Fungicide, also called antimycotic, is any chemical substance used to kill or inhibit fungal growth. Fungi, like humans, are eukaryotic organisms, and few selective targets can be exploited for the development of antifungal drugs. Consequently, the existing antifungal arsenal for treating fungal infections is limited, thus contributing to the high rates of morbidity and mortality currently observed. Additionally, the plant fungal pathogens have been developed resistance to the available fungicides, threatening crops productivity and the quality and safety of the foods. Mitochondria are double-membrane organelles that serve as the powerhouses of cells. Furthermore, mitochondria are still responsible for many other vital cellular processes, including apoptosis, maintenance of calcium homeostasis, heme biosynthesis, and cell homeostasis of iron, redox signaling, steroid synthesis, amino acids, and lipid metabolism. Many of the commercially successful fungicides act as inhibitors of mitochondrial energy metabolism. This effect is achieved by specific interactions with proteins in the electron transport chain and non-specific interactions with the membrane. However, mitochondria have several highly conserved components, so it has been a tremendous challenge to develop fungicides that are non-toxic to non-target organisms. Fungicidal residues have contaminated our food and environment. Although these compounds are present in very low concentrations, their long-term effects on human health are of concern. It is well known that disruption of mitochondrial metabolism caused by fungicides results in dangerous disturbances in target and non-target organisms such as fish, insects, plants, and humans.
Power has become a central theme in sustainability transitions research (STR) since the field’s political turn in the 2010s. Yet this literature remains difficult to navigate because it draws on diverse conceptualisations whose differences are not always made explicit. Readers may therefore struggle to identify how power is understood and how it is traced empirically. This article addresses this problem through a scoping review of 57 peer-reviewed journal articles that explicitly engage with power, combining a systematic Scopus search, backward and forward snowballing, and thematic analysis. The review identifies three broad analytical views of power centred on agency, structure, and their interaction. It also develops two practical tools. The first is a glossary that introduces recurring power-related concepts and points readers towards further reading. The second is a reading template that helps identify how studies define, locate, and operationalise power through their conceptual views, units of analysis, methods, adjacent traditions, and empirical signals. Together, these contributions provide an accessible entry point into power research in STR, while supporting experienced researchers in reflecting on their approaches and their dialogue with other conceptualisations in the field.
Advances in intensive care have improved survival from acute critical illness, leading to a growing population of patients with chronic critical illness (CCI), many of whom require prolonged organ support. This condition is associated with persistent catabolism, inflammation, and poor long-term outcomes. Understanding the metabolic alterations underlying this failure to recover may help identify targets for monitoring and intervention. This review synthesizes current clinical and translational evidence on metabolic dysregulation in CCI and discusses its implications for monitoring, nutritional strategies, and therapeutic interventions. We performed a narrative review informed by a structured search of PubMed/MEDLINE followed by manual reference screening. Preclinical, translational and clinical studies addressing energy metabolism, mitochondrial function, autophagy, ketone metabolism, inflammation and recovery trajectories in critical illness were qualitatively synthesized. Available evidence suggests that patients with CCI exhibit persistent metabolic inflexibility, impaired transition from catabolism to anabolism, mitochondrial dysfunction, altered autophagy, and disturbances in substrate utilization, including reduced ketogenesis. These alterations, together with epigenetic and immunometabolic reprogramming, may contribute to muscle wasting, immune dysfunction, and delayed functional recovery, features consistent with the persistent inflammation, immunosuppression and catabolism syndrome (PICS). Much of the mechanistic evidence, however, derives from preclinical or acute-phase studies, and validation of these findings in patients with CCI remains limited. CCI may represent a state of impaired metabolic and cellular adaptation associated with persistent inflammation, organ dysfunction, and failed recovery from acute critical illness. Improved understanding of these mechanisms may support more individualized metabolic monitoring, nutritional support, and therapeutic strategies. Further prospective and translational studies are required to determine clinical relevance and guide targeted interventions.
We analyse the irrigation problem as an optimal control problem within the context of agricultural planning. By formulating irrigation as an optimal control system, we aim to optimize the water usage, while ensuring efficient agricultural productivity. A key parameter in our model is the percentage of water loss due to deep percolation, denoted by \beta β , which is difficult to estimate and sensitive to environmental perturbations. As a result, the problem becomes a parametric optimal linear-control one with an inequality state constraint. The main goal of this work consists in investigating how perturbations of \beta β affect the optimal solution and the optimal cost, with the help of parameter sensitivity analysis. To achieve this, we reformulate the parametric optimal linear-control problem as a finite-dimensional non-linear programming one for which we derive necessary and second-order sufficient optimality conditions. Additionally, we design a parameter sensitivity analysis. Numerical results are provided to illustrate the designed parameter sensitivity analysis which shows that as \beta β increases, the irrigation period of time and the irrigation water flow rate also increase.
Autonomous underwater vehicles and sensor platforms play a crucial role in the long-term monitoring of marine environments; however, their operational endurance is limited by energy constraints. Effective energy management is therefore essential, particularly with regard to actuation mechanisms, which are among the primary consumers of onboard energy. Consequently, control laws that reduce energy consumption while maintaining performance are of significant importance, as they contribute to more efficient energy utilization.The main contribution of this paper is the proposal of a novel depth control law that exploits the passive dynamics of buoyancy-controlled vehicles to save energy during hovering tasks. The proposed control strategy expends energy only in two situations: 1) to counteract conditions in which the system’s natural dynamics is detrimental to control objectives, and 2) to drive the system to rest when it is near the target depth. Both simulation and experimental results show that this approach reduces energy consumption compared to PID-based controllers and to recently reported energy-efficient strategies. Against the latter, the proposed method achieves energy savings of up to 13% while simultaneously reducing the average depth control error by 50%.
