Background: Curcumin is herbal compound that has been shown to have anti-cancer effects in pre-clinical and clinical studies. The anti-cancer effects of curcumin include inhibiting the carcinogenesis, inhibiting angiogenesis, and inhibiting tumour growth. This study aims to determine the Clinical effects of curcumin in different types of cancers using systematic review approach. Methods: A systematic review methodology is adopted for undertaking detailed analysis of the effects of curcumin in cancer therapy. The results presented in this paper is an outcome of extracting the findings of the studies selected from the articles published in international databases including SID, MagIran, IranMedex, IranDoc, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, Scopus, PubMed and Web of Science (ISI). These databases were thoroughly searched, and the relevant publications were selected based on the plausible keywords, in accordance with the study aims, as follows: prevalence, curcumin, clinical features, cancer. Results: The results are derived based on several clinical studies on curcumin consumption with chemotherapy drugs, highlighting that curcumin increases the effectiveness of chemotherapy and radiotherapy which results in improving patient's survival time, and increasing the expression of anti-metastatic proteins along with reducing their side effects. Conclusion: The comprehensive systematic review presented in this paper confirms that curcumin reduces the side effects of chemotherapy or radiotherapy, resulting in improving patients' quality of life. A number of studies reported that, curcumin has increased patient survival time and decreased tumor markers' level.

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In recent decades, rapid urbanization has resulted in a growing urban population, transformed into regions of exceptional socio-economic value. By removing vegetation and soil, grading the land surface and saturating soil air content, urban developments are more likely to be flooded, which will be further exacerbated by an anticipated increase in the number of intense rainfall events, due to climate change. To date, data collected show that urban pluvial flood events are on the rise for both the UK and China. This paper presents a critical review of existing sustainable approaches to urban flood management, by comparing UK practice with that in China and critically assessing whether lessons can be learnt from the Sponge City initiative. The authors have identified a strategic research plan to ensure that the sponge city initiative can successfully respond to extreme climatic events and tackle pluvial flooding. Hence, this review suggests that future research should focus on (1) the development of a more localized rainfall model for the Chinese climate; (2) the role of retrofit SuDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems) in challenging water environments; (3) the development of a robust SuDS selection tool, ensuring that the most effective devices are installed, based on local factors; and (4) dissemination of current information, and increased understanding of maintenance and whole life-costing, alongside monitoring the success of sponge cities to increase the confidence of decision makers (5) the community engagement and education about sponge cities.

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Understanding the effects of climate change and anthropogenic activities on the hydrogeomorpholgical parameters in wetlands ecosystems is vital for designing effective environmental protection and control protocols for these natural capitals. This study develops methodological approach to model the streamflow and sediment inputs to wetlands under the combined effects of climate and land use / land cover (LULC) changes using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). The precipitation and temperature data from General Circulation Models (GCMs) for different Shared Socio-economic Pathway (SSP) scenarios (i.e., SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5) are downscaled and bias-corrected with Euclidean distance method and quantile delta mapping (QDM) for the case of the Anzali wetland watershed (AWW) in Iran. The Land Change Modeler (LCM) is adopted to project the future LULC at the AWW. The results indicate that the precipitation and air temperature across the AWW will decrease and increase, respectively, under the SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5 scenarios. Streamflow and sediment loads will reduce under the sole influence of SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 climate scenarios. An increase in sediment load and inflow was observed under the combined effects of climate and LULC changes, this is mainly due to the projected increased deforestation and urbanization across the AWW. The findings suggest that the densely vegetated regions, mainly located in the zones with steep slope, significantly prevents large sediment load and high streamflow input to the AWW. Under the combined effects of the climate and LULC changes, by 2100, the projected total sediment input to the wetland will reach 22.66, 20.83, and 19.93 million tons under SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5 scenarios, respectively. The results highlight that without any robust environmental interventions, the large sediment inputs will significantly degrade the Anzali wetland ecosystem and partly-fill the wetland basin, resulting in resigning the wetland from the Montreux record list and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance.

Understanding the dynamics of sediment transport and erosion-deposition patterns in the locality of a coastal structure is vital to evaluating the performance of coastal structures and predicting the changes in coastal dynamics caused by a specific structure. The nearshore hydro-morphodynamic responses to coastal structures vary widely, as these responses are complex functions with numerous parameters, including structural design, sediment and wave dynamics, angle of approach, slope of the coast and the materials making up the beach and structures. This study investigated the sediment transport and erosion-deposition patterns in the locality of a detached low-crested breakwater protecting the cohesive shore of Carey Island, Malaysia. The data used for this study were collected from field measurements and secondary sources from 2014 to 2015. Sea-bed elevations were monitored every two months starting from December 2014 to October 2015, in order to quantify the sea-bed changes and investigate the erosion-deposition patterns of the cohesive sediment due to the existence of the breakwater. In addition, numerical modelling was also performed to understand the impacts of the breakwater on the nearshore hydrodynamics and investigate the dynamics of fine sediment transport around the breakwater structure. A coupled two-dimensional hydrodynamics-sediment transport model based on Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations and cell-centered finite volume method with flexible meshing approach was adopted for this study. Analysis of the results showed that the detached breakwater reduced both current speed and wave height behind the structure by an average of 0.12 m/s and 0.1 m, respectively. Also, the breakwater made it possible for trapped suspended sediment to settle in a sheltered area by approximately 8 cm in height near to the first main segment of the breakwater, from 1 year after its construction. The numerical results were in line with the field measurements, where sediment accumulations were concentrated in the landward area behind the breakwater. In particular, sediment accumulations were concentrated along the main segments of the breakwater structure during the Northeast (NE) season, while concentration near the first main segment of the breakwater were recorded during the Southwest (SW) season. The assessment illustrated that the depositional patterns were influenced strongly by the variations in seasonal hydrodynamic conditions, sediment type, sediment supply and the structural design. Detached breakwaters are rarely considered for cohesive shores; hence, this study provides new, significant benefits for engineers, scientists and coastal management authorities with regard to seasonal dynamic changes affected by a detached breakwater and its performance on a cohesive coast.

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