Advancing Open Science

Prion diseases are fatal neurodegenerative disorders characterized by profound neuronal damage. Despite evidence supporting a neuroprotective role for β-synuclein (β-syn) in neurodegeneration, its potential functions and mechanisms in prion disease have not been elucidated. To investigate the role of β-syn, we systematically analyzed its alterations in the central nervous system of several prion-infected rodent models and cell models. A series of biochemical, cellular, and immunofluorescence assays were conducted to explore the relationship between β-syn and protein kinase B (Akt) signaling and between β-syn and prion protein (PrP), and its neuroprotective role in prion disease. Student’s t-test was used for statistics. At the terminal stage of prion disease, β-syn and Akt exhibited a parallel and remarkable decrease in rodent brains, contrasting with the slight but significant increase observed at early to middle stages. Dual-stained immunofluorescence assays confirmed that β-syn is localized within NeuN-positive neurons. Further structural and functional analyses revealed a high-affinity molecular interaction between β-syn and Akt, with the N-terminal region of β-syn being essential for binding to Akt1. In a cell model of PrP aggregation, β-syn overexpression suppressed cytochrome c-induced apoptosis, which was demonstrated by decreased levels of cleaved caspase-3. Notably, this anti-apoptotic effect was partially abolished upon Akt knockdown, indicating a dependence on Akt signaling. Moreover, colocalization of β-syn and PrP was observed in rodent brains. Consistently, in cellular models of prion infection and PrP aggregation, β-syn overexpression not only reduced PrP levels but also ameliorated its aberrant histological distribution. Our findings demonstrate that the anti-apoptotic activity of β-syn, mediated via Akt signaling, is severely lost during prion infection, thereby suggesting a mechanism of intrinsic neuronal vulnerability and revealing a novel therapeutic strategy.

Integrating Joint Source–Channel Coding (JSCC) with the LoRa Chirp Spread Spectrum (CSS) physical layer (PHY) presents a significant challenge due to the complexity of joint optimization, which remains underexplored despite the known advantages of JSCC. Traditional LoRa systems rely on decoupled source and channel coding, resulting in redundant overhead and limited adaptability under dynamic Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) conditions. To address these limitations, we propose a novel LoRa–JSCC framework: a fully learned, end-to-end differentiable architecture that jointly optimizes source compression and channel redundancy. The proposed system integrates a Denoising Autoencoder (DAE) for non-linear source compression with learned neural channel encoder and decoder modules, trained via backpropagation to minimize reconstruction distortion under noisy channel conditions. Rigorous Monte Carlo simulations conducted under unified and reproducible channel conditions demonstrate consistent performance improvements across LoRa configurations. The proposed approach achieves an average 25–30% improvement in goodput across moderate-to-high SNR regimes, with gains exceeding 100% under noise-limited conditions. It further reduces Time on Air (ToA) by approximately 30–35%, enhancing spectral efficiency and lowering effective energy cost per delivered bit. In the transitional Bit Error Rate (BER) region, the proposed LoRa–JSCC framework exhibits an effective SNR gain of approximately 18–20 dB relative to conventional LoRa, corresponding to multiple orders-of-magnitude reduction in BER. These results indicate substantial improvements in reliability, coverage robustness, and energy efficiency for WBAN and IoT deployments.

Viper bites are medical emergencies that can develop into serious clinical complications and can endanger the life of the paediatric patient. This observational retrospective study analyses 24 cases of viper bites involving paediatric patients (<18 years) encountered over 10 years (2016–2025) in the emergency department of Saint Mary Emergency Hospital of Iasi, Romania, with a focus on those requiring specialised surgical monitoring. Sociodemographic factors, toxicity, and surgical management of snakebites were analysed. In 83.33% cases, viper bites were found on the lower limb. The retrospective study was completed through an in-depth analysis of two representative cases, with a particular focus on the evolution up to compartment syndrome. Of the 24 cases presented in the Emergency Department, one was a rare and severe case, which evolved into compartment syndrome and required fasciotomy to save the limb in the Plastic Surgical Department. Another one, with the bite localised at the upper limb, had perilesional oedema, without skin colour changes or secretions, preservation of joint contours, and normal nail colouration. Both were analysed and described in detail with all available data (images, investigations, etc.) to highlight pathophysiological and therapeutic aspects. Appropriate, multidisciplinary treatment considerably improves the functional prognosis of patients with viper bites; administration of antivenom and selective fasciotomy contribute to successful outcomes. The study emphasises that viper bites in children remain a public health problem in Romania and require prompt and multidisciplinary treatment.

Submarine cable systems are essential for intercontinental connectivity and the integration of offshore renewable energy into onshore grids. The reliability of these systems depends on a well-coordinated life cycle process that integrates installation, monitoring, and maintenance technologies. This review synthesizes the key components of submarine communication and power cables, highlighting the processes involved in route survey, cable laying, and burial under complex seabed conditions. The major factors contributing to damage are typically classified into natural hazards and human activities. Particular attention is given to fault diagnosis techniques, including optical time domain reflectometry (OTDR) and time domain reflectometry (TDR). Additionally, practical workflows and processes for fault location and cable repair are outlined. By structuring advancements across installation, monitoring, and maintenance processes, this review offers a comprehensive technical reference for researchers and practitioners, while emphasizing emerging trends aimed at enhancing system resilience, real-time situational awareness, and rapid response, thus supporting global digitalization and the transition to clean energy.

West Nile neuroinvasive disease (WNND) causes substantial morbidity in endemic regions, yet data on its burden in Serbia remain limited. We conducted a retrospective, population-based study of WNND cases reported in Vojvodina Province, Serbia, from 2012 to 2025. Incidence and mortality trends were analysed by year, residence, age, sex, and week of symptom onset. Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify predictors of fatal outcome. Of 1337 suspected cases, 557 (41.66%) met the WNND case definition (530 confirmed, 27 probable cases) and 98.9% were autochthonous. The mean annual incidence was 2.17/100,000 (95% CI 0.60–3.75), ranging from 0.48/100,000 (2015) to 10.31/100,000 (2018), with additional peaks in 2013 and 2022. Cases clustered predominantly in epidemiological weeks 31–34. The mean mortality was 0.28/100,000 (95% CI 0.02–0.53) and the mean case fatality rate was 12.93% (95% CI 10.14–15.71%). Incidence increased with age, peaking at 5.97/100,000 in those 70–79 years; highest mortality occurred in ≥80 years (1.78/100,000). All districts reported cases, with the highest incidence and mortality in South Banat. Higher Charlson Comorbidity Index, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and malignancy independently predicted fatal outcome. WNND remains a significant public health problem in Vojvodina, requiring improved surveillance, targeted prevention, and early treatment of high-risk patients.

Causal inference in text data has been a demanding objective in the field of natural language processing, mainly due to the intrinsic ambiguity and context sensitivity inherent in data, inducing uncertainty. Diminishing this uncertainty is essential in identifying reliable causal connections and advancing predictive consistency. In this research, we introduce an uncertainty-aware ensemble architecture that combines multiple text embedding schemes with both linear and nonlinear classifiers to boost causal text detection. Both sparse and neural-level embeddings were employed, and then combined it with an ensemble weighting approach based on two uncertainty estimation techniques, namely entropy-based and KL divergence-based. Unlike conventional ensemble methods with uniform or fixed voting strategies, our approach assigns weights inversely proportional to classifier uncertainty, ensuring that confident models exert greater influence on the final decisions. Our results show that TF-IDF, through its effective word frequency weighting scheme, consistently outperforms other embedding techniques, achieving better performance across both linear and nonlinear classifiers on both datasets (News Corpus and CausalLM–Adjective group). The experimental results show that our uncertainty-aware ensemble approach enhances both calibration and confidence predictions. Entropy-based weighting improves confidence in the case of linear classifiers with accuracy, F1-score, entropy and prediction confidence values of 94.3%, 94.0%, 0.382 and 0.774, respectively, while in the case of nonlinear classifiers the KL divergence-based weighting acquires a better performance with an accuracy of 97.6%, F1-score of 97.2%, KL Mean value of around 0.055 and LogLoss of 0.221.

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of nitrate (NO₃⁻) supplementation on exercise performance in multiple sets of bench press (BP) and leg press (LP) at 80% of one-repetition maximum (1RM), to determine whether it would be beneficial towards the number of repetitions to failure (RTF). A total of 18 trained male subjects (25 ± 3 years old) completed two sessions of repeated number of maximum repetition (NMR) tests in BP and LP to assess RTF, power output, heart rate (HR), rating of perceived exertion (RPE) 2 h after NO₃⁻ or placebo intake. Comparisons between dependent variables were conducted using a two-factor analysis of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures, examining the factors of condition and sets. The results for RTF showed only a main effect of set for BP and LP. No significant differences were found between conditions for total RTF. Our results showed that the NO₃⁻ supplementation had no significant effect on RTF, mean power, peak power, HR, and RPE when compared to placebo conditions. Results demonstrated that for physically active male individuals with experience in strength training, NO₃⁻ supplementation did not affect strength endurance performance.

Background: Stenotrophomonas maltophilia is a multidrug-resistant pathogen with limited therapeutic options that predominantly affects critically ill and immunocompromised patients. Trimethoprim–sulfamethoxazole (TMP/SMX) remains the conventional first-line therapy; however, emerging resistance and toxicity concerns necessitate alternative regimens. This study represents, to our knowledge, the first network meta-analysis (NMA) comparing the efficacy and safety of clearly defined monotherapy and combination antibiotic regimens for S. maltophilia infections. Materials and methods: A systematic search of PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and ClinicalTrials.gov (inception to January 2026) identified eligible randomized-controlled studies and retrospective studies. Data were analyzed using a frequentist random-effects NMA with TMP/SMX as the reference. Evaluated regimens included TMP/SMX, fluoroquinolone (FQ), minocycline (MIN), TMP/SMX + FQ, TMP/SMX + MIN, FQ + MIN and FQ + other. Primary and secondary outcomes were all-cause mortality, clinical cure, and adverse effects. Results: Thirteen retrospective studies encompassing 2980 patients were included. Using TMP/SMX as the reference, network meta-analysis demonstrated heterogeneity in all-cause mortality across antimicrobial regimens. FQ and MIN monotherapies were associated with lower odds of mortality (effect sizes: 0.65, 95% CI: 0.49–0.85 and 0.50, 95% CI: 0.28–0.90), whereas combination therapy with TMP/SMX plus FQ was associated with higher mortality (effect size: 2.93, 95% CI: 1.18–7.31). Treatment ranking based on effect sizes suggested more favorable mortality profiles for MIN and FQ regimsens. No significant differences were observed in clinical cure, while FQ was associated with a lower incidence of adverse effects compared with TMP/SMX. Conclusions: This network meta-analysis suggests that FQ and MIN monotherapies may be associated with more favorable survival and tolerability compared with TMP/SMX monotherapy. No clear differences were observed for combination therapy relative to other active monotherapy options. Prospective randomized studies are required to validate these observations and to better inform the management of S. maltophilia infections.