The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has pushed the medical system to its breaking point. While the virus does not discriminate, the elderly and those with comorbidities, including hypertension severe obesity, diabetes mellitus, coronary disease, pneumonia and dementia, are at a greater risk for adverse outcomes due to COVID-19. While many people navigate their new normal, the question of what the long-lasting effects of the pandemic may be, lingers.
Elsevier, Behavioural Brain Research, Volume 414, 24 September 2021
Rho-associated coiled-coil kinase (ROCK), a serine/threonine kinase regulated by the small GTPase RhoA, is involved in regulating cell migration, proliferation, and survival. Numerous studies have shown that the RhoA/ROCK signaling pathway can promote Alzheimer's disease (AD) occurrence. ROCK activation increases β-secretase activity and promotes amyloid-beta (Aβ) production; moreover, Aβ further activates ROCK. This is suggestive of a possible positive feedback role for Aβ and ROCK. Moreover, ROCK activation promotes the formation of neurofibrillary tangles and abnormal synaptic contraction.
Aquatic foods are increasingly being recognized as having an important role to play in an environmentally sustainable and nutritionally sufficient food system. Proposals for increasing aquatic food production often center around species, environments, and ambitious hi-tech solutions that mainly will benefit the 16% of the global population living in high-income countries.
Agriculture is fundamental to all three pillars of sustainability, environment, society, and economy. However, the definition of sustainable agriculture and the capacities to measure it remain elusive. Independent and transparent measurements of national sustainability are needed to gauge progress, encourage accountability, and inform policy. Here, we developed a Sustainable Agriculture Matrix (SAM) to quantify national performance indicators in agriculture and to investigate the trade-offs and synergies based on historical data for most countries of the world.
Elsevier, One Earth, Volume 4, 17 September 2021
Coral reefs worldwide are facing impacts from climate change, overfishing, habitat destruction, and pollution. The cumulative effect of these impacts on global capacity of coral reefs to provide ecosystem services is unknown. Here, we evaluate global changes in extent of coral reef habitat, coral reef fishery catches and effort, Indigenous consumption of coral reef fishes, and coral-reef-associated biodiversity. Global coverage of living coral has declined by half since the 1950s.
The development of next-generation meat analogues can be accelerated by in-depth knowledge of the rheological properties of dense biopolymer blends. Blends comprising plant proteins such as pea protein isolate or soy protein isolate combined with wheat gluten can be used to create a wide range of structures. The objective of this study is to demonstrate the use of texture maps to systematically show the rheological properties of plant proteins under conditions relevant to processing of meat analogue products.
The accessibility concept provides a suitable framework for the achievement of sustainable land use and transport systems. Environmental and climate concerns have gained particular relevance among sustainability goals in recent years, thus reshaping political agendas all over the world. Against this background, this paper explores the practical relevance of accessibility instruments for low carbon mobility planning.
Elsevier, Sustainable Energy, Grids and Networks, Volume 27, September 2021
Renewable energies have been discussed as the main efficient solution for solving many issues regarding climate change. Statistics said that the share of the building sector is very high in excessive use of fossil fuels. This study aimed to utilize the natural wind to create optimal natural ventilation to achieve thermal comfort of the indoor environment through the best layout and placement of residential blocks, creating proper distance between blocks and orienting blocks properly inside a residential complex site in a summery humid climate.
Elsevier, Sustainable Cities and Society, Volume 72, September 2021
Urban areas are critical in accomplishing the clean energy transition and meeting the climate goals in the Paris Agreement. The first part of this paper presents a systematic review of scientific publications on zero emission neighbourhoods, positive energy districts and similar concepts of climate friendly neighbourhoods (CFN). The second lists a selection of CFN definitions of public initiatives and research projects. The aim is to identify focus areas, research gaps and future research possibilities.
Elsevier,
Global Environmental Change, Volume 70, September 2021
The purpose of the present paper is to disentangle the mechanisms that connect climate change-induced disasters, inequality and vulnerability by accounting for both directions of causality. We do so by means of a simultaneous equations approach on a panel of 149 countries from 1992 to 2018. The empirical analysis reveals that countries with higher levels of income inequality suffer greater damages when hit by a natural disaster. At the same time, inequality is found to increase the number of people affected by disasters.
