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Issues around environmental sustainability have significantly increased in importance in both management practice and scholarship. One approach to address these is the transformative concept of the circular economy, which offers an alternative to traditional models of production and consumption. With organizations starting to adopt circular economy models and principles, the pivotal role of leaders in reshaping organizational practices from linear to circular approaches has begun to emerge. In this paper we introduce a novel perspective on responsible leadership emphasizing the need for a polymathic approach to address sustainability and apply this to the context of the circular economy. Viewing responsibility in leadership through a meta-taxonomy of effective leadership orientations, we apply our framework to a case study and illustrate its usefulness in guiding research and practice in the area of sustainability within organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental pollution, especially air pollution, seriously endangers public health globally, air filtration materials become a research hotspot. Here, novel polyurethane (PU)/polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)@ polypropylene (PP) multi-scale membranes were fabricated by a lamination process of electrospinning and melt-blown methods. The nanofibers membrane and microfibers membrane were prepared and optimized under various parameter. These morphologies and structures of the prepared multi-scale membranes were characterized by SEM, EDS and FT-IR. And the static water contact angle was tested to evaluate the hydrophobicity. Air filtration tests were operated to determine the optimum membranes for air filtration application. The air filtration results showed that the multi-scale PF1@PP60 membranes had highly air filtration efficiency (96.72%) and quality factor (0.04167 Pa−1) which can be obtained by only electrospinning 60 min. The successful preparation of multi-scale membranes provides a new way for the design and development of electrospinning air filtration membranes. And this multi-scale membrane provides a new strategy for the preparation of an air filter with excellent comprehensive filtration performance of high filtration efficiency and low pressure drop for large-scale production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the growing demand of multifunction membranes with water vapor transmission and breathable performances in many fields, design of multifunction membranes with facile fabrication is crucial and challenging. In this work, a highly breathable bi-layered polyurethanes—polyacrylonitrile/cellulose acetate (PU-PAN/CA) membrane with outstanding water vapor transmission and excellent mechanical property was fabricated by electrospinning. And then, the bi-layered PU-PAN/CA nanofibrous membranes were characterized using SEM, FTIR, tensile stress, water contact angle, air permeability, water vapor permeability and moisture management tester to evaluate the performance. The prepared PU-PAN/CA membrane has a comprehensive performance by adjusting the CA ratio of the PAN/CA layer and electrospinning time of PU layer with breathable of 21.81 mm s−1, water vapor transmission (WVT) rate of 12.18 kg m−2 day−1, and tensile strength of 8.90 MPa, which shows its certain reference significance to the prepared of multifunctional membrane. At the end, the performance of prepared membrane was compared with other membranes. The successful preparation of such interesting bi-layered membranes could provide enlighten for the preparation of other functional fibrous materials, especially in oil/water, directional water transport and moisture-wicking clothing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Detection of bone marrow involvement (BMI) for patients with follicular lymphoma (FL) is of great significance for staging and treatment. The clinical value of positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in assessing BMI is still under debate and investigation. PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library databases were systematically searched to identify studies evaluating PET/CT in detecting BMI in FL patients. Data extraction and quality evaluation were independently conducted by two reviewers, and nine eligible studies were selected as final quantitative analysis. Nine studies comprising 1119 FL patients were included. The pooled sensitivity was 0.67 (95% CI, 0.38–0.87), and the pooled specificity was 0.82 (95% CI, 0.75–0.87). The pooled positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio, and diagnostic odds ratio were 3.7 (95% CI, 2.1–6.3), 0.4 (95% CI, 0.18–0.91), and 9 (95% CI, 2–33), respectively. The area under the curve of PET/CT to detect BMI in FL patients was 0.83 (95% CI, 0.8–0.86). Current evidence suggests that PET/CT cannot replace bone marrow biopsy to detect BMI, but it is still of partial clinical significance for the prognosis of patients with follicular lymphoma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology (CKDu) becomes a health concern in developing countries. It is urgent to recognize CKDu-related groundwater in CKDu-prevalent areas. Here, spectral indices showed that DOM from CKDu groundwater was characterized by higher molecular weight, stronger exogenous feature, and greater degree of humification and unsaturation than from non-CKDu groundwater. Parallel factor analysis of fluorescence spectra showed that DOM from CKDu groundwater contained significantly more humic-like substances (C1%) and less protein-like substances than from non-CKDu groundwater. Furthermore, C1% was correlated with concentrations of inorganic chemicals associated with CKDu, indicating the feasibility of using C1% for probing CKDu groundwater. According to our self-developed method, both the non-CKDu probability of groundwater with C1% less than the recognizing threshold (RT, 28.8%) and the CKDu probability of groundwater with C1% larger than RT are 70.1%. This indicates that the C1%-based method is a feasible tool for recognizing CKDu groundwater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Babesia orientalis, belonging to the phylum Apicomplexa, is mainly accountable for water buffalo babesiosis, which adversely affected the livestock industry in China. Variant erythrocyte surface antigen-1 (VESA1), an antigen that helps infected erythrocytes to escape from host immune responses, was first reported in Babesia bovis. Various VESA1 proteins have also been characterized in other Babesia species. Nevertheless, there is no research on the identification and characterization of VESA1 proteins in Babesia orientalis. In this study, the BoVESA1 gene was amplified from both gDNA and cDNA. The results revealed that it is an intronless gene with a full length of 753 bp, encoding a protein of 250 amino acids with a predicted molecular weight of 28 kDa. The coding sequence (CDS) was cloned into the pGEX-6p-1 vector using a homologous recombination kit and expressed as a glutathione-S-transferase (GST)-fusion protein with a molecular weight of 53 kDa. The tertiary structure of BoVESA1 was predicted using the I-TASSER software. The recombinant protein was subjected to western blotting; the immunogenicity of recombinant BoVESA1 (rBoVESA1) was identified by incubating it with B. orientalis-positive serum. The native BoVESA1 was identified using the lysates of B. orientalis-infected water buffalo erythrocytes incubated with the anti-rBoVESA1 mouse serum. The results showed a band of ~ 28 kDa, which is similar to the predicted size. Immunofluorescence assay (IFA) using anti-rBoVESA1 serum probed indicated a strong signal in the infected RBCs, while the negative control showed no signal. In conclusion, the VESA1 protein was first identified in B. orientalis. This study facilitated further investigation of B. orientalis, and the results indicated that BoVESA1 may serve as a potential candidate antigen for diagnosis and detection of B. orientalis infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]