Search Results (2,567)

Point-of-interest (POI) data are widely used as urban big data to sense the functional organization of urban land and associated socioeconomic activities. Yet, POI-based studies often treat these records as temporally stable, even though different POI categories vary in turnover and responses to external shocks, affecting the comparability of urban sensing over time. Using POI datasets for Changzhou, China, from 2016, 2019, 2022, and 2025, this study examines category-specific changes before, during, and after the COVID-19 disruption. The results identify three patterns: government-driven POIs (government and residential) show high stability and retention; government–market hybrid POIs (financial and educational) exhibit moderate stability; and market-driven POIs (catering and shopping) have low stability. Across periods, change intensity is inversely related to stability. During the pandemic, turnover increased across all categories, retention declined markedly, and most replacements occurred within the same category, indicating functional continuity despite entity-level change. Although the overall spatial framework of urban functions remained broadly stable, new hotspots emerged during the pandemic and some persisted into the recovery period. These findings demonstrate that POI-based urban sensing is temporally contingent and that category-specific dynamics should be considered when interpreting urban land-use functions and supporting land-use planning under disruptive events. Full article

Traditional rural landscape evaluations have generally relied on ground-level photographs or videos. However, these approaches have limitations in spatial continuity, depth cues, and interactivity. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) photogrammetry and immersive virtual reality (VR) were integrated into a comparative rural landscape evaluation framework to assess landscape aesthetic quality. UAV-derived 3D village models were generated and deployed on PICO 4 headsets through Unity 3D and the Cesium plugin, providing evaluators with spatially continuous and 6DoF-enabled immersive representations of village scenes. The evaluation included ten landscape feature factors, including color harmony, vegetation richness, building layout harmony, openness of view, and sense of spatial depth. Ratings were collected from 75 valid participants across 17 villages, with village-level mean scores serving as the primary unit of inference. Paired-samples t-tests, subgroup sensitivity analysis, expert-only presentation-order sensitivity analysis, Pearson correlations, Steiger tests for dependent correlations, stepwise multiple linear regression, nested leave-one-village-out cross-validation (LOOCV), and bootstrap variable-selection stability analysis were conducted to examine differences between the 2D photo-based and VR-based conditions. The results showed that: (1) overall satisfaction was significantly higher in the VR-based condition than in the 2D photo-based condition (3.46 vs. 3.24); (2) the condition-specific regression models retained different landscape feature factors: sense of spatial depth and color harmony in the 2D photo-based model, and vegetation distribution pattern and environmental comfort in the VR-based model; and (3) the VR-based regression model had a higher condition-specific internal $R^2$ than the 2D photo-based model ($R^2=0.784$ vs. 0.569). Within the present dataset, the VR-based model also showed lower SD-normalized prediction error under nested LOOCV, while bootstrap resampling showed higher selection frequencies for the predictors retained in the VR-based model. Overall, the findings demonstrate the potential of UAV-derived immersive VR for rural landscape evaluation and provide new evidence on how presentation conditions influence landscape perception and evaluation. Full article

The performance of ultra-high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete (UHPFRC) under repeated low-velocity impacts, particularly in the context of nominally fixed boundaries relevant to protective structures, remains underexplored. In practice, protective components made of UHPFRC, such as falling object barriers and vehicle parapet systems, are exposed to foreseeable repeated low-velocity impacts; however, no standardized design provisions or residual capacity assessment methods exist for such members, particularly under nominally fixed boundary conditions. This study presents an integrated experimental and numerical investigation into the progressive damage and failure mechanisms of a 50 mm thick UHPFRC plate with nominally fixed (bolted clamping) boundaries subjected to sequential low-velocity impacts. A custom drop-weight test setup was used for impact loading, while high-speed 3D digital image correlation (3D-DIC) captured the quarter-field transient kinematics, which were reconstructed back to the full field based on verified test symmetry and complemented by traditional accelerometer and strain gauge measurements. The results demonstrate a distinct progression of damage. Initial low-energy impacts (196 J/drop) caused negligible damage, highlighting the material’s tolerance. Subsequent higher-energy impacts induced a transition from flexural cracking to a combined flexural–punching shear failure mode. The model-assisted nominal secant stiffness indicator decreased by 5.3% over the repeated 0.5 m drops and fell by 50.8% after the 2.0 m drop, quantifying the transition in structural behavior. A finite element (FE) model, incorporating the concrete damaged plasticity (CDP) model with an energy-based degradation law, was developed and evaluated against the experimental data. This model replicated both the quantitative dynamic responses (with model-to-test ratios of peak acceleration, strain, and displacement between 0.86 and 1.30 across three energy levels) and the qualitative damage evolution. The model thus evaluated enabled a model-derived reconstruction of the critical impact force–time history, revealing the evolution of structural degradation toward the exhaustion of the plate’s global flexural resistance and the transition to a punching shear mechanism. Full article

Solar-driven advanced oxidation processes and interfacial water evaporation represent promising strategies to simultaneously address water pollution and freshwater scarcity. However, conventional photo-Fenton catalysts are predominantly powder-based and suffer from difficult catalyst recovery, inefficient H₂O₂ utilization, and limited practical applicability. Herein, a multifunctional bacterial-cellulose-based composite membrane (BC-MTP) was designed by immobilizing 1T-2H MoS₂ and a tea-polyphenol/polypyrrole (TP/PPy) copolymer through a blending–copolymerization strategy. The three-dimensional BC network anchors the catalytic components and supports their repeated use, while the BC-MTP membrane achieves 88.2% tetracycline removal using 20 μL H₂O₂, four times lower than the dosage used for the corresponding powder catalyst. Because dissolved Fe was not quantified by ICP-OES or ICP-MS, the present results are interpreted as evidence of improved H₂O₂ utilization and component immobilization rather than quantitative proof of suppressed iron leaching. The incorporation of 1T-2H MoS₂ and TP/PPy also provides strong broadband light absorption and photothermal conversion, yielding a solar-driven evaporation rate of 1.34 kg m⁻² h⁻¹ and an energy efficiency of 80.1% under the tested laboratory conditions. This work demonstrates a membrane platform integrating photo-Fenton degradation and solar-driven water evaporation for water-purification applications. Full article

Background/Objectives: Oral small-molecule inhibitors of activated factor XI (FXIa) are intended to attenuate thrombosis with less disruption of hemostasis than established anticoagulants, but clinical outcomes have not consistently paralleled pharmacodynamic target engagement. This systematic review integrated molecular design, preclinical pharmacology, human pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics (PK/PD), and clinical outcomes to identify where translation is maintained or lost. Methods: The review followed PRISMA 2020 and PRISMA-S and was registered in PROSPERO (CRD420261356169). PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, and Web of Science Core Collection were searched from inception through 30 March 2026 and rerun on 11 August 2026, with a final publication-eligibility cut-off of 30 June 2026. Owing to heterogeneity, evidence was synthesized narratively. Results: Sixty-eight eligible reports were included, comprising seven randomized parent outcome trials and nine reports with in vivo thrombosis or bleeding experiments. In the OCEANIC-STROKE trial, ischemic stroke occurred in 6.2% with asundexian versus 8.4% with placebo (HR 0.74, 95% CI 0.65–0.84), while major bleeding was 1.9% versus 1.7% (HR 1.10, 95% CI 0.85–1.44). In OCEANIC-AF, stroke or systemic embolism occurred in 1.3% with asundexian versus 0.4% with apixaban (HR 3.79, 95% CI 2.46–5.83), despite less major bleeding (0.2% vs. 0.7%; HR 0.32, 95% CI 0.18–0.55). Conclusions: Oral small-molecule FXIa inhibition is pharmacologically coherent, but clinical benefit is indication-, comparator-, and background-therapy-dependent. PD markers confirm target engagement but are not validated efficacy surrogates; hard clinical outcomes remain decisive. Full article

Rochia nilotica is an economically important marine gastropod in Pacific Island countries, valued for its nacreous shell used in ornaments. The brown macroalga Sargassum horneri accumulates in large quantities along coastal regions, causing significant ecological and economic burdens. We evaluated the effects of S. horneri-based feed on the growth performance of juvenile R. nilotica under controlled tank conditions in Chuuk Lagoon, Micronesia. Juveniles (initial shell width ≈ 12.7 mm) were reared for 120 days and fed either a formulated diet (disc-shaped pellets, <1 cm in diameter) containing S. horneri or a traditional live-rock diet providing natural biofilms. Notable biological differences in shell width and height were observed after 2 months, with final mean values of 19.86 ± 1.76 mm and 15.92 ± 1.25 mm in the S. horneri group (94% survival), compared with 16.40 ± 1.26 mm and 13.14 ± 0.96 mm in the natural diet group (86% survival). Although greater growth and survival were observed in the tank receiving the formulated diet, fully replicated multi-tank experiments are required to definitively confirm whether these differences were caused directly by the dietary treatment. Given its abundance and environmental impact, recycling S. horneri biomass as a sustainable feed source could support trochid aquaculture and resource restoration and contribute to circular bioeconomy practices in Pacific Island countries. Full article

The discharge of metal-rich mining effluents and waste into marine environments represents a significant environmental challenge, with impacts extending from coastal to deep-sea ecosystems. This study presents a scoping review conducted in accordance with PRISMA-ScR guidelines to identify, classify, and synthesise evidence on the effects of large-scale mining waste disposal in coastal and marine settings. Searches of Web of Science, Scopus, and relevant grey literature sources yielded 147 eligible publications from an initial dataset of 563 records. The evidence reviewed enabled the identification of 81 distinct impacts systematically grouped into nine primary categories spanning physical, geotechnical, hydrodynamic, geochemical, biological, ecological, and socio-economic dimensions. Marine tailings deposits behave as dynamic systems that facilitate the transport of contaminants beyond disposal sites through processes such as plume dispersion, sediment resuspension, turbidity currents, and porewater exchange. Geochemical reactions and geotechnical failures can increase environmental vulnerability, a risk further exacerbated by ocean warming, acidification, and changing circulation patterns. Beyond highlighting the need for precautionary, integrated, and adaptive management approaches, this review provides the first comprehensive global inventory of impact categories and assessment factors associated with marine mining waste disposal, establishing a reference framework to guide future research, environmental management, regulatory evaluations, and industry decision-making. Full article

Rift Valley fever (RVF) is a climate-sensitive mosquito-borne zoonosis long regarded as a rural, pastoral disease, yet accelerating tropical urbanization and intensifying climate variability may be reshaping its epidemiology at the urban–peri-urban interface. This narrative review examines how global climate change and urban-specific climatic conditions jointly shape RVF virus (RVFV) vector habitats, transmission, and burden in tropical and subtropical cities, synthesizing 51 of 412 English-language records identified by a structured, non-systematic search of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar (2009–2026) and selected for relevance to urban and peri-urban RVF. This research draws on human, livestock, and vector evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and Indian Ocean islands across epidemic and inter-epidemic periods. The synthesis indicates that impervious surfaces, poor drainage, and open water storage can recreate the water-retaining function of rural dambos, sustaining a year-round larval habitat, and that Culex quinquefasciatus dominance together with peri-urban cattle may form an amplification bridge to humans. Direct evidence remains scarce, anchored by a single peri-urban serosurvey and limited urban slaughterhouse entomology. Critical gaps include urban primary-vector ecology, infection-rate data, urban-heat effects, city-specific exposure studies, and coupled climate–urban burden models. We conclude that RVF is a plausible emerging urban threat warranting proactive inter-epidemic surveillance and integration of RVF into urban planning and One Health systems. Full article

Data imputation has attracted considerable interest due to the importance of data quality, a key challenge in data science. Various statistical methods, and more recently machine learning techniques, have been developed to address the issue of missing values. In this study, we present an imputation method that integrates forecasting and backcasting using Long-Short-Term Memory (LSTM) architecture for predicting blocks of consecutive missing values. The proposed method was evaluated on a randomly generated absent group of data from a weather dataset. In this context, we assessed different hyperparameters using regression metrics. Initially, we trained and tested the models with varying data and sequence sizes on distinct units of missing data, subsequently applying the method to other units with specific data and sequence sizes. Additionally, we substituted the LSTM model with other machine learning algorithms applying, the same method, and we compared the results. Finally, we tested the method on missing blocks from a dataset obtained from the Digital Ocean Lab (DOL) weather station. Our findings indicate that this method effectively provides a reasonable estimation of missing values in time series datasets. Full article

Gulf sturgeon are federally listed as “threatened” and are native to seven rivers along the northern Gulf of Mexico. Populations natal to the Pascagoula River have one verified spawning reach in the lower Bouie River, near Hattiesburg, MS. This reach is modified by four aggregate mining areas, referred to as pits. Researchers observed post-spawn Gulf sturgeon over-summering in pits rather than migrating to downstream holding areas in the Pascagoula River. We leverage acoustic telemetry and environmental data to assess drivers of arrival and departure from the Bouie River, describe vertical stratification in the water column in pits, and compare pit temperatures to those in holding areas. Generalized mixed linear modeling demonstrated that arrival was associated with lower discharge rates, whereas departure was associated with higher surface water temperatures and greater daily temperature extremes. Sturgeon had varying occupancy rates in pits, with four over-summering events over 3 years. Stratification formed in the pits in May and persisted through October, with bottom and middle strata exhibiting cooler temperatures than holding habitats. Cooler bottom temperatures indicate potential for thermal refuge in the pits. However, persistent stratification leads to low dissolved oxygen in bottom waters, warranting further research into the environmental stressors of this system. Full article

Oyster aquaculture plays a critical role in coastal social-ecological systems by providing ecosystem services such as economic benefits, food security, and environmental regulation; however, multiple biophysical and socio-economic stressors threaten its long-term sustainability. This study operationalizes the seven established resilience principles to identify strategies that enhance the resilience of oyster aquaculture globally. A scoping review following PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines was conducted across Scopus, Web of Science, and JSTOR, yielding 345 peer-reviewed publications (2000–2026) from which 13 stressor categories and 15 mitigation strategy categories were identified. Diseases and pathogens constituted the most documented stressor (24.3%), followed by climate change and ocean acidification (9.9%). Among strategies, the governance, policy, and stakeholder engagement strategy was the most frequently used (12.8%). Classification by resilience principles revealed that managing slow variables and feedback (P3, 30.1%) and maintaining diversity and redundancy (P1, 22.6%) dominated the literature, while broadening participation (P6, 11.0%) and promoting polycentric governance (P7, 4.6%) were least represented, revealing a significant gap in the scientific literature between biophysical and socio-institutional research attention. Context-specific indicators were developed for each principle, providing a replicable framework linking stressors, strategies, and resilience principles applicable to diverse mariculture systems. Full article

Low-slenderness-ratio, flat-ended autonomous underwater vehicles must balance hydrodynamic resistance against internal volume retention, yet classical slender-body criteria do not fully represent their coupled forebody wake response. A generalized Myring forebody was assessed for an AUV with L = 0.8 m, D = 0.2 m, and L/D = 4.0 using 53 steady three-dimensional Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes simulations with the shear stress transport k-ω model. Gaussian process regression and the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) were used only for candidate-region screening; production grid direct CFD samples were used to determine nondominance. Strict fold-wise leave-one-out cross-validation gave ${\mathrm{Q}}^2$ = 0.173 globally and RMSE = 0.001399 and ${\mathrm{Q}}^2$ = 0.683 in the predefined 18-sample decision region, indicating local screening utility rather than global surrogate validation. The direct CFD audit identified 13 globally and seven locally nondominated samples; both previously selected test configurations were dominated after CFD back-substitution. Their three grid drag sequences were monotonic but non-asymptotic. Pressure drag comprised 75.88–79.20% of total drag. However, the reduction in the low-drag test configuration relative to the baseline arose mainly from a lower viscous contribution; axial pressure fields therefore indicate redistribution rather than exclusive drag-reduction causation. Paired CFD samples showed that the sign of the drag responded to N reversal between the two sampled ${\mathrm{L}}_{\mathrm{nose}}$ values, whereas analytical volume increased with N in both pairs. The results reveal a discrete, configuration-dependent drag volume trade-off and local N-${\mathrm{L}}_{\mathrm{nose}}$ coupling. The rectangular regions are sampling envelopes rather than validated optimum windows, and the conclusions are restricted to steady, deeply submerged, smooth-wall bare-hull conditions. Full article

Reliable detection of surface defects in hoist wire ropes is essential for the safe operation of hoisting systems. Because of the stranded rope structure, early broken wires and local scars often appear as weak, small-scale features embedded in repetitive textures. Axial rope motion introduces directional blur during image acquisition, further weakening defect boundaries and increasing missed detections and localization errors. To address these challenges, we propose RMP-YOLOv8n, an axial motion prior-guided detector based on YOLOv8n. The method incorporates a rope motion prior-guided high-frequency enhancement module (RMP-HFEM), which uses axial edge and motion high-pass responses to guide shallow feature enhancement, together with a P2 branch that retains spatial detail for small defects. All models were trained exclusively on clear images from the training split, while paired axial motion-blur subsets generated exclusively from the held-out test images were used only for robustness evaluation. Experimental results on the wire-rope defect dataset show that, under severe axial motion blur, the mAP@50 of the clear-trained YOLOv8n decreases from 94.87 ± 0.12% to 48.31 ± 0.11%, whereas RMP-YOLOv8n retains 90.62 ± 0.08% mAP@50 and 87.28 ± 0.15% recall across three training seeds, demonstrating substantially stronger robustness to axial motion blur. The proposed method provides technical support for the stable deployment of online hoist wire-rope inspection systems under high-speed operation, motion blur, and weak small-defect features. Full article

Citrobacter freundii, an opportunistic Gram-negative bacterium belonging to the Enterobacteriaceae family, is emerging as a significant pathogen in diverse aquatic species, often associated with environmental stress and poor husbandry conditions. This study describes four distinct cases of fatal C. freundii-associated lesions in captive freshwater species in South Korea, including an Ocellate river stingray (Potamotrygon motoro), a Royal peacock bass (Cichla intermedia), a Japanese eel (Anguilla japonica), and a Poison dart frog (Dendrobates leucomelas). Bacterial DNA was analyzed using 16S rRNA PCR and sequence analysis, and FFPE tissues were additionally examined by PCR for molecular identification. Tissues were examined using routine hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining for detailed histopathology. Results: Molecular analysis detected C. freundii-associated DNA in the liver, kidney, and intestine of all samples. Histopathology consistently revealed severe bacterial enteritis with epithelial necrosis and abundant intraluminal bacterial aggregates (stingray, frog). Systemic manifestations included severe ulcerative skin lesions (peacock bass), hepatic fatty degeneration (peacock bass, eel), renal tubular degeneration (peacock bass), and prominent hepatic melanomacrophage center activation (frog); however, these findings should be interpreted as lesions observed in association with C. freundii detection, as several of these changes are not specific to bacterial infection. To our knowledge, this study provides one of the first comparative histopathological descriptions of naturally occurring C. freundii-associated cases across multiple captive freshwater vertebrate species in South Korea. Although bacterial culture, biochemical identification, and experimental infection were not performed, this retrospective investigation identified an association between molecular detection of C. freundii and histopathological lesions. Therefore, these findings should be interpreted as supportive diagnostic evidence rather than proof of a definitive causal relationship. These observations highlight the complementary value of histopathological examination alongside molecular detection in the diagnostic evaluation of aquatic animal diseases. Full article

Lakes on the Tibetan Plateau are sensitive indicators of regional climate change and hydrological variability. Comprehensive analyses of the area, level, and volume of typical lakes across multiple time scales remain limited. In this study, based on the Google Earth Engine platform, we integrated Landsat TM/ETM+/OLI and Sentinel-2 imagery, nine satellite altimetry datasets (Jason-1, Jason-2, Jason-3, Cryosat-2, Sentinel-3A, Sentinel-3B, ICESat, ICESat-2, and GEDI), and four machine learning methods (Lasso, SVM, Random Forest, and XGBoost) to investigate multi-timescale (annual, seasonal, and monthly) variations in lake area, level, and volume of Qinghai Lake, Nam Co, and Bangong Co, from 2000 to 2022. All three lakes showed overall increases in lake area, level, and volume, but with different magnitudes and temporal patterns. Qinghai Lake showed the most pronounced expansion, Nam Co experienced moderate growth, characterized by temporal fluctuations, whereas Bangong Co showed a relatively small but persistent increase. Seasonal analysis showed that lake area expansion was generally strongest in autumn, whereas monthly lake volume peaked in October for Qinghai Lake and Nam Co and in September for Bangong Co. Climate analyses indicated that Qinghai Lake may be mainly influenced by increased precipitation and runoff as well as reduced evaporation, Nam Co may be mainly influenced by precipitation, runoff, and delayed hydrological responses to glacier meltwater, and Bangong Co was likely associated with runoff and cryospheric water supply, while basin characteristics may have also contributed to its long-term hydrological response. These results highlight regional differences in lake responses to climate variability across the Tibetan Plateau. Full article