Search Results (309,741)

A new series of isoxazole-fused thiazole–oxazole derivatives (11a–n) was rationally designed and synthesised with the aim of developing potent carbonic anhydrase (CA) I and II inhibitors. The synthesis was achieved in five steps starting from 4-bromoacetophenone, involving key intermediates such as hydroxylamine hydrochloride, hydrazine hydrate, thioisocyanate, and various phenacyl bromide derivatives, using ethanol, triethylamine, tetrahydrofuran (THF), and dimethylformamide (DMF) as solvents. The synthetic route included the formation of a β-ketoester, isoxazole ester, hydrazine adduct, thiourea derivative, and, ultimately, a thiazole ring. The structures of the final compounds were confirmed by ¹H-NMR, ¹³C-NMR, IR spectroscopy, and elemental analysis. All compounds were examined as inhibitors of human carbonic anhydrase (hCA) I and II, and all of them inhibited hCA I and hCA II. Kinetic investigation results revealed that these compounds inhibited hCA I and hCA II in a non-competitive manner. To further explore the molecular basis of their inhibitory activity, in silico studies, including molecular docking and 300 ns molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, were carried out against both CA I and CA II isoforms. These simulations provided detailed insights into the dynamic behaviour, stability, and key binding interactions of the compounds within the enzyme active sites, supporting their potential as promising carbonic anhydrase inhibitors. Full article

The optimization of the energy product in permanent magnets presents a complicated multi-parametric problem that encompasses a large variety of intrinsic and microstructural properties. As both high remanent magnetization and coercivity are required, the main concern in optimizing a given material is often how to deal with the trade-off between these two properties. A promising approach is to combine high-anisotropy with high-magnetization phases in chemically synthesized magnetically hard–soft nanoparticles. The magnetization reversal in such systems has been studied by micromagnetics, but most of the solutions are given for a magnetically hard shell surrounding a magnetically soft core, although the inverse configuration may be more accessible from a fabrication perspective and can even help induce tetragonicity in phases such as CoFe. Here we summarize the basic general design rules for such systems, and we present specific calculations for the FePt/CoFe system. Though in larger particles complex reversal modes that are scientifically interesting occur, these are not relevant to the problem of achieving high energy products. Optimal energy products are achieved in small particles in the homogeneous exchange spring regime. Therefore, the optimal size and phase content must be determined under the contradictory requirements of achieving homogeneous reversal and avoiding thermal fluctuations. Full article

Background/objectives: severe mastitis is one of the leading causes of mortality in dairy cows. Its primary complication is shock, predominantly associated with systemic inflammatory response syndrome, which remains extremely challenging for practitioners to manage. The average mortality rate is estimated at approximately 25%. Many authors recommend the use of fluoroquinolones for this indication. However, these antibiotics are classified as critically important for human health, and their use requires strict compliance with specific guidelines (bacteriological analysis and antimicrobial susceptibility testing). In addition, some practitioners remain reluctant to use this class of antibiotics in field conditions. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate the outcomes of systematic antibiotic therapy using fluoroquinolones in cases of severe mastitis and to identify factors that may influence treatment success. Methods: a total of 323 cows with severe mastitis were enrolled by eight participating veterinary clinics located across different regions of France. The study design included: (i) clinical scoring based on a standardized grid developed by practitioners routinely managing this condition, (ii) bacteriological analysis of milk samples (with antimicrobial susceptibility testing performed when Gram-negative bacteria were isolated), and (iii) post-treatment follow-up consisting of telephone interviews conducted at 5 and 15 days after inclusion. Cows presenting with a clinical score ≥3 (scale 0–36) in association with local signs of mastitis were classified as having severe mastitis and received an injection of 10 mg/kg marbofloxacin along with 2.2 mg/kg flunixin (unless another NSAID had been administered within the previous 24 h). When the clinical score was ≥6, cows additionally received intravenous fluid therapy consisting of 3 L of 7.2% NaCl, supplemented by oral drenching if spontaneous water intake was insufficient. Results: a total of 43 cows died or were euthanized during the study period, corresponding to a mortality rate of 13.3%. The mean clinical score at inclusion was 12.6. The clinical signs most strongly associated with mortality were decubitus and hypothermia at admission. Escherichia coli was isolated in 67.0% of severe mastitis cases, either as a single pathogen (82.9%) or in mixed infections (17.1%). Overall, Gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli, Klebsiella spp., Pseudomonas aeruginosa, other Gram-negative organisms) were identified in 79.0% of cases. A total of 188 coliform isolates were tested for antimicrobial susceptibility. All isolates (100%) were susceptible to marbofloxacin, as were all tested Gram-negative strains, whereas only 79.9% of E. coli isolates were susceptible to sulfonamide/trimethoprim. Compared with previously published data, the observed mortality rate was lower despite the poor clinical condition of cows at admission. Conclusion: the timeliness of initiating effective antimicrobial therapy appears to be a critical determinant of survival in cows with severe mastitis. Full article

This paper introduces a hardware/software co-designed 3D object detection pipeline based on the PointPillars architecture for low-power embedded MPSoC deployment. The proposed system accelerates the computationally intensive stages in programmable logic (PL), including ROI filtering, coordinate transformation, pillarization, centroid extraction, and INT8 neural inference, using Vitis high-level synthesis (HLS) and an integrated Deep Learning Processing Unit (DPU). Control-oriented and irregular operations, such as data acquisition, Direct Memory Access (DMA) control, lightweight Non-Maximum Suppression (NMS), visualization, and logging, remain on the processing system (PS). The design targets the AMD Kria KV260 platform and achieves an accelerated core pipeline latency of 11.4 ms per frame at 300 MHz, corresponding to 87.4 Hz throughput, with 6.842 W board-level power consumption. Including PS-side NMS, the practical end-to-end latency is approximately 12.2 ms for typical KITTI scenes. Compared with existing Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)-based implementations implementations, the proposed design reduces latency by up to $33\times$. It achieves a $202\times$ improvement in on-chip BRAM efficiency across HLS optimization versions through FIFO streaming, dataflow execution, and array partitioning. Experimental validation on physical hardware confirms that the proposed PL-accelerated hardware/software co-design provides a practical and cost-effective solution for real-time 3D LiDAR perception on embedded FPGA platforms. Full article

Social mobility is a central indicator of socioeconomic development. It indicates the improvement of an individual’s socioeconomic position across generations. Recently, welfare policies, education, and redistribution schemes have received increasing attention from the academic community as they affect social mobility outcomes. Despite the growing volume of literature, there is an inadequate linkage between research on social mobility and social policy. This study uses a bibliometric analysis of 389 Scopus-indexed articles to examine research on social mobility and social policy from 1990 to 2025. The findings highlight the relationship between the impacts of policy interventions on social mobility. Performance analysis and science mapping are used, which provide insight into publication trends and leading contributors and reveal the intellectual and conceptual structures of the research field. Studies are concentrated in developed economies such as the United States and the United Kingdom. Further, in the science mapping analysis, co-word analysis is followed by bibliographic coupling, which reveals emerging trends and promising themes. The study provides a comprehensive synthesis of the conceptual and intellectual evolution of social mobility research, offers insights for policymakers and highlights the future direction of interdisciplinary research. Full article

Background/Objectives: This review considered meibomian gland functional assays, reported in recent dry eye treatment trials, that have potential as a clinical/physiological measure in a Core Outcome Set in dry eye clinical trials. The focus was on clinical methods that can be applied globally by trained clinicians. Methods: An electronic search of the MEDLINE database (via PubMed) was conducted to identify randomized controlled trials published in English between 1 January 1995 and 11 December 2025. The search strategy used the terms (meibomian OR meibography) AND treatment. Studies were included if they reported outcomes related to meibum secretion and/or meibomian gland expressibility in human participants. Moreover, a retrospective chart review was undertaken from previously unpublished meibum grading data to determine whether opacity and viscosity grades for meibum are correlated. Results: 98 studies were included for analysis The grading systems of Bron and co-workers, combined with that of the similar MGD Workshop report, were the most prevalent (n = 48), followed by Lane and co-workers (n = 23) and Shimazaki and co-workers (n = 10). Expressibility grading systems were most prevalent for Pflugfelder et al. (n = 33), followed by Blackie-Korb (n = 19) and Author defined (n = 17). The retrospective analysis of 69 charts suggests high correlation between meibum opacity and viscosity (Pearson’s r = 0.904, p < 0.001. 95% CI 0.849–0.940). Conclusions: Grading meibum quality is important in dry eye diagnosis and treatment. A modification of the MGD Workshop system appears useful as a core outcome set parameter in dry eye treatment trials. Full article

Aedes (Ae.) aegypti and Ae. albopictus are important vectors of arboviruses. Yet their blood-feeding pattern remains poorly characterised in Africa, including Cameroon. In this study, we characterised the blood-meal sources in both species collected from vegetation, household surroundings, and animal cages across four urban sites, one rural site, and a zoo-botanical garden where humans and animals in captivity are the main hosts. Overall, Aedes mosquitoes represented about half of 10,054 female mosquitoes collected, with Ae. albopictus strongly dominating Ae. aegypti among 5001 Aedes females, and only 5.95% of females visibly blood-fed. Sequencing a 748 base pairs (bp) fragment of the cytochrome oxidase I gene from 156 blood-fed abdomens yielded 126 high-confidence host assignments, of which 98.25% were humans, indicating a strong anthropophagic pattern in both species. Unpredictably, two Ae. albopictus individuals had fed on a baboon (Papio anubis) and a frugivorous bat (Pteropodidae), as confirmed by bio informatic analyses, highlighting the species’ opportunistic blood-feeding nature and providing preliminary molecular evidence consistent with a potential bridge-vector role in this setting. Despite the extreme anthropophagy of both species observed, results indicate that Ae. albopictus could also serve as a bridge vector enabling spillover of enzootic viruses to humans, including urbanised settings where wild animals are present. These findings emphasise the urgent need for enhanced arbovirus surveillance in Central Africa using a One Health approach. Full article

This paper proposes a hybrid time–frequency domain identification method for second-order plus dead time models with an additional process zero (SOPDT+Z). A dual-relay experiment combined with step response data provides six independent equations for five model parameters, whose mathematical well-posedness is established through Jacobian rank analysis. A cascaded initialization strategy (Sundaresan → SIMC → Jin → proposed) guarantees monotonically improving accuracy. An Internal Model Control (IMC) framework yields equivalent PID parameters with a single tuning parameter λ, supported by a formal robust stability theorem. Simulation studies on five benchmark systems demonstrate 60–100% reduction in open-loop IAE compared to existing SOPDT methods, 36% faster settling, and 100% closed-loop stability under ±20% Monte Carlo perturbation (N = 200). Noise robustness analysis under SNR = 20–40 dB and additional performance metrics (ITAE, ISE) further validate the method. Full article

The corrosion behavior of the EN AW-5083 alloy was investigated due to its widespread use in marine and transportation applications. The study examined the influence of microstructure development on corrosion behavior in both as-cast and homogenized conditions. Thermodynamic calculations, differential scanning calorimetry, and metallographic characterization were used to analyze solidification and microstructure development, while electrochemical testing was applied to evaluate corrosion resistance in a solution simulating severe outdoor exposure conditions, primarily marine, industrial, and transportation environments. The results show that the as-cast microstructure contains a heterogeneous distribution of anodic and cathodic intermetallic phases, which promotes localized corrosion. Homogenization at 520 °C led to the dissolution of the Al₈Mg₅ (β) phase, resulting in reduced sensitization effects and slightly improved corrosion resistance. However, high corrosion rates were observed in both metallurgical conditions, indicating limited resistance under the applied testing conditions. The study confirms that microstructural modification through homogenization influences corrosion mechanisms in EN AW-5083. Full article

Floods are among the most catastrophic natural disasters globally, causing significant damage to both life and infrastructure. Consequently, immediate and accurate assessment of inundated areas is critical for effective emergency response. While optical remote sensing is typically used for flood assessment, it is often ineffective during active flood events due to persistent cloud cover and precipitation. To address this, this research develops a deep learning method utilizing Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), which offers all-weather, 24 h imaging capabilities. Specifically, an attention-based differential Siamese U-Net was developed to detect temporal changes in bi-temporal SAR imagery (e.g., Sentinel-1) acquired before and after flood events. The method was evaluated on the S1GFloods dataset, comprising 5360 bi-temporal Sentinel-1 SAR image pairs across 46 flood incidents on six continents. Experimental results demonstrate a flood Intersection over Union (IoU) of 92.43%, an F1 score of 96.07%, and a recall of 97.64%. These metrics rank the proposed approach third overall among top-performing methods on this dataset. Notably, the high recall rate indicates the model is particularly beneficial for emergency response, as it minimizes the number of undetected flooded areas. Despite utilizing a CNN-based architecture that is less complex than Vision Transformer models, this method achieves results comparable to the state-of-the-art DAM-Net, with a performance difference of only 0.77%. Full article

In this study glycerol-plasticized sodium caseinate/polyvinyl alcohol NaC/PVA composite films were prepared by solution casting, and the effects of incorporating caffeic acid powder at different concentrations 0% 2.5% 5% and 15% w/w on structural mechanical barrier and postharvest performance were investigated. Caffeic acid (CA) (3,4-dihydroxycinnamic acid) is a naturally occurring phenolic compound commonly found in plant tissues and food sources such as apples, blueberries, and coffee. FTIR analysis revealed that shifts and broadening in OH bands indicated hydrogen bonding interactions between caffeic acid and the polymer matrix influencing structural organization. The pure NaC/PVA film exhibited high WVTR due to glycerol while maintaining low OTR. Adding 2.5% caffeic acid reduced WVTR but increased OTR through structural disruption. At 5% a continuous hydrogen-bonded network formed, restricting chain mobility and reducing free volume, thus lowering WVTR and OTR while preserving mechanical integrity. SEM micrographs revealed that high CA concentrations, particularly at 15%, led to aggregation-induced partial phase separation and consequent performance loss. Packaging treatments mainly affected physical and color attributes rather than primary metabolites. The NaC/PVA/5CA reduced weight loss and delayed sugar accumulation compared with NaC/PVA. Sugars peaked earlier in NaC/PVA but increased continuously in NaC/PVA/5CA, reaching maximum at the final storage stage. These findings indicate concentration-dependent mechanisms and highlight the potential of caffeic acid-based active packaging to regulate metabolism and extend postharvest quality. Overall results support its application in sustainable packaging systems for improved shelf life management. Full article

This paper proposes a standards-aligned hybrid artificial intelligence–digital twin (DT) framework for predictive maintenance (PdM) in the maritime domain under conditions of data scarcity and heterogeneous sensor environments. The proposed framework adopts a DT-ready reference architecture centered on an ISO 19848-aligned data contract enabling consistent signal naming across vessels and equipment. On this foundation, the prognostics module is designed as a Domain-Knowledge Enhanced LSTM (DK-LSTM), a constraint-regularized sequence model in which three domain-informed constraints—(i) RUL non-negativity, (ii) monotonic degradation, and (iii) operating-range upper bounds—are formulated within the learning objective. Constraints (i) and (iii) are active throughout, while constraint (ii) is reserved for future work due to the structural limitation of batch-sort approximation in single-output architectures. An asymmetric safety penalty further suppresses hazardous over-predictions. Scenario-based virtual experiments are conducted using the NASA C-MAPSS turbofan degradation benchmark, evaluated under (1) sensor missingness via masking indicators and (2) structural domain shift comprising operational-condition shift (E3a: FD001 → FD002) and fault-mode shift (E3b: FD001 → FD003). Through systematic ablation of loss weights and stabilization techniques across multi-seed verification (seeds 0, 42, 123), the final stabilized configuration (DK-LSTM-v4) demonstrates robust safety-critical prediction in zero-shot domain-shift scenarios: 43.7% NASA Score improvement over the strongest baseline (GRU) under E3a and 20.8% improvement under E3b. The model trades modest in-domain performance for substantial cross-domain robustness, aligning with the core requirement of safety-critical maritime and defense applications where target-domain training data is unavailable. Full article

Background/Objectives: The growing population of multicultural adolescents (MCAs) has become a vital focus for national health policy. Despite their increasing numbers, MCAs often encounter unique socioeconomic challenges and dietary issues that may heighten mental health vulnerabilities. This study aimed to assess the dietary behaviors of MCA and non-MCA and to explore the association between these behaviors and mental health outcomes, specifically generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and severity of suicidal behavior. Methods: Using data from the 2024 Korea Youth Risk Behavior Survey, we analyzed the dietary behaviors of 44,796 adolescents, focusing on five key areas: breakfast consumption, fruit intake, caffeine drinks, sweetened beverages, and fast food. We also calculated a composite dietary behavior score and assessed mental health using the GAD-7 and a three-component suicidal behavior scale (including ideation, planning, and attempts). Results: MCAs experienced significant disparities in socioeconomic status and had a notably higher prevalence of suicide attempts compared to non-MCAs (p = 0.0107). In both groups, poorer dietary behaviors were linked to an increased likelihood of GAD and greater severity of suicidal behavior (p_trend < 0.05). This association with suicidal behavior severity was particularly pronounced in MCA (p_interaction = 0.0358). Conclusions: Dietary behavior is significantly associated with mental health issues among Korean adolescents. Given the vulnerabilities faced by MCA, it is essential to implement multifaceted policy support and targeted dietary interventions to improve outcomes for this population. Full article

Securing IoT-enabled wireless sensor network links requires selecting a minimum-cost set of connected monitor nodes that observes every link while satisfying capacity constraints, a problem known as the minimum weighted connected capacitated vertex cover (MWCCVC). To the best of our knowledge, this work introduces the first learning-based framework for the MWCCVC through a three-stage pipeline that combines supervised graph neural networks, feasibility repair, and local search. We compare twelve graph neural network architectures, including graph convolutional network, graph attention network, GraphSAGE, Graph Isomorphism Network (GIN), and GraphTransformer, under unified features, loss functions, and hyperparameter tuning. Throughout the evaluation on 309 benchmark instances under a 5-fold cross-validation protocol, feasibility is guaranteed by the deterministic repair module instead of being learned by the network, resulting in 100% feasible covers across all evaluated instances. At the large scale, GIN, GraphSAGE, DeeperGIN, and EdgeAwareGIN reach parity with the state-of-the-art hybrid genetic algorithm (HGA), with GIN attaining a mean gap of $-0.37\%$ (a difference of less than one percentage point) while completing in seconds instead of HGA’s hours. Statistical tests across the full 309-instance benchmark confirm significant differences between the architectures, with Friedman ${\chi }^2=93.05$, $p<{10}^{-4}$. The best-performing architectures remain within about $2\%$ of HGA on small- and medium-scale instances, where HGA is near-optimal, and become the preferred choice at the large scale, mainly because their wall-clock time is much shorter than HGA’s at the same solution quality. Full article