Search Results (128,559)

This work presents the design of a compact, wideband circular microstrip patch antenna for microwave imaging-based brain tumor detection. The main contribution is the development of a compact antenna structure incorporating enhanced ground-plane slot modifications, which significantly improves impedance bandwidth while maintaining a small electrical size, making it highly suitable for medical imaging systems. In addition, the study integrates antenna design, safety evaluation, and microwave imaging analysis within a unified framework to assess tumor localization feasibility using a realistic head model in CST Microwave Studio. The proposed antenna is fabricated on an FR-4 substrate with dimensions of 37 × 54.5 × 1.6 mm³, corresponding to an electrical size of 0.176λ × 0.260λ × 0.0076λ at the lowest operating frequency of 1.43 GHz. Ground-plane slot enhancements are introduced to achieve wideband performance, resulting in an impedance bandwidth from 1.43 to 4 GHz and a fractional bandwidth of 94.7%. The antenna exhibits a maximum realized gain of 3.7 dB. To evaluate its suitability for medical applications, specific absorption rate (SAR) analysis is performed using a realistic human head model at multiple antenna positions and at 1.5, 2.1, 2.5, 3.3, and 3.9 GHz frequencies. The computed SAR values range from 0.109 to 1.56 W/kg averaged over 10 g of tissue, satisfying the IEEE C95.1 safety guideline limit of 2 W/kg. For tumor detection assessment, time-domain simulations are conducted in CST Microwave Studio using a monostatic radar configuration, where the antenna operates as both transmitter and receiver at twelve angular positions around the head with 30° increments. The collected scattered signals are processed using the Delay-and-Sum (DAS) beamforming algorithm to reconstruct dielectric contrast maps and localize the tumor. It should be noted that the tumor-imaging demonstrations presented in this work are based on numerical simulations, while experimental validation is limited to the characterization of the fabricated antenna. Nevertheless, the findings indicate that the proposed antenna is a promising candidate for noninvasive, low-cost microwave brain tumor imaging applications. Full article

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are unique microporous materials being explored for a wide range of applications. Their porosity and high surface areas can readily be exploited for guest–host interactions, separations, and photochemical catalysis, but many suffer from poor charge separation and fast electron–hole recombination. Introducing structural defects, such as missing linkers or metal nodes, can create unsaturated metal sites and alter band structure, conductivity, and light absorption, improving photocatalytic performance. UiO-66-NH₂ and MIL-125-NH₂ are water-stable, visible-light-absorbing MOFs well suited for photocatalytic degradation of organic dyes. In this work, the influence of defect engineering on photocatalytic properties of MOFs was investigated using formic and acetic acid modulators with UiO-66-NH₂ and variable temperature with MIL-125-NH₂ during synthesis. The resulting materials were characterized by XRD, FTIR and SEM/EDS. Defect states were tracked using N₂ adsorption/BET analysis and UV–Vis spectroscopy. Photocatalytic activity was evaluated by monitoring Rhodamine B (RhB) degradation in aqueous solution under simulated solar irradiation. It was found that increased temperature beyond 120 °C during synthesis promotes mesopore formation and decreases the bandgap in MIL-125-NH₂, resulting in a more photoactive material. Defective MIL-125-NH₂ synthesized at 150 °C showed the most defects and proved to be the best photocatalyst investigated in this study. Formic acid modulation in UiO-66-NH₂ generated smaller crystallites that slightly increased the bandgap; however, the surface area decreased proportionally with the amount of formic acid used. The decreased surface area and observed enhancement in photocatalytic degradation of RhB suggest that formic acid introduces defects into the UiO-66-NH₂ framework that enhance photocatalytic properties. UiO-66-NH₂ treated with acetic acid resulted in larger crystals, increased bandgaps, and increased surface areas, suggesting that acetic acid simply modulates growth rather than imparting defects to the framework. Full article

Mitophagy serves as an essential quality control mechanism that maintains mitochondrial homeostasis through selective autophagic clearance of damaged organelles. Vascular dementia (VD) has been increasingly associated with mitophagy dysregulation in recent studies. However, the precise molecular mechanisms underlying mitophagy’s involvement in VD pathogenesis remain poorly characterized. To elucidate the role of mitophagy in VD, we systematically examined the expression of key mitophagy pathways in hippocampal neurons of bilateral common carotid artery occlusion (BCCAO) rats and in oxygen–glucose deprivation (OGD)-treated HT22 cells. Intriguingly, under autophagy-deficient conditions, both BNIP3 and BNIP3L were markedly downregulated, whereas FUNDC1 expression increased; PINK1/Parkin levels remained unaltered. To further dissect the functional contributions of BNIP3 and BNIP3L, we administered the mitochondrial fission inhibitor Mdivi-1 to BCCAO model rats. Histopathological analysis revealed pronounced neuronal damage and apoptosis in the hippocampal region, which was further exacerbated upon Mdivi-1 treatment. In vitro, BNIP3 silencing significantly compromised cell viability, elevated reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation, disrupted mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨm), suppressed mitophagy, and increased apoptotic rates. Conversely, BNIP3 overexpression reversed these detrimental effects. Notably, treatment with the autophagy inhibitor 3-methyladenine (3-MA) diminished LC3B-Tomm20 colocalization and intensified apoptosis, reinforcing the critical role of BNIP3-mediated mitophagy in neuronal survival. Similarly, BNIP3L overexpression enhanced cell viability, attenuated ROS production, restored ΔΨm, and mitigated apoptosis, while 3-MA treatment again impaired mitophagic flux and worsened cell death. Collectively, these findings underscore the critical and distinct roles of BNIP3 and BNIP3L in maintaining mitochondrial homeostasis and neuronal survival under ischemic conditions. Full article

Background: Tumour volume percentage (TVP) is considered an important pathological parameter, particularly in prostate cancer, representing the ratio of tumour volume to the total gland, and it can be used to measure the quantity of malignancy. Previous reports have already demonstrated that an elevated tumour volume percentage is associated with unfavourable factors, including extraprostatic extension, positive surgical margins, and lymph node metastasis. The independent value of TVP, especially in high-risk prostate cancer treated by radical prostatectomy, remains an area of active research, despite established prognostic factors such as PSA, ISUP grade, and TNM stage. Materials and Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the records of 159 high-risk prostate cancer patients who underwent open or laparoscopic radical prostatectomy between January 2016 and January 2025 at the Clinic of Urology of Targu Mures. High-risk patients were defined as those with ISUP grade 4–5 or PSA >20 ng/mL or clinical stage ≥T2c or stage cT3–4 and/or lymph node metastasis. Tumour volume percentage was calculated from the final pathology result and was determined as the proportion of prostate cancer volume relative to the total prostate volume. Clinical and pathological features, including PSA, ISUP grade, TNM stage, surgical margin, and lymph node involvement, were reported. To assess TVP as an indicator of tumour aggressiveness, univariate and multivariate regression analyses were performed. A p-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: A total of 159 high-risk prostate cancer patients (100%), with a median age of 66 years, who underwent open or laparoscopic radical prostatectomy were included. The median tumour volume percentage was 7.6%, and the median prostate volume was 43.8 cc. On univariate analysis, patients with extraprostatic extension (p < 0.001), positive surgical margins (p = 0.005), a higher ISUP grade (p < 0.001), and lymph node metastasis (p = 0.006) exhibited higher TVP compared to their counterparts. A significant correlation was also observed between TVP and the number of positive biopsy cores (p < 0.001), a higher PSA value (p = 0.005), and a younger age (p = 0.041). Conversely, no correlation was identified between TVP and perioperative factors such as hospital stay, surgery duration, ICU days, type of approach, or positive urine culture. Two regression models on multivariate analyses were performed with TVP as the dependent variable. In the continuous variable model (Adjusted R² = 0.43, p < 0.001), independent predictors of higher TVP were the number of positive biopsy cores (B = 0.54, p < 0.001), the number of positive lymph nodes (B = 2.59, p < 0.001), and surgical margin dimension (B = 1.19, p < 0.001). Age, PSA, and perioperative variables showed no significant correlation with TVP on multivariate analysis. In the categorical regression model (Adjusted R² = 0.438), statistical significance was confirmed (F-test, p < 0.001). Independent predictors of increased tumour volume percentage included ISUP grade 5 in the effect-coded model (B = +6.60, 95% CI: 0.96–12.25, p = 0.022), and pathological TNM stage pT4 (B = +24.70, 95% CI: 17.69–31.70, p < 0.001). ROC analysis showed limited-to-moderate discrimination for positive surgical margins (AUC = 0.655; 95% CI 0.565–0.744; p = 0.001) and stronger discrimination for pN1 (AUC = 0.793; 95% CI 0.650–0.936; p = 0.002). The Youden-derived cut-offs were 4.90% for positive surgical margins and 5.77% for lymph-node metastasis. Conclusions: Tumour volume percentage is significantly associated with several adverse pathological features in high-risk prostate cancer. Rather than a standalone biomarker, its association with adverse pathological features underscores its potential role in risk stratification models, and the incorporation into pathology reports and prognostic nomograms may improve clinical decision-making. Full article

The safety of titanium dioxide (TiO₂), widely used in foods and personal care products, has been of on-going concern. Adverse effects of TiO₂ have been reported, suggesting risk to human health. To evaluate its potential epigenotoxicity, the effect of exposure to a TiO₂ product, to which humans could be exposed, on microRNA (miRNA) expression (a primary epigenetic mechanism) was investigated using human cell lines (Caco-2, HCT116 (colorectal) and HepG2, SNU387 (liver)) relevant to human exposure. The effect of TiO₂ nanomaterial exposure on expression levels of miRNA was determined using the TaqMan Array Human microRNA A+B Card Set v3.0 platform. Differentially expressed miRNAs were identified (SNU387 (n = 112), HepG2 (n = 97), Caco-2 (n = 94), and HCT116 (n = 53)). Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and Gene Ontology (GO) functional enrichment analysis of target genes provided insights into the roles of modulating pathways, which can be associated with diseases. Top 10 KEGG pathways in each cell line included MAPK signaling pathway, Axon guidance, cell cycle, Hippo signaling pathway, and Endocytosis. Findings from the study clearly demonstrate the impact of TiO₂ exposure on miRNA expression, supporting the potential involvement of this epigenetic mechanism in its biological responses. Hence, epigenetic studies are important for the complete assessment of the potential risk from exposure. Full article

Herein, an electrochemical sensor is reported for the first time based on an ordered macro–microporous composite derived from metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) for the highly sensitive detection of auramine O (AO), a Group 2B carcinogen. The hierarchical pore architecture, integrating an ordered macroporous network with a microporous ZIF-8 framework, enables the uniform dispersion of a high density of catalytically active sites. The interconnected macroporous channels facilitate efficient mass transport and rapid removal of reaction byproducts, effectively preventing pore blockage and ensuring stable sensing performance during repeated measurements. Owing to these structural advantages, the proposed sensor exhibits outstanding analytical performance toward AO detection, with a sensitivity of 0.4843 μA μM⁻¹, a detection limit of 0.168 μM (S/N = 3), and a wide linear range from 0.5 to 50 μM. Moreover, the sensor demonstrates excellent selectivity and reproducibility, maintaining reliable responses even in the presence of 100-fold excess common food constituents such as tartrazine and glucose. Real sample analysis further confirms its high accuracy and operational stability. Overall, the electrochemical sensor based on silver nanoparticle-decorated ordered macro–microporous ZIF-8 synthesized via in situ reduction shows great potential as a portable and on-site tool for rapid AO detection in food. More broadly, ordered macro–microporous MOF-derived materials represent a promising platform for advanced electrochemical sensor applications. Full article

As an important component of Chinese folk art, rural paper-cutting embodies rich regional cultural connotations and distinctive aesthetic expressions. In this study, a Chinese rural paper-cutting image dataset covering multiple regions and artistic styles was constructed, and a convolutional neural network (CNN)-based framework was proposed for regional and stylistic identification of paper-cutting works. Five representative mainstream CNN models were evaluated for both tasks. For regional classification, all models achieved high accuracy, with EfficientNet-B1 attaining the highest accuracy of 91.46%. The style classification task was more challenging due to subtle visual differences, with MobileNetV3-Small achieving the highest accuracy of 73.20%. In addition, t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE) visualizations further confirmed that the models were able to effectively distinguish different regional and stylistic categories in high-dimensional space. To enhance model interpretability, Gradient-weighted Class Activation Mapping (Grad-CAM) was applied to visualize the optimal models. The results show that the CNNs consistently focus on core structural features of paper-cutting works, suggesting that CNNs can capture visually and culturally meaningful features. Overall, this study demonstrates the feasibility of applying CNNs to the analysis of traditional folk art and provides a practical technical pathway for digital management, intelligent classification, and educational dissemination of rural paper-cutting art. Full article

Multi-source radar data fusion has become increasingly vital for advancing weather monitoring and forecasting. However, effectively integrating Doppler radar with an X-band phased-array radar remains challenging. Doppler radar offers only low and inconsistent spatial resolution, whereas an X-band phased-array radar provides high resolution but is limited by short detection range, severe signal attenuation, and high deployment costs, constraining its use to localized monitoring. To address the aforementioned challenges, this paper proposes the Multi-source Radar Reflectivity Complementary Enhancement method (MSR-CE). By constructing a paired training dataset, real X-band phased-array radar reflectivity data serve as the starting samples for the forward diffusion process, while paired S-band Doppler radar reflectivity data act as conditional guidance. Leveraging a conditional diffusion model, the method generates high-resolution pseudo X-band phased-array reflectivity fields. Additionally, a Radar-Physics-Aware Loss (RPA Loss) is introduced to enhance spatial detail fidelity and physical consistency. Experiments on multi-source radar observations from Northeast China in 2025 demonstrate that MSR-CE achieves an SSIM of 0.892 and a PSNR of 41.6 dB, outperforming traditional interpolation methods and state-of-the-art generative approaches in radar reflectivity enhancement. Full article

Background/Objectives: Diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) and Charcot foot (CF) represent progressive and disabling neuropathic complications of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Circulating microRNAs and inflammatory cytokines may reflect underlying molecular alterations associated with disease progression and offer potential value for discriminating between stages of diabetic neuropathic complications. This study aimed to evaluate circulating miRNA expression profiles and inflammatory cytokine biomarkers in T2DM patients with and without neuropathic complications and to assess their potential non-invasive utility as combined biomarkers for differentiating disease stages and identifying molecular patterns associated with progression from T2DM to DPN and CF. Methods: The study included the following four groups: healthy controls, T2DM patients without complications, T2DM patients with DPN, and T2DM patients with CF. Expression profiles of five miRNAs (miR-19b-3p, miR-451a, miR-199a-3p, miR-146a-5p, and miR-93-5p) were quantified using qPCR. Inflammatory cytokine biomarkers including NLRP3, TNF-α, NF-κB, IL-1β, caspase-3, and Serpin E2 were measured using ELISA assays. Results: Distinct expression patterns of both miRNAs and inflammatory cytokine biomarkers were observed across diabetic neuropathy stages. Several miRNAs demonstrated significant dysregulation in DPN and CF compared with T2DM patients without complications. Correlation analyses revealed stage-specific patterns of interaction between inflammatory cytokines and miRNAs, indicating coordinated molecular alterations across different stages of diabetic neuropathic complications. Conclusions: These findings suggest that combining circulating miRNA and inflammatory marker profiles may improve the discrimination of CF from other diabetic neuropathic stages and may support clinical assessment when conventional diagnostic methods remain unclear. However, prospective longitudinal studies are required to determine their value for risk prediction and disease progression. Full article

Rural road perception for agricultural machinery automation faces challenges including complex backgrounds, drastic lighting and weather variations, frequent occlusions, and high densities of small objects with significant scale variations. These factors make conventional detectors prone to missed detections and misclassifications. To address these issues, a 4K rural road dataset with 4771 images is constructed. The dataset covers 13 object categories and includes diverse day/night conditions and multiple weather scenarios on both structured and unstructured roads. EMAF-Net, a lightweight single-stage detector based on YOLOv4-P6, is proposed. The backbone integrates an EMHA module combining EfficientNet-B1 with multi-head self-attention (MHSA) for enhanced global context modeling while preserving efficient local feature extraction. The neck adopts an Improved ASPP and a bidirectional FPN to achieve robust multi-scale feature fusion and expanded receptive fields. Meanwhile, CIoU loss is used to optimize bounding box regression accuracy. The experimental results demonstrate that EMAF-Net achieves an mAP@0.5 of 64.05% and an mAP@0.5:0.95 of 48.95% on a rural road dataset. At the same time, it maintains a lightweight design with 18.3 M parameters and a computational complexity of 38.5 GFLOPs. Ablation studies confirm the EMHA module contributes a 6.22% mAP@0.5 improvement, validating EMAF-Net’s effectiveness for real-time rural road perception in autonomous agricultural systems. Full article

Monkeypox virus, a zoonotic DNA virus belonging to the Orthopoxvirus genus, has emerged as a global health issue because of its fast spread to 104 nations over six continents. In the current study, an immunoinformatics pipeline was used to design a multiepitope-based prophylactic vaccine targeting the A35R glycoprotein and E8L membrane proteins of the monkeypox virus. Selected target proteins were surface-exposed, non-homologous to the human proteome, and essential for viral pathogenesis. B-cell and T-cell (MHC-I and MHC-II) epitopes with high antigenicity (>0.5), non-allergenicity, non-toxicity, and highly soluble in water with strong affinity towards innate and adaptive receptors, were prioritized. Shortlisted epitopes were combined to design the final vaccine utilizing an adjuvant (50S ribosomal L7/L12) and appropriate linkers for improved immunogenicity. Population coverage analysis showed wide HLA representation with 83.57% (MHC-I) and 88.8% (MHC-II) global coverage, including 89.6% for West Africa and 87.3% for Central Africa. Docking analysis of the vaccine construct with the TLR-4 receptor revealed stable interactions (−695.6 kcal/mol). Molecular dynamics simulations and binding free energies further confirmed structural stability. Immune simulations predicted strong activation of both humoral and cellular immune responses. These results indicate that the designed multiepitope vaccine construct is a viable option for additional experimental validation against the monkeypox virus. Full article

Background: Polygonatum sibiricum (PS), a perennial herbaceous plant belonging to the Liliaceae family, is widely distributed in China and other East Asian countries. PS has been used as food and medicine for thousands of years, and its rhizomes are rich in Polygonatum sibiricum polysaccharides (PSP), which exhibit various bioactivities, yet their structural features and therapeutic mechanisms against ulcerative colitis (UC) remain unclear. Methods: A homogeneous polysaccharide, PSP-1b (57.45 kDa), was isolated from the rhizomes of PS via ion-exchange and gel filtration chromatography and structurally characterized using chromatographic and spectroscopic methods. In vivo, its effects were evaluated in a dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced mouse model of UC, while in vitro mechanisms were explored using macrophages stimulated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs). Results: PSP-1b was identified as a neutral polysaccharide with minimal branching. Its primary structural backbone was largely composed of →4)-β-D-Galp-(1→ residues. A portion of these backbone residues was substituted at the O-6 position by side chains primarily composed of β-D-Galp-(1→ units. In vivo, PSP-1b significantly alleviated DSS-induced colitis by reducing inflammatory cytokine secretion, suppressing colonic macrophage infiltration, and reversing neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) deposition. In vitro, PSP-1b directly interacted with TLR4, inhibited the MAPK/NF-κB signaling pathway, and attenuated LPS- and NET-induced macrophage polarization and inflammation. Conclusions: PSP-1b as a promising candidate for functional foods or therapeutic agents targeting inflammatory bowel disease. Full article

Malaria, caused by Plasmodium parasites, remains a global health crisis, necessitating novel therapeutic strategies targeting host–parasite interactions. During liver-stage infection, parasites exploit host vesicular trafficking machinery, particularly SNARE (soluble N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor attachment protein receptor) proteins that mediate membrane fusion. Using a CRISPR/Cas9 knockout system in HeLa cells combined with advanced microscopy of Plasmodium berghei-infected HeLa cells, we identified specific endolysosomal SNAREs including Vesicle-Associated Membrane Protein 7 (VAMP7), Vesicle-Associated Membrane Protein 8 (VAMP8), Vesicle Transport Through Interaction With T-SNAREs 1B (Vti1B), and Syntaxin 7 (Stx7) to be recruited to the parasitophorous vacuole membrane (PVM) with distinct temporal profiles. This demonstrates the parasite’s precise manipulation of host endolysosomal trafficking pathways. VAMP7 and Vti1B were localized to the PVM within 30 min post-infection, suggesting potential roles during invasion, while VAMP8 and Stx7 appeared later around 24 h post infection (hpi), coinciding with increased nutrient acquisition. Single gene deletions showed minimal impact, but combinatorial knockouts (KO) revealed critical redundancy. VAMP7-VAMP8 as well as VAMP7–Vti1B double KO significantly reduced parasite infection and growth, with Vti1B playing a dominant role. Triple KO phenotypes mirrored VAMP7-Vti1B disruption, underscoring Vti1B’s dominant role. SNARE depletion also impaired the lysosome–PVM association and LAMP1 positive vesicle recruitment. Our findings indicate Plasmodium hijacks a coordinated host SNARE network to fuse lysosomes with the PVM for nutrient uptake. Targeting Vti1B-containing complexes disrupts this pathway without host cell toxicity, offering a promising host-directed antimalarial approach. Full article

The guinea fowl (Numida meleagris), a thermo-tolerant and disease-resilient poultry species, holds great potential for sustainable poultry production in climate-vulnerable regions. The genomic aspects of this species remain largely understudied. The present study aims to delineate the patterns of domestication and understand the evolutionary dynamics of guinea fowl populations (wild and domestic) across three continents, utilizing whole-genome sequencing data from 122 genomes. The population structure analyses (ADMIXTURE, PCA, phylogeny, F_ST, LD, and MAF) revealed that Indian guinea fowl (CARI) shared close ancestry with Iranian (IRAD) and Chinese (CHID) domesticated populations while remaining distinct from wild lineages. The runs of homozygosity (ROH) identified 49,088 segments, with short fragments (ROHs) preponderant in Indian and domestic populations, reflecting historical inbreeding and effects of domestication cum selection. Copy number variation (CNV) analysis revealed 105,178 CNVs concatenated into 40,067 CNV regions (CNVRs) across 11 populations, establishing the first CNV atlas for guinea fowl at the global level. Gene annotation of overlapping ROH and CNVRs revealed 1080 common candidates across Asian guinea fowl populations, i.e., the Indian guinea fowl (CARI), IRAD, and CHID, including FOS, EPAS1, CD74, and CSF1R. These genes have earlier been associated with immune regulation, stress response, and thermal adaptation. Selection signature scans, integrating intra-population (iHS) and inter-population (XP-EHH) approaches, uncovered genes under positive selection linked to immune response (like BCL11B, IL18, and GPC3), thermo-tolerance (like TRPV4 and BAG3), lipid metabolism (like AACS and ELOVL4), and pigmentation (BCO2). These signatures highlight the molecular basis of resilience in guinea fowl and their potential to withstand climate-induced stresses. This study presents the first global CNV atlas for guinea fowl and provides the first comprehensive genomic characterization of the Indian domestic population, integrating ROH, CNV, and selection signature analyses. It offers a comprehensive assessment of guinea fowl genomes (wild and domesticated) across three continents, offering insights into domestication, evolutionary dynamics, and the genetic basis of their adaptation and resilience. Full article

Original high-definition radar data contains rich environmental information, including distance, Doppler velocity, and azimuth. However, extracting robust features from such sparse and noisy frequency-domain data remains a challenge. To address this issue, this paper proposes an improved multi-task network, the Efficient Feature Aggregation with Balanced Attention Radar Network (EFA-RadNet). This network introduces the VoVNetV2 architecture into the field of raw radar perception and effectively preserves feature diversity across different receptive fields through a One-Shot Aggregation (OSA) module, avoiding signal aliasing. In addition, we propose an attention mechanism module, Balanced effective Squeeze–Excitation (B-eSE), which is better suited for sparse radar processing and effectively addresses the problem of weak target loss in the radar spectrum. Experiments on the RADIal dataset show that our EFA-RadNet achieves excellent target detection performance while also attaining optimal accuracy in free space segmentation. Full article