The Risks to Human Evolution Posed by World Population Growth,Environmental and Ecosystem Pollution and the COVID-19 Pandemic

As an advanced theory of evolution,neo-Darwinism broadens the concept of Darwinism,in which natural selection intervenes to ensure that those genes that best meet the need for adaptation to the environment are conserved in the genetic background.Culture,which in human beings contributes to biological adaptation,is the sum of all the knowledge and technical innovation deriving from individual practical contributions handed down from one generation to the next,continuously influencing and changing biological life.As an unforeseen mechanism of adaptation,culture has enabled human beings to survive and to adapt to situations of environmental change and crisis.Indeed,climate change determines both cultural and genetic changes.The deterioration of the climate can have a significant impact on the spread of infectious diseases,to the point that the random mutation of a virus,such as SARS-Cov2 can easily result in a pandemic.We have violated biological ecosystems,destroying the environment and the communities that inhabit it.Spillover is what happens when an agent of disease,be it a virus or a bacterium,for any of a number of reasons,passes from one species to another,generating a zoonosis,i.e.,an infectious agent that can affect human beings.The mechanisms of biological evolution act on them rapidly,generating new biological potential and transforming spillovers into pandemics.We need to invest in multidisciplinary scientific and technological research,which entails interaction between various fields of knowledge including ecological,meteorological,anthropological,cultural,medical,and environmental.All these disciplines are closely connected to each other and to the health of animals,human beings,and ecosystems,and it is only by coordinating them that we can hope to respond rapidly to the new health and environmental emergencies and provide political decision-makers with correct information that can protect the human population from decline and extinction.

Review on inorganic and polymeric materials-coordinated metal-organic-framework photocatalysts for green hydrogen evolution

Metal-organic frameworks(MOFs)possess a distinct advantage over conventional heterogeneous photocatalysts because of their carefully defined architecture and particular pores,which facilitate the targeted incorporation of other efficient cocatalysts or semiconductor materials.The integration of MOFs with other materials has resulted in significant breakthroughs,as the coupled materials improve the performance due to the combined effect.The unique MOF structures allow them to host foreign materials,which results in harvesting the visible region of the solar spectrum and effectively mitigating charge recombination by promoting charge separation.The review presents an evaluation of the latest developments in the utilization of surface and/or pore chemistry of MOF-supported heterojunctions for photocatalytic green-hydrogen generation with a basic understanding of the mechanism involved.The review begins with the basic principles of photocatalysis,the significance of MOFs,their optical properties,the methods used for synthesizing MOFs,and their coordination with other inorganic and polymeric materials.Furthermore,methods to increase photocatalytic H2 evolution using MOF-supported heterojunction have been proposed as standard practice.Lastly,to address environmental challenges,we highlight the future potential of MOF-supported heterojunctions for use in green-energy production.We hope that this review provides guidance to researchers in the development of effective heterojunctions based on MOFs to address challenges in energy applications and catalytic processes.

Bond-Slip Behavior of Steel Bar and Recycled Steel Fibre-Reinforced Concrete

Recycled steel fiber reinforced concrete is an innovative construction material that offers exceptional mechanical properties and durability.It is considered a sustainable material due to its low carbon footprint and environmental friendly characteristics.This study examines the key influencing factors that affect the behavior of this material,such as the steel fiber volume ratio,recycled aggregate replacement rate,concrete strength grade,anchorage length,and stirrup constraint.The study investigates the bond failure morphology,bond-slip,and bond strength constitutive relationship of steel fiber recycled concrete.The results show that the addition of steel fibers at 0.5%,1.0%,and 1.5%volume ratios can improve the ultimate bond strength of pull-out specimens by 9.05%,6.94%,and 5.52%,respectively.The replacement rate of recycled aggregate has minimal effect on the typical bond strength of pull-out specimens.However,the ultimate bond strengths of pull-out specimens with concrete strength grades C45 and C60 have improved compared to those with C30 grade.The specimens with longer anchorage lengths exhibit lower ultimate bond strength,with a reduction of 33.19%and 46.37%for anchorage lengths of 5D and 7D,respectively,compared to those without stirrups.Stirrup restraint of 1φ8 and 2φ8 improves the ultimate bond strength by 5.29%and 6.90%,respectively.Steel fibers have a significant effect on the behavior of concrete after it cracks,especially during the stable expansion stage,crack instability expansion stage,and failure stage.

Improved HardNet and Stricter Outlier Filtering to Guide Reliable Matching

As the fundamental problem in the computer vision area,image matching has wide applications in pose estimation,3D reconstruction,image retrieval,etc.Suffering from the influence of external factors,the process of image matching using classical local detectors,e.g.,scale-invariant feature transform(SIFT),and the outlier filtering approaches,e.g.,Random sample consensus(RANSAC),show high computation speed and pool robustness under changing illumination and viewpoints conditions,while image matching approaches with deep learning strategy(such as HardNet,OANet)display reliable achievements in large-scale datasets with challenging scenes.However,the past learning-based approaches are limited to the distinction and quality of the dataset and the training strategy in the image-matching approaches.As an extension of the previous conference paper,this paper proposes an accurate and robust image matching approach using fewer training data in an end-to-end manner,which could be used to estimate the pose error This research first proposes a novel dataset cleaning and construction strategy to eliminate the noise and improve the training efficiency;Secondly,a novel loss named quadratic hinge triplet loss(QHT)is proposed to gather more effective and stable feature matching;Thirdly,in the outlier filtering process,the stricter OANet and bundle adjustment are applied for judging samples by adding the epipolar distance constraint and triangulation constraint to generate more outstanding matches;Finally,to recall the matching pairs,dynamic guided matching is used and then submit the inliers after the PyRANSAC process.Multiple evaluation metrics are used and reported in the 1st place in the Track1 of CVPR Image-Matching Challenge Workshop.The results show that the proposed method has advanced performance in large-scale and challenging Phototourism benchmark.

Leading for Sustainability in the Brazilian Construction Industry

This article analyzes the major stakeholders in the Brazilian construction industry from the viewpoint of the companies in this sector, as well as how these organizations relate to their stakeholders with regard to the topic of sustainability in the construction. The study was based on the principle that the relationship with stakeholders is one of the foundations for the inception and continuity of activities toward sustainability. The findings of which show that the construction companies start the sustainability implementation process without the involvement of external stakeholders. This survey points out the difficulty faced by Brazilian construction companies in relating to their stakeholders. There is the perception that the customers and other actors do not value sustainability-oriented activities, but, at the same time, the relationship of the companies with these stakeholders is limited to disclosure of information. This characteristic of the industry reveals a need for sustainability projects that take into consideration, since their formulation, the stakeholders’ perceptions. The importance of this article lies in the recognition that, although the topic of sustainability is discussed at all levels, studies that examine how specific construction industries have been dealing with it are still rare.

Batteries for electric vehicles:Technical advancements,environmental challenges,and market perspectives

The rapid evolution of electric vehicles(EVs)highlights the critical role of bat-tery technology in promoting sustainable transportation.This review offers a comprehensive introduction to the diverse landscape of batteries for EVs.In particular,it examines the impressive array of available battery technologies,focusing on the predominance of lithium-based batteries,such as lithium-ion and lithium-metal variants.Additionally,it explores battery technologies beyond lithium(“post-lithium”),including aluminum,sodium,and magnesium batter-ies.The potential of solid-state batteries is also discussed,along with the current status of various battery types in EV applications.The review further addresses end-of-life treatment strategies for EV batteries,including reuse,remanufactur-ing,and recycling,which are essential for mitigating the environmental impact of batteries and ensuring sustainable lifecycle management.Finally,market per-spectives and potential future research directions for battery technologies in EVs are also discussed.

Transformative Innovation Policy:A Case-Study from China

Science,technology and innovation policy has been presented as developing through three"frames":innovation for growth;national systems of innovation;and transformative change(Schot and Steinmueller,2018).In this paper,we focus on the third frame by exploring the development of transformative innovation policy in China.More specifically,we present a case analysis of the Beautiful China Initiative(BCI).Within this context,we analyse participating actors,activities,and modes of innovation.In conclusion,we discuss three general challenges of transformative innovation policy at a national and international level.The first challenge is coordination and interaction between governmental agencies and other actors with different responsibilities and jurisdictions.Second,there is a major set of issues related to"development",which must encompass economic development but also societal and environmental development.Third,BCI fits with a broad understanding of the innovation process,including elements which are not directly commercial in orientation.Whether this broader approach can be maintained as BCI develops from its still-early stage into full development will represent a significant challenge.Finally in this paper,we consider the implications of our discussion for future research and practice,and offer three reflections.In particular,we emphasise the importance of scholars’participation across the social sciences rather than leaving this multi-faceted area only to innovation researchers.