Search Results (548)

Globally, freshwater scarcity is driving the urgent demand for advanced and new desalination technologies to overcome the shortage of clean water. Reverse osmosis (RO) membranes dominate seawater and brackish water treatment but are limited by the permeability–selectivity trade-off, fouling, and structural instability. To overcome these challenges, we employed a phase inversion process to fabricate polysulfone (PSF) supports embedded with a graphene oxide–poly(amidoamine) (GO-PAMAM) nanocomposite at three concentrations (0.03, 0.06, and 0.10 wt%), alongside a pristine control membrane with no GO-PAMAM. Systematic variation in GO-PAMAM loading revealed that a 0.06 wt% nanoparticle helps in producing a more uniform polyamide layer that achieves a high NaCl rejection (95.88%) and higher water flux (42.6 L m⁻² h⁻¹). The performance was evaluated at an operating pressure of 20 bar with a feed flow rate of 4 L min⁻¹. The optimized membrane also demonstrated an improved fouling resistance, retaining 93% of its initial flux after fouling. This scalable approach highlights substrate-level modification as an effective strategy for next-generation RO membranes, advancing sustainable and energy-efficient desalination to meet escalating global water demands. Full article

Depression-related mood disturbances are increasingly recognized as nutrition-sensitive conditions associated with chronic stress-induced neuroinflammation and metabolic imbalance. Polygonatum sibiricum, Poria cocos, Lilium brownii, and Radix Glycyrrhizae Preparata are edible medicinal plants commonly used in functional foods. In this study, we evaluated the antidepressant effects of a Polygonatum sibiricum-based functional formula (PSF) in a chronic restraint stress (CRS) mouse model. CRS induced prominent anhedonia and behavioral despair, accompanied by microglial overactivation, activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome, and dysregulated tryptophan metabolism. PSF supplementation significantly alleviated depressive-like behaviors and inhibited NLRP3–caspase-1–GSDMD-mediated pyroptosis, leading to reduced hippocampal IL-1β and IL-18 levels. Importantly, PSF restored tryptophan metabolism toward serotonin production, stabilized monoaminergic and glutamate/GABA neurotransmission, and protected hippocampal neurons. Moreover, PSF partially reversed stress-induced gut microbiota dysbiosis. Collectively, these results demonstrate that PSF acts as a neuroimmune–metabolic modulator that improves mood-related behaviors by regulating inflammatory signaling, tryptophan metabolism, and neurotransmitter homeostasis, supporting its potential development as a functional food intervention for stress-induced depression. Full article

The spatial response of rectangular pulse heterodyne phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry ($\varphi$-OTDR) to an acoustic event is characterized by a windowing function rather than a point-like sensitivity. This effect degrades the system’s spatial resolution and introduces systematic errors in array signal processing. This work presents modeling analysis and a mitigation strategy for this fundamental limitation. The spatial windowing effect is modeled as a point spread function (PSF) derived from physical mechanisms and system parameters, including the pulse width, gauge length, and intra-pulse intensity dynamics. The PSF model is validated against measurements under near-ideal conditions using a fiber-coupled tuning fork. A Wiener filter-based deconvolution method is utilized to invert the windowed spatial response towards a point-like response. The effectiveness of this inversion is demonstrated through enhanced spatial resolution and accurate reconstruction of two-dimensional wavefront geometry. Furthermore, the impact of this effect on array signal processing is quantitatively evaluated. The results demonstrate that the proposed method effectively suppresses systematic errors in wavefield analysis, and specifically enhances the accuracy and confidence of steered response power—phase transform (SRP-PHAT) spatial spectrum estimation. This study provides a systematic framework for understanding, quantifying, and inverting the spatial response in $\varphi$-OTDR, enabling accurate and interpretable acoustic field sensing. Full article

This paper addresses the critical challenge of detecting weak, small targets in sonar intensity images for linear-array active sonar, where target signatures are not only obscured by low signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) but also strongly resemble structural interference arising from beamforming processing. We propose an end-to-end detection method that integrates controllable simulation with spatiotemporal structure-aware modeling. First, a physics-informed simulation system is constructed, centered on the Bellhop ray-tracing model. It incorporates multiple environmental effects, including multi-highlight targets, spectrally shaped noise, range-dependent reverberation, discrete scatterers, multipath propagation, and platform perturbations. Through closed-loop SIR calibration and point spread function (PSF)-constrained automatic annotation, a high-fidelity dataset with traceable parameters is generated. Second, the YOLOv8-Mamba-P2 detection network is designed. It introduces gated long-range spatial mixing modules (inspired by Mamba) to model global context and enhance the ability to discriminate interference structures, and extends a P2 small-scale detection branch to improve the perception and localization capabilities for weak targets. This enables precise target detection within complex backgrounds. Experimental results demonstrate the algorithm’s superior performance in low-SIR and strong reverberation conditions, achieving significant improvements in recall and localization accuracy while maintaining real-time inference efficiency, offering a promising framework for sonar target detection under the simulated conditions considered, with potential applicability to complex marine environments pending further real-world validation. Full article

Soil conditioning can generate persistent plant–soil feedbacks (PSF) that influence plant performance under subsequent growth conditions, yet the role of soil inoculum volume in mediating these effects remains poorly understood. Here, we tested how inoculum volume influences the relative strength of a known positive PSF effect. We performed a plant–soil feedback experiment with Pinus radiata D. Don in two phases: one, a “conditioning phase”, and two, a “feedback phase”, where inoculum from the first phase was used in different dilutions to test the growth differences resulting from conditioning. To understand how inoculum volume affects subsequent growth in the feedback phase, seedlings (n = 12 per treatment) were grown in soil from phase one using different volumetric dilutions; 100% conditioned soil, 50% conditioned soil + 50% inert media, or 25% conditioned soil + 75% inert media. Positive plant–soil feedbacks were observed in undiluted soils: seedlings produced 40–65% greater biomass and experienced 50–70% lower mortality compared to the lowest inoculum treatment. However, this response varied with dilution; the strength of plant–soil feedbacks decreased with increasing dilution of inoculum. These findings highlight soil inoculum volume as an important, but often overlooked, factor in plant–soil feedback experiments and applied soil management. Our study provides experimental evidence that effective soil conditioning depends on both conditioning and a required minimum inoculum volume to confer measurable benefits to future plantings. Full article

To evaluate whether Bangerter foils (BFs) could serve as a low-cost myopia control intervention, we measured and compared the imaging properties of fifteen BFs from two manufacturers, four myopia control spectacles, and a single-vision lens. Image quality metrics related to light-signaling theories of myopia onset and progression were evaluated in three tests: i. the assessment of the focusing properties through the maximum of the point spread function (MaxPSF), modulation transfer function (MTF), and area under the MTF (AUMTF); ii. the quantification of the scattered light (s) using the optical integration method; and iii. the calculation of the Michelson contrast (MiC) on a binary grating imaged under dark and bright illumination. BFs exhibited lower MaxPSF, AUMTF, and MTF values than the myopia control lenses. Except for one 0.6-graded BF, none of the other BFs mimicked the scattering behavior of the diffusion optics technology lenses. Moreover, BFs showed lower MiC values than with myopia control lenses under both lighting conditions. Although the BFs did not replicate the imaging properties of myopia control lenses, they still demonstrated effective contrast reduction across the lighting conditions. Whether they may help to slow myopia progression remains uncertain, perhaps even unlikely, given the fundamental imaging differences. Full article

Volcanic magma plumbing systems is essential for understanding crustal–mantle material exchange and the dynamics of volcanic activity. The magnetotelluric method (MT) offers an effective tool for imaging conductive features from the crust to the lithospheric mantle. However, current survey strategies face a tradeoff between imaging resolution and acquisition cost. Here, we construct a lithosphere-scale synthetic model of a magma plumbing system and use 3D MT inversion, sensitivity analysis, and point spread function evaluation to assess the resolving capability of sparse versus dense arrays. Our results show that large-scale conductive anomalies in the mid–lower crust and lithospheric mantle can be reliably imaged using a sparse regional array with targeted densification in the crustal anomaly zone. This approach reduces field costs and computational demand. Guided by these findings, we conducted MT observations across the Longgang volcanic field and identified low-resistivity anomalies extending from the lithospheric mantle into the mid–lower crust. These features are consistent with the dense array MT inversion results. Our study demonstrates that an array strategy combining wide-area sparse coverage with targeted densification offers a cost-effective approach to image deep conductive structures, which may provide practical guidance for optimizing MT survey design in volcanic regions. Full article

Zernike polynomials constitute an essential mathematical basis for representing functions defined over the unit disk. They are widely used in a diverse range of scientific and engineering disciplines, including adaptive optics for characterizing atmospheric distortions, ophthalmology for quantifying ocular aberrations, microscopy for instrument characterization and aberration correction, and optical metrology for surface profiling. This paper introduces ZernikeViewer, a software framework developed for the rapid calculation and visualization of fringe, phase, and point spread function (PSF) maps from Zernike coefficients. The framework leverages CPU multicore and multithreading capabilities through the .NET Task Parallel Library (TPL), augmented by codebase optimizations and the preloading of precomputed Zernike polynomial matrices. These optimizations reduce computation time by a factor of 7 to 10 compared to a conventional approach; for instance, from 1 ms to 0.1 ms for a radial order of n = 10 and from 700 ms to 80 ms for n = 100. Numerical error analysis confirms the accuracy of the computation, with an average root-mean-square (RMS) error of 0.11 ms observed in the timing measurements. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that implementing Jacobi recursion relations could potentially reduce the numerical calculation error by up to 5 orders of magnitude. Full article

Off-axis reflective telescopes are prone to component misalignment due to external environmental factors and mechanical vibrations. This misalignment introduces low-order aberrations, which severely degrade imaging quality. Thus, active misalignment correction is crucial for maintaining the imaging performance of off-axis reflective telescopes. Current computer-aided alignment technologies for optical systems mostly rely on wavefront sensors to acquire aberrations at multiple fixed fields of view (FOVs) or even the full FOV. This significantly increases system complexity and hinders practical engineering applications. To address this issue, this study first conducts sensitivity analysis of misaligned degrees of freedom (DOFs) using a mode truncation algorithm based on singular value decomposition (SVD). A compensation strategy is proposed to avoid the aberration coupling effect. Furthermore, two novel misalignment aberration compensation methods for off-axis reflective telescopes are presented. These methods require only a single focal spot image and eliminate the need for aberration detection and iterative calculations. One method directly solves component misalignment errors using a convolutional neural network (CNN) based on the system’s point spread function (PSF). To further improve compensation performance, an improved method fusing spot images and Zernike coefficients is proposed. In practical misalignment correction, both methods input a single acquired focal spot image into a well-trained model to obtain the misalignment compensation amount. Simulation experiments demonstrate that the improved method, which uses Zernike polynomial coefficients as an intermediate feature bridge, effectively establishes the mapping relationship between spot images and misalignment amounts. It achieves higher solution accuracy and better aberration compensation effect compared to the direct CNN method. This verifies the necessity of extracting Zernike polynomial coefficient features from spot images. Comparative experiments with the traditional sensitivity matrix method show that the two proposed methods outperform the sensitivity matrix method in aberration compensation accuracy over a large misalignment range. Comprehensive simulation results confirm the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed methods. They overcome the limitations of existing methods, such as complex structure, high cost, and low efficiency, to a certain extent. Full article

Background: Although posterior spinal fusion (PSF) for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) reliably improves radiographic alignment, radiological correction alone does not necessarily reflect postoperative recovery, particularly in terms of psychosocial well-being. Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) have become central to outcome assessment in AIS; however, the relative contributions of disease-specific and generic instruments, sex-based differences, and functional recovery, including return to sports, remain unclear. Methods: This prospective single-center cohort study encompassed adolescents aged 13–18 years who underwent PSF for AIS between December 2020 and November 2023. All included patients had a minimum postoperative follow-up of 24 months at the time of analysis. Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) was evaluated preoperatively and at least 2 years postoperatively using the Scoliosis Research Society–22 revised questionnaire (SRS-22r) and the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) Teen Report (ages 13–18 years). Outcomes were compared between male and female patients. Return to the preoperative level of sports was evaluated as a functional outcome. Results: Overall, 108 adolescents with AIS (32 males, 76 females) were included. Male patients were slightly older at the time of surgery, whereas baseline radiographic characteristics, treatment patterns, and follow-up duration were comparable between sexes. At preoperative assessment, male patients reported higher SRS-22r self-image and mental health scores compared with female patients (both p < 0.001). These differences were no longer present at the last follow-up (all p > 0.05). Emotional functioning improved significantly in both sexes (p < 0.001), whereas changes in pain and physical function were limited. The total PedsQL score increased significantly in female patients but not in males (p = 0.521). Patients across all Lenke curve types demonstrated postoperative improvements. Those with Lenke type 1 exhibited higher mean changes in SRS-22r and PedsQL total scores; however, differences in change scores between Lenke types demonstrated no statistical significance. At final follow-up, 93.5% of patients had not returned to their preoperative level of physical activity. Conclusions: PSF for AIS was associated with domain-specific improvements in HRQoL, predominantly reflecting psychosocial domains rather than changes in pain or physical function. Preoperative sex-based differences resolve postoperatively, and patients with Lenke curve types demonstrate improvements, with a tendency toward greater gains in Lenke type 1. Despite these improvements, return to preoperative sport levels remains restricted, indicating a gap between patient-reported recovery and functional reintegration. Full article

3D cell systems for in vitro experimental studies are able to mimic the in vivo efficacy of drugs before they are tested on animals. However, many studies are still needed in order to mimic the physiological environment with 3D cell-growth systems. The mechano-physical properties of the microenvironment are relevant for the invasiveness of cancer cells and for their drug resistance. In this study, 3D tumoroids of human oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) CAL27 cells of different stiffnesses were produced using a tunable PEG–silk fibroin hydrogel (PSF), and the antitumor activity of the peptide CIGB300, an anticancer therapeutic peptide, with respect to these 3D tumoroid models was assessed. Furthermore, spectroscopic studies on the CIGB300 peptide are reported regarding its structure, stability, aggregation and diffusion properties. For the first time, the diffusion of the peptide CIGB300 in tunable silk fibroin hydrogels of different stiffnesses is investigated over time via fluorescence spectroscopy as a potential tool in drug-screening using hydrogel-based 3D tumoroids. Full article

Early-onset neonatal sepsis caused by Escherichia coli (E. coli) threatens neonates’ lives due to the pathogen’s high virulence and multidrug resistance. The mechanisms that enable its placental barrier breach are poorly understood. Using a clinically isolated ST95 ExPEC strain from a neonatal sepsis case, along with a pregnant rat model and an in vitro placental barrier model, we performed CRISPR interference screening. This screen targeted 264 virulence factor genes and identified virulence factors for motility, iron acquisition, hemolysin secretion, and adherence/invasion as critical. We demonstrated that hlyB is essential for uterine infection, and we elucidated a mechanism for ibeA that facilitates syncytial trophoblast cell layer penetration by interacting with the host receptor(s) PSF/VIM to enhance bacterial internalization. Host cells countered ibeA+ E. coli infection via a novel host defense pathway involving upregulation of ASPHD1. This study systematically mapped the virulence factors required for E. coli placental translocation and delineated key host–pathogen interactions. Full article

A two-parameter environmental (measured in CO2eq—CO₂ is used in this paper to represent the carbon dioxide molecule as opposed to the chemical formula CO₂ as is common practice in LCA studies; CO2eq is an abbreviation for CO₂ equivalent and may be written as CO2e in the literature) and economic (measured in USD) analysis using life cycle analysis (LCA) and techno-economic analysis (TEA) of repurposed wind turbine blades for structural use in recreational trail bridges (e.g., on hiking trails and golf courses) is described in this paper. The US Department of Energy’s TECHTEST TEA/LCA software (v1.0) platform was used to compare three commercially available trail bridges (a steel truss bridge, an FRP pultruded truss bridge, and a glulam stringer bridge) with a bridge made from retired wind turbine blades (known as a BladeBridge). All bridges had a 50 ft (15.24 m) long by 6 ft (1.83 m) wide deck and were designed for a 90 psf (4.3 kN/m²) live load. The LCA functional unit was the assembled bridge, which was made ready to be shipped from the fabricator. Cradle-to-gate (A1–A3, i.e., raw material extraction, transportation, and manufacturing) system boundaries were used. For the BladeBridge, no embodied carbon was attributed to the blade itself (cut-off system allocation). For the TEA, a USD 660/tonne credit was attributed to the blade. The raw materials for each bridge were determined from detailed construction documents. Manufacturing and transportation energy were determined based on the equipment used for fabrication and geographical location. Direct labor for fabrication was calculated based on a weighted average of salaries taken from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The results indicate that raw materials had the biggest effect on embodied CO2eq and that labor had the largest impact on cost for all bridges. The results indicate that the BladeBridge is significantly less expensive to produce and releases less CO2eq into the environment (less Global Warming Potential (GWP)) than the three commercially available bridges. Additional TEA metrics for the BladeBridge, including Technology Readiness Level (TRL) and future market potential, were also evaluated and found to be positive for the BladeBridge technology. Full article

Powder melt extrusion (PME) represents an alternative approach for personalized oral dosage forms. Furthermore, the utilization of agricultural waste has gained increasing attention because it helps reduce pollution from waste. This study investigated cellulose powders and short fibers from agricultural waste as supporting materials for the PME-based production of shape-changing levodopa printlets. Formulations containing cellulose powder (CP), cassava short fiber (CSF), and pineapple short fiber (PSF) demonstrated successful printing. The selected formulations were characterized for morphology, thermal transitions, crystallinity, shape-changing behavior, and drug release. CSF demonstrated superior printability, enhanced shape recovery, and the greatest reduction in crystallinity, supporting amorphous solid dispersion formation. Levodopa-loaded printlets showed uniform and high drug content. The formulation containing 5% CSF and levodopa exhibited the fastest initial release, attributed to its low crystallinity and Super Case II transport mechanism. Overall, this study highlights the feasibility of using natural cellulose as an additive in PME to develop sustainable, shape-changing drug delivery systems and advances PME knowledge by integrating agricultural waste derived cellulose fibers with levodopa processing that provide new insight into the material–process–performance relationship in PME systems. Full article

This study investigated gluten- and lactose-free cookies enriched with pomegranate seed flour (PSF, 5 and 10% w/w), a sustainable by-product of juice processing. LC-ESI/HRMS/MS analysis of PSF identified 36 bioactive compounds, mainly flavonoids, phenolic acids, hydrolysable tannins, and polar lipids. PSF incorporation significantly affected colour and texture, increasing friability, as evidenced by a reduction in breaking force from 35.37 N in the control cookie to 21.72 N in cookies enriched with 10% PSF, while maintaining good sensory acceptability. Total phenol (≈1.60–1.82 mg GAE/g) and flavonoid contents were only slightly affected by PSF addition; however, antioxidant activity markedly increased, with FRAP values rising from 55.8 to 67.82 μM Fe (II)/g and DPPH IC₅₀ values decreasing from 31.38 to 12.72 μg/mL in the 10% PSF-enriched cookies. The enriched cookies inhibited pancreatic lipase, α-amylase, and α-glucosidase in a clear concentration-dependent manner and showed a reduced predicted glycaemic index (pGI 46.80 vs. 50.08 in the control). Multivariate analysis confirmed a clear dose-dependent effect of PSF on functional, textural, and sensory properties. Overall, pomegranate seed flour proved to be an effective upcycled ingredient for enhancing the functional profile of gluten- and lactose-free bakery products. Further studies using digestion models and in vivo or clinical approaches are needed to clarify the nutritional relevance and health effects of PSF-enriched foods. Full article