Heavy metal migration dynamics and solid-liquid distribution strategy in abandoned tailing soils.

The tailings soil originating from an abandoned sulfur-iron mine in Sichuan Province, China, exhibits elevated concentrations of heavy metals (HMs) and possesses limited soil conservation capacity. Variability soil particle size fractions (PSFs) contributes to an increased risk of HMs ion migration. Existing research on HMs behavior has focused on the bulk soil scale, resulting in a dearth of comprehensive information concerning different particle sizes and colloid scales. We collected soil samples from upstream source (XWA), migration path (XWB), and downstream farmland (XWC) of an abandoned tailing and categorized into sand, silt, clay, colloid and dissolved, respectively. The investigation primarily aimed to elucidate the solid-liquid distribution trade-off strategies of soil HMs along migration pathway. Results show that PSFs composition predominantly influences HMs solid-liquid distribution. In the mining area, large particles serve as the principal component for HMs enrichment. However, along the migration pathway, the proportion of highly mobile fine particles increases, shifting HMs from solid to liquid phase. Furthermore, inorganic elements such as Mg, Al, and Fe influence on HMs distribution within PSFs through various reactions, whereas organic matter and glomalin-related soil protein (GRSP) also exert regulatory roles. Increasing the proportion of large particles can reduce the risk of HMs migration.

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Current Issues in Molecular Biology (ISSN 1467-3045) was launched in 1999 and has published international and multidisciplinary articles on all aspects of molecular biology spanning from basic mechanisms to applications in fields primarily, but not exclusively, relevant to microbiology and virology [...].

Special Issue "Artemisinin (Qinghaosu): Commemorative Issue in Honor of Professor Youyou Tu on the Occasion of Her 80th Anniversary" in International Molecules Published in 2010.

It has been more than 10 years since we published the Special Issue "Artemisinin (Qinghaosu): commemorative issue in honor of Professor Youyou Tu on the occasion of her 80th anniversary" (Abbreviated as "the Artemisinins Special Issue") [...].

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Retraction: Al-Salahi, R.A. et al. Cytotoxicity and anti-inflammatory activity of ethylsulfanyltriazoloquinazolines. Molecules 2013, 18, 1434-1446.

We have been made aware of the fact that a large proportion of the Introduction section and corresponding references of the title paper [1] had been copied verbatim from an earlier paper by Hamdy and Gamal-Eldeen [2], and further, during our investigation it has also come to light that most of the text in question had been lifted unchanged from an even earlier review paper by a different group [3]. The authors have been contacted, these facts confirmed, and Dr. Amira M. Gamal-Eldeen has been identified as the person responsible for contributing that part of the paper. As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), MPDI takes very seriously the responsibility to enforce a rigorous peer-review process together with strict ethical policies and standards to ensure the addition of high quality scientific works to the field of scholarly publication. In addition to an infringement of the Elsevier and American Association for Cancer Research copyright on the previous publications, this is also a clear violation of our policy to only publish new, previously unpublished material, so this paper is declared retracted and shall be marked accordingly for the scientific record. We cannot comment on any of the scientific data contained in the Molecules paper, which to the best of our knowledge is original. We would like to apologize to our readership on behalf of the Molecules editorial team for the fact this event went undetected during the peer-review and pre-publication processing of the paper and for any inconvenience caused by this event.

Publication of Controversial Papers in Life.

Life (ISSN 2075-1729, http://www.mdpi.com/journal/life/) is a new journal that deals with new and sometime difficult interdisciplinary matters. Consequently, the journal will occasionally be presented with submitted articles that are controversial and/or outside conventional scientific views. Some papers recently accepted for publication in Life have attracted significant attention. Moreover, members of the Editorial Board have objected to these papers; some have resigned, and others have questioned the scientific validity of the contributions. In response I want to first state some basic facts regarding all publications in this journal. All papers are peer-reviewed, although it is often difficult to obtain expert reviewers for some of the interdisciplinary topics covered by this journal. I feel obliged to stress that although we will strive to guarantee the scientific standard of the papers published in this journal, all the responsibility for the ideas contained in the published articles rests entirely on their authors. Discussions on previously published articles are welcome and I hope that, by fostering discussion and by keeping an open-minded attitude towards new ideas, the journal will spur progress in this little explored, difficult and very exciting area of knowledge. [...].

Publisher's Note: Withdraw and Republication of "UV-Induced Radical Photo-Polymerization: A Smart Tool for Preparing Polymer Electrolyte Membranes for Energy Storage Devices".

It has been brought to the corresponding author's attention by the administration office that some of the authors present in this paper [1] are contradicting with the rules and regulation of some of the confidential industrial projects which have been signed with strict regulations. Now it has aroused as a big trouble and, consequently, to solve this problem all the authors have determined that it should be retracted. This decision has been taken purely for bureaucratic aspect. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Retraction: Heidari, A.; Vedad, S.; Heidari, N.; Ghorbani, M. Flux Dynamics in Y358 Superconductors. Materials 2012, 5, 882-888.

[This retracts the article DOI: 10.3390/ma5050882.].

Cells - An Open Access Journal of Cell Biology.

To expand the open access publishing project of our newly founded company MDPI [1,2] based in Basel, Switzerland, we are in the process of launching new journals. Based on our success in running journals that represent key areas in science and technology, such as Molecules [3], Sensors [4], Energies [5], Viruses [6], Pharmaceuticals [7], Cancers [8] and Toxins [9], we are launching a new journal entitled Cells. It is an open access journal combining cell biology, molecular biology and biophysics, toward an understanding of cell structure, function and interactions. [...].

Origin of Life and Birth of Life - An Open Access Journal.

Our publishing company MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute) planned to launch this journal Life (ISSN 2075-1729) since June 2009. Life science as a topic covers a very broad area. We decided to focus the scope of this new journal on the origin of life and the evolution of biosystems such as molecular evolution. Of course any fundamental theoretical topics and experimental discoveries in biology, biochemistry and biophysics will be welcomed also. [...].

The Journal Microarrays.

Our publishing company MDPI AG has its headquarters in Basel, Switzerland where there are thousands of scientists working in the laboratories of pharmaceutical companies and institutes including Novartis [1], F. Hoffmann-La Roche [2] and institutes affiliated with University of Basel [3]. In 1996, the first annual microplate conference MipTec was held in Basel, and the MipTec 2011 was held a few days ago in Basel [4]. I published a paper on microplate standardization presented at MipTec 1996 in MDPI's longest-running journal Molecules [5-7]. [....].

Resumed Publication of Pharmaceuticals in 2009.

After a five year hiatus, we are pleased to announce the resumption of publication of the MDPI journal Pharmaceuticals (ISSN 1424-8247). First launched in 2004, few suitable papers were submitted and only one was published [1], before our limited editorial resources at the time led us to temporarily discontinue publication. Several things have changed since then. First, there has been an explosive growth in the number of manuscripts submitted and published in MDPI's various current journals [2], whose topics clearly fall within the intended scope of Pharmaceuticals and we feel that these manuscripts merit a dedicated forum. Second, the expansion of MDPI, now with Editorial Offices and staff in Basel (Switzerland) and Beijing (China), allows us to provide Pharmaceuticals' authors with all the services they could desire and deserve: a simple manuscript submission process, rigorous peer review, quick revision turnaround, Open Access publication on a new and attractive platform and coverage by all the major abstracting services. In addition, a new Editorial Board comprised of noted academic and industry scientists has been set up for Pharmaceuticals. Finally, to better focus the subject matter published in Pharmaceuticals on molecular medicines, we have also set up a special section in International Journal of Molecular Sciences (IJMS, ISSN 1422-0067) for papers on nutraceuticals or chemopreventives. We look forward to receiving and publishing your papers and as always, we welcome your comments and suggestions. [...].