The exploitation of timber has had a profound impact on tropical forest areas and their structures. This study assessed the effect of selective logging on natural regeneration and soil characteristics in post-loading bay sites at the Pra-Anum forest reserve in Ghana, West Africa. The results showed no difference in the number of species enumerated in the loading bays and the undisturbed area. More trees were observed in the RAT and RNT plots than in the undisturbed area. Relative to the RAT plot, species on the RNT and the undisturbed area were less diverse and less evenly distributed. Mean tree height, diameter, and basal area were higher in the RAT and RNT plots than in the undisturbed plots. Soil bulk density was lower in the RAT and undisturbed plot than in the RAT plot and increased with increased depth. Soil organic matter was 44% and 27% more in the undisturbed and RAT plots, respectively, than in the RNT plot and accounted for 84.75%, 83.97% and 45.33% of variations in soil bulk density, pH, and CEC. The study provides insight into the need to rehabilitate highly disturbed areas in forests, particularly the addition of topsoil on loading bays, skid trails, roads, and gaps after logging to improve the productivity of the forest soils.

Urban regeneration and gentrification are complex, interconnected processes that significantly shape cities. However, these phenomena in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are often understudied and typically viewed through a Western lens. This systematic review of literature from 2010 to 2024 addresses this gap by synthesizing a comprehensive framework for understanding urban regeneration-led gentrification in MENA countries. The review delves into key themes: Gentrification contexts, the regeneration process, gentrification accelerators, and the aftermath of gentrification. It explores the diverse motives behind urban regeneration, identifies key stakeholders, and analyzes catalysts of gentrification. Findings reveal that informal areas and deteriorated heritage sites in major cities are most susceptible to gentrification. The study also highlights the critical issue of insufficient community participation and proposes a participation evaluation framework. The unique socioeconomic and political factors driving gentrification in the MENA region underscore the necessity of context-specific approaches, facilitating the identification of regional similarities and differences. Conclusively, the review asserts that gentrification is a cyclic process, necessitating core interventions through enhanced regeneration strategies or displacement plans to mitigate its effects.

In view of the large energy consumption of the regeneration process in the chemical absorption decarburization process, on the basis of the enrichment classification flow process, the nanoscale ceramic film is used as a new heat exchanger between the enriched liquid and the regeneration gas. The porous ceramic film is capable of coupling thermal-mass transfer to effectively recover part of the water vapor and the heat carried in the regeneration gas, so as to reduce the regenerative energy consumption of the system. The effects of parameters such as regeneration temperature, flow rate, molar fraction of water vapor, and MEA enrichment temperature, flow rate, and MEA concentration of shunt on the hydrothermal recovery effect of ceramic membranes of different pore sizes and lengths were studied by using the heat recovery flux and water recovery rate as the indicators. The results show that the hydrothermal recovery performance of the ceramic membrane increases with the increase of MEA enrichment flow, but decreases significantly with the increase of the enrichment temperature. At the same time, with the increase of regenerative gas velocity and the molar fraction of water vapor in the regenerative gas, the heat recovery flux will increase. The heat recovery performance of the 10 nm ceramic membrane is better than that of the 20 nm ceramic membrane.

This work was carried out with the purpose of generating ecological and silvicultural information oriented to sustainable management. The horizontal structure was evaluated using the importance value index of Curtis and Macintosh, the vertical structure using Finol’s methodology. Through the sociological position index, the percentage natural regeneration and the extended importance value index were estimated in order to infer the permanence of the forest ecosystem. The floristic composition was represented by species of the families Anacardiaceae, Apocynaceae, Fabaceae, Santalaceae, Rhamnaceae, Sapotaceae, Simarubaceae, Ulmaceae, Zygophyllaceae, Capparidaceae, Borraginaceae and Achatocarpaceae. In the horizontal structure, the species with the highest rank was Acacia praecox, followed in order of importance by Schinopsis balansae, Aspidosperma quebracho blanco and Prosopis kuntzei. According to sociological position, Acacia praecox was the most representative species, followed by Patagonula americana, Schinus longifolius, Proposis kuntzei and Aspidosperma quebracho blanco. The species with the best regeneration values were Achatocarpus nigricans and Acacia praecox in the shrub layer and Patagonula americana in the tree layer. The extended importance index consolidated the category of Acacia praecox in the community and gave a better category to Schinopsis balansae, Aspidosperma quebracho blanco, Prosopis kuntzei and Patagonula americana.

Cucumis sativus is an important vegetable crop in the world. Agrobacterium mediated transgenic technology is an important means to study plant gene function and variety improvement. In order to further accelerate the transgenic research and breeding process of cucumber, aiming at the Agrobacterium mediated genetic transformation method of cucumber, this paper expounds the research progress and existing problems of Agrobacterium mediated transgenic cucumber from the aspects of influencing factors of cucumber regeneration ability, genetic transformation conditions and various added substances in the process, and prospects the future of improving the efficiency of cucumber genetic transformation and the application of safety screening markers, in order to provide reference for cucumber stress resistance breeding and fruit quality improvement.

The management of Mediterranean mountains need to know whether or not the flora is adapted to respond to fire and, if so, through what mechanisms. Serpentine outcrops constitute particular ecosystems in the Mediterranean Basin, and plants need to make an additional adaptive effort. The objective of this study is to know the response to fire of the main members of the group of serpentine plants, which habit the Spanish Mediterranean ultramafic mountain, to help in their management. For this purpose, monitoring plots were established on a burned ultramafic outcrop, which was affected by fire in August 2012.They were located in the Mediterranean south of the Iberian Peninsula, Andalusia region. The dominant vegetation of this serpentine ecosystem had been studied previously to fire; it was a shrubland composed of endemic serpentinophytes (small shrubs and perennial herbs) included in Digitali laciniatae-Halimietum atriplicifolii plant association (Cisto-Lavanduletea class) in an opened pine forest. The post-fire response of the plants was studied in the stablished burned plots by field works through permanent 200 x 10 m transect methods, consisting on checking whether they were resprouters, seeders, both of them or if they showed no survival response. Additional information about fire related functional traits is provided for the studied taxa from other studies. Of the total of plants studied (23 taxa), 74% acted as resprouters, 30% as seeders, some of which also had the capacity to resprout (13%), and only 9% of the plants did not show any survival strategy. The presence of a resprouting burl was not high (17%), although serpentine small shrubs such as Bupleurum acutifolium and the generalist Teucrium haenseleri had this kind of organ. The herbaceous taxa Sanguisorba verrucosa, Galium boissieranum and Linum carratracense were seen to be resprouters and seeders. The serpentine obligated Ni-accumulator, Alyssum serpyllifolium subsp. malacitanum, did not show any survival strategy in the face of fire and therefore their populations need monitoring after fires. In the studied ecosystems no species had traits that would protect the aerial part of the plant against fire, although most of the species are capable of post-fire generation by below ground buds. Our results show that the ecosystem studied, composed of taxa with a high degree of endemism and some of them threatened, is predominantly adapted to survival after a fire, although their response capacity may be decreased by environmental factors.