Search Results (48,588)

Flexible electronic textiles hold potential applications across various fields, yet current functionalization methods frequently suffer from poor coating uniformity and severe aesthetic alteration. This study addresses these challenges by establishing a multi-analytical approach, based on Raman spectroscopy together with DLS, Zeta potential and XPS measurements, to optimize graphene oxide (GO) precursor selection prior to electrostatic deposition onto cotton fabrics using a polyethyleneimine linker. This coating strategy was inspired by layer-by-layer deposition technique and centrifugation was used to partition a heterogeneous commercial GO precursor into three distinct homogeneous fractions. Raman spectroscopy revealed that centrifugation acts not merely separating GO based on its size but effectively sorts GO sheets based on their chemical functionalization degree. Consequently, this approach allows for the identification of the optimal precursor fraction, balancing sheet dimensions with defect density, to ensure strong functionalization. Overall, this work established a foundational spectroscopic methodology for precursor selection, deposition monitoring and process optimization, which can also be extended to the characterizing and comparison of different commercial GO batches from different industrial suppliers. Finally, micro-Raman mapping and XPS were preliminary applied to verify the textile fiber functionalization. Full article

β-1,6-Glucan is a functionally crucial polysaccharide of the fungal cell wall, although typically less abundant than β-1,3-glucan and chitin, its content, chain length, and branching vary considerably among species. Structurally, it serves as a covalent cross-linker tethering the external mannoprotein layer to the internal β-1,3-glucan-chitin network, contributing to cell wall integrity and plasticity. Biosynthetically, unlike chitin and β-1,3-glucan, which are synthesized by the plasma membrane-associated synthases, β-1,6-glucan biosynthesis depends on a multi-protein cooperative network spanning the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), Golgi, and cell surface, whose core catalytic machinery remains incompletely defined. Genetic and in vitro reconstitution studies have begun to delineate the contributions of ER-resident proteins (Kre5, Big1, Cwh41/Gls1, Rot2/Gls2, and Cne1), Golgi-localized Kre6/Skn1 family members, and cell-surface components (Kre9, Knh1, Kre1, and Kre11). Functionally, its biological roles are established by two complementary lines of evidence, namely enzymatic digestion by endogenous or exogenous β-1,6-glucanases and inactivation of the biosynthetic machinery. Collectively, these studies show that β-1,6-glucan is essential for cell wall architecture, GPI-anchored protein localization, fungal growth, morphogenesis, and virulence, and acts as a potent immunomodulatory molecule at the fungus–host interface. Elucidating its structure, biosynthesis, and function will advance fungal cell wall biology. Full article

Background: Low maternal folate status is associated with placental dysfunction and adverse pregnancy outcomes; however, the mechanisms linking reduced folate availability to altered placental function remain incompletely understood. We investigated whether folate deficiency directly alters trophoblast function and microRNA (miRNA) expression, and whether folate-responsive miRNAs mediate these functional changes. Methods and Results: Human placental villous explants, BeWo choriocarcinoma cells, and primary human cytotrophoblasts were cultured under physiological or folate-deficient conditions to assess the direct impact of reduced folate availability. Although intracellular folate depletion was achieved in all models, only primary cytotrophoblasts reproduced functional changes consistent with those observed in placentas from folate-deficient pregnancies, exhibiting increased apoptosis and reduced system A amino acid transport. Of sixteen miRNAs previously associated with low maternal folate status, miR-30e-3p and miR-34b-5p were significantly reduced in trophoblast following folate depletion. Targeted inhibition of either miRNA did not alter apoptosis or system A activity. Pathway analysis of differentially expressed genes following miRNA inhibition identified processes related to cytoskeletal organisation, cell adhesion, PI3K/AKT and MAPK signalling. Conclusions: Folate deficiency directly impairs trophoblast survival, amino acid transport, and miRNA expression in primary trophoblasts. Our findings demonstrate that only a subset of folate-associated placental miRNAs respond directly to folate depletion and that inhibition of individual folate-responsive miRNAs is insufficient to reproduce the trophoblast phenotype. These results indicate that trophoblast adaptation to reduced folate availability is likely mediated through coordinated nutrient-sensitive regulatory networks rather than individual miRNAs acting in isolation. Full article

Objective: Conventional progesterone (P4) formulations suffer from low bioavailability, severe local irritation, and poor patient adherence due to P4’s poor aqueous solubility. This work aimed to develop and screen a biodegradable PLGA/NMP (Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid)/N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone) injectable in situ gel for sustained P4 delivery to overcome these clinical limitations. Significance: Commercial oral, vaginal, and oil-based intramuscular P4 preparations cannot maintain stable long-term drug exposure, and they cause injection-site pain/inflammation. The screened in situ depot system reduces administration frequency and local tissue irritation, supporting convenient luteal phase support and pregnancy maintenance. Methods: Nine formulations with variable P4 loading (10–50% w/w) and PLGA concentration (15–55% w/w) were fabricated. Formulations were screened via three core endpoints: injectability (injection force and discharge rate), in vitro sustained release in 10% Hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HP-β-CD)-Phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) sink medium, and 7-day subcutaneous histocompatibility in rats. high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was validated for progesterone quantification; Hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining assessed local inflammatory responses. Results: Formulations with progesterone ≤ 30% w/w and PLGA ≤ 35% w/w exhibited acceptable injectability (injection force < 50 N; discharge rate > 79%). Higher PLGA concentrations suppressed initial burst release (16.74% at 8 h for 35% PLGA vs. 29.8% for 20% PLGA). All formulations formed stable ellipsoidal subcutaneous depots and completed progesterone release within 4 days. Histopathology revealed only mild local inflammation (histological score = 1) without severe necrosis, superior to highly irritating oil injections in formulation control groups. Conclusions: The screened PLGA-based progesterone in situ gel resolves critical drawbacks of traditional progesterone dosage forms. This low-irritation, sustained-release injectable platform provides a scalable industrial formulation candidate for long-acting hormone therapy. Full article

Background/Objectives: Esophageal variceal bleeding (EVB) is a life-threatening complication of portal hypertension, yet many patients experience their first bleeding episode without prior diagnosis or adequate prophylaxis. This study aimed to describe the clinical, laboratory, and radiological findings present one year before the first EVB episode and to examine whether these findings were recognized and acted upon in clinical practice. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 48 patients admitted with a first episode of EVB between January 2020 and January 2025. Demographic data, laboratory values, abdominal ultrasonography findings, and liver fibrosis scores were recorded both at the time of bleeding and during a baseline period of 12 ± 3 months prior to bleeding. Results: Of 48 patients, 22.9% (n = 11) had not been diagnosed with cirrhosis prior to bleeding, and 33.3% (n = 16) remained without primary prophylaxis despite a known diagnosis—meaning that 56.2% experienced their first EVB without effective preventive management. At baseline, splenomegaly was present in 90% of patients with available ultrasonography data, and 72.9% had platelet counts below 150 × 10³/µL. Annual changes in clinical scores (expressed as delta values) demonstrated progressive hepatic deterioration during the unmonitored period, as evidenced by worsening Child–Pugh and MELD scores. Conclusions: In the majority of patients who experienced a first EVB episode, simple and routinely available findings—namely splenomegaly and thrombocytopenia—were already present one year before the bleeding event. Furthermore, delta values indicate that disease severity progressively worsened during this unrecognized at-risk period. These findings represent missed clinical opportunities for earlier diagnosis and initiation of prophylaxis. Full article

Artificial intelligence (AI) is now woven into university communication, learning, and administration, exposing students, faculty, and professional staff to scalable cybercrime, social engineering, and personal-data risks. This study tested a Compliance Architecture–Legality–Trust–Vigilance (CALT–V) model in which legal literacy and AI-enabled risk perception act as upstream orientations, trust as a calibration mechanism, vigilance as the proximal behavioral-translation layer, and digital safety behaviors as the outcome. A cross-sectional, role-stratified, non-probability survey of 710 UAE higher-education stakeholders (300 students, 200 faculty members, and 210 administrative/professional staff) measured self-reported legal literacy, objective legal knowledge, AI risk perception, institutional and technology/AI trust, vigilance, digital safety behaviors, and perceived governance conditions. Respondents reported moderate objective legal knowledge alongside moderate-to-high self-reported literacy, risk awareness, trust, vigilance, and safety behavior. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were estimated with subscale-level indicators in IBM SPSS AMOS 29.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA), using maximum-likelihood estimation, complete scale-level cases, and 5000-sample bias-corrected bootstrapping for indirect and total effects. Because the model is multidimensional and the sample is role-balanced but non-probability, the results are read as cautious model-based evidence rather than definitive population evidence. AI risk perception was associated with digital safety behaviors both directly and indirectly through trust and vigilance, whereas trust was linked to safety mainly through vigilance. Legal literacy was associated with trust, but its total association with digital safety behavior was not statistically reliable. Rather than claiming that human oversight is a new idea, the findings specify how trust-with-verification can be operationalized in UAE university cyber-governance through concrete verification, reporting, and incident-escalation routines. Full article

Background/Objectives: The aim of this systematic review is to assess the efficacy, effectiveness, and safety of LAI antipsychotics in patients with schizophrenia and comorbid SUD, providing useful information for clinical decision making and guiding future research in the management of this complex patient population. Methods: The search was conducted on 1 July 2026 and produced 87 results in total; after the screening process, 78 articles were excluded based on the predefined eligibility criteria. The full texts of the remaining 9 studies were retrieved and thoroughly evaluated for inclusion in the qualitative synthesis. Results: The 9 articles that met the criteria for inclusion included 2062 patients in total with follow-up periods varying between 6 months and 3 years. Several studies reported favorable clinical outcomes associated with LAIs; however, not all studies demonstrated clear superiority of LAIs over oral antipsychotics. Conclusions: The present review suggests that LAIs may represent a valuable therapeutic strategy for patients with schizophrenia and comorbid SUD, although the available evidence remains heterogeneous in terms of study design, patient populations, and outcome measures. Full article

To establish an accurate and interpretable prediction framework for soybean lodging grade and clarify the core regulatory traits and differentiated driving mechanisms of soybean lodging under high-density drip irrigation cultivation, 356 spring soybean germplasm accessions were used as experimental materials in this study. Morphological and mechanical traits including plant height (PH), stem pulling force (SPF), internode number (IN) and petiole length (PL) were measured over two consecutive years of field phenotyping. Two composite evaluation indices, plant height/stem pulling force ratio (PH/SPF) and plant height/internode number ratio (PH/IN), were further constructed. Four machine learning algorithms were adopted to develop multi-classification models for soybean lodging grade prediction. SHAP analysis combined with three global sensitivity approaches (perturbation analysis, Sobol’ method and Morris screening) was applied to decipher the regulatory patterns of key traits. The results showed that lodging grade significantly affected soybean grain yield and explained 25–28% of the phenotypic yield variation; yield reduction tended to plateau under severe lodging. Compared with single indicators such as SPF and PL, the two derived composite indices could stably distinguish soybean accessions with different lodging grades and exhibited stronger discriminatory power. Model comparison revealed that the XGBoost model achieved optimal prediction accuracy and generalization stability for lodging grade, with a weighted F1-score of 95.34% on the test set, significantly outperforming the conventional linear model. Interpretability analysis demonstrated that the PH/IN, PH, and PH/SPF acted as the primary positive traits promoting lodging, while SPF was the sole protective trait. Driving factors of lodging presented obvious gradient heterogeneity: mild lodging was dominated by the imbalance of plant architecture ratio, whereas severe lodging was governed by the cumulative effects of PH and IN. Strong interactions existed among all measured traits. The interpretable machine learning framework established in this study can provide theoretical support and technical references for lodging-resistant germplasm screening and targeted plant architecture regulation for densely planted soybean under drip irrigation systems. Full article

Autophagy is a highly conserved degradation and recycling process in eukaryotic cells that plays a critical role in maintaining cellular homeostasis and responding to external stress. During viral infection, autophagy exhibits a classic “double-edged sword” effect—it can act as a host defense mechanism by directly degrading viral components, but it can also be hijacked by viruses to promote their own replication. Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV), an important enteric coronavirus that severely affects the global swine industry, engages in a complex and sophisticated interplay with the host autophagy system. This review systematically dissects the dual regulatory mechanisms of autophagy during PEDV infection and reveals two intertwined functional axes. On one hand, PEDV utilizes multiple viral proteins to cooperatively manipulate the autophagic pathway—inducing mitophagy to suppress innate immune responses, utilizing autophagic membranes to construct replication platforms, and blocking autophagic flux to evade degradation—thereby establishing a multi-level pro-viral network. On the other hand, host cells deploy a unified molecular axis of “ubiquitination–autophagy receptor–lysosome” by mobilizing a broad array of restriction factors to target and degrade viral proteins, forming a coordinated defense system. These two axes converge at the oxidative stress–endoplasmic reticulum stress–autophagy hub, where PEDV NSP1 and NSP2 synergistically inhibit the NRF2 antioxidant system to trigger this cascade, while host factors such as DDX6 and ACE2 finely regulate the process. Based on this mechanistic framework, we discuss the therapeutic implications of targeting autophagy for PEDV intervention, with particular emphasis on the development of selective autophagy modulators as potential antiviral agents. We also identify key knowledge gaps and propose future research directions to translate these mechanistic insights into clinical or field applications. This review synthesizes the peer-reviewed literature published between 2013 and 2026, identified through systematic searches of PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus databases. Notably, the majority of mechanistic findings discussed are derived from in vitro cell culture models, and their translation to in vivo settings remains a significant challenge. Bridging this gap will require validation in physiologically relevant models, such as porcine intestinal organoids and controlled piglet challenge studies, to assess the efficacy and safety of autophagy-targeting interventions in the context of intestinal homeostasis and mucosal immunity. Full article

Accurate anomalous localization is a core challenge in industrial visual quality inspection. Current diffusion-based methods typically rely on single-scale reconstruction at a fixed resolution, often exhibiting limited performance on subtle or low-contrast anomalies due to the lack of hierarchical feature collaboration. We propose AdaNMD, a nested adaptive multi-resolution diffusion model that jointly optimizes accuracy and efficiency. AdaNMD constructs a three-branch nested decoding architecture. It utilizes Adaptive Group Normalization (AdaGN) to embed diffusion time steps and a top-down feature fusion module to generate semantically rich pyramid representations. Crucially, a resolution decision module dynamically evaluates image complexity, activating only the most suitable branch during inference to reduce redundant computation. To bridge the capability gap between branches, we introduce a cross-scale self-distillation mechanism where the high-resolution branch acts as a teacher for lighter branches. A unified multi-task loss function further guides the model toward robust inference policies. Experiments on the VisA and MVTec AD benchmarks demonstrate that AdaNMD achieves Area Under the Per-Region Overlap Curve (AUPRO) scores of 95.0% and 94.4%, respectively. Furthermore, compared to a baseline always using the high-resolution branch, our method improves inference speed by approximately 21%, confirming the architecture’s advantage in achieving high-precision anomaly localization and efficient inference simultaneously. Full article

Hydrogen embrittlement (HE) behavior of 31CrMoNiNbV steel subjected to austempering below the M_s temperature was investigated. The material exhibited a martensitic/bainitic dual-phase microstructure, with uniformly dispersed V- and Nb-rich MC carbides as well as Cr-rich M₃C carbides precipitated in the matrix. It achieved an ultimate tensile strength of 1688 MPa and an elongation to fracture of 10.7%. Slow strain rate tensile tests revealed that the HE susceptibility index reached 13.5%. Thermal desorption spectroscopy and hydrogen permeation tests showed that the martensite/bainite phase boundaries and the dispersed MC/M₃C carbides acted as effective hydrogen-trapping sites, lowering the hydrogen diffusivity and alleviating local hydrogen accumulation in stress-concentrated regions. Microstructural analysis further indicated that the dual-phase structure may simultaneously mitigate the hydrogen-enhanced localized plasticity and hydrogen-enhanced decohesion mechanisms, through combined stress relaxation at martensite/bainite interfaces and hydrogen immobilization by carbide traps. Full article

Intermediate band solar cells require in-gap electronic states that remain sufficiently extended to sustain collective electronic coupling and facilitate carrier motion. We investigate how structural disorder affects an intermediate band formed by coupled colloidal quantum dots embedded in a perovskite-like matrix. The system is represented by a single-orbital tight-binding Hamiltonian on a dilated face-centered-cubic lattice containing 4000 quantum dots, with system sizes between 1372 and 5324 in the finite-size analysis. Radius dispersion modifies on-site energies and hopping amplitudes, whereas positional disorder acts mainly through variations in interdot separation. Eigenstate extension is quantified using the normalized participation ratio. To distinguish spectral broadening from the loss of useful extended states, we also evaluate the mean participation of a contiguous threshold-defined spectral core, its relative energy width, and their product as a combined robustness descriptor. For the adopted baseline parameter set, degradation is energy selective: states near the spectral edges lose participation before states near the band center. At equal nominal amplitudes, radius disorder produces a stronger response than positional disorder, although the two amplitudes do not represent equal realized variances. A positional-disorder amplitude of 0.05 retains approximately 86% of the ordered-reference value of the combined descriptor, whereas a radius-disorder amplitude of 0.05 reduces it to about 22%; when both amplitudes are 0.05, about 14% remains. The model displays a comparatively robust regime near ${\sigma }_R=0.02$, a model-dependent crossover around ${\sigma }_R=0.03$–$0.04$, and strong degradation at larger values. Finite-size results are consistent with near-extensive scaling of the effective core participation number over the simulated sizes, but do not establish a thermodynamic mobility edge. These findings identify quantum-dot size uniformity as the more restrictive model control variable for preserving an extended intermediate-band core. Full article

Functional studies have shown that long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) play different roles in gene expression regulation, acting as epigenetic factors. Accumulating evidence indicates that lncRNAs modulate diverse biological processes, and their altered expression is associated with the development and progression of cancer, including BC. Here, aiming to identify lncRNAs associated with breast cancer, we performed a re-analysis of the expression data from 1071 tumors of eligible patients in the LACRN-MPBC Study. Using normalized data, we compared the expression profiles of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC; 170 cases) and a heterogeneous group of non-TNBC tumors (782 cases). A total of 59 differentially expressed lncRNAs (DELncRNAs) could be identified based on the criteria of |log2FC| ≥ 1 and FDR < 0.05, using the DESeq2 R package. In the Kaplan–Meier survival analysis, we identified DELncRNAs that affect disease-free survival and/or overall survival, with eight of them in TNBC and 27 in non-TNBC patients. Multivariate Cox proportional-hazards models were used to evaluate independent predictors of survival. Two DELncRNAs, VLDLR-AS1 and PART1, were identified as independent prognostic markers for TNBC patients, while seven (LINC00239, FAM30A, LINC00842, LINC01315, EGOT, LY6E-DT, and SLC25A21-AS1) were independent prognostic markers for non-TNBC patients. Our computational study identifies several candidate lncRNAs associated with clinical outcomes in breast cancer. However, the DELncRNAs identified here should be interpreted as preliminary candidates, which require future validation and functional studies to determine their biological roles and evaluate their potential as prognostic biomarkers. Full article

Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is an established risk factor for B-cell lymphoproliferative disorders and represents a paradigmatic model of infection-driven lymphomagenesis. Although direct-acting antivirals have markedly reduced the burden of HCV-related disease, HCV-associated lymphomas continue to occur. Moreover, HCV screening remains incomplete in some geographical areas and healthcare settings, leaving a substantial proportion of infected individuals unaware of their status. This narrative review integrates current evidence on the mechanisms linking chronic HCV infection to mixed cryoglobulinemia and overt B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma. HCV lymphotropism and persistent antigenic stimulation could initially promote the selection and expansion of autoreactive B-cell clones, while mixed cryoglobulinemia represents the most informative pre-lymphomatous risk condition. Cytokine-mediated survival signals, particularly those involving B-cell activating factor, reinforce clonal persistence and cooperate with host genetic susceptibility, impaired apoptotic control, and activation-induced cytidine deaminase-mediated genomic instability. The progressive acquisition of somatic driver mutations, copy-number alterations, and epigenetic and transcriptomic changes may enable selected clones to escape functional anergy and become increasingly independent of the original viral stimulus that, in turn, represents an initial trigger of the lymphoproliferative process. Recurrent abnormalities converge on NF-κB, NOTCH, chromatin-regulatory, apoptotic, and cell-cycle pathways, although HCV-associated lymphomas remain molecularly heterogeneous. Emerging microRNA profiles further contribute to the molecular characterization of the transition from chronic infection and cryoglobulinemia to lymphoma. Despite the availability of highly effective antiviral therapies, HCV-associated lymphomagenesis remains clinically relevant and continues to provide an especially informative model for understanding how chronic viral infection can drive human cancer development. Full article

Endpoint detection is a key preprocessing step for passive acoustic monitoring of marine biological sounds, but underwater noise can obscure onset and offset boundaries, especially at low signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). This study proposes a wavelet-domain adaptive composite thresholding (WD-ACT) method for robust endpoint detection. The method applies Daubechies 4 (Db4) wavelet enhancement with soft-thresholding, then fuses short-time energy, non-zero-lag autocorrelation, and spectral variation into a frame-level composite detection score. An adaptive dual-threshold strategy estimated from background-frame statistics is used to determine the onset and offset of effective acoustic segments. Experiments were conducted on three manually annotated marine mammal vocalization segments, including seal, dolphin, and walrus calls, mixed with white noise, pink noise, ship noise, and wind–wave noise at SNRs from $-5$ to 15 dB. For each combination of acoustic segment, noise type, and SNR level, 100 noise-mixing trials were performed. Compared with short-time energy and zero-crossing rate (STE-ZCR), time-domain autocorrelation detection (TDA), wavelet-domain detection (WD), and spectral-flux detection (SFD), WD-ACT achieved the lowest median missed detection rate (5.56%), the lowest median boundary mean absolute error (222.49 ms), and the highest median frame-level accuracy (87.17%). An additional generalization evaluation using nine independent vocalization segments from five further marine mammal categories provided additional evidence of cross-signal applicability without species-specific parameter tuning. These results indicate that WD-ACT provides a robust and interpretable preprocessing method for marine bioacoustic endpoint detection. Full article