Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences

CoPc achieved >80% defluorination at 30 °C and >30% at 10 °C, highlighting the potential of molecular template engineering as a biomimetic strategy for groundwater remediation and for overcoming C-F activation and metal-center deactivation.

exhibiting a resilience strategy. This is critical knowledge to understand the biological responses of these species and to inform future conservation strategies.

BACKGROUND: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a growing public health problem globally, and in Malaysia. Orang Asli, the Indigenous population in Peninsular Malaysia, often experience a disproportionate burden of diabetes, driven by social disadvantage, lifestyle transitions, and limited access to healthcare. Given that no nationwide diabetes assessment has been conducted among this under-represented group, this study therefore aimed to determine the prevalence of diabetes and its associated factors among Orang Asli adults in Peninsular Malaysia. METHODS: The Orang Asli Health Survey (OAHS) 2022 was a nationwide cross-sectional survey with a complex sampling design conducted among Orang Asli adults living in non-institutional households across nine states of Peninsular Malaysia. A two-stage stratified sampling strategy was used, with locality (urban, fringe, remote) as the primary stratum and tribe (Senoi, Proto-Malay, Negrito) as the secondary stratum. Data were collected using structured interviewer-administered questionnaires and standardised clinical measurements. Diabetes was defined as self-reported physician-diagnosed diabetes or fasting blood glucose ≥7.0 mmol/L. Descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and multiple logistic regression were performed using SPSS Version 20, accounting for the complex survey design. The adjusted odds ratios (AORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were reported. RESULTS: A total of 9,206 Orang Asli adults participated in the diabetes module. The overall prevalence of diabetes was 16.1% (95% CI: 14.3-17.9). Diabetes prevalence was higher among the females (16.8%), those aged ≥60 years (28.1%), urban residents (21.1%), Proto-Malay (18.8%) and Senoi (14.0%) tribes, participants with no formal or incomplete primary education (19.1%), those with monthly household income ≥RM2000 (21.2%), obese individuals (21.1%), respondents with hypertension (24.2%) and those with high total cholesterol (21.7%). In multivariable analysis, diabetes was significantly associated with age 40-59 years (AOR 1.64; 95% CI: 1.35-1.99) and ≥60 years (AOR 2.14; 95% CI: 1.40-3.28), urban (AOR 1.73; 95% CI: 1.07-2.79) and fringe (AOR 1.63; 95% CI: 1.13-2.35) localities, Senoi (AOR 1.70; 95% CI: 1.08-2.68) and Proto-Malay (AOR 2.41; 95% CI: 1.50-3.86) tribes, incomplete primary education (AOR 1.28; 95% CI: 1.02-1.60), household income ≥RM2000 (AOR 1.47; 95% CI: 1.12-1.93), hypertension (AOR 1.42; 95% CI: 1.03-1.95) and hypercholesterolemia (AOR 2.17; 95% CI: 1.70-2.76). CONCLUSIONS: Diabetes is common among Orang Asli adults in Peninsular Malaysia. Older age, urban and fringe residence, specific tribal groups, lower education, higher income, hypertension, and hypercholesterolaemia were associated with diabetes. These findings highlight the need for culturally appropriate diabetes prevention, screening, and management strategies tailored to Orang Asli communities, particularly for the elder subgroup and those living in urbanised settings.

A novel circular-T-attachment (CTA) oscillator is proposed to improve the oscillation response and energy-harvesting performance. This combined section is designed to change the boundary layer separation and avoid vortex reattachment, effectively enhancing energy conversion in the galloping branch. Results indicate that in the vortex-induced vibration (VIV) branch, the harvested fluid energy increases with reduced velocity. As system damping increases, the oscillatory response transitions from soft galloping (SG) to hard galloping (HG), indicating a progressive weakening of the self-excited transition to galloping. Within the tested parameter range, the galloping branch provided the most favorable energy-conversion performance. The maximum amplitude ratio reached 2.43, while the maximum active power and energy conversion efficiency (ECE) reached 19.3 W and 26.2%, respectively. Compared with a conventional triangular prism oscillator at the same reduced velocity, the proposed CTA oscillator achieved increases of 9.29 W in active power and 12.59 percentage points in energy conversion efficiency. These results clarify the flow-induced response mechanism of the circular-T-attachment oscillator and provide new insights for improving the performance and expanding the application range of flow-induced motion energy conversion systems (FIMECSs).

Correction on: Pearson CF, DiBlasio M, Creveling E, Keller DH, Vile J, Allen MC and Styler Barry B (2026) Long-term monitoring to quantify the success of river restoration through dam removal in the Paulins Kill NJ, USA. Front. Ecol. Evol. 14:1771839. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2026.1771839 Adding/removing text [Incorrect numbers were used for in-text table reference]. A correction has been made to the section [Methods, Fishes, Quantifying stream quality for fishes, Paragraph 2]: "[We also quantified the water quality suitability for resident fish, such as trout, by comparing temperature and DO values at the sites to New Jersey's state surface water quality standards (SWQS) for FW2 waters (NJDEP, Division of Fish and Wildlife, 2005a; Table 1). FW2 is the general surface water classification for New Jersey waters that are not classified as FW1 or Pinelands Waters (Freshwater Wetlands Protection Act Rules, 2022). FW2 waters are then further classified according to their suitability for supporting trout (NJDEP, Division of Fish and Wildlife, 2005a; Table 1). The section of the Paulins Kill that was influenced by the Columbia Dam is classified as FW2-trout maintenance (TM; NJDEP, Division of Fish and Wildlife, 2005b). Therefore, we analyzed the percentage of days that minimal standards for TM were not met during June-August as a proxy for habitat quality at a site (calculated as 100 times the number of days exceeding or subceeding the threshold over the total number of days sampled; Supplementary Table S3). Only June-August were included in this comparison as those months were sampled consistently in each year of the study. For temperature, a linear model was run with percentage of days not meeting the threshold as the dependent variable, and site (TNC_23, TNC_25), stage of removal (before, during, after), and discharge rate as independent variables (α = 0.05). Days subceeding the DO threshold were analyzed qualitatively, as the threshold was not subceeded in all years.]"Last Name author1 et al.The original version of this article has been updated.Adding/removing text [Incorrect numbers were used for in-text table reference].A correction has been made to the section [Results, Fishes, Migratory Fishes, Paragraph 1]:"[American eel densities were notably higher downstream of the dam when compared to upstream of the dam during the pre-removal period (Table 2). During the pre-dam removal period (2015-2017), mean CPUE of American eel downstream of the dam ranged from 42.7-46.3 per 50 m, while upstream sites ranged from 0-2.5 per 50 m (Figure 6; Table 2). In the first-year post-removal, American eel densities at the downstream site dropped to 8.0 per 50 m (2019). Also in 2019, upstream sites showed modest increases in density. There were significant and perfectly increasing monotonic trends in eel CPUE for TNC_25, TNC_16, and TNC_19 following dam removal (2019-2023; Tau = 1.0, p = 0.083, n = 4; Figure 6). TNC_23 also exhibited a perfectly increasing monotonic trend, but significance testing was not performed due to low sample size (n = 3). Additionally, there were apparent differences in American eel size structure between the downstream and upstream sites before and after dam removal (Figure 7). Pre-removal, the downstream site (TNC_25) contained the largest proportion of the modal length for the study area, i.e. most of the small American eel (Figure 7). Pre-removal, the downstream site had modal values that ranged from 13-15 cm (14 cm in 2015, 13 cm in 2016, and 15 cm in 2017), distributions that were skewed to the right, and the upstream sites were comprised mostly of longer American eel (Figure 7). The size-structure of eels at the downstream site (TNC_25) significantly changed when comparing pre and during removal (2015-2018) to post-removal (2019-2023; t130.5 -7.44, p = < 0.001), with the mean length being higher in the post-removal stages (pre and during removal mean length = 17.25 cm, post-removal mean = 24.65 cm). Comparatively, upstream sites TNC_23 and TNC_16 showed significant changes in size structures (TNC_23 t4.38 = 3.39, p = 0.02, TNC_16 t10.24 = 2.95, p = 0.01), but lengths decreased (TNC_23 pre and during removal mean length = 46.96 cm, post-removal mean = 23.08 cm, TNC_25 pre and during removal mean = 45.86 cm, post-removal mean = 28.76 cm). Notably, the uppermost site (TNC_19) provided the largest proportion of small American eel to the overall length-frequency for post-removal (2019-2023). While mean lengths at TNC_19 were not significantly different in relation to dam removal stage (t12.65 1.00, p = 0.33), smaller eels were more consistently caught between years (Figure 7), compared to the majority of the pre-removal small (<15 cm) eels being caught in 2016 (n = 8 out of 9). Total length across all years and sites ranged from 10.4-80.5 cm.]"The original version of this article has been updated.

Rapid urbanization, untreated wastewater, and fragmented governance have generated major sustainability challenges in the Río Blanco watershed, located in Zapopan. This study applied the Hydrology–Environment–Life–Policy (HELP) framework integrated with the Watershed Sustainability Index (WSI) to evaluate hydrological conditions, environmental integrity, human wellbeing, and governance performance within the basin. Data were compiled from official governmental reports and statistics, interviews with federal, state, and municipal authorities, and spatial analyses conducted in ArcGIS Pro. Indicators included land-use change, per capita water availability, and Human Development Index (HDI) sub-indicators across multiple periods up to 2020. The watershed obtained a WSI score of 0.33, indicating critically low sustainability. This result was primarily associated with poor water quality, inadequate wastewater treatment infrastructure operating at approximately 5% capacity, alongside weak institutional coordination. Average BOD concentrations reached 156 mg/L, a level comparable to untreated domestic wastewater. Rapid urbanization was also associated with a 79% increase in BOD 5 levels, an 8.84% decrease in per capita water availability, and a 19% reduction in natural vegetation cover. The adapted HELP–WSI framework proved a useful and replicable decision-support tool for urban watershed assessment. These findings highlight the urgent need for improved governance, stronger stakeholder coordination, and strategic investment in decentralized wastewater treatment infrastructure to support sustainable urban watershed management.

Forests and tree species provide vital resources and ecosystem services, but unsustainable use and disturbances have degraded their ecological integrity. This study assessed forest dynamics in the Elnour Natural Forest Reserve (ENFR) by analyzing species composition, diversity, and natural regeneration in 229 sample plots (1,000 m 2 each) during 2008 and 2021. Over a 13-year period, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test revealed significant temporal changes in several forest structural and regeneration attributes between 2008 and 2021. Tree species decreased from 35 to 19 species and the number of families from 12 to 8. The Fabaceae and Combretaceae remained dominant by contributing over 55% of the species composition. Additionally, mean tree density declined significantly ( W = 582, Z = 4.37, p &amp;lt; 0.0001) resulting significant decrease in basal area ( W = 310.50, Z = 3.97, p &amp;lt; 0.0001) during this period. Sapling density also differed significantly ( W = 328, Z = 2.38, p = 0.017) between the two inventory periods. However, no discernable variation ( W = 11, Z = 0.80, p = 0.418) was observed in seedling density between 2008 and 2021. Relative frequency analysis revealed decline in formerly dominant species, including Vachellia seyal (14.58 to 14.48%) and Senegalia senegal (7.76 to 4.83%) while an increase in disturbance-tolerant shrubs such as Vachellia oerfota var. oerfota (0.17 to 10.09%) and Senegalia mellifera (0.67 to 2.41%). Regeneration status showed marked variation with a fewer species showing good regeneration while many species exhibiting no regeneration, indicating severe recruitment bottlenecks during this 13-year period. The findings highlight an urgent need for targeted conservation measures, sustainable forest management, and assisted regeneration to restore ecological integrity and maintain biodiversity in rapidly degrading dryland forest landscapes of Sudan.

For autonomous maritime perception and situational awareness, the end-to-end multi-object tracking paradigm has achieved complete learning, from image sequences to tracking results, reducing the reliance on manually designed association rules and holding great potential. However, in maritime radar video multi-object tracking, due to the limited visual features of targets and significant feature variations under long-term tracking, problems such as identity switching are prone to occur, making it difficult to directly apply existing end-to-end approaches. To solve these problems, this paper proposes a trajectory-aware end-to-end multi-object tracking method. The real-time trajectory of the targets contains temporal context information. This work uses it as prior knowledge to enhance visual feature encoding and compensate for the shortcomings of single-frame visual features. Specifically, the trajectory feature is encoded by the trajectory encoder module while, simultaneously, the visual features are encoded through the backbone and the visual feature encoder module. Then, in the frame-trajectory cross-modal attention module, the trajectory feature encoding is used to reconstruct the visual feature encoding with cross-attention, dynamically enhancing the features related to the target identity. Experiments on actual collected maritime radar video data show that the proposed method is effective, achieving improvements in several key indicators.

Abstract. The Hengduan Mountains (HDM) constitute one of the world's richest biodiversity regions and are designated as a top-tier priority for ecological conservation. Vegetation investigation can help with the design and implementation of biodiversity conservation in this region. Here we present the HDM-Plot, a plot-based vegetation dataset compiled from 314 plots surveyed during four campaigns between 2022 and 2024 across the Hengduan Mountains and adjacent regions, across major vegetation types from lowland dry-hot valleys to alpine areas spanning altitudes of 754–4932 m. Each plot records detailed species-level information, including scientific name, growth form, life form, number of individuals or clumps, plant height, diameter at breast height or at base, crown width, and coverage, along with geographic coordinates and hierarchical vegetation classification. In total, the dataset comprises 14 113 individual records belonging to 1127 species from 379 genera and 117 families. The dominant families are Rosaceae (133 species), Ericaceae (93), Fabaceae (66), Asteraceae (63), and Fagaceae (37), and the dominant genera are Rhododendron (75), Berberis (34), Cotoneaster (30), Salix (24), and Quercus (22), with composition varying among vegetation types. Growth forms are mainly composed of shrubs (46.0 %), trees (27.3 %), and herbs (23.6 %). Herbs are dominated by perennial (92.1 %), shrubs are mainly deciduous broadleaf (59.7 %), and trees are primarily deciduous broadleaf (46.8 %) and evergreen broadleaf (41.6 %). Species richness, growth forms, and life forms show clear elevational changes within the HDM-Plot dataset. Floristically, genus-level areal-types in the HDM-Plot dataset are dominated by temperate elements (54.1 %), followed by tropical elements (35.4 %). 314 plots can be assigned to three vegetation formation groups, 18 vegetation formations, 142 alliance groups, 209 alliances, 238 association groups, and 299 associations. The HDM-Plot dataset provides an updated and standardized baseline for quantitative analyses of mountain vegetation, biodiversity assessment, and vegetation classification and mapping in southwestern China. Such information can be future used in the revisions of China's vegetation classification scheme and Vegegraphy of China. The dataset is available from Figshare (Jin et al., 2026a; https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.32706207) and through the National Tibetan Plateau/Third Pole Environment Data Center (Jin et al., 2026b; https://doi.org/10.11888/Terre.tpdc.303394).

This study investigates the age and growth of the blackspot seabream in the north-western Ionian Sea (Central Mediterranean). An accurate study on determining age is necessary to provide useful information for understanding population dynamics and to perform stock assessments which are essential for the scientific and prudent management of fisheries. Using data sets from two habitats (flat muddy bottoms and heterogeneous cold-water coral and canyon habitats) and comparing three different methodologies: one direct (otolith reading) and two indirect methods (back calculation and Modal Progression Analysis), was possible to obtain a more robust age estimate. A total of 1023 specimens of blackspot seabream were collected from muddy bottoms at depths of 13-695 m, and 60 individuals were caught in the cold-water coral and canyon habitats between 183 and 612 m depth. The length-frequency distributions of P. bogaraveo showed a polymodal pattern in both habitats explored, with small to medium-sized individuals caught on flat muddy bottoms and larger ones in cold-water coral and canyon habitats. The maximum age estimated by reading otoliths was 9 years for an individual of 347 mm TL and no significant difference was observed comparing the three age-length keys. Consequently, the three methods provided consistent results confirming the same growth pattern. The growth curves were comparable among methods, with no significant difference observed: otolith readings: L ∞ 459 mm, k=0.12 year -1 , t 0 =-1.68 years; back calculation method L ∞ 412 mm, k=0.14 year -1 , t 0 =-1.20 years; MPA L ∞ 339 mm, k=0.20 years -1 , t 0 =-1.20 years. These results suggest slow growth in accordance with what has already been observed in other areas of the Mediterranean Sea. These insights provide key elements to support the development of more effective and sustainable fisheries management strategies, especially in this case for which data for stock assessments are insufficient or absent.

Lung cancer lesion segmentation in two-dimensional computed tomography (2D CT) images remains challenging due to blurred boundaries, heterogeneous morphologies, and annotation uncertainty, leading to unreliable delineations and reduced clinical usability. To address this research gap, we propose a novel 2D CT lung cancer semantic segmentation framework, OncoSeg2D, which explicitly tackles boundary ambiguity and morphological distortion through two complementary modules. Specifically, an Uncertainty-aware Boundary Modeling (UBM) module probabilistically represents tumor edges via learnable mean-variance estimation and gradient-weighted sampling, while a Morphology-Preserving Regularization (MPR) module constrains the segmentation with curvature, compactness, and convexity priors to maintain global shape consistency. The framework integrates these designs with multi-scale feature extraction from a SegFormer backbone and requires no additional annotations or three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction. Experiments conducted on the Medical Segmentation Decathlon Challenge dataset and the lung cancer segmentation dataset demonstrate that OncoSeg2D achieves IoU scores of 0.865 and 0.788, mIoU scores of 0.881 and 0.799, and Dice Similarity Coefficients (DSC) of 0.923 and 0.816, consistently outperforming conventional CNN-based models and mainstream Transformer-based methods. Compared with the SegFormer baseline, the proposed method improves mIoU by 3.8% and 4.0% on the two datasets, respectively, while reducing the Hausdorff distance from 5.61 to 3.41 and from 7.26 to 5.28, indicating superior boundary refinement and stronger global shape consistency. These results verify that explicitly integrating uncertainty modeling and morphological priors yields both higher accuracy and better interpretability. Overall, the proposed framework not only enhances segmentation accuracy but also improves clinical interpretability and reliability, offering a promising solution for lung cancer diagnosis assistance and therapeutic outcome monitoring.

(1) Background: This study examines the toxicologic effects of gadolinium in the context of the growing number of industrial and medical applications that use gadolinium compounds. Furthermore, understanding the cellular effects on aquatic organisms is a growing concern regarding emerging pollutants, as gadolinium is found in aquatic environments and drinking water as a pollutant. (2) Methods: The microplate-based experiments were designed to assess lethal effects (LC50) and analyze the cytological mechanisms in the larval stages of Artemia. Two gadolinium-containing compounds were comparatively analyzed: gadoteric acid (GA), an ionic compound, and gadoteridol (GD), a nonionic compound. Fluorescence analysis enabled detailed imaging and observations of the dynamics of the processes. Three fluorochromes were used for labeling: acridine orange (nuclear configuration), neutral red (lysosomal inclusions), and fluorescein isothiocyanate-labeled (cytoskeleton). (3) Results show that the effects became evident after more than 48 h of exposure. Cytotoxicity was higher for the nonionic macrocyclic compound GD (LC50 = 60 µmol/mL ± 0.00462 compared with GA (LC50 = 170 µmol/mL ± 0.01. The altered phenotype demonstrates the interference of the tested compounds at both the nuclear level (chromatin fragmentation, pyknotic nuclei) and the cytoplasmic level (enlarged lysosomal vesicles), as well as disorganized or condensed cytoskeleton. (4) Conclusions: Both compounds have effects on larvae, affecting their overall morphology and viability in 24–72 h after exposure. Identifying effects at the nuclear and cytoplasmic levels, as well as disruptions in cytoskeletal polymerization, helps to determine the factors that influence larval survival in an environment contaminated with such rare metals and to understand the cellular mechanisms induced by gadolinium compound poisoning.

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs), prevalent across diverse environmental matrices, are highly hazardous and recalcitrant compounds that can be transformed into low-toxicity compounds by diverse microorganisms. Many transformation processes of POPs could intricately interface with elemental biogeochemical cycles, which are fundamental drivers of ecosystem function. While microbial pathways of POPs transformation have been extensively studied, their integration into broader element turnover in the environment remains fragmented. Here, we review the relationship between POPs metabolism and biogeochemical cycles, spanning from single-species enzymatic coupling to multispecies syntrophic interactions. We contend that POPs transformation is not an isolated microbial event but is deeply embedded within elemental metabolism through direct mechanisms of electron transfer and cross-feeding, or indirect modulation of quorum sensing and mineral-interface interactions. Across levels from gene expression to community level-energy and material exchange, microorganisms in the environment mediate POPs transformation while maintaining elemental balance through dynamic metabolic regulation. Furthermore, we propose a strategic framework that leverages functional compensation and integrative strategies of native and engineered microbiomes to reinforce POPs degradation and coordinate element cycling. Future research should focus on integrating microbiome-based approaches with omics analyses, systems modeling, and ecological engineering. These efforts facilitate the predictable regulation of pollutant-element interactions, ultimately restoring ecosystem multifunctionality within POPs-contaminated sites.