Search Results (427)

Objective: To determine the most suitable core build-up materials based on their mechanical and physical properties, different resin based materials were evaluated for flexural strength (FS), flexural modulus (E), modulus of resilience (R), water sorption (WS), and solubility (SO). Materials and Methods: Three dual-cure resins (CosmeCore DC Automix, CCC; Clearfil DC Core Plus, CCP; MultiCore Flow, CMC) and two bulk fill composites (Filtek One Bulk Fill Restorative, BFO; Filtek Bulk Fill Flowable, BFF) were tested, with Filtek Supreme Ultra (FSU) as the control. All tests followed ISO 4049. Beam specimens (25 × 2 × 2 mm, n = 12) were used to determine FS and E after 24 h storage in 37 °C deionized water, using a three-point bending test. Disc specimens (15 × 1 mm, n = 5) were used for WS and SO by measuring mass changes before and after water storage. Data were analysed using one way ANOVA and Tukey post hoc tests (p < 0.05). Results: CCC exhibited the highest FS and lowest WS. BFF showed the lowest E, while BFO exhibited the highest R. FSU demonstrated the lowest FS and R, along with the highest WS. No significant differences in SO were observed among groups. Conclusions: The evaluated materials showed considerable variation in mechanical and physical properties. CCC and BFO demonstrated the most favourable performance, suggesting they are the most suitable candidates for core build up procedures among the materials tested. Full article

Aluminium alloys are extensively considered in aviation and automobiles owing to their lightweight properties and favourable specific strength-to-weight ratio. Generally, the poor surface properties of these alloys limit their application, particularly in sliding conditions. To enhance the surface qualities, particularly the material’s wear resilient features, a unique surface modification process using electro-discharge coating (EDC) has been employed. This work investigates the optimisation of coating variables produced by the EDC technique utilising green compact electrodes composed of 50 wt.% tungsten disulfide (WS₂) and 50 wt.% copper (Cu) powder. The substrate material utilised was AA7075 alloy. The Taguchi–TOPSIS approach was employed to determine optimal EDC process variables, with pulse-on time (T_on), current (I_p), and pulse-off time (T_off). Wear rate (WR), surface roughness (SR), and friction coefficient (CoF) were used to assess the coating features. A wear study was performed with a pin-on-disc device with an undeviating sliding speed (0.25 m/s) and a 25 N load. The results revealed that the supreme features derived from the linear plots were I_p (4 A), T_on (80 µs), and T_off (5 µs). The ANOVA found that I_p had the utmost significant impact, accounting for 44.09%; T_off, 28.01%; T_on, 20.33%; and minimum error, 8.58%. A validation trial with perfect parameters returned values of 0.000179 mm³/Nm (WR), 0.204 (CoF), and 2.818 µm (SR). These findings are significantly better than those of the other coatings. The discrepancy among the estimated and experimental relative closeness in optimal settings is 6.34%, demonstrating that the Taguchi–TOPSIS method is more appropriate for multi-criteria optimisation. Full article

References to the myth of Tithonus and Eos in the poetry of Horace and his pre-classical Greek model, Sappho, have provoked philological controversies about the imagined mode of existence of the handsome Trojan after his abduction by Eos, Goddess of Dawn. According to the standard variant of the myth, Tithonus was granted immortality, though not eternal youth, by the supreme Olympian god, Zeus. In the two Horatian passages in the Odes where Tithonus is named, he is categorized among deceased heroic figures (C.I.28 and II.16). This apparent deviation from the conventional account of Tithonus’ “immortality” is explicable in terms of the deep argument of both poems, in which the everlasting life of gods is inextricably coupled with their eternal youth, while the old age of mortals is represented as a metonymic equivalent of death—a conceptual complex that is implicitly shared with the Sapphic portrayal of the hero’s fate in Fr.58. Full article

The Yizhuan constructs a temporal ethics centered on “time” (shi 時), bridging the Will of Heaven and human affairs. This ethical paradigm is primarily manifested in the tripartite conceptual framework: First, as the transcendent source of temporal ethics, “The Will of Heaven” (tianming 天命) endows the ever-changing processes of cosmic existence with a moral teleological dimension. Secondly, “Heaven’s Timing” (tianshi 天時) manifests as the Will of Heaven within specific time and spatial contexts, guiding actors to discern the operational principles of fortune and opportunity. Finally, “the Timely Mean” (shizhong 時中), as the fundamental principle of practical life, refers to the practice of acting in harmony with the times, based on the agent’s insight into the Will of Heaven and grasp of Heaven’s Timing. Its essence lies in adapting to the times to achieve the supreme realm of morality, as outlined in the Way of the Mean (zhongdao 中道). The core purpose of the temporal ethics in the Yizhuan is to emphasize understanding moral practice within the dimension of time, opposing the abstract application of moral principles divorced from specific contexts. It requires the agent to make choices aligned with the Will of Heaven at the appropriate moment, cultivating moral character and addressing complex practical matters within the flow of time. Full article

Cyberattacks and data breaches expose individuals and firms to liability in civil courts. Despite regulators’ efforts to standardize cybersecurity laws, judges, justices and attorneys have offered a plethora of interpretations to the same laws, causing a great deal of confusion. The current investigation utilizes the Jordanian civil code to illustrate how complex liability becomes in data breaches cases. Through a comprehensive examination of liability rules 256–291 within the civil code, the Supreme Courts’ liability precedents, and the new personal data protection law, this analysis finds that liability could be established under strict conditions. Liability claims in Jordanian courts must satisfy the standing doctrine, the presence of injury requiring compensation, and causality, and must demonstrate the clear links between data breaches and the harm/injury suffered. The novelty of the personal data protection law in Jordan is likely to impact how liability is interpreted and established in cybersecurity cases. Full article

Indonesia faces persistent challenges in crime forecasting and judicial resource management, compounded by chronic underreporting and inconsistent spatial resolution in official crime statistics. In this study, a multi-level spatio-temporal machine learning framework is developed and applied to 95,666 adjudicated crime records from the Supreme Court of Indonesia spanning January 2023 to June 2024. Following the CRISP-DM methodology, a hybrid STL-XGBoost v. 3.2.0 model is trained on a chronological split to forecast daily judicial caseloads, achieving an R² of 0.8070, MAE of 16.52, and sMAPE of 9.76% on the held-out test set. DBSCAN spatial clustering, parameterized via k-distance plot analysis ($\mathrm{ϵ}={0.3}^{\circ }$, $minPts$ = 3) and validated through Jaccard Similarity Index sensitivity analysis, identifies 29 distinct adjudicated crime hubs concentrated along Java and Sumatra’s urban and transit corridors. Comparative analysis of reported versus adjudicated crime data reveals systematic judicial funnel attrition ranging from 199.12% in Riau to 2436.02% in Papua, establishing that adjudicated crime records provide a reliable indicator of judicial workload rather than a comprehensive measure of social deviance. Key limitations, including the 18-month observation window that may not capture long-term policy shifts and the use of city centroids as spatial proxies that introduces a degree of ecological fallacy, are acknowledged. The framework offers a scalable, interpretable decision support tool for evidence-based judicial resource planning across national, provincial, and city scales in Indonesia. Full article

In the western part of the United States, surface water rights follow the prior appropriation doctrine, while tribal water rights are governed by the reserved water rights doctrine. States and Tribal Nations share borders, but water knows no boundaries, and water-related conflicts emerged by the late 19th Century. The United States Supreme Court recognized the reserved water rights doctrine through Winters v. United States in 1908. Over a century later, many tribal water rights claims remain unresolved. Since 1978, congressionally approved tribal water rights settlement acts have emerged as a way to resolve pending tribal water rights claims in the United States. As of March 2026, Tribal Nations, Arizona, the United States, and other interested parties have negotiated 11 congressionally approved tribal water rights settlement acts. This article qualitatively analyzes these 11 congressionally approved tribal water rights settlement acts. The historical and legal analysis highlights the importance of water sharing through water rights settlement acts to ensure water security for Arizona, Tribal Nations, and other interested parties. Full article

This paper studies the supervisory control of discrete event systems (DESs) from an event observation perspective and addresses the problem of supervisor design with minimal observation. In supervisory control, a supervisor enables or disables controllable events based on its observation of the system trajectory to guarantee controllability and nonblocking behavior with respect to a given specification, while the number of observed events critically affects the implementation complexity and cost of the control logic. Rather than minimizing the state space of the supervisor, which is the focus of classical supervisor reduction, this paper is dedicated to the minimization of observable events. Specifically, it aims to reduce the observation alphabet while preserving control equivalence with the original supremal supervisor. By analyzing the consistency of disabling decisions between event-enabled and event-disabled states, necessary and sufficient distinguishability conditions are derived and represented using Parikh vectors, which enables their formulation as linear separation constraints. In addition, event-enabled circles are introduced to capture intrinsic structural observability requirements induced by cyclic behaviors of the supervisor. These results lead to a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) formulation that minimizes the observation alphabet while preserving control equivalence with the original supremal supervisor, together with an E-closure-based construction that synthesizes an executable event-minimal supervisor. Illustrative examples demonstrate that the proposed method can significantly reduce observation requirements even when state-minimal supervisors are already available, thereby improving implementation efficiency in resource-constrained DES applications. Full article

With the growing clinical use of ion-releasing resin composites, their repairability has become an important consideration in minimally invasive restorative dentistry. Therefore, this study investigated the repair bond strength of a universal composite restorative to commercially available and experimental ion-releasing resin composite materials. Specimens (n = 8 per group) were produced from three commercially available ion-releasing composite materials (ACTIVA BioACTIVE-RESTORATIVE, Cention Forte, Beautifil II), one experimental ion-releasing resin composite containing 20 wt% bioactive glass fillers, and two conventional resin composites (3M Filtek Supreme XTE, Ceram.x Spectra ST), and aged by thermal cycling in artificial saliva (5000 cycles, 5–55 °C). Substrate surfaces were sandblasted (Al₂O₃, 50 µm), silanized (Monobond Plus), and repaired using adhesive (OptiBond FL) and universal resin composite (Ceram.x Spectra ST). After further thermal cycling, micro-tensile repair bond strength was assessed and analyzed using one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s post hoc test. Failure modes were determined by stereomicroscopy (25× magnification) and statistically compared among the groups. Highest mean repair bond strength values were obtained for ACTIVA BioACTIVE-RESTORATIVE, Beautifil II, and 3M Filtek Supreme XTE (53.8, 46.2, and 43.0 MPa, respectively), which did not differ significantly among each other. ACTIVA BioACTIVE-RESTORATIVE attained significantly higher bond strength than the experimental composite, Ceram.x Spectra ST, and Cention Forte, and showed the highest incidence of cohesive failures (40%). No significant bond strength differences were detected among Beautifil II, 3M Filtek Supreme XTE, experimental composite, Ceram.x Spectra ST, and Cention Forte (36.2–46.2 MPa). In conclusion, ion-releasing resin composites can be repaired with conventional universal composite and show repair bond strength values at least as high as those of conventional composite materials. Full article

Yan Zun’s Laozi Zhigui is the earliest surviving commentary that systematically interprets the Laozi through the lens of the Yijing. It holds pioneering significance in the history of Laozi studies and intellectual history. This paper systematically examines its ways of quoting the Yijing—explicit citation, implicit appropriation, and in-depth infiltration—to reveal Yan Zun’s interpretive strategy of reconstructing the ideological system of the Laozi through the philosophical principles of the Yijing. This study finds that the Yijing learning not only provided Yan Zun with a cosmogonic model of “Spirit Illumination—Supreme Harmony—Qi’s Transformation and Separation”, thereby resolving the ambiguity of the Laozi’s cosmology, but also prompted him to construct a view of heaven that integrates “vigorous creativity” and “softness and non-action”. By incorporating such concepts from the Yijing as “cultivating both virtue and achievement”, he formed an orderly political philosophy of “abiding by one’s proper place” to attain “Supreme Harmony”. Abandoning the image-number Yi learning of the Han Dynasty, Yan Zun returned to the philosophical tradition of the Yijing. His synthesis of the Yijing and the Laozi not only influenced Yang Xiong’s Taixuan and Eastern Han classical learning but also served as a crucial intellectual precursor to Wei-Jin Xuanxue and exerted a lasting impact on the theoretical framework of Daoist religious thought. Full article

Human physiology is among the most complex systems in nature, characterized by intricate structural and functional networks and rich temporal dynamics. Electrophysiological signals produced by different tissues/organs reflect physiological activity, and are inherently non-stationary, non-linear, and noisy. This work focuses on fractal analysis, a framework that captures the self-similar and scale-free properties of electrophysiological signals, which is considered to act as an output of complex physiological structures that generate complex processes. Central to this approach is the principle of ‘decomplexification’, whereby aging and disease are associated with a loss of physiological complexity. We discuss key algorithms, particularly Higuchi’s fractal dimension, which is often combined with other nonlinear measures and machine-learning models for real-time analysis of electrophysiological signals. Evidence shows that fractal metrics enable the early detection and monitoring of neurological and psychiatric disorders, outperforming traditional spectral measures. In movement disorders and mood disorders, fractal and nonlinear features show high diagnostic accuracy. Beyond diagnostics, we discuss therapeutic applications, including the prediction of responsiveness to non-invasive brain stimulation. Here, we envisage the evolution of one fractal or nonlinear measure use, to several measures applied, then use it as a feature for machine learning, and then realize that a whole cluster of biomarkers must be used to reflect the state of autonomic profile, which then can be used for ontology-based application profiles that can be machine-actionable. In addition, we discuss the fractal and fractional description of transport processes, which offer innovative improvement for a much more accurate description of physiological reality as a prerequisite for further modeling: for example, this is needed for digital twins to support the clinical translation of fractal analysis for personalized medicine. In essence, if one is trying to mathematically describe or quantify structures or processes in human physiology, fractal and fractional are the supreme and adequate approach to accurately model that reality. Full article

Cybersecurity risk is commonly expressed as impact × probability, yet probability is rarely defensible because incidents are underreported, data are heterogeneous, and adversary behavior changes quickly. We present a preliminary, data-driven framework to estimate cyber likelihood without relying on naive event frequencies. The approach fuses incident narratives, threat intelligence, vulnerabilities, and control mappings into an organization-specific cyber-exposure profile represented as a typed knowledge graph and a normalized metric vector. Four measurable variables—Exposure, Traceability, Motivation, and System Update—are computed from standardized sensors spanning attack surface, observability, asset value, and patch velocity, then combined into a refreshable likelihood score for monitoring and control prioritization and to support transparent, repeatable risk governance. Unsupervised NLP (TF–IDF, latent semantic representations, and spherical clustering) supports construct discovery and profile population. Full article

This article examines the exchange of ideas between Merton and Ruether on creation. Merton’s sacramental views and Ruether’s eco-feminist perspectives rooted in an incarnational spirituality can serve as a corrective to those who regard the Earth as an object of consumerism, which leads to the degradation and the desacralization of matter. I will examine how the way out offered by Merton and Ruether reflects an integral eco-spirituality responsive to and in resonance with the supreme reality that permeates everything. As Rosemary Ruether, Sallie McFague, Elizabeth Johnson, and other Christian eco-feminists have described in metaphorical language, the world may be conceived of as a kind of self-giving activity of God’s body in feminine terms. According to this view, a constant birth of life is taking place in a universe ultimately rooted in the cosmic womb of divine love to which Ruether referred as the Great Mother. I will show examples of their writings where both Merton and Ruether highly emphasized the importance of seeing the good creation reflecting God’s love for all creatures. I will conclude by pondering on the ecological implications of their writings, where they address the environmental threats that global warming and climate change caused by humans pose to Mother Earth. Full article

This study evaluated the effect of two-step polishing procedures on the surface roughness of bulk fill restorative materials. Disk-shaped specimens (10 × 1.5 mm) were prepared from four resin composites: Filtek One Bulk Fill (3M ESPE) and Tetric PowerFill (Ivoclar Vivadent), both bulk fill nanohybrid composites; X-tra fil LC (Voco), a bulk fill microfilled composite; and Filtek Supreme (3M ESPE), a conventional nanofilled composite used as a control. Polishing was performed using D-Fine Double Diamond, Sof-Lex Diamond, and A.S.A.P. polishers. Each system was applied for 30 s with a slow-speed handpiece at 10,000 rpm under water cooling. Surface roughness (Ra) was measured before and after polishing using a profilometer, with three readings per specimen, and surface morphology was assessed by scanning electron microscopy. Data were analyzed using two-way ANOVA and Tukey’s HSD test (α = 0.05). Significant differences were observed for the interaction between composite type and polishing system (p < 0.001). The lowest Ra value was obtained for Filtek One polished with Sof-Lex Diamond, while the highest surface roughness was observed for X-tra fil LC polished with D-Fine (0.800 ± 0.072 μm). SEM analysis indicated that composites containing larger filler particles exhibited greater surface roughness. In conclusion, surface roughness after polishing was primarily material dependent, with nanofilled composites demonstrating superior polishability compared to materials with larger filler particles. Full article

Background/Objectives: This study evaluated the effects of at-home bleaching on color stability (ΔE) and surface roughness (Ra) of a single-shade nanohybrid composite, an ORMOCER-based composite, and a conventional nanohybrid resin composite, acknowledging that bleaching represents only one of several clinical ageing challenges. Methods: One hundred and five extracted, non-carious human molars received standardized Class I restorations and were randomly allocated to five groups (n = 21): an ORMOCER-based composite (Admira Fusion), a single-shade composite (Omnichroma), Omnichroma bonded with an alternative universal adhesive, and two conventional nanohybrid composites (Filtek Supreme Ultra and Harmonize). Baseline and experimental color (CIELAB, ΔE) were measured with a spectrophotometer, and surface roughness (Ra) was measured using a 3D optical profilometer. Specimens underwent five bleaching cycles using 22% carbamide peroxide, with each cycle consisting of 8 h of bleaching followed by 16 h of storage in artificial saliva at 37 °C. Measurements were taken at baseline and after each cycle. The data were analyzed using a repeated-measures ANOVA, with bleaching cycle as the within-subject factor, the effect sizes reported as partial eta-squared (ηp²), and the statistical significance set at α = 0.05. Results: All restorative materials exhibited progressive color change with repeated bleaching, and ΔE values exceeded established clinical acceptability thresholds across materials. The extent of color change varied among materials. None of the evaluated materials maintained clinically acceptable color stability following repeated bleaching cycles. The single-shade composite (Omnichroma) demonstrated the greatest magnitude of color change, particularly when bonded with Scotchbond Universal Bond. Admira Fusion and Filtek Supreme Ultra had lower ΔE values but still exceeded acceptability thresholds. Surface roughness generally decreased following bleaching, with statistically significant reductions in Ra observed for multiple materials. Admira Fusion and Omnichroma bonded with Tokuyama Universal Bond showed minimal surface alteration. Conclusions: All restorative materials demonstrated clinically unacceptable color changes following bleaching, indicating limited esthetic stability under bleaching conditions. ORMOCER-based composites showed comparatively greater resistance to surface roughness alterations. Full article