Search Results (520)

Background/Objectives: Digital media play an important role in the lives of contemporary adolescents. While associated with many benefits, they also pose risks to physical health related to prolonged screen time and non-ergonomic body posture. This study analyzed the frequency of self-reported physical complaints among Polish adolescents in relation to time spent on different screen-based activities. Methods: The study included 9083 students aged 13–17 who completed an online survey in March and April 2024 in schools located in western Poland (approximately 30% of the region’s student population). Physical symptoms selected from the HBSC-SCL instrument were analyzed and supplemented with neck or shoulder pain and eye strain. Results: Longer screen time was associated with more frequent occurrence of all analyzed complaints. A 5-item index ranging from 0 to 20 points was proposed, including headache, neck or shoulder pain, eye strain, dizziness, and problems falling asleep (mean 6.56 ± 5.15). The index showed reliability at the level of α = 0.744 and good model fit according to CFA (RMSEA = 0.025). In a multivariate linear regression model (R² = 0.153), after adjusting for age, gender, place of residence, and family affluence, the variability of this index was most strongly associated with time spent on social media (β = 0.40) and browsing websites (β = 0.30). Gender-specific models were also compared. Conclusions: The results confirm the co-occurrence of physical complaints during adolescence and a significant association between their severity and screen-based activities, particularly engagement in social media. Full article

The critically endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys kempii) population experienced a catastrophic decline from a peak in 1947 to a low in 1985, followed by exponential growth prior to 2010. However, the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill caused a demographic setback. Monitoring nesting female straight carapace length (SCL) is crucial for assessing population structure and recovery. We analyzed interannual variation in SCL of nesting females at Rancho Nuevo Sanctuary, Tamaulipas, Mexico, during the 2018–2023 nesting seasons. A total of 191 females were measured, and a comprehensive statistical analysis was performed to validate the use of parametric tests. One-way ANOVA revealed significant differences in mean SCL among years (p < 0.001). The lowest seasonal SCL means were in 2020 (59.01 ± 1.79 cm) and 2022 (60.68 ± 1.47 cm), while the highest SCL means occurred in 2018 (62.77 ± 1.81 cm), 2019 (62.01 ± 1.56 cm), 2021 (62.19 ± 1.47 cm), and 2023 (61.75 ± 2.07 cm). There was no significant linear decline in mean SCL from 2018 to 2023 (p = 0.78). These results suggest short-term interannual variability rather than a consistent shift in body size structure, providing updated baseline information for post-DWH population monitoring and future recruitment assessments. Full article

Zr alloy-shaped charge liners (SCLs) offer broad application prospects due to their multiple post-penetration damage effects. However, research on these liners is still in its early stages. The mechanisms of jet formation and penetration for Zr alloys SCL remain unclear, and the specific contribution of different liner regions to the penetration process is not yet understood. This gap in knowledge has limited their structural design to a black-box correlation between global structural parameters and macroscopic penetration efficiency. To address this gap, a region-tracing Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) simulation was employed. Following a strategy of “wall thickness layering + axial segmentation,” the Zr alloy liner was partitioned into ten characteristic regions. This methodology facilitated the tracking of material transport from each region during jet formation and penetration into an AISI 1045 steel target. The contribution of each region to the penetration depth was then quantitatively assessed via post-processing. For the first time, the “critical region” contributing most to penetration depth was identified, and the influence of the liner’s cone angle and wall thickness on the contribution of each region was revealed. This study enhances the theoretical framework for understanding the damage effects of Zr alloy shaped charge liners. It not only advances the fundamental understanding of jet penetration mechanisms but also provides a theoretical basis for the refined design and performance optimization of these liners. Full article

There are still challenges in speech emotion recognition, as the representation capability of single-modal information is limited, there are difficulties in capturing continuous emotional transitions in discrete emotion annotations, and the issues of modal structural differences and cross-sample alignment in multimodal fusion methods persist. To address these, this study undertakes work from both data and model perspectives. For data, a Chinese multimodal database STEM-E²VA was constructed, synchronously collecting four modalities of data: articulatory kinematics, acoustics, glottal signals, and videos. This covers seven discrete emotion categories and employs PAD continuous annotation. By integrating discrete and continuous dimensional annotations, it better represents the distinction between strong and weak emotions under the same discrete emotion label. Concurrently, to process the biases in PAD annotations, we employed the SCL-90 psychological questionnaire to analyze annotators’ cognitive and emotional perceptions, thereby ensuring data reliability. For model, this paper proposes a multimodal supervised contrastive fusion network incorporating PAD perception. It employs a PAD-enhanced hybrid contrastive loss function to optimize intra-model and inter-modal feature alignment. Utilizing a cross-attention mechanism combined with a GRU–Transformer network for temporal feature extraction, it achieves deep fusion of multimodal information, reducing inter-modal discrepancies and cross-class confusion. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed method achieves 85.47% accuracy in discrete sentiment recognition on STEM-E²VA, with a substantial reduction in RMSE for PAD dimension prediction. It also exhibits excellent generalization capability on IEMOCAP, providing a novel framework for integrating discrete and continuous sentiment representations. Full article

Although many studies have demonstrated the positive effects of natural visual and auditory stimuli on human physiological and psychological states, there is limited empirical evidence on the effects on subjective comfort under different thermal environments. This study used a climatic chamber experiment to evaluate the impact of three types of natural stimuli (visual, auditory, and combined audio-visual) on physiological and psychological responses under three operative temperature conditions (26 °C, 28 °C, and 32 °C). In total, 24 participants were recruited. Physiological indicators, including heart rate variability, skin conductance level (SCL), skin temperature (ST), and blood pressure, as well as psychological indicators including thermal sensation (TSV), thermal comfort (TCV), visual comfort (VCV), and acoustic comfort (ACV), were collected. The results show that TCV was significantly and positively correlated with both VCV and ACV. The visual stimuli produced the most significant decrease in TSV and the greatest increase in TCV, while combined audio-visual stimuli had the most significant impact on physiological responses. At 26 °C, the combined audio-visual stimuli group reduced heart rate by 6.08%. However, at 32 °C, most physiological and psychological restoration indicators showed no significant changes. These findings provide theoretical references for health-oriented multisensory environmental design in urban areas. Full article

Environmental noise may interfere with the reading experience by increasing cognitive load and psychophysiological arousal, yet these effects are difficult to perceive and communicate in real time. This study presents Reading Noise, an interactive installation that combines physiological sensing and sound-driven visualization to externalize perceived noise-related disturbance and psychophysiological strain during reading. In a controlled experiment, 46 participants completed reading tasks under four levels of background conversational noise (0–30, 31–60, 61–90, and >90 dB) while ambient sound level, electrodermal activity (EDA), and electrocardiogram (ECG) were recorded in real time. Following data quality screening, inferential statistical analyses were performed on the analyzable physiological subset (n = 16). Based on these data, a hybrid mapping strategy combining rule-based assignment and LMM-informed exploratory calibration was developed to map acoustic and physiological changes onto dynamic text-based visual parameters, including deformation intensity, jitter, and motion instability, for real-time feedback. Within the analyzable subset, noise level was associated with significant changes in the recorded physiological indicators (all p < 0.05): skin conductance level (SCL) and skin conductance responses per minute (SCRs/min) increased (4.69 ± 2.13 to 5.93 ± 2.19 μS; 1.49 ± 1.59 to 2.51 ± 2.13), whereas the percentage of successive RR intervals differing by more than 50 ms (pNN50) and the root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD) decreased (15.84 ± 16.52% to 10.57 ± 11.35%; 36.63 ± 17.62 to 29.67 ± 16.66 ms). Subjective cognitive load also increased significantly (2.06 ± 0.29 to 6.38 ± 0.31). A follow-up installation study with 24 cross-disciplinary participants, with reported group interaction observations drawn from a 12-participant subset, suggested that the installation may facilitate shared interpretation of attention-related disruption and cognitive strain, indicating the potential of physiology-informed visual translation as a boundary object approach for empathetic, sound-mediated communication. Full article

The performance of the pitcher is the cornerstone of baseball, often determining the flow and ultimate outcome of a game. Given this centrality, understanding the mechanics of an elite pitcher and decoding their strategies are paramount for both internal optimization and competitive scouting. This study proposes an end-to-end deep learning pipeline for automatically classifying five distinct pitch types from raw broadcast footage of MLB pitcher Max Scherzer between 2015 and 2020. By formulating pitch delivery as a time-series classification problem tailored to the unique biomechanics of an elite athlete, the proposed CNN–LSTM framework integrates per-frame spatial feature extraction using an advanced CNN backbone (YOLOv8s-cls) with a two-layer long short-term memory (LSTM) network to capture subtle biomechanical cues across a standardized 20-frame delivery sequence. While skeletal pose estimation primarily focuses on tracking major joints to analyze standard pitching mechanics, the proposed pixel-based method preserves fine-grained visual cues—such as finger grip and wrist rotation—that are critical for distinguishing pitch variations. The proposed framework achieved an accuracy of 91.8% under a standard Random Split and, importantly, 84.5% under a strict Chronological Split across different seasons, validating the feasibility of automated pitch “tell” detection from broadcast video. The resulting system provides coaches and analysts with an objective, data-driven tool for generating personalized scouting reports, identifying mechanical inconsistencies, and refining pitching strategies. Full article

Purpose: The purpose of this preliminary study was to investigate the prevalence of Charles Bonnet Syndrome (CBS) among patients attending the National Centre of Service and Research for the Prevention of Blindness and Vision Rehabilitation of the Visually Impaired, Rome, Italy. Furthermore, the research aimed to delineate the psychological profile of these individuals to determine whether significant differences exist compared with visually impaired patients who do not experience hallucinatory phenomena and to identify likely predictors. Methods: A preliminary cross-sectional analysis was conducted on a convenience sample of patients recruited between January 2025 and December 2025. Prevalence was calculated based on structured clinical interviews, while the psychological profile was assessed by comparing the CBS group with a control group (non-CBS) matched for visual acuity. Participants underwent comprehensive ophthalmological and psychological assessments, including best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), reading acuity (RA), contrast sensitivity (CS), fixation stability, and retinal sensitivity (RS). Psychological status was evaluated using the Symptom Check List-90-Revised (SCL-90-R), the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Questionnaire (GAD-7). Patients experiencing CBS were further interviewed regarding the specific characteristics and patterns of their hallucinations. The association between CBS and both psychological profiles and visual function parameters was evaluated using regression analysis. Results: Out of 385 individuals screened, 120 participants (58% women; mean age 55.4 ± 18.8 years) were included; CBS was detected in 19%. No significant differences were observed between participants with and without CBS in demographic variables or psychological questionnaire scores (p > 0.05). Mean SCL-90-R, PHQ-9, and GAD-7 scores indicated mild psychological distress, depression, and anxiety, with no significant group differences (p > 0.05). Using standard cut-off values, depressive and anxiety symptoms were prevalent in 65% and 88% of participants, respectively, but were not significantly associated with CBS in chi-square or logistic regression analyses (p > 0.05). Logistic regression analysis of SCL-90 scores showed that only anxiety was significantly associated with hallucination occurrence among the visually impaired participants (OR = 0.27; 95% CI = 0.08–0.87; p < 0.05). Among the visual function parameters, poorer RA in the worse eye was significantly associated with CBS (p < 0.05). Conclusions: This study confirms that CBS is a prevalent, yet frequently under-reported, condition within rehabilitation settings. While overall visual function did not differ significantly between patients with and without CBS, reduced reading acuity (RA) in the worse eye emerged as a potential specific risk factor. Characterizing the psychological profile of these patients is essential to differentiate the syndrome from psychiatric disorders and to develop tailored support pathways. Despite its preliminary nature, this research underscores the necessity of systematic screening to enhance clinical management and the emotional well-being of visually impaired individuals. Consequently, integrating psychological support into visual rehabilitation programs is vital to addressing the high prevalence of comorbid anxiety and depression. Full article

The aim of this study was to assess the impact of variations in the 3-hourly geomagnetic activity level during the period of the lowest solar and geomagnetic activity on the psychological state of patients who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting or valve surgery. The study was performed in Kaunas, Lithuania, during 2008–2012. The psychological state of 233 patients was assessed using the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised instrument (SCL-90-R) at 1.5 months, 1 year, and 2 years after the surgery (N = 531). During days of a negative difference between k-index sums at 18:00–00:00 h and 06:00–12:00, all SCL scores were statistically significantly higher. A low k- sum during 18:00–00:00 on the previous day was associated with an increase in anxiety, anger–hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, and psychoticism. The combination of these conditions was associated with higher values of the SCL scores. These effects were observed at 1.5 and 12 months after the surgery. During the period lasting from 18:00 on the previous day to 12:00 on the day of the test, variations in k-indices that were not in line with the general trend of changes in the k-index were associated with a poorer psychological state in patients after open-heart surgery. Full article

Background: This study examined age-related differences and interrelationships among psychological symptoms, personality traits, and emotional expression styles in a community sample of 151 participants aged 10–77 years, spanning four age groups: adolescents, young adults, middle-aged adults, and older adults. Methods: Psychological symptoms were assessed using the SCL-90, personality traits using the Big Five Inventory-2 (BFI-2), and emotional expression patterns were derived from facial expression recognition via a convolutional neural network (CNN) model. Kruskal–Wallis H tests were used to examine age-related differences. K-means cluster analysis was applied to identify emotional expression patterns, and logistic regression was used to construct a mental health risk screening model. Results: The young adult group (19–35 years) achieved the highest scores on the depression (M = 1.73) and anxiety (M = 1.61) dimensions, indicating a higher level of psychological distress during this life stage. Personality traits showed a significant developmental trajectory: neuroticism decreased with age (H(3) = 17.09, p < 0.001, η² = 0.11), declining from 2.69 in the young adult group to 2.17 in the older adult group; conscientiousness increased with age (H(3) = 37.39, p < 0.001, η² = 0.24), representing the most substantial age-related effect. K-means clustering identified three distinct emotional expression patterns: Cluster 1 was characterised by happiness, Cluster 2 by anger, disgust, and fear, and Cluster 3 by neutrality, sadness, and surprise. Cluster 2 exhibited the highest scores on neuroticism, anxiety, depression, and mood swings, and scored significantly higher than the other two clusters on interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, and hostility (p < 0.05). Mental health risk screening indicated that 26.5% of participants were classified as high-risk. Logistic regression analysis (AUC = 0.742) showed that neuroticism was the strongest predictor of elevated mental health risk (OR = 4.58), while extraversion (OR = 0.41) and conscientiousness (OR = 0.57) were significant protective factors. Conclusions: These findings provide exploratory evidence regarding age-related patterns of psychological symptoms and personality traits in a convenience sample and offer preliminary support for personality-based mental health risk screening. Notably, the SCL-90 was employed as a screening tool rather than for clinical diagnosis. Given the unequal age group sizes, particularly the small young adult subgroup, generalisability across the lifespan should not be assumed. Full article

Industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) is versatile and rapidly developing, offering new prospects to producers as a multipurpose crop, yet limited water availability in the Mediterranean area due to climate change makes its sustainable management challenging. Although the plant’s water requirements have been studied, a significant gap remains regarding irrigation management based on the hydraulic properties that govern water movement. The present study elucidates the role of soil hydraulic parameters in water dynamics within the rhizosphere of industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa L., ‘Felina 32’). For this purpose, a pot experiment of three irrigation treatments (100% FC, 80% FC, 60% FC; FC is the field capacity) was set up using two different soil types (clay loam CL and sandy clay loam SCL). SCL soil showed a higher C_max of about 4 cm⁻¹ compared to the C_max of 0.11 cm⁻¹ of CL soil, but dropped drastically within a narrow frame of soil moisture. CL soil resulted in about 12-fold higher diffusivity (D_max ≈ 0.23 cm² min⁻¹) within a wider range of soil moisture compared to the SCL soil (D_max ≈ 0.02 cm² min⁻¹), which facilitated water redistribution at CL, allowing the plant to maximize its water uptake, even at the lowest water input. As a result, the CL soil allowed more flexible scheduling and in contrast, SCL soil necessitated a high frequency irrigation protocol. The integration of hydraulic properties into irrigation planning revealed the potential of CL to apply water to plants efficiently across full and deficit irrigation, showing the peak performance of the irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) (0.929 g/mm) under the 60% FC regime. The findings provide a framework for linking soil physics–agricultural hydraulics with irrigation strategies in controlled environments. Full article

In this article, we analyze the order verb-(clitic) subject that characterizes Rhaeto-Romance languages in V2 and interrogative contexts. In these varieties, the subject is necessarily realized by lexical or pronominal elements in preverbal position, except in inversion contexts. Some of these varieties have subject clitics (SCls) that display a distribution similar to that of full pronouns. Furthermore, in some, subject-verb inversion involves the enclisis of SCls on the verb. Enclitics are distributionally different from proclitics and are characterized by distinct paradigms, which show specialized properties somewhat comparable to inflections. We will study subject syntax in inversion contexts within the Phase framework, where enclitics will be viewed as the result of syntactic Merge and of amalgamation with the verb stem in INFL. A crucial topic is the relationship between functional morphemes and spelling domains. Full article

Background and Objectives: Pregnancy is associated with profound physical and psychological changes in a woman’s life. Psychological distress and medical comorbidities during pregnancy remain under recognized despite their potential impact on maternal well-being. This study aimed to examine the associations between psychological distress, physical and mental components of health-related quality of life (HRQoL), lifestyle factors (alcohol and tobacco use), and the presence of medical comorbidities in pregnant women. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among pregnant women in the second and third trimesters admitted to a tertiary obstetrics and gynecology center in Romania. Psychological distress was assessed using the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) Global Severity Index (GSI), while health-related quality of life (HRQoL) was evaluated with the Short Form Health Survey-36 items (SF-36) physical (PCS) and mental (MCS) Component Summary scores. Alcohol and tobacco use were assessed using Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test—Consumption (AUDIT-C) and the Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND). Nonparametric tests were used for correlation and group-comparison analyses. Results: Among the 337 valid answers, higher psychological distress was significantly associated with lower physical (R = −0.16, p < 0.01) and mental (R = −0.26, p < 0.01) HRQoL. Pregnant women with medical comorbidities reported higher psychological distress and poorer physical HRQoL compared with those without comorbidities, while mental HRQoL did not differ significantly. Alcohol and tobacco use were not significantly associated with HRQoL or psychological distress. Conclusions: Psychological distress is a central factor associated with both physical and mental quality of life during pregnancy. Integrating routine mental health screening into antenatal care, particularly for women with medical comorbidities, may improve maternal well-being and support better pregnancy outcomes. Full article

Background/Objectives: Dementia-related cognitive impairments and staffing shortages in nursing homes challenge the possibilities for individually tailored recreational activities, raising the question of how the physical and social environment might be leveraged to stimulate engagement through response facilitation, a form of vicarious incentive motivation grounded in Social Cognitive Theory. This study examines in which social contexts observing others’ recreational activities can effectively engage residents with moderate to advanced dementia. Methods: A qualitative, scenario-based multiple case study was conducted in four nursing homes (n = 21), using fly-on-the-wall observations, narratives, and three experimentally embedded social contexts (individual, dyadic, group) around familiar leisure activities. Behavioural engagement, mood, and agitation were assessed with validated observational scales (e.g., OERS and MEDLO), complemented by wearable sensor data (HR/PR, HRV/PRV, SCL, and temperature) and video for contextualised interpretation. Results: Across scenarios, non-participating residents showed limited behavioural responses in individual and dyadic settings, while group activities more frequently elicited both observable engagement and physiological markers consistent with attention or cognitive engagement. Observational and physiological data frequently diverged, which may indicate cognitive or emotional engagement even when overt participation or affect remained minimal or appeared negative. Conclusions: Response facilitation appears most likely in structured group activities if supported by explicit social scaffolding, rather than in individual or dyadic constellations alone. Reliance on behavioural observation or environmental design in isolation risks underestimating engagement; multimodal, context-sensitive approaches are recommended to better harness social mechanisms for meaningful participation in dementia care. Future research should integrate contextual factors with physiological measurements and observations as well as further explore patterns of inactivity to distinguish disengagement from subtle forms of cognitive engagement. Full article

An injury to the elbow’s lateral ulnar collateral ligament (LUCL) is an orthopedic emergency that can impair joint stability and functional biomechanics throughout the upper extremity. The development and application of synthetic ligament substitutes, particularly short-chain-length and medium-chain-length polyhydroxyalkanoate (SCL-PHA and MCL-PHA) co-polymers, represent a promising innovation for lateral elbow stabilization. This experimental cadaveric study aimed to (1) compare biomechanical parameters of torque and angular rotation among control, damage, repair, and reconstruction groups and (2) compare stress and strain responses across the same groups. Twenty-four cadaveric elbows were allocated among six experimental conditions. The control group consisted of intact elbows (n = 4), while the damage group (n = 4) involved transection of the anterior capsule and extensor carpi radialis brevis (ECRB) to simulate ligament injury. The repair group (n = 4) underwent anterior capsular suturing. The reconstruction group (n = 12) was divided into three subgroups: palmaris longus (PL) autograft alone, PL with SCL-PHA co-polymer augmentation, and PL with MCL-PHA augmentation. Biomechanical testing measured maximum torque, angular displacement, shear stress, and strain, with statistical analysis conducted using descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA, and post hoc multiple comparisons. The results demonstrated that maximum torque (F = 24.930, p < 0.001) and maximum shear stress (F = 8.130, p < 0.001) significantly differed among groups. The control group exhibited the highest mechanical performance (30.700 ± 9.368 Nm and 0.880 ± 0.216 MPa), whereas the damage group showed the lowest values (10.300 ± 2.904 Nm and 0.210 ± 0.073 MPa). The reconstruction group using palmaris longus with SCL-PHA co-polymer reinforcement (RC-PLSCL) demonstrated torque (29.550 ± 7.656 Nm) and shear stress (0.610 ± 0.206 MPa) comparable to those of the control group (p > 0.05), indicating near-physiological mechanical behavior. These findings suggest that SCL-PHA co-polymer augmentation offers superior biomechanical restoration relative to standard repair and other reconstruction strategies, highlighting its potential as an advanced biomaterial for ligament reconstruction in LUCL injuries. Full article