bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Emergence of Ceftriaxone-Resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae Through Horizontal Gene Transfer Among Neisseria Species
Authors: Shimuta Ken , Ohama Yuki , Ito Shin , Hoshina Shinji , Takahashi Hideyuki , Igawa Gene , Dorin Yamamoto Misato , Akeda Yukihiro , Ohnishi Makoto 
Published: January 2025

Abstract

Background
It has been suggested that the emergence of ceftriaxone-resistant strains of Neisseria gonorrhoeae involves the incorporation of the penA gene from commensal Neisseria spp that are resistant to ceftriaxone. However, the mechanism of this mosaic penA generation is unknown.

Methods
We obtained 10 strains of commensal Neisseria spp showing ceftriaxone minimum inhibitory concentration ≥0.5 mg/L. The similarity of the penA gene region of these commensal Neisseria spp strains and some ceftriaxone-resistant N. gonorrhoeae strains was investigated. To obtain transformants, a commensal Neisseria spp, Neisseria lactamica, genomic DNA was used as donor DNA and a N. gonorrhoeae strain as the recipient.

Results
The sequence similarity in certain regions of penA-murE between some of the commensal Neisseria spp strains and the N. gonorrhoeae FC428 strain was very high. The sequence of these regions was very similar among some ceftriaxone-resistant strains of Neisseria spp. The PenA of the transformants matched the full PenA60 of the original FC428 strain. Furthermore, our findings indicated that the source of resistance could have been a penA fragment derived from Neisseria spp that originally carried the same sequence.

Conclusions
We suggest that FC428 developed ceftriaxone resistance by acquiring part of the penA–murE gene region from N. lactamica through horizontal gene transfer. The ceftriaxone-resistant N. lactamica in this study may also have emerged by acquiring part of penA from other Neisseria spp. Our data provide insights into the understanding of the mechanism underlying the evolution of drug-resistant gonorrhea-causing strains.
Assessing the role of Alnus nepalensis D. Don in stabilizing landslide and its potential distribution: a case study from Uttarakhand, Western Himalaya
Authors: Dwivedi Sanjay Kumar , Chandra Naveen , Mishra Arun Pratap , Bahuguna Sonam , Srivastava Aman , Arya Dhani , Singh Gajendra , Đurin Bojan , Kranjčić Nikola , Singh Raj 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
The rising frequency and severity of landslides in the vulnerable Himalayan region of India threaten human settlements and critical infrastructure. This growing issue demands urgent action and innovative strategies to mitigate risks and bolster the resilience of affected communities and infrastructure in this fragile area. The research explores the use of Alnus nepalensis for slope stabilization, illustrated by a case study near Ukhimath, Uttarakhand, India, and elucidates the potential ecological niche of Alnus in the temperate region of Uttarakhand using well-dispersed species occurrence records along with environment. The study used Sentinel-2 (2021) data for land use and land cover (LULC) mapping and Landsat 4-5, Sentinel-2, and Google Earth imagery from 1998, 2004, 2015, 2019, and 2020 for landslide slope recovery assessment. The Ukhimath landslide, spanning 54.61 ha in August 1998, demonstrated a remarkable recovery, with 98.20% coverage of Alnus by 2020, showcasing the species efficacy in stabilizing slopes without human intervention. The research forecasts a total potential distribution area of Alnus in the temperate region (1,000–2,500 m·asl [above mean sea level]) of Uttarakhand as ∼7,833 km2, with 782.30  km2 highly suitable, 2,104.33  km2 moderately suitable, and the rest showing low suitability. These distribution insights provide a foundation for in situ planning to leverage Alnus-based bioengineering for early slope stabilization, which is especially relevant in landslide-prone areas like Uttarakhand. The study provides a comprehensive and scientifically rigorous strategy for achieving sustainable outcomes in landslide-prone areas, particularly in the lower temperate region of the Himalaya.
Assessing the sustainable development in the European Union: influence of municipal waste, industrial waste, and waste related patents
Authors: Karlilar Pata Selin , Pata Ugur Korkut 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
Waste has emerged as a pressing concern for the environment, primarily stemming from the processes of urbanization and industrialization. The substantial volumes of waste generated pose a serious threat to the environment, as they spread out harmful substances in the soil and release methane emissions into the atmosphere. To effectively address this issue, this study explores the impact of municipal and industrial waste, as well as waste-related innovation on the load capacity factor (LCF) from 2005 to 2020. For this purpose, the augmented mean group method and the half panel jackknife causality approach were conducted by using panel data from 17 European countries. The empirical findings show that (1) the load capacity curve (LCC) hypothesis is confirmed; (2) municipal and industrial waste have a detrimental effect on the LCF; and (3) innovation in waste management practices have no discernible impact on the LCF. In light of these findings, this study emphasizes the importance of efficient waste management for European countries to exploit the potential of waste as a valuable resource rather than a cause of pollution.
Freshwater ecotoxicity characterization factors for PFASs
Authors: Aggarwal Rahul 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
This research aims to address the data gaps in freshwater ecotoxicological characterization factors (CFs) for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs). These CFs are essential for incorporating the ecotoxicity impacts of PFAS emissions into life cycle assessments (LCAs). This study has three primary objectives: first, to calculate a comprehensive set of experimental aquatic ecotoxicity CFs for PFASs utilizing the USEtox model (version 2.13); second, to compare these newly derived CFs with those generated using the PFAS-adapted USEtox model; and finally, to test the hypothesis concerning a potential correlation between CFs and effect factors (EFs) with the number of perfluorinated carbons in PFASs. In this study, 367 PFASs were selected from the CompTox Chemicals Dashboard PFAS suspect lists and REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) registration dossiers. Experimental ecotoxicity data were extracted from CompTox Version 2.1.1 and REACH. Using both the USEtox model (version 2.13) and the PFAS-adapted USEtox model, CFs were calculated for 367 PFASs. Of these, 237 CFs were newly calculated using the HC20EC10eq-based methodology, enriching the representation of PFASs in LCA studies. The analysis revealed no correlation between the number of perfluorinated carbons and the calculated EFs and CFs using the USEtox models. This study covers only a small portion of the extensive list of millions of PFASs in PubChem, primarily due to data constraints and scarcity. Discrepancies between CFs generated by USEtox and PFAS-adapted USEtox are attributed to variations in foundational fate and exposure factor calculation methodologies, whereas ecotoxicity factors remained consistent. Consequently, it is suggested that CFs for PFASs are dependent on the modeling approach and require regular updates with the latest data to ensure accuracy and relevance.
Health risk assessment and Sobol’ sensitivity analysis of power plant air pollution (SO2 and NOX): the effect of power plant fuel change
Authors: Fouladi-Fard Reza , Naddafi Kazem , Hosseini Mohammad Reza , Yunesian Masud , Nabizadeh Nodehi Ramin , Dehghani Mohammad Hadi , Hassanvand Mohammad Sadegh , Dehabadi Monireh , Fiore Maria , Rezaei Rahimi Nayereh , Rajabi Saeed 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
This study aimed to evaluate the concentrations of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOX) around the Qom (a province in Iran) combined cycle power plant in relation to seasonal variations and fuel type from December 2014 to May 2015. Passive sampling was used in three monitoring sites around the power plant to assess noncarcinogenic health risks associated with exposure to SO2 and NOX. Results showed the higher concentrations of NOX and SO2 in winter than in spring. The highest concentrations of NOX in winter (when power plants used gasoil) and spring (when power plants used gas fuel) were 52.70 ± 21.70/52.70 ± 13.20 and 22.10 ± 7.00 µg/m3. Similarly, the highest concentrations of SO2 in winter and spring were 5.00 ± 0.20 and 3.90 ± 0.70 µg/m3. There was a moderately significant correlation between NOx and SO2 concentrations when the power plant consumed gasoil (Spearman rho coefficient, 0.68, p &lt; .05). A significant difference was observed between gas concentration and fuel type (p &lt; .05). The hazard quotient values for SO2 exposure were below 1 for all age groups, whereas those for NOx were above 1 for infants and children. The hazard index for NOX was above 1, indicating an unacceptable risk to human health. Sobol’ sensitivity analysis identified the inhalation rate and NOX concentration as the most significant factors determining the noncarcinogenic risks across age groups. In conclusion, the use of gasoil by power plants increases the emission of pollutants, thereby raising the health risks for residents in these regions, particularly vulnerable demographics like children. Therefore, prioritizing air quality management such as using cleaner fuels and emission control technologies in power plants as well as continuous air quality monitoring are of utmost importance.
Is it worth implementing the Blue Sky Defense Battle initiative? A cost-benefit analysis of the Chengdu case
Authors: Li Suli , Wu Dan , Liu Li , Yang Lu , Wang Yining , Cao Shuhui , Jin Yana 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
To mitigate air pollution, China began implementing its Three-Year Action Plan for Winning the Blue Sky Defense Battle in 2018. The rapid decline in the annual average concentration of particulate matter PM2.5 raised the authors’ interest in the cost efficiency of the implementation of the action plan. Taking Chengdu as an example, this study assesses the costs and benefits of the implementation of the Action Plan by investigating the direct abatement costs, the change of PM2.5-related disease burdens, and the resulting health benefits. The results show that the abatement costs of air pollution in Chengdu amounted to 8.77 billion yuan from 2018 to 2020, the number of beneficiaries over three years could reach 353,546, and the health benefits amounted to 9.79 billion yuan. The health benefit outweighs the abatement cost. Furthermore, among the abatement measures, the cost of transportation infrastructure development accounted for 92.83% in the total. Considering its co-benefit of industry development and CO2 abatement, the true benefits should far outweigh the costs. The Monte Carlo simulation further confirms the economic efficiency of the Three-Year Action Plan. Although the direct costs of the Action Plan are significant, the marginal health benefits of further alleviating PM2.5 may still be greater than the marginal costs, because the population is large and densely distributed in Chengdu. Actions on improving air quality still have the potential to further unlock health benefits for large cities like Chengdu.
It has not always been like this: public opinion of climate change in Port Harcourt, Nigeria
Authors: Echendu Adaku Jane 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
Climate change is affecting weather and climate extremes globally. It has been a subject of debate and controversy leading to the emergence of climate deniers and skeptics. It is a subject of great relevance because of its wide-ranging impacts on socioeconomic and natural systems. This necessitates long-term strategic decisions and response measures. There is a gap between the general public and the scientific community in terms of their awareness, understanding, and perception of climate change. Responding to the global climate crisis requires different actions at various levels, including individual. However, the manner in which the public and societies at large act in response to climate change is dependent on their perceptions and beliefs of climate change. This makes understanding the common opinion on climate change salient. There is an overrepresentation of climate change public opinion research in western nations in comparison with developing countries. This work thus contributes to filling this gap by engaging with members of the public who experience flooding in Nigeria to understand their perceptions and opinions on climate change. Qualitative research was carried out with focus group interviews and semistructured one-on-one interviews as primary data collection tools. The research findings indicate that there is a consensus that climate change is occurring, as evidenced by changes in weather patterns over the years. However, there were differences in opinion among the participants on how it was presenting. This work thus yields key insights on the level of awareness of the climate phenomena in a developing African city. Knowledge of climate change can encourage the public to engage more with the climate crisis, act in their own way, and even mobilize to influence and support government policies towards mitigating climate change.
Managing the risks of emerging contaminants—establishing a national strategy guided by Indigenous perspectives
Authors: Sevicke Jones Graham , Ataria James M , Baker Virginia , Northcott Grant L , Brooks Bryan W , Horswell Jacqui , Stewart Michael , Tremblay Louis A 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
Chemicals play an important role in maintaining our quality of life. Unfortunately, inappropriate chemicals and waste management result in the accumulation of contaminants in our environment that pose a risk to exposed biota and humans. Being cognizant of Indigenous knowledge and values within the management of chemicals and waste represent key components of environmental justice, but they are not being included in current global programs. Here, we describe the process leading to the development of an independent and nonpartisan national strategy to manage emerging contaminants in New Zealand that is reflective of Māori cultural perspectives. An inclusive partnership-based approach was used to capture a broad selection of views and perspectives to provide opportunities to engage with representatives from a range of sectors including scientists, members of the wider community, and Māori partners for the development of the strategy. A series of workshops was held over several years that helped refine the strategy document to ensure that it was fit for purpose with a clear implementation pathway to maximize uptake and achieve the inspirational shared vision. This initiative highlighted the need to invest significant time and effort up front to develop strong relationships across sectors required for success. All parties involved must operate with respect to ensure that advantages and reciprocity of all knowledge systems are recognized and valued to achieve objectives for chemical sustainability.
Children’s health impact in a smelter site area in China: modeling approaches for the identification and ranking of the most relevant lead exposure routes
Authors: Giubilato Elisa , Menegozzo Manola , Li Peizhong , Cheng Hongguang , Marcomini Antonio , Duan Xiaoli , Critto Andrea , Lin Chunye 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
Elevated blood lead levels (BLLs) in children still represent a major public health problem worldwide. In China, children’s lead (Pb) exposure assessment constitutes a priority issue for research, also due to the scarce availability of human biomonitoring data and limited detailed exposure assessments outside urban areas. This work aims to analyze children’s health impact by exploiting exposure modeling approaches to identify the most relevant Pb sources and exposure routes for 0–7-year-old children in a historical Pb–Zn smelter site in Yunnan province (southwestern China), characterized by heavy environmental pollution conditions. For this purpose, two exposure modeling tools, the Integrated Exposure Uptake Bio-Kinetic and MERLIN-Expo, were applied, using measured Pb concentrations in environmental media and food items from a local field campaign as input data. Simulated BLLs, including probabilistic estimates, were obtained and verified against real biomonitoring data from the literature. Model results for the simulated exposure scenario indicate significantly high children’s BLLs (&gt;10 µg/dl), which reflect the elevated Pb concentrations measured in environmental matrices and are mostly in agreement with previous biomonitoring data from the region. Moreover, soil and dust ingestion resulted to be the dominant exposure pathway, contributing more than 70% to the overall Pb exposure in children in all investigated scenarios. This work showed how tools for internal exposure modeling can contribute to Pb exposure assessment as complementary tools to demanding and invasive biomonitoring studies and can help identify priority exposure routes for improving risk management.
Examination of spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of carbon emission and influencing factors in territorial spatial functional areas: a case study of the mountainous city Chongqing
Authors: Chen Juntao , Hu Lang , Sun Changhui , Fan Yueyue , Zhou Xing , He Yu , Su Xinyue , Wang Yuanping , Hou Lingchun , Ma Weiwen 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
The rapid development of China's economy and the acceleration of the urbanization process have led to a significant increase in carbon emissions, and more effective policies are urgently needed. As the first city in China to be approved for the overall master plan of territorial space, Chongqing is facing new opportunities in urban construction. This research constructed a classification system of the territorial space functional areas in Chongqing (CQ-TSFA) and matched the corresponding carbon emission and carbon sequestration projects. Under this classification system, the spatial-temporal evolution characteristics of its carbon emissions have been examined, and the main influencing factors have been investigated based on the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology (STIRPAT) model. This study draws the following conclusions: (1) from 2000 to 2020, the carbon emissions of CQ-TSFA increased from 48.87 million tons to 148.05 million tons; (2) the main expansion areas of urban living sub-areas are the central urban area and the vicinity of the seats of various district and county governments. The main expansion areas of the urban production sub-areas are the edges of the central urban area around the Yangtze River Basin within Chongqing, including many industrial parks; and (3) the contributions to carbon emissions in descending order are economic development effect, carbon emission intensity of CQ-TSFA, and population size effect, and the utilization rate of CQ-TSFA plays a strong inhibitory role. Finally, based on these conclusions, this article puts forward some policy suggestions to address the challenges of carbon emissions to provide references for promoting the sustainable development of Chongqing and the whole country.
Assessing bioaccumulation with biomagnification factors from dietary bioaccumulation tests
Authors: Gobas Frank A P C , Berg Nicole M , Redman Aaron D , Parkerton Thomas , Camenzuli Louise 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
Despite the fact that the UN Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants specifically acknowledges that Arctic ecosystems and Indigenous communities are particularly at risk due to biomagnification of contaminants in traditional foods, the bioconcentration factor (BCF) of substances in fish remains the preferred metric for identifying the biomagnification potential of organic substances. The BCF measures uptake of substances from water in water-breathing organisms, but not biomagnification of contaminants from food sources. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the biomagnification factor (BMF) can be used in bioaccumulation assessments. To address this question, data from dietary and aqueous bioaccumulation studies in fish were compiled for a wide range of substances in fish to (i) investigate the potential correlation between the BCF and the BMF for the same substance in the same fish species and (ii) investigate computational methods for deriving both the BMF and BCF from the results of empirical dietary bioaccumulation tests. The analysis concludes that (i) empirical correlations between the BCF and BMF are of limited use for bioaccumulation assessment; (ii) dietary bioaccumulation test results can be used for bioaccumulation screening; and supports the use of both the BMF and the BCF for assessing the bioaccumulation potential of substances in water-breathing organisms.
Partisanship, Military Constituencies, and District Competitiveness: Explaining Congressional Opposition to the International Criminal Court
Authors: Reed Kyle , Broache M P 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
In May 2020, bipartisan groups of US representatives and senators joined public letters criticizing the International Criminal Court (ICC) after it opened an investigation in Afghanistan and moved toward opening an investigation in Palestine. Why did some members of Congress join these letters, while others did not? This paper develops and tests a theory focusing on two factors to address this question: partisanship and the interaction between electoral competitiveness and military constituencies. First, building on literature identifying partisan differences in attitudes toward the ICC and international organizations more generally, we first expect that Democrats should have been less likely to sign these letters. However, partisanship is insufficient to explain intraparty variation among Democrats in joining these letters. To this end, we propose that Democrats representing electorally competitive constituencies with a significant military presence should have been more likely to join these letters in order to appeal to military voters with concerns about ICC prosecutions targeting US military personnel in Afghanistan (and elsewhere). We test this theory with respect to the House letter, and we find evidence supporting our hypotheses. We also find that representatives of districts with substantial Jewish populations were more likely to join the letter, which also called for action to protect Israeli nationals from prosecution in the situation in Palestine. These findings provide insight into not only individual representatives’ positions on the ICC but also the role of partisanship and sources of bipartisan agreement on US foreign policy.