Ultra-Hypofractionated Whole Breast Radiotherapy (U-WBRT) has been proven to be a viable treatment option for breast cancer patients receiving radiation therapy, however, due to its novelty our understanding of its non-clinical benefits is still evolving. With increasing U-WBRT selection during COVID and in rural and regional settings such as the Western New South Wales Local Health District (WNSWLHD), it's important to quantify the savings when compared to other fractionation schedules (e.g. Conventional fractionation (C-WBRT) involving 25 fractions and Moderate hypofractionation (M-WBRT) with 15 fractions.) Using literature sourced from Medline, Embase, Pubmed and reports from relevant websites and organisations this narrative review investigates quantifiable methods of assessing non-clinical benefits of U-WBRT in rural settings according to the triple bottom line philosophy. This review was able to identify a standard set of quantifiable metrics that can compare the non-clinical benefits of various fractionation schedules, with relevance to a rural setting. These include: fractionation trends, financial subsidy, average linear accelerator (Linac) minutes, hospital visits, travel time and distance, Linac energy consumption, travel and Linac carbon emissions. By identifying these metrics, non-clinical benefits between the fractionation schedules can easily be quantified and compared.

For resource-based cities, the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization has led to significant carbon emissions (CEs), accelerated the rise of urban land surface temperatures (LSTs) and hindered sustainable urban development. This study constructed a model to measure the carbon-heat relationship to clarify the complex relationship between LSTs and CEs in resource-based cities. The results show that:1) High-temperature areas are primarily concentrated around the urban center and large industrial zones, with average LSTs reaching a peak of 35.7°C in 2015, indicating severe temperature polarization; 2) CEs exhibited an overall upward trend with a diffusion effect, particularly pronounced in the urban center and industrial zones. Areas with extremely significant, strong significant, and generally significant growth in CEs accounted for 4.64%, 3.81%, and 81.35%, respectively, showing a concentrated increase in the urban center; 3) A positive correlation between CEs and LSTs of the city was identified, and the distribution of urban heat island and the high value area of CEs are concentrated and similar; 4) The synergistic effects between LSTs and CEs varied between urban center, suburban and peripheral areas, due to human activities. Areas with a high positive correlation between CEs and LSTs are concentrated in urban centers and peripheral areas, while for urban suburbs, the correlation is weak or even absent. To mitigate the negative effects of carbon-heat accumulation, urban centers should avoid high population concentrations, and the carbon sink potential of green spaces near industrial zones and peripheral areas should be fully utilized. These insights provide actionable strategies for sustainability of resource-based cities, particularly in the governance of urban thermal environments and the mitigation of CEs.

Tropical forests play a large role in the global carbon cycle by annually absorbing 30% of our annual carbon emissions. However, these forests have evolved under relatively stable temperature conditions and may be sensitive to current climate warming. Few experiments have investigated the effects of warming on large, mature trees to better understand how higher temperatures affect these forests in situ. We targeted four tree species (Endiandra microneura, Castanospermum australe, Cleistanthus myrianthus and Myristica globosa) of the Australian tropical rainforest and warmed leaves in the canopy by 4°C for 8 months. We measured temperature response curves of photosynthesis and respiration, and determined the critical temperatures for chloroplast function based on Chl fluorescence. Both stomatal conductance and photosynthesis were strongly reduced by 48 and 35%, respectively, with warming. While reduced stomatal conductance was likely in response to higher vapour pressure deficit, the biochemistry of photosynthesis responded to higher temperatures via reduced V (-28%) and J (-29%). There was no shift of the T of photosynthesis. Concurrently, respiration rates at a common temperature did not change in response to warming, suggesting limited respiratory thermal acclimation. This combination of physiological responses to leaf warming in mature tropical trees may suggest a reduced carbon sink with future warming in tropical forests.

As a major agricultural country, agricultural carbon emissions in China are one of the key areas of focus for achieving China's "dual carbon" targets. This study utilizes the Dagum Gini coefficient, convergence models, and the ARIMA model to analyze the characteristics of agricultural carbon emissions in China's three major grain production functional zones. The results show that: (1) The agricultural carbon emissions in the national, main grain-production, and main grain-sales regions exhibit a fluctuating decreasing trend, while the agricultural carbon emissions in the grain production-sales balance region show a fluctuating increasing trend. The primary sources of agricultural carbon emissions are agricultural material inputs and enteric fermentation of ruminants. (2) The intra-regional differences in agricultural carbon emissions are the largest in the main grain-sales region, followed by the grain production-sales balance region, and the smallest in the main grain-production region. The contribution rate of inter-regional differences is the highest, making it the main source of overall disparity, while the contribution rate of hyperbolic density is the lowest. (3) Both the national level and the three major grain production functional zones exhibit conditional β-convergence in agricultural carbon emissions, indicating that the agricultural production in the national, main grain-production, and main grain-sales regions shows a "carbon neutral" characteristic, while the agricultural production in the grain production-sales balance region shows a "carbon peak" characteristic. (4) The agricultural carbon peak in China occurred in 2015, with a total carbon emission of 164.5 million tons. The main grain-production and main grain-sales regions have already reached carbon peak, while the grain production-sales balance region is expected to reach its carbon peak by 2030.

Commercial induction cooktops are increasingly gaining popularity in residential households and business restaurants. However, little is known about the specific environmental benefits of induction cooking compared to conventional gas cooking. This study used two heating methods to heat peanut oil to achieve the same heating effect, and compared particulate matter, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), ozone precursors, and total carbon emissions generated during the heating process using various detection devices. Utilising an induction cooktop will result in a 27.3% reduction in the overall emission of VOC after 15 minutes of heating, indicating that using an induction cooktop has an advantage in terms of ozone formation potential, cutting OFPs by 23.6%. Using induction cooktops also reduces 26.8% in PM emissions, 63.3% in CH emissions, 100% in CO direct emissions, and 94.4% in CO emissions, owing to the varied heating techniques employed. Considering indirect emissions, such as energy usage, the utilisation of induction cooktops will reduce total carbon emissions by an equivalent of 11.4%. The reasons for these advantages are partly due to the additional CO and CH generated by natural gas combustion, and on the other hand, the concentration and particle size differences of particulate matter may be due to the fact that compared to natural gas stoves, induction cooktops have a more uniform and concentrated heat utilization rate, resulting in lower ambient temperatures around the pot and suppressing the production of some pollutants. These findings suggest that replacing conventional natural gas stoves with commercial induction cooktops has significant advantages in terms of reduction of gaseous pollutant emissions as well as environmental impacts such as carbon neutrality.

Rural economic digitalization has emerged as a critical driver for reducing agricultural carbon emissions, playing a pivotal role in achieving China's "carbon peak" and "carbon neutrality" targets. Despite its importance, research on the spatial heterogeneity of rural economic digitalization's impact on agricultural carbon emissions remains limited. This study utilizes county-level data from 1607 counties in China to explore the spatial patterns of rural economic digitalization and agricultural carbon emissions. By employing the Multi-scale Geographically Weighted Regression (MGWR) method, this research uncovers the spatial variations and scale effects of rural economic digitalization on agricultural carbon emissions. Key findings include: (1) From 2018 to 2019, the spatial clustering of rural economic digitalization increased, while agricultural carbon emissions exhibited a decreasing trend; (2) Per capita agricultural carbon emissions were highest in the Northeast region and lowest in the Southwest region, with most regions showing a declining trend; (3) Rural economic digitalization has a suppressive effect on agricultural carbon emissions, characterized by a clear "north-south" spatial differentiation, with more substantial effects in the southern regions. The paper proposes specific approaches to decrease agricultural carbon emissions in the northern regions by enhancing rural economic digitalization. These findings provide valuable insights into sustainable agricultural development and regional environmental management.

Drought is becoming increasingly prevalent globally, stimulating research into its effects on river ecosystems. However, our understanding of how droughts affect riverine CO dynamics on a daily scale remains limited, particularly considering the likelihood of future drought occurrence. Here, we seize the opportunity to compare daily CO cycles between a non-drought summer and an unprecedented drought summer. We developed a new diel CO process model to examine how droughts affect diel change in riverine CO. Our findings reveal that summer drought amplifies diurnal CO fluctuations and the pattern holds true across rivers of varying sizes, with increases of 62% for the stream and 24% for the river during drought conditions. We demonstrate that, in comparison to higher radiation and temperature induced by droughts, diel amplitude is more sensitive to low water depths. A decrease in water depth by 43% and 44% corresponded to 13% and 25% less gas exchange in the studied stream and river, respectively, while decreasing ecosystem respiration by 26% and 57%. Our model effectively captures diel CO variations driven by drought considering river size, contributing valuable insights into aquatic ecosystem behavior and refining CO emission estimates. We emphasize the vulnerability of shallow rivers to drought, and carbon emissions from shallower waters should be explicitly assessed at sub-daily scales to improve the estimates of daily CO emissions.

The high-altitude areas of China are abundant in renewable energy and have a natural advantage in ammonia production. Based on this advantage, this paper proposes a co-combustion strategy for methane and ammonia to reduce carbon emissions in these areas. However, the NO emission characteristics associated with this strategy remain uncertain. A custom-designed combustion system capable of simulating high-altitude environments was used to investigate the effect of ammonia mixing ratio, equivalence ratio, and pressure on NO emission in methane/ammonia/air flames. Additionally, chemical kinetic calculations were conducted to explore the mechanisms of how sub-atmospheric pressure influences NO emission. The results indicate that for stoichiometric flames, NO increases with the ammonia mixing ratio. In fuel-rich flames, NO remains nearly constant once the ammonia mixing ratio exceeds 10 %. Sub-atmospheric pressure leads to higher NO, particularly in fuel-rich flames, where the increase can reach up to 24.4 %. Analysis of nitrogen reaction pathways and key radical concentrations reveals that sub-atmospheric pressure has a minimal effect on nitrogen conversion pathways. The variation in NO is achieved by altering the pathway contributions and the concentrations of H, NH, and N. This work provides direction and guidance for improving the application of methane and ammonia co-combustion in high-altitude areas.

The study analyzes the impact of environmental regulations on carbon emissions in countries with different levels of emissions, utilizing two measures of carbon emissions based on: production (PBA) and consumption (CBA) accounting. Environmental regulations are measured by means of three components of the Environmental Policy Stringency (EPS) index: market-based and non-market-based instruments, and technology support. The Moments-Quantile Regression method is employed to assess the effectiveness of these policies across countries with varying levels of emissions-high, medium, and low within the Environmental Kuznets Curve. The findings indicate that increased stringency in environmental regulations correlates with reduced carbon emissions per capita. Notably, the EPS index has a more significant effect on reducing PBA emissions compared to CBA emissions. A key finding is that the EPS index is more effective in countries with lower pollution per capita (i.e., lower quantiles) than in those with higher pollution per capita. Among the three components, market-based instruments are identified as the most effective in reducing carbon emissions. Additionally, in countries where per capita emissions are relatively low, the combination of market and non-market instruments proves to be the most effective in reducing emissions. In contrast, the highest carbon emitters per capita tend to achieve emissions reductions primarily through technological support.

As the world's technological development shifts toward a sustainable energy future by harnessing renewable energy sources, ammonia is gaining recognition as a complementary green vector to hydrogen. This energy-dense carbon-neutral fuel is capable of overcoming hydrogen's limitations in terms of storage, distribution, and infrastructure deployment. The biggest challenge to the global use of ammonia as an energy storage medium remains more efficient, readily deployable production of ammonia from abundant, yet intermittent, sources. Green decentralized ammonia production, which refers to the small-scale, localized ammonia production utilizing environmentally sustainable methods, offers a promising approach to overcoming the challenges of traditional ammonia synthesis. The process aims to minimize carbon emissions, increase energy efficiency, and improve accessibility to ammonia in remote regions. Ammonia separation using sorbent materials holds significant potential in green ammonia production, providing a viable alternative to conventional condensation-based separation methods, with particular benefits in improving energy efficiency. This perspective summarizes recent developments in the field of ammonia separation, focusing on newly developed sorbents for the integrated ammonia synthesis-separation process, particularly metal halides that could potentially replace a conventional ammonia condenser. The challenges and potential solutions are also discussed. Moreover, this perspective outlines the mechanism of ammonia absorption into metal halides with its kinetics and thermodynamics. The use of computational methods for the development of new materials is also described, thereby laying the foundations of green ammonia technology.