Search Results (14)

Odonata constitute an important invertebrate group that is strongly dependent on water conditions and sensitive to habitat disturbances, rendering them reliable indicators of habitat quality of both aquatic and terrestrial habitats. We studied the compositional and diversity patterns of Odonates in total, and separately for the two suborders (Zygoptera, Anisoptera) in relation to geographic and ecological parameters at the riparian zone of four rivers and one canal within the Axios Delta National Park and the Natura 2000 SAC GR1220002 in northern Greece, using the line transect technique. In total, 6252 individuals belonging to 28 species were identified. The compositional and diversity patterns were significantly different between agricultural and natural sites. Odonata assemblages at croplands were comparatively poorer, dominated by a few, widely distributed, taxonomically proximal species, tolerant to environmental changes, as a result of modifications and consequent alterations of abiotic conditions at croplands, which also led to higher local contribution to β-diversity and species turnover. The absence of several percher, endophytic, and threatened species from agricultural sites led to significantly lower diversity, as a result of environmental filtering due to ecophysiological restrictions. Taxonomic and functional diversity, uniqueness, and Dragonfly Biotic Index (DBI) were significantly higher in riparian forests, due to the sensitivity of damselflies to dehydration, and the avoidance of habitat loss and extreme temperatures by dragonflies, which prefer natural shelters near the ecotone. The newly introduced Conservation Value Index (CVI) revealed 21 conservation hotspots of Odonata (14 at canopy cover sites), widely distributed within the borders of NATURA 2000 SAC GR1220002. Full article

Conservation units (CUs) play a fundamental role in maintaining and conserving biodiversity, and are important in preserving streams, reducing impacts from human activities and increasing water availability beyond the boundaries of the reserves. However, knowledge about the phytoplankton biodiversity of ecosystems in CUs is scarce. This study evaluated how environmental integrity alters microphytoplankton communities in extractive CUs and their surroundings in the southwestern Brazilian Amazon. Our results demonstrated that the streams exhibited distinct physicochemical and hydrological characteristics, representing spatially heterogeneous environments. Differences in habitat integrity values altered species composition in streams within and outside conservation units. Local beta diversity (LCBD) was negatively influenced by habitat integrity, indicating that sites with greater habitat integrity did not always present a greater number of unique species. The species Trachelomonas hispida, Gyrosigma scalproides and Spirogyra sp. were the ones that contributed the most to beta diversity. However, the phytoplankton species that contributed most to beta diversity were not always associated with streams with greater integrity, indicating that even environments that are less intact play a relevant role in maintaining species richness and beta diversity of microphytoplankton. Factors such as habitat integrity, pH, temperature and dissolved oxygen were the main influencers of microphytoplankton in the streams. Thus, the streams of both CUs and their surroundings, despite their physical–chemical and hydrological differences, effectively contribute to the high richness and beta diversity of regional microphytoplankton. Full article

Capital budgeting, particularly sophisticated decisions, is key to the financial performance and risk management of firms, yet academic studies have documented their relationship inconsistently. This study employs the fundamentals of resource-based view (RBV) and agency theories to investigate the impact of sophisticated capital budgeting decisions on financial performance and risk management of the firms of two different sizes, classified as small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and multinational corporations (MNCs). The empirical data of 590 Indonesian firms from between 2014 and 2023 were obtained and analyzed through the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) technique. The results show that the usage of sophisticated capital budgeting decisions in investment appraisals of classified firms significantly improves their financial performance. Further analyses confirm that although sophisticated capital budgeting decisions are robust in resolving solvency issues, they appear less effective in reducing liquidity risks. The findings also elucidate that sampled firms may realize the financial benefits of sophisticated risk management. The mediation results highlighted that risk management has a significant and positive effect on the relationship between sophisticated capital budgeting decisions and financial performance. The present study contributes to corporate finance by validating the relevance of SCBDs in strategic financial planning and stable investments in firms of different sizes. Full article

Edwardsiellosis, caused by Edwardsiella tarda, poses a significant threat to the aquaculture industry, particularly in pangasius farming. This study investigates the effects of probiotic Bacillus subtilis AAHM-BS2360 and its postbiotic metabolites on growth performance, immune responses, antioxidative activity, and disease resistance against E. tarda infection. A total of 240 healthy pangasius (37.0 ± 4.9 g) were divided into four treatment groups with four replicate tanks each, as follows: (1) the Control group, which received feed top-dressed with 100 mL of 0.85% NaCl/kg diet; (2) the Probiotic group, which received feed supplemented with 100 mL of B. subtilis AAHM-BS2360 cells at the concentration of 1 × 10¹² CFU/kg diet; (3) the Postbiotic group, which received feed supplemented with B. subtilis AAHM-BS2360 cell-free supernatant 100 mL/kg diet; and (4) the Pro + Post group, which received a combination of B. subtilis AAHM-BS2360 cells and cell-free supernatant. After 30 days of feeding treatment, biochemical serum analysis revealed a significant increase in the AST/ALT ratio in the Postbiotic group. The Probiotic and Postbiotic treatments increased lysozyme activity in mucus, indicating an innate immune response to pathogens. The Pro + Post group exhibited the highest levels of catalase (CAT) in serum and upregulated antioxidant-related genes. All treatment groups receiving B. subtilis AAHM-BS2360, metabolites, and their combinations showed significant upregulation of immune-related genes, like lygl1, tgfb, b2ml, and tnf. The expression of proinflammatory genes (litaf, ifngr1l, c3, il13, and il1b) increased, with the most pronounced effects observed in the Pro + Post group. The Probiotic group showed significant upregulation of the growth-related gene igf1. Meanwhile, the Pro + Post group showed significantly higher values in SGR and ADG parameters, with values of 3.29 ± 0.98%/day and 1.42 ± 0.52 g/day respectively (p < 0.05). Survival rates were significantly higher in the Pro + Post (87.5%), Postbiotic (84.37%), and Probiotic (81.25%) groups when challenged with E. tarda. Dietary supplementation with B. subtilis AAHM-BS2360, its metabolites, and their combination enhanced immune response, reduced oxidative stress, and improved growth performance in pangasius, highlighting its potential as a functional feed additive for sustainable aquaculture. Full article

Background/Objectives: Atypical parkinsonian syndromes (APSs) are a group of neurodegenerative disorders that differ from idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (IPD) in their clinical presentation, underlying pathology, and response to treatment. APSs include conditions such as multiple system atrophy (MSA), progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), corticobasal syndrome (CBS), and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). These disorders are characterized by a combination of parkinsonian features and additional symptoms, such as autonomic dysfunction, supranuclear gaze palsy, and asymmetric motor symptoms. Many hypotheses attempt to explain the causes of neurodegeneration in APSs, including interactions between environmental toxins, tau or α-synuclein pathology, oxidative stress, microglial activation, and vascular factors. While extensive research has been conducted on APSs, there is a limited understanding of the symmetry in these diseases, particularly in MSA. Neuroimaging studies have revealed metabolic, structural, and functional abnormalities that contribute to the asymmetry in APSs. The asymmetry in CBS is possibly caused by a variable reduction in striatal D2 receptor binding, as demonstrated in single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) examinations, which may explain the disease’s asymmetric manifestation and poor response to dopaminergic therapy. In PSP, clinical dysfunction correlates with white matter tract degeneration in the superior cerebellar peduncles and corpus callosum. MSA often involves atrophy in the pons, putamen, and cerebellum, with clinical symmetry potentially depending on the symmetry of the atrophy. The aim of this review is to present the study findings on potential symmetry as a tool for determining potential neuropsychological disturbances and properly diagnosing APSs to lessen the misdiagnosis rate. Methods: A comprehensive review of the academic literature was conducted using the medical literature available in PubMed. Appropriate studies were evaluated and examined based on patient characteristics and clinical and imaging examination outcomes in the context of potential asymmetry. Results: Among over 1000 patients whose data were collected, PSP-RS was symmetrical in approximately 84% ± 3% of cases, with S-CBD showing similar results. PSP-P was symmetrical in about 53–55% of cases, while PSP-CBS was symmetrical in fewer than half of the cases. MSA-C was symmetrical in around 40% of cases. It appears that MSA-P exhibits symmetry in about 15–35% of cases. CBS, according to the criteria, is a disease with an asymmetrical clinical presentation in 90–99% of cases. Similar results were obtained via imaging methods, but transcranial sonography produced different results. Conclusions: Determining neurodegeneration symmetry may help identify functional deficits and improve diagnostic accuracy. Patients with significant asymmetry in neurodegeneration may exhibit different neuropsychological symptoms based on their individual brain lateralization, impacting their cognitive functioning and quality of life. Full article

In a community, due to the different characteristics of each species, their contributions to community beta diversity may vary. Quantifying the contribution of each species to overall beta diversity (SCBD) is essential for explaining the patterns of beta diversity. However, there is currently limited research linking SCBD with species functional traits, and how species functional traits influence SCBD remains unclear. This study is based on tree census data, species functional traits, and environmental variables from a 15 ha permanent monitoring plot in a tropical karst rainforest in south China. By calculating species-specific SCBD based on abundance and presence–absence data, as well as functional distinctiveness and species ecological niche characteristics (niche position and niche width), we applied structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze how functional traits, distinctiveness, and niche characteristics jointly influence SCBD. The results revealed that SCBD based on abundance is positively correlated with occupancy and abundance, whereas SCBD based on presence–absence data exhibits a hump-shaped relationship with occupancy and abundance. Species ecological niche characteristics directly influence SCBD, with species occupying central ecological niches having a negative effect on SCBD and niche width having a positive effect. Functional traits and functional distinctiveness indirectly impact SCBD through their influence on species ecological niche characteristics. SEM models based on the presence–absence data provide higher explanatory power. In summary, in the seasonal rainforest communities of northern tropical karst regions in China, the combined effects of species’ functional traits, functional distinctiveness, and ecological niche characteristics determine SCBD. This not only contributes to a deeper understanding of how species traits influence β-diversity, making SCBD a more applicable tool for biodiversity conservation, but also allows for the development of more effective biodiversity protection strategies by elucidating the link between SCBD and ecosystem multifunctionality. Full article

Since the start-up of the Sossego copper concentrator, located in the Carajás Mineral Province in the southeast of Para State, Brazil, the low-grade ore (~0.34% Cu) has been stockpiled, as defined in the long-term mine plan, to be reclaimed at the end of the mine life. Given this imminent need to process around 40 Mt of this low-grade ore, questions have been raised related to the extent of oxidation that might have occurred in this stockpiled ore. In this context, a study was designed to characterize the stockpiled ore and assess the effect of the ore oxidation on its flotation response. A sampling campaign of the stockpiled ore was carried out to analyze the main variables that could influence the level of oxidation, and, consequently, copper recovery, such as stockpiling time, depth, and particle size. The results showed that there are two main factors negatively impacting the copper recovery of the low-grade stockpiled ore: the surface oxidation and the level of liberation of the copper mineral. Depth and period of stockpiling were not found to influence the level of oxidation, nor the flotation response. An empirical model was proposed for the copper recovery in the rougher stage, which resulted in a predicted value of 90.7%, which was lower than that for the fresh (and higher copper content) ore fed to the plant (93%). Full article

Cathode precursors of lithium-NMC 811 were synthesized by the coprecipitation method using two different nickel sources, namely mixed nickel–cobalt hydroxide precipitate (MHP) and nickel sulfate. The characteristics of the synthesized precursors were compared with the characteristics of the commercial NMC 811 cathode precursor obtained from the international market. The XRD analyses identified that the diffraction peaks of the three precursor materials were in close agreement to that of Li_0.05Ni_0.75Co_0.1Mn_0.1O₂, with the figure(s) of merit (FoM) of 0.81, 0.88, and 0.9, respectively, for the synthesized precursor that used MHP as the source of nickel (SM-LNMCO-811), nickel sulfate as the source of nickel (SX-LNMCO-811), and the commercial precursor (K-NMC-811). The elemental analysis of the synthesized precursors revealed the Ni:Mn:Co mol ratios of 0.8:0.08:0.12 and 0.76:0.11:0.13 for SM-LNMCO-811 and SX-LNMCO-811, respectively. The SEM analysis revealed that SX-LNMCO-811 and K-NMC-811 showed a similar particle morphology with a spherical shape; the SM-LNMCO-811 exhibited an irregular particle morphology. The particle size analysis showed that SM-LNMCO-811 had the largest average particle size (285.2 μm) while K-NMC-811 and SX-LNMCO-811 samples had almost the same average values (i.e., 18.28 and 17.16 µm, respectively). The results of the charge–discharge measurement of the fabricated battery cylindrical cells with SM-LNMCO-811, SX-LNMCO-811, and K-NMC-811 as cathode materials showed the best discharge value of the SX-LNMCO-811 sample at 178.93 mAh/g with an initial efficiency of 94.32%, which is in line with the electrochemical impedance measurement results that showed the largest ion conductivity and lithium ion diffusion coefficient value of the SX-LNMCO-811 sample that utilized the synthesized nickel sulfate as the source of the nickel. Full article

With the development of 5G and network technology, the usage of IoT devices has become popular. Because most of these IoT devices can be controlled by an adversary away from the administrator, several security issues such as firmware dumping can arise. Firmware dumping is the cornerstone or goal of many types of hardware hacking. Therefore, many IoT device manufacturers adopt some protection mechanisms such as the restriction of hardware debuggers. However, several recent studies have shown that the operating instructions of an IoT device can be recovered through the profiling-based side-channel analysis. The Side-Channel-Based Disassembler (SCBD) refers to software that recovers instructions of the device only from the side-channel signal. The SCBD is powerful enough to defeat many firmware protection mechanisms. In this paper, we show how an adversary can build an instruction (opcode)-level disassembler using the power consumption signal of commercial microcontrollers (MCUs) such as the 8-bit ATxmega128 and 32-bit STM32F0. To implement the SCBD, we elaborately constructed the instruction template considering the pipeline of the target MCUs through instruction sequence analysis. Furthermore, we preprocessed the side-channel signals using the Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT) for noise reduction and Kullback-Leibler Divergence (KLD) for instruction feature extraction. Our experimental results show that the machine-learning-based instruction disassembling models can recover the operating instructions with an accuracy of about 91.9% and 98.6% for the ATxmega128 and STM32F0, respectively. Furthermore, we achieved an accuracy of 77% and 96.5% in a cross-board validation. Full article

In multicomponent thin films, properties and functionalities related to post-deposition annealing treatments, such as thermal stability, optical absorption and surface morphology are typically rationalized, neglecting the role of the substrate. Here, we show the role of the substrate in determining the temperature dependent behaviour of a paradigmatic two-component nanogranular thin film (Ag/TiO₂) deposited by gas phase supersonic cluster beam deposition (SCBD) on silica and sapphire. Up to 600 °C, no TiO₂ grain growth nor crystallization is observed, likely inhibited by the Zener pinning pressure exerted by the Ag nanoparticles on the TiO₂ grain boundaries. Above 600 °C, grain coalescence, formation of However, the two substrates steer the evolution of the film morphology and optical properties in two different directions. anatase and rutile phases and drastic modification of the optical absorption are observed. On silica, Ag is still present as NPs distributed into the TiO₂ matrix, while on sapphire, hundreds of nm wide Ag aggregates appear on the film surface. Moreover, the silica-deposited film shows a broad absorption band in the visible range while the sapphire-deposited film becomes almost transparent for wavelengths above 380 nm. We discuss this result in terms of substrate differences in thermal conductivity, thermal expansion coefficient and Ag diffusivity. The study of the substrate role during annealing is possible since SCBD allows the synthesis of the same film independently of the substrate, and suggests new perspectives on the thermodynamics and physical exchanges between thin films and their substrates during heat treatments. Full article

The fabrication of in vitro neuronal cell networks where cells are chemically or electrically connected to form functional circuits with useful properties is of great interest. Standard cell culture substrates provide ensembles of cells that scarcely reproduce physiological structures since their spatial organization and connectivity cannot be controlled. Supersonic Cluster Beam Deposition (SCBD) has been used as an effective additive method for the large-scale fabrication of interfaces with extracellular matrix-mimicking surface nanotopography and reproducible morphological properties for cell culture. Due to the high collimation of SCBD, it is possible to exploit stencil masks for the fabrication of patterned films and reproduce features as small as tens of micrometers. Here, we present a protocol to fabricate micropatterned cell culture substrates based on the deposition of nanostructured cluster-assembled zirconia films by stencil-assisted SCBD. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated by the fabrication of micrometric patterns able to confine primary astrocytes. Calcium waves propagating in the astrocyte networks are shown. Full article

Developing smart, environmentally friendly, and effective antibacterial surfaces is fundamental to contrast the diffusion of human infections and diseases for applications in the biomedical and food packaging sectors. To this purpose, here we combine aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) and Ag to grow nanostructured composite coatings on bioplastic polylactide (PLA) substrates. The AZO layers are grown by RF magnetron sputtering, and then functionalized with Ag in atomic form by RF magnetron sputtering and in form of nanoparticles by supersonic cluster beam deposition. We compare the morphology, wettability, and antimicrobial performance of the nanostructured coatings obtained by the two methods. The different growth modes in the two techniques used for Ag functionalization are found to produce some differences in the surface morphology, which, however, do not induce significant differences in the wettability and antimicrobial response of the coatings. The antibacterial activity is investigated against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus as representatives of Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria, respectively. A preferential antimicrobial action of Ag on the first species and of AZO on the second one is evidenced. Through their combination, we obtain a hybrid composite coating taking advantage of the synergistic dual action of the two materials deposited, with a total bacterial suppression within few minutes for the first species and few hours for the second one, thus representing a valuable solution as a wide-spectrum bactericidal device. Full article

We present a fabrication process to realize 3D high-aspect-ratio cylindrical micro-structures of soft ionogel/gold nanocomposites by combining replica molding and Supersonic Cluster Beam Deposition (SCBD). Cylinders’ metallic masters (0.5 mm in diameter) are used to fabricate polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) molds, where the ionogel is casted and UV cured. The replicated ionogel cylinders (aspect ratio > 20) are subsequently metallized through SCBD to integrate nanostructured gold electrodes (150 nm thick) into the polymer. Nanocomposite thin films are characterized in terms of electrochemical properties, exhibiting large double layer capacitance (24 μF/cm²) and suitable ionic conductivity (0.05 mS/cm) for charge transport across the network. Preliminary actuation tests show that the nanocomposite is able to respond to low intensity electric fields (applied voltage from 2.5 V to 5 V), with potential applications for the development of artificial smart micro-structures with motility behavior inspired by that of natural ciliate systems. Full article

The molecular mechanism of short-chain branching (SCB), especially the effects of methylene sequence length (MSL) and short-chain branching distribution (SCBD) on the initial stage of nucleation, the crystallization process, and particularly the tie chain formation process of bimodal polyethylene (BPE), were explored using molecular dynamics simulation. This work constructed two kinds of BPE models in accordance with commercial BPE pipe resins: SCB incorporated in the long chain or in the short chains. The initial stage of nucleation was determined by the MSL of the system, as the critical MSL for a branched chain to nucleate is about 60 CH₂. SCB incorporated in the long chain led to a delay of the initial stage of nucleation relative to the case of SCB incorporated in the short chains. The increase of branch length could accelerate the delay to nucleation. The location of short chain relative to the long chain depended on the MSL of the short chain. As the MSL of the system decreased, the crystallinity decreased, while the tie chains concentration increased. The tie chains concentration of the BPE model with branches incorporated in the long chain was higher than that with branches incorporated in the short chain. Full article