced the synthesis of glutamate and enhanced the biosynthesis of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). In conclusion, the results indicated that AdKuz2 may affect the synthesis of glutamate and GABA and enhance the activity of the GABAA receptor to inhibit the symptoms of epilepsy. We believe, AdKuz2 could be a promising anti-epileptic agent and its mechanism of action should be further investigated. DA - 2022/09/01/ PY - 2022 DO - 10.1007/s00204-022-03311-4 DP - Springer Link VL - 96 IS - 9 SP - 2589 EP - 2608 J2 - Arch Toxicol LA - en SN - 1432-0738 UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00204-022-03311-4 Y2 - 2022/09/21/05:33:17 KW - Anti-epileptic KW - GABAA KW - Kunitz peptide KW - Transcriptome ER - TY - JOUR TI - The effect of time regime in noise exposure on the auditory system and behavioural stress in the zebrafish AU - Wong, Man Ieng AU - Lau, Ieng Hou AU - Gordillo-Martinez, Flora AU - Vasconcelos, Raquel O. T2 - Scientific Reports AB - Anthropogenic noise of variable temporal patterns is increasing in aquatic environments, causing physiological stress and sensory impairment. However, scarce information exists on exposure effects to continuous versus intermittent disturbances, which is critical for noise sustainable management. We tested the effects of different noise regimes on the auditory system and behaviour in the zebrafish (Danio rerio). Adult zebrafish were exposed for 24 h to either white noise (150 ± 10 dB re 1 μPa) or silent control. Acoustic playbacks varied in temporal patterns—continuous, fast and slow regular intermittent, and irregular intermittent. Auditory sensitivity was assessed with Auditory Evoked Potential recordings, revealing hearing loss and increased response latency in all noise-treated groups. The highest mean threshold shifts (c. 13 dB) were registered in continuous and fast intermittent treatments, and no differences were found between regular and irregular regimes. Inner ear saccule did not reveal significant hair cell loss but showed a decrease in presynaptic Ribeye b protein especially after continuous exposure. Behavioural assessment using the standardized Novel Tank Diving assay showed that all noise-treated fish spent > 98% time in the bottom within the first minute compared to 82% in control, indicating noise-induced anxiety/stress. We provide first data on how different noise time regimes impact a reference fish model, suggesting that overall acoustic energy is more important than regularity when predicting noise effects. DA - 2022/09/12/ PY - 2022 DO - 10.1038/s41598-022-19573-y DP - www.nature.com VL - 12 IS - 1 SP - 15353 J2 - Sci Rep LA - en SN - 2045-2322 UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-19573-y Y2 - 2022/09/21/08:11:43 KW - Ecology KW - Neuroscience KW - Physiology KW - Zoology ER - TY - JOUR TI - Recent Progress in the Discovery and Design of Antimicrobial Peptides Using Traditional Machine Learning and Deep Learning AU - Yan, Jielu AU - Cai, Jianxiu AU - Zhang, Bob AU - Wang, Yapeng AU - Wong, Derek F. AU - Siu, Shirley W. I. T2 - Antibiotics AB - Antimicrobial resistance has become a critical global health problem due to the abuse of conventional antibiotics and the rise of multi-drug-resistant microbes. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are a group of natural peptides that show promise as next-generation antibiotics due to their low toxicity to the host, broad spectrum of biological activity, including antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, and anti-parasitic activities, and great therapeutic potential, such as anticancer, anti-inflammatory, etc. Most importantly, AMPs kill bacteria by damaging cell membranes using multiple mechanisms of action rather than targeting a single molecule or pathway, making it difficult for bacterial drug resistance to develop. However, experimental approaches used to discover and design new AMPs are very expensive and time-consuming. In recent years, there has been considerable interest in using in silico methods, including traditional machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) approaches, to drug discovery. While there are a few papers summarizing computational AMP prediction methods, none of them focused on DL methods. In this review, we aim to survey the latest AMP prediction methods achieved by DL approaches. First, the biology background of AMP is introduced, then various feature encoding methods used to represent the features of peptide sequences are presented. We explain the most popular DL techniques and highlight the recent works based on them to classify AMPs and design novel peptide sequences. Finally, we discuss the limitations and challenges of AMP prediction. DA - 2022/10// PY - 2022 DO - 10.3390/antibiotics11101451 DP - www.mdpi.com VL - 11 IS - 10 SP - 1451 LA - en SN - 2079-6382 UR - https://www.mdpi.com/2079-6382/11/10/1451 Y2 - 2022/11/09/06:00:01 KW - antimicrobial peptide KW - classification KW - deep learning KW - machine learning KW - medicine KW - regression KW - therapeutic peptide ER - TY - JOUR TI - Attentive recurrent adversarial domain adaptation with Top-k pseudo-labeling for time series classification AU - He, Qi-Qiao AU - Siu, Shirley Weng In AU - Si, Yain-Whar T2 - Applied Intelligence AB - The key challenge of Unsupervised Domain Adaptation (UDA) for analyzing time series data is to learn domain-invariant representations by capturing complex temporal dependencies. In addition, existing unsupervised domain adaptation methods for time series data are designed to align marginal distribution between source and target domains. However, existing UDA methods (e.g. R-DANN Purushotham et al. (2017), VRADA Purushotham et al. (2017), CoDATS Wilson et al. (2020)) neglect the conditional distribution discrepancy between two domains, leading to misclassification of the target domain. Therefore, to learn domain-invariant representations by capturing the temporal dependencies and to reduce the conditional distribution discrepancy between two domains, a novel Attentive Recurrent Adversarial Domain Adaptation with Top-k time series pseudo-labeling method called ARADA-TK is proposed in this paper. In the experiments, our proposed method was compared with the state-of-the-art UDA methods (R-DANN, VRADA and CoDATS). Experimental results on four benchmark datasets revealed that ARADA-TK achieves superior classification accuracy when it is compared to the competing methods. DA - 2022/10/06/ PY - 2022 DO - 10.1007/s10489-022-04176-x DP - Springer Link J2 - Appl Intell LA - en SN - 1573-7497 UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10489-022-04176-x Y2 - 2023/04/11/13:32:16 KW - Adversarial training KW - Attentive KW - Domain adaptation KW - Pseudo-labeling KW - Time series classification ER - TY - JOUR TI - Behavioural and endocrine responses to non-interactive live and video conspecifics in males of the Siamese fighting fish AU - Alex, Deepa AU - Cardoso, Sara D AU - Ramos, Andreia AU - Gonçalves, David T2 - Current Zoology AB - The physiological mechanisms underlying variation in aggression in fish remain poorly understood. One possibly confounding variable is the lack of standardization in the type of stimuli used to elicit aggression. The presentation of controlled stimuli in videos, a.k.a. video playback, can provide better control of the fight components. However, this technique has produced conflicting results in animal behaviour studies and needs to be carefully validated. For this, a similar response to the video and an equivalent live stimulus needs to be demonstrated. Further, different physiological responses may be triggered by live and video stimuli and it is important to demonstrate that video images elicit appropriate physiological reactions. Here, the behavioural and endocrine response of male Siamese fighting fish Betta splendens to a matched for size conspecific fighting behind a one-way mirror, presented live or through video playback, was compared. The video playback and live stimulus elicited a strong and similar aggressive response by the focal fish, with a fight structure that started with stereotypical threat displays and progressed to overt attacks. Post-fight plasma levels of the androgen 11-ketotestosterone were elevated as compared to controls, regardless of the type of stimuli. Cortisol also increased in response to the video images, as previously described for live fights in this species. These results show that the interactive component of a fight, and its resolution, are not needed to trigger an endocrine response to aggression in this species. The study also demonstrates for the first time in a fish a robust endocrine response to video stimuli and supports the use of this technique for researching aggressive behaviour in B. splendens. DA - 2022/10/08/ PY - 2022 DO - 10.1093/cz/zoac078 DP - Silverchair SP - zoac078 J2 - Current Zoology SN - 2396-9814 UR - https://doi.org/10.1093/cz/zoac078 Y2 - 2022/11/09/06:01:40 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Hydrothermal remobilization of subseafloor sulfide mineralization along mid-ocean ridges contributes to the global oceanic zinc isotopic mass balance AU - Liao, Shili AU - Tao, Chunhui AU - Wen, Hanjie AU - Yang, Weifang AU - Liu, Jia AU - Jamieson, John W. AU - Dias, Ágata Alveirinho AU - Zhu, Chuanwei AU - Liang, Jin AU - Li, Wei AU - Ding, Teng AU - Li, Xiaohu AU - Zhang, Huichao T2 - Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta AB - Hydrothermal activity on mid-ocean ridges is an important mechanism for the delivery of Zn from the mantle to the surface environment. Zinc isotopic fractionation during hydrothermal activity is mainly controlled by the precipitation of Zn-bearing sulfide minerals, in which isotopically light Zn is preferentially retained in solid phases rather than in solution during mineral precipitation. Thus, seafloor hydrothermal activity is expected to supply isotopically heavy Zn to the ocean. Here, we studied sulfide-rich samples from the Duanqiao-1 hydrothermal field, located on the Southwest Indian Ridge. We report that, at the hand-specimen scale, late-stage conduit sulfide material has lower δ66Zn values (−0.05 ± 0.15 ‰; n = 19) than early-stage material (+0.13 ± 0.15 ‰; n = 10). These lower values correlate with enrichments in Pb, As, Cd, and Ag, and elevated δ34S values. We attribute the low δ66Zn values to the remobilization of earlier sub-seafloor Zn-rich mineralization. Based on endmember mass balance calculations, and an assumption of a fractionation factor (αZnS-Sol.) of about 0.9997 between sphalerite and its parent solution, the remobilized Zn was found consist of about 1/3 to 2/3 of the total Zn in the fluid that formed the conduit samples. Our study suggests that late-stage subsurface hydrothermal remobilization may release isotopically-light Zn to the ocean, and that this process may be common along mid-ocean ridges, thus increasing the size of the previously identified isotopically light Zn sink in the ocean. DA - 2022/10/15/ PY - 2022 DO - 10.1016/j.gca.2022.08.022 DP - ScienceDirect VL - 335 SP - 56 EP - 67 J2 - Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta LA - en SN - 0016-7037 UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016703722004410 Y2 - 2022/09/21/13:41:02 KW - Hydrothermal activity KW - Mid ocean ridge KW - Subsurface remobilization KW - Zinc isotopic mass balance ER - TY - JOUR TI - Occurrence and precipitation mechanism of silver in pyrite from chimney fragments in the Edmond hydrothermal field, Central Indian Ridge AU - Zhang, Huichao AU - Chen, Kean AU - Tao, Chunhui AU - Alveirinho Dias, Ágata AU - Liang, Jin AU - Yang, Weifang AU - Liao, Shili AU - An, Fang AU - Yin, Bohao AU - Sun, Chuanqiang T2 - Ore Geology Reviews DA - 2023/05// PY - 2023 DO - 10.1016/j.oregeorev.2023.105471 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) SP - 105471 J2 - Ore Geology Reviews LA - en SN - 01691368 UR - https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0169136823001865 Y2 - 2023/05/10/03:57:57 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Application of ANN, XGBoost, and Other ML Methods to Forecast Air Quality in Macau AU - Lei, Thomas M. T. AU - Ng, Stanley C. W. AU - Siu, Shirley W. I. T2 - Sustainability AB - Air pollution in Macau has become a serious problem following the Pearl River Delta’s (PRD) rapid industrialization that began in the 1990s. With this in mind, Macau needs an air quality forecast system that accurately predicts pollutant concentration during the occurrence of pollution episodes to warn the public ahead of time. Five different state-of-the-art machine learning (ML) algorithms were applied to create predictive models to forecast PM2.5, PM10, and CO concentrations for the next 24 and 48 h, which included artificial neural networks (ANN), random forest (RF), extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), support vector machine (SVM), and multiple linear regression (MLR), to determine the best ML algorithms for the respective pollutants and time scale. The diurnal measurements of air quality data in Macau from 2016 to 2021 were obtained for this work. The 2020 and 2021 datasets were used for model testing, while the four-year data before 2020 and 2021 were used to build and train the ML models. Results show that the ANN, RF, XGBoost, SVM, and MLR models were able to provide good performance in building up a 24-h forecast with a higher coefficient of determination (R2) and lower root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), and biases (BIAS). Meanwhile, all the ML models in the 48-h forecasting performance were satisfactory enough to be accepted as a two-day continuous forecast even if the R2 value was lower than the 24-h forecast. The 48-h forecasting model could be further improved by proper feature selection based on the 24-h dataset, using the Shapley Additive Explanations (SHAP) value test and the adjusted R2 value of the 48-h forecasting model. In conclusion, the above five ML algorithms were able to successfully forecast the 24 and 48 h of pollutant concentration in Macau, with the RF and SVM models performing the best in the prediction of PM2.5 and PM10, and CO in both 24 and 48-h forecasts. DA - 2023/01// PY - 2023 DO - 10.3390/su15065341 DP - www.mdpi.com VL - 15 IS - 6 SP - 5341 LA - en SN - 2071-1050 UR - https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/6/5341 Y2 - 2023/04/11/09:51:09 KW - Macau KW - air pollution KW - air quality KW - air quality forecast KW - machine learning ER - TY - JOUR TI - Serpentinization and its implications for ultramafic-hosted sulfide mineralization: A case study at the Tianzuo hydrothermal field, 63.5°E, Southwest Indian Ridge AU - Ding, Teng AU - Dias, Ágata Alveirinho AU - Wang, Jia AU - Tan, Tingting AU - Liang, Jin AU - Wu, Bin AU - Tao, Chunhui T2 - Marine Geology AB - Reaction of ultramafic rocks with seawater and subsequent serpentinization has been considered one of the most important factors controlling the formation of ultramafic-hosted seafloor massive sulfide (UM-SMS) deposits. However, the mineralization processes responsible for these deposits remain poorly understood, in particular because they are less abundant as compared with their basaltic counterparts. In this work, serpentinites with different alteration grades collected at the Tianzuo hydrothermal field (THF), Southwest Indian Ridge, were studied. Mineralogical and chemical analyses were performed in the secondary opaque minerals resulting from serpentinization to understand the role of this process during the formation of UM-SMS deposits. Our results show that these opaque minerals mainly consist of magnetite, hematite, pentlandite, and minor pyrite, suggestive of high but varying oxygen and sulfur fugacities. The hematite is characterized by an enrichment in Mg, Si, Ni, and Co as compared with magnetite. Pentlandite associated with hematite has elevated and consistent Ni contents as compared with that associated with magnetite. These results indicate that breakdown and decomposition of primary silicate and sulfide minerals during serpentinization has controlled the sources of ore-forming materials. Concentrations of Te are variable and show a positive correlation with Ni in pentlandite associated with magnetite or hematite, suggesting that gabbroic intrusions provided additional material to the hydrothermal system. Oxidation and sulfidation conditions are ideal for the formation of trisulfur ion S3− in THF, which can significantly improve the capability of hydrothermal fluids for leaching ore-forming metals from the wall rocks, promoting the formation of THF. In addition of reduced systems, hydrothermal fluids with high oxygen and sulfur fugacities triggered by extensive seawater infiltration can most likely also develop in ultramafic-hosted systems. These results suggest that the areas with well-developed fractures are promising candidates for further exploration of UM-SMS deposits along mid-oceanic ridges. DA - 2023/01/01/ PY - 2023 DO - 10.1016/j.margeo.2022.106969 DP - ScienceDirect VL - 455 SP - 106969 J2 - Marine Geology LA - en SN - 0025-3227 ST - Serpentinization and its implications for ultramafic-hosted sulfide mineralization UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025322722002407 Y2 - 2022/12/25/11:11:31 KW - Opaque minerals KW - Oxidation and sulfidation KW - Sulfide mineralization KW - Tianzuo hydrothermal field KW - Ultramafic rocks ER - TY - JOUR TI - Examination of sex-related differences in intestinal and gonadal lipid metabolism in the sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus AU - Zhang, Shuangyan AU - Ru, Xiaoshang AU - Zhang, Libin AU - Gonçalves, David AU - Yang, Hongsheng T2 - Aquaculture AB - Reproduction of the sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus is critical for aquaculture production. Gonadal development is the basis of reproduction, and lipids, which are among the main nutrients required for gonadal development, directly affect reproduction. We investigated whether gonadal and intestinal lipid metabolism differed between male and female A. japonicus. Transcriptome analysis of the intestines of sexually mature male and female wild-caught individuals revealed differences in gene expression, with 27 and 39 genes being up-regulated in females and males, respectively. In particular, the expression of the fatty acid synthase gene was higher in males than in females. Metabolome analysis of the gonads identified 141 metabolites that were up-regulated and 175 metabolites that were down-regulated in the testes compared with the ovaries in the positive/negative mode of an LC-MS/MS analysis. A variety of polyunsaturated fatty acids were found at higher concentrations in the testes than in the ovaries. 16 s rDNA sequencing analysis showed that the composition and structure of the intestinal microbiota were similar between males and females. These results suggest that sex differences in intestinal metabolism of A. japonicus are not due to differences in the microbiota, and we speculate that gonadal metabolism may be related to intestinal morphology. This information might be useful in improving the reproductive efficiency of sea cucumbers in captivity. DA - 2023/01/15/ PY - 2023 DO - 10.1016/j.aquaculture.2022.738787 DP - ScienceDirect VL - 562 SP - 738787 J2 - Aquaculture LA - en SN - 0044-8486 UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0044848622009048 Y2 - 2023/04/11/10:01:48 KW - Gonads KW - Intestines KW - Lipid metabolism KW - Sea cucumber KW - Sex differences ER - TY - JOUR TI - Effects of a High-Fat Diet on Intestinal and Gonadal Metabolism in Female and Male Sea Cucumber Apostichopus japonicus AU - Zhang, Shuangyan AU - Ru, Xiaoshang AU - Zhang, Libin AU - Gonçalves, David AU - Yang, Hongsheng AU - Xu, Jialei T2 - Biology AB - Parental nutrient reserves are directly related to reproductive performance in sea cucumbers. This study focused on the lipid requirements of male and female sea cucumbers Apostichopus japonicus during the reproductive stage and analyzed their physiological responses to a high-fat diet (HFD). The intestinal lipid metabolites and microbiome profile changed significantly in animals fed with the HFD, as given by an upregulation of metabolites related to lipid metabolism and an increase in the predominance of Proteobacteria in the microbiome, respectively. The metabolic responses of male and female sea cucumbers to the HFD differed, which in turn could have triggered sex-related differences in the intestinal microbiome. These results suggest that the lipid content in diets can be differentially adjusted for male and female sea cucumbers to improve nutrition and promote reproduction. This data contributes to a better understanding of the reproductive biology and sex differences of sea cucumbers. DA - 2023/02// PY - 2023 DO - 10.3390/biology12020212 DP - www.mdpi.com VL - 12 IS - 2 SP - 212 LA - en SN - 2079-7737 UR - https://www.mdpi.com/2079-7737/12/2/212 Y2 - 2023/04/11/09:54:51 KW - high-fat diet KW - intestinal microbes KW - physiological metabolic responses KW - sea cucumber KW - sex differences ER - TY - JOUR TI - Monitoring PM2.5 at a Large Shopping Mall: A Case Study in Macao AU - Lei, Thomas M. T. AU - Chan, Yan W. I. AU - Mohd Nadzir, Mohd Shahrul T2 - Processes AB - Employees work long hours in an environment where the ambient air quality is poor, directly affecting their work efficiency. The concentration of particulate matters (PM) produced by the interior renovation of shopping malls has not received particular attention in Macao. Therefore, this study will investigate the indoor air quality (IAQ), in particular of PM2.5, in large-scale shopping mall renovation projects. This study collected on-site PM data with low-cost portable monitoring equipment placed temporarily at specific locations to examine whether the current control measures are appropriate and propose some improvements. Prior to this study, there were no measures being implemented, and on-site monitoring to assess the levels of PM2.5 concentrations was non-existent. The results show the highest level of PM2.5 recorded in this study was 559.00 μg/m3. Moreover, this study may provide a reference for decision-makers, management, construction teams, design consultant teams, and renovation teams of large-scale projects. In addition, the monitoring of IAQ can ensure a comfortable environment for employees and customers. This study concluded that the levels of PM2.5 concentration have no correlation with the number of on-site workers, but rather were largely influenced by the processes being performed on-site. DA - 2023/03// PY - 2023 DO - 10.3390/pr11030914 DP - www.mdpi.com VL - 11 IS - 3 SP - 914 LA - en SN - 2227-9717 ST - Monitoring PM2.5 at a Large Shopping Mall UR - https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9717/11/3/914 Y2 - 2023/04/11/09:51:02 KW - air pollution KW - construction dust KW - health exposure KW - indoor air quality KW - particulate matter ER - TY - JOUR TI - Quantification of insecticides in commercial seafood sold in East Asian markets: risk assessment for consumers AU - Ivorra, Lucia AU - Cardoso, Patricia G. AU - Chan, Shek Kiu AU - Cruzeiro, Catarina AU - Tagulao, Karen T2 - Environmental Science and Pollution Research AB - The extraction of 21 insecticides and 5 metabolites was performed using an optimized and validated QuEChERS protocol that was further used for the quantification (GC–MS/MS) in several seafood matrices (crustaceans, bivalves, and fish-mudskippers). Seven species, acquired from Hong Kong and Macao wet markets (a region so far poorly monitored), were selected based on their commercial importance in the Indo-Pacific region, market abundance, and affordable price. Among them, mussels from Hong Kong, together with mudskippers from Macao, presented the highest insecticide concentrations (median values of 30.33 and 23.90 ng/g WW, respectively). Residual levels of fenobucarb, DDTs, HCHs, and heptachlors were above the established threshold (10 ng/g WW) for human consumption according to the European and Chinese legislations: for example, in fish-mudskippers, DDTs, fenobucarb, and heptachlors (5-, 20- and tenfold, respectively), and in bivalves, HCHs (fourfold) had higher levels than the threshold. Risk assessment revealed potential human health effects (e.g., neurotoxicity), especially through fish and bivalve consumption (non-carcinogenic risk; ΣHQLT > 1), and a potential concern of lifetime cancer risk development through the consumption of fish, bivalves, and crustaceans collected from these markets (carcinogenic risk; ΣTCR > 10–4). Since these results indicate polluted regions, where the seafood is collected/produced, a strict monitoring framework should be implemented in those areas to improve food quality and safety of seafood products. DA - 2023/03/01/ PY - 2023 DO - 10.1007/s11356-022-24413-7 DP - Springer Link VL - 30 IS - 12 SP - 34585 EP - 34597 J2 - Environ Sci Pollut Res LA - en SN - 1614-7499 ST - Quantification of insecticides in commercial seafood sold in East Asian markets UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-24413-7 Y2 - 2023/04/11/08:10:49 KW - Bivalves KW - Crustaceans KW - Health risk assessment KW - Mudskippers KW - Organochlorine pesticides ER -