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Background: Unstable angina has become an exceedingly rare diagnosis in the era of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin (hs-cTn). Objectives: We sought to identify the incidence of unstable angina and characterize patients with low hs-cTn in emergency departments (EDs). Methods: A prespecified secondary analysis of the Rapid Acute Coronary Syndrome Exclusion using high-sensitivity cardiac Troponin I (RACE-IT) trial was conducted. RACE-IT was a stepped-wedge randomized trial comparing two rule-out protocols (0/1- and 0/3 h) for myocardial infarction (MI) in nine EDs from July 2020 to April 2021. All patients had hs-cTnI (Beckman Coulter) concentrations below or equal to the 99th percentile upper reference limit of 18 ng/L. The primary outcome was unstable angina, based on the ISCHEMIA trial definition, which required electrocardiographic changes or findings at coronary angiography (angiographic evidence of plaque rupture or thrombus). Results: Of the 32,608 patients in the trial, 60 patients (0.2%) met the definition of unstable angina, of whom 46 (77%) had obstructive disease at coronary angiography and 17 (28%) had an ischemic electrocardiogram. Coronary revascularization was performed in 45 (75%) patients and seven (12%) had left main or 3-vessel coronary artery disease. There were seven (12%) patients with non-obstructive coronary artery disease, and seven (12%) who had angiographically unremarkable coronary arteries. Patients with unstable angina were older (p = 0.015), more likely to be male (p = 0.005), with a higher prevalence of hypertension (p < 0.001), known coronary artery disease (p < 0.001), peripheral vascular disease (p = 0.035), and a higher serum creatinine (p = 0.018). At 30 days, two patients had a type 1 MI and there were no deaths. Conclusions: Unstable angina was diagnosed in 1 in 500 patients with a low hs-cTnI value at presentation to the ED and these patients had an excellent prognosis at 30 days. These patients tend not to have high-risk anatomy and one in four had non-obstructive coronary artery disease or angiographically unremarkable coronary arteries. Full article

Fungal pathogens pose a major threat to global agriculture and human health, necessitating alternative antifungal strategies with high efficacy and low resistance potential. Antifungal proteins (AFPs) from filamentous fungi are promising candidates due to their stability, selectivity, and diverse mechanisms of action. Here, we characterize Beauveria brongniartii antifungal protein (BbroAFP), a novel cysteine-rich protein from the entomopathogenic fungus B. brongniartii, and investigate its antifungal activity against Botrytis cinerea. Recombinant BbroAFP was expressed in Pichia pastoris, purified, and verified by liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectroscopy (LC–MS/MS) and in silico modeling. BbroAFP showed potent antifungal activity with minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) as low as 1 µM against several phytopathogenic fungi, while exhibiting no significant antibacterial activity. Activity was maintained across a wide range of pH and temperature conditions. Confocal microscopy revealed rapid surface binding followed by cytosolic internalization without major cell wall disruption. BbroAFP induced a rapid, transient burst of reactive oxygen species (ROS), accompanied by nuclear DNA fragmentation. Gene expression analysis revealed a transient increase in aif1, whereas mca1 expression decreased at later time points and mca2 remained largely unchanged, suggesting a metacaspase-independent response. Detached tomato leaf assays showed effective protection against B. cinerea without detectable phytotoxicity. Cytotoxicity assays confirmed a favorable safety profile, supporting further evaluation of BbroAFP for plant protection. Full article

Intestinal dysbiosis is common in people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWH), yet fungal communities of the gut microbiota (mycobiota) remain poorly characterized, especially in severely immunosuppressed patients. We analyzed the gut mycobiota of 33 PLWH and 20 healthy controls from a public hospital in central Argentina. Most PLWH presented with severe immunosuppression (<200 CD4⁺ T cells/μL) and acute or chronic diarrhea, with or without antibiotic exposure or antiretroviral therapy. Fecal DNA was extracted and the ITS2 region was sequenced using next-generation sequencing. Beta-diversity analyses revealed significant segregation between PLWH and controls (PERMANOVA, Adonis: p = 0.001, R² = 0.0989). LEfSe analysis identified 17 fungal species enriched in PLWH, predominantly Candida albicans, Candida dubliniensis, and Nakaseomyces glabratus, whereas 31 species were differentially represented in controls, including Penicillium spp., Candida sake, and Clavispora lusitaniae. Histoplasma capsulatum, an endemic pathogen in the region, was more prevalent in PLWH and associated with low CD4⁺ T cell counts. Dirichlet multinomial mixture analysis revealed two mycobiotypes: M1, with a balanced fungal composition predominating in controls, and M2, dominated by Candida species and present in PLWH. These findings provide novel insights into gut mycobiota alterations in severely immunosuppressed PLWH in Argentina, highlighting Candida-driven dysbiosis and the regional relevance of H. capsulatum. Full article

Early plant leaf disease detection and timely control is important for agricultural yield and stability. Yet, it is difficult for manual labor to monitor the health of the plant leaf 24 h a day. Existing detection approach cannot meet the demands of texture enhancement features. Therefore, this paper proposes a new detection approach which undergoes three-layer transformations: convolutional layer, attention mechanism layer and loss function layer. Firstly, ADown is used to extract fine-grained texture features from suspected leaves to reduce computational load. Secondly, Gabor texture enhancement is proposed to extract and enhance the contour and the directional texture of suspected areas using multi-directional filtering, followed by a combination Transformer to enhance the global context modeling capability. Thirdly, a dynamic boundary loss function (DBL) is employed to dynamically adjust the probability distribution of bounding box regression through adaptive temperature coefficient and information entropy, thereby improving the positioning accuracy of the detection box. The experiments show that ATD-Net achieved an average accuracy of 87.42% (mAP50) and an accuracy of 85.96%, with a computational complexity of 6.5 GFLOPs. The visualization results and ablation experiments show that the collaborative work of the proposed modules significantly improves the detection robustness in complex backgrounds, early diseases, and small target scenes. Compared to the original model, ATD-Net achieves a performance improvement of 1.1% at mAP50 and a speed increase of 17.7%. The model size remains almost unchanged, at 5.2 MB. It is an efficient and promising solution for future real-time disease recognition in complex agricultural environments. Full article

Quality evaluation in production systems represents a significant challenge in the manufacturing industry, particularly in environments where expert judgment plays a key role in managing the inherent uncertainty of the production system. This study proposes a fuzzy multicriteria decision-making control chart, termed Fuzzy Decision-Making Control Chart based on AHP-Extent and Triangular Fuzzy Numbers (FDMCC-AHPE). The method integrates expert knowledge through triangular fuzzy numbers and a Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process supported by Extent Analysis, to define fuzzy decision intervals for quality assessment and subsequently perform a structured analysis to classify the product within a control chart framework. In this framework, expert judgments expressed through linguistic evaluations are systematically translated into triangular fuzzy numbers and processed using FAHP–Extent Analysis, allowing the aggregation of subjective assessments within a structured mathematical decision model. The proposed method was validated in a tannery company, specifically in the retanning process. The industrial case study considers both qualitative criteria, such as surface defects and color uniformity, and quantitative process variables that include bath pH, treatment duration, and processing temperature. The results were compared with an empirical expert-based evaluation and a structured expert assessment supported by a multicriteria decision-making method. The findings demonstrate that the FDMCC-AHPE exhibits greater sensitivity in discriminating between quality states under uncertain evaluation conditions, particularly when samples involve complex evaluation conditions. Full article

Low-temperature Cu sintering is used as a die-bonding strategy for the third-generation power device, and the Cu-sintered joints require long-term stability at elevated temperature. In this work, we investigate the thermal stability and microstructural evolution of the Cu interconnect joints with an ultra-thin sintered layer at the temperature of 250 °C in air. The as-prepared joint shows a dense well-bonded interface with low porosity before the thermal aging test. The average shear strength of the joints increases from 85.5 MPa to 91.3 MPa after aging up to 300 h. With further increase in aging time, the shear strength begins to decrease. However, the strength remains at a high level of 69.8 MPa even after 500 h of aging, satisfying the requirements for high-temperature stability. At short aging times, the porosity within the interface reduces slightly, and the fracture exhibits distinct ductile characteristics. When the aging time exceeds 300 h, the oxide content at the interface increases from the outer region toward the inner part, and aging cracks eventually appear at the edge of the sintered layer. Therefore, it is demonstrated that the dense and thin sintered layer limits oxygen diffusion, guaranteeing the high-temperature stability of the sintered joint. Full article

Hair loss, particularly androgenetic alopecia (AGA) and alopecia areata (AA), is a prevalent condition with widespread psychosocial impact. Recently, low-level laser therapy (LLLT) has emerged as a promising non-invasive therapeutic alternative due to its bioregulatory effects and favorable safety profile compared to conventional pharmacological treatments. In this study, we employed fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) to investigate the effects of red-light irradiation on hair follicle dynamics and the cutaneous microenvironment in a C57BL/6 mouse model. A hair regeneration model was established to evaluate the efficacy of 650 nm red-light irradiation (bandwidth ± 20 nm). Then, the skin tissue was stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) and followed by FLIM analysis to provide a multidimensional assessment of tissue morphology and metabolic status. Results showed that red-light irradiation significantly increased hair follicle numbers and enhanced adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels in the skin tissue. FLIM analysis further revealed prolonged fluorescence lifetime values across different epidermal and dermal layers in the irradiated group, indicating significant alterations in the skin metabolic microenvironment. Furthermore, phasor plot analysis enabled precise differentiation between hair follicles and their surrounding skin structures, highlighting FLIM’s high sensitivity and accuracy in evaluating hair growth. In conclusion, this study has provided novel imaging-based insights into the mechanisms of LLLT-induced hair regeneration, highlighting the potential of FLIM as a powerful tool for characterizing the cutaneous microenvironment and quantitatively evaluating phototherapeutic efficacy in future translational applications. Full article

Lipolysis is an interfacial reaction. Lecithins are natural emulsifiers containing a mixture of phospholipids (PL). Lecithin composition can be modified via enzymatic hydrolysis of PLs to produce lysophospholipids (LPL). The quantities of PL and LPL and the PL/LPL ratio are related to the emulsifying properties and interfacial activity of digestive lipases. This study aims to: (i) produce oil-in-water nanoemulsions of rapeseed oil (RSO) with soybean lecithin (SBL) and hydrolyzed lecithin (HL) at different concentrations and homogenization pressures and measure the mean droplet diameter (MDD) and polydispersity index (PdI) by dynamic light scattering; (ii) hydrolyze the emulsions in vitro with intestinal extracts of rainbow trout and estimate the degree of hydrolysis of lipids (DH) by the pH-stat method; and (iii) model the results on MDD, PdI, and DH through the response surface methodology (RSM). When HL was used as an emulsifier, DH, MDD, and PdI were fitted to polynomial quadratic, two-factor interaction, and linear models, respectively. MDD, PdI, and DH were fitted to polynomial quadratic SBL models. The optimal conditions were emulsifier concentrations of 0.45% and 0.76% w/w and homogenization pressures of 10,790 and 10,781 psi for HL and SBL, respectively. Under these conditions, DH = 34.9% and 33.08%, MDD = 241.9 and 543.6 nm, and PdI = 0.29 and 0.52 for HL and SBL, respectively. Full article

The emergence of membrane boundaries represents a decisive transition in the origin of life, yet the molecular nature of the earliest abiotic membranes remains uncertain. Existing models based on simple fatty acids, while experimentally tractable, often lack the environmental robustness required under fluctuating prebiotic conditions. Furthermore, the absence of clear pathways linking primitive amphiphiles to later phospholipid systems highlights the need for chemically continuous intermediate frameworks. Here, we explore borate-bridged amphiphile–carbohydrate conjugates as plausible intermediates between simple prebiotic surfactants and modern lipid bilayers. These conjugates arise from low-molecular-weight polyols—including glycerol, butane-1,2,3,4-tetraol, pentane-1,2,3,4,5-pentaol, and hexane-1,2,3,4,5,6-hexitol—reacting with long-chain alkyl ethers and borate species under alkaline conditions, enabling reversible coupling to ribose and other vicinal diol-containing sugars. This chemistry integrates three essential properties for early compartmentalization: hydrolytically robust ether-linked hydrophobic domains, multivalent and highly hydrated headgroups, and environmentally responsive borate coordination. Comparative physicochemical analysis suggests that single-tail alkylglycerol derivatives preferentially form micelles and interfacial films, while di- and tri-tail tetritol and pentitol conjugates favor lamellar assemblies and vesicle formation across realistic prebiotic pH and salinity ranges. Hexitol-based systems, particularly those bearing three hydrophobic chains, may act as membrane-stabilizing components that enhance rigidity and reduce permeability under extreme conditions. We propose that heterogeneous mixtures dominated by two-tail polyol diethers, supplemented by tri-tail stabilizers and surface-active alkylglycerols, could provide mechanically robust, pH-tunable, and sugar-decorated abiotic membranes. Such borate-mediated amphiphiles offer a chemically coherent framework linking carbohydrate stabilization, ether lipid persistence, and dynamic self-assembly, potentially representing a transitional stage in the evolutionary pathway from primitive amphiphilic films to biologically encoded membranes. Full article

Knowledge of the influence of grassland-to-cropland conversion on subsoil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) stocks and the effect of soil properties on subsoil C and N stocks after grassland cultivation remain poorly understood. Furthermore, soil C and N changes retain a biological coupling under global changes; however, whether the coupling between soil C and N stocks can be disrupted by long-term grassland cultivation remains largely unknown. Here, we explored changes in soil C and N stocks at three soil depths (0–10, 10–30, and 30–50 cm) across a grassland cultivation chronosequence of 50 years in a semiarid agro-pastoral ecotone in northern China. Our results showed that soil C and N stocks in the 0–10 cm soil layer exhibited a valley-shaped pattern with increasing cultivation duration, reaching the lowest value at 20 years of grassland cultivation. For the 10–30 cm and 30–50 cm soil layers, soil C and N stocks within 10 years of grassland cultivation were higher than those in native grassland. Soil C and N stocks bottomed out at 20 years of grassland cultivation and then increased with the duration of grassland cultivation. Cultivation duration had no direct effect on soil C and N stocks across soil depths but exerted an indirect influence by affecting soil properties. Soil properties mainly drove variations in C and N stocks in soil, which strengthened with soil depth. Soil C and N stocks in the 0–10 cm soil layer showed a positive correlation with soil pH and soil clay and silt contents and were negatively related to soil sand content. Soil C and N stocks in the 10–30 and 30–50 cm soil layers were only positively correlated with soil clay content. These indicate that soil clay plays a vital role in regulating variations in C and N stocks in topsoil and subsoil with the duration of grassland cultivation. Moreover, soil C stocks in the three soil layers exhibited a significant correlation with soil N stocks. This reveals that the coupled correlation between soil C and N stocks still remains under long-term grassland cultivation. Full article

A Ce-doped photocatalytic composite with easy solid–liquid separation capability was prepared and a heterojunction was constructed between BiVO₄ and Fe₃O₄ via a co-precipitation method. A variety of characterization techniques were employed, such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy (UV-vis), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), as well as other related methods. Its photocatalytic performance for the degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) was also studied. The results indicate that the photocatalytic efficiency of BiVO₄/Fe₃O₄ is 1.4 times that of the pure BiVO₄ matrix. In particular, the photocatalytic efficiency of Ce_1.5%-BiVO₄/Fe₃O₄ was 2.2 times higher than that of the pure BiVO₄ matrix, and a 100% degradation rate of RhB was achieved within 30 min. The introduction of Fe₃O₄ not only forms a heterojunction with BiVO₄, increasing the active sites and surface oxygen vacancies of the material and effectively suppressing the recombination of photogenerated electron (e^-)-hole (h⁺) pairs, but it also enables the rapid separation of the material from the wastewater solution by the magnetic properties of Fe₃O₄. Additionally, the partial substitution of Ce for Bi in the BiVO₄ lattice reduces the bandgap energy, which enhances the utilization efficiency of visible light and improves the photocatalytic performance of the composite material. The mechanism of RhB degradation by Ce_1.5%-BiVO₄/Fe₃O₄ composite materials is also analyzed in this study. Quenching experiments and EPR tests revealed that h⁺ and ${·\mathrm{O}}_2^{-}$ were the primary reactive species in the degradation process. Full article

Large-scale and widely distributed air-conditioning (AC) loads can be aggregated into load-type Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) to participate in peak-shaving ancillary services, thereby improving the allocation of demand-side electricity resources. However, current AC aggregation methods primarily focus on meeting peak-shaving instructions and generally employ fixed incentive pricing and proportional capacity allocation, making it difficult to balance user revenue and satisfaction and thereby constraining the flexibility of VPP demand-side regulation. This paper proposes a unified incentive-based demand response scheduling framework for both fixed- and variable-frequency AC loads across industrial, commercial, and residential scenarios. Based on the Equivalent Thermal Parameter model, AC loads are classified into curtailable and shiftable types, with their adjustable boundaries characterized by a Time-of-Use (TOU) elasticity-based interaction willingness model and a fuzzy load transfer rate model, respectively. A three-objective optimization model is established to maximize user revenue while minimizing user dissatisfaction and scheduling error, with incentive pricing and capacity allocation jointly optimized via Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm III (NSGA-III). Case studies are conducted on a load-type VPP covering three scenarios, namely a large industrial zone, a commercial zone, and a residential zone, under weekday and non-weekday TOU tariffs and three representative 1 h peak-shaving periods. Compared with a fixed-pricing benchmark, the proposed strategy increases total user revenue by 9.4% to 11.4% and reduces weighted average dissatisfaction by 0.27 to 1.92%. The case study results demonstrate that the proposed method can improve the trade-off between user revenue and satisfaction. Full article

Urbanization threatens amphibians through habitat loss and fragmentation. The critically endangered Hynobius yangi, endemic to Korea, faces severe habitat destruction from urban development. No previous study has simultaneously assessed physicochemical habitat quality and larval feeding ecology across restored and alternative wetlands for this species using fecal DNA metabarcoding. We compared 25 H. yangi spawning sites in Sasong New Town through long-term monitoring (April 2021–September 2024; 364 surveys) and fecal DNA metabarcoding (18S V9, COI313, and blocking primers) from 60 larvae. Egg sac abundance showed negative associations with habitat area (r = −0.21), pH (r = −0.23), and conductivity (r = −0.21); however, none retained significance after Bonferroni correction, and each explained only 4–5% of variance, indicating exploratory associations. Associated conditions included area 115.5 ± 16.2 m² (mean ± SE), circularity 44.2 ± 2.4%, pH 7.55 ± 0.10, and conductivity 53.0 ± 2.7 μS/cm. Dietary analysis identified 17 prey taxa. Larvae in alternative areas showed generalist feeding favoring Perlidae and Tubificidae, while restored-area larvae showed specialist patterns dominated by Chironomidae, Nematocera, and Psychodidae. Both habitat types supported H. yangi populations. These preliminary findings suggest that appropriately designed alternative areas may complement traditional restoration, pending multi-site validation. Full article

Over the past 20 years, the iron-activated persulfate systems have been widely used for removing pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) from water. However, slow Fe(III)/Fe(II) redox cycling and precipitation of iron, unless in very acidic conditions, were the main limitations. Thus, two ligand-assisted Fe(III)/persulfate systems, Fe(III)-acetohydroxamic acid (AHA)/peroxydisulfate (PDS) and Fe(III)-nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA)/peroxymonosulfate (PMS), were comparatively investigated for the degradation of atenolol (ATL) in this study. The experimental results showed that the Fe(III)-NTA/PMS system worked much better than the AHA system. However, the cost of PMS is higher than that of PDS, which should be considered. The primary advantage of the NTA system was its ability to overcome the pH limitations. It worked well over a wide pH range (3.0–10.0), whereas the AHA system could only be used in a narrower pH window (pH 2.4 to 6.5). The investigation of radicals that contributed to ATL degradation revealed that sulfate radicals (SO₄^•−) were dominant in the NTA system, while hydroxyl radicals (^•OH) and SO₄^•− were the primary and secondary radicals in the AHA system. These results provided useful insight into the comparative behavior of two ligand-assisted Fe(III)/persulfate systems for ATL degradation, with the Fe(III)-NTA/PMS system showing clear potential under neutral or near-neutral conditions, while Fe(III)-AHA/PDS may still represent a lower-cost option under acidic conditions. Full article

Background/Objectives: Hypoalbuminaemia is a consistent predictor of mortality in sepsis; however, the temporal dynamics of albumin decline and its relationship with fluid exposure and early norepinephrine therapy remain incompletely characterised. Determining whether early norepinephrine use is associated with attenuation of albumin loss could inform fluid management strategies and identify therapeutic windows for combined vasopressor–albumin interventions. The study aimed to assess whether serum albumin trajectories in sepsis are associated with fluid exposure, modulated by early norepinephrine therapy, and related to 30-day mortality. Methods: We conducted a prospective longitudinal study of patients admitted to an intermediate care unit (IMCU) with community-acquired sepsis. Serum albumin concentrations, cumulative fluid balance (CFB), and vasopressor use were recorded during the first 5 days of hospitalisation. Longitudinal mixed-effects and segmented linear models assessed the association of CFB and vasopressor therapy with albumin trajectories. Lagged mediation modelling explored the potential mediating role of albumin in the association between fluid exposure and 30-day mortality. Results: A total of 389 patients with community-acquired sepsis were included. Thirty-day mortality was 18%. Mean serum albumin at baseline was 2.58 g/dL and declined early to 2.24 g/dL at 72 h. Serum albumin was inversely correlated with cumulative fluid balance over time (r ranging from −0.235 to −0.348; p < 0.001). In longitudinal models, each 1% increase in ΔCFB was associated with a −0.029 g/dL decrease in serum albumin (p < 0.001), supporting an independent effect of fluid exposure. Before norepinephrine initiation, the albumin slope was −0.043 g/dL per interval and was −0.008 g/dL after vasopressor initiation (interaction p = 0.012). Lower albumin concentrations at 72 h predicted 30-day mortality (OR 1.49 per 0.5 g/dL decrease), and serum albumin mediated 18.6% of the association between fluid exposure and mortality. Conclusions: Cumulative fluid exposure was associated with a progressive decline in serum albumin in patients with community-acquired sepsis. Early norepinephrine initiation was associated with attenuation of this trajectory, consistent with the hypothesis that vasopressor-guided haemodynamic stabilisation may limit fluid-associated albumin loss. Full article