Search Results (105)

This article examines how governance structures and procedural timing influence the effectiveness of Territorial Management Instruments (TMIs) in Portugal. Anchored in a comparative analysis of two key legal reforms (Decree-Law No. 380/1999 and Decree-Law No. 80/2015), the study explores the tensions between democratic legitimacy and regulatory complexity. While the 1999 framework emphasized vertical coordination and participatory rights, it often led to procedural rigidity and institutional inertia. Conversely, the 2015 reform promoted digital tools and streamlined processes but introduced new governance gaps, reduced stakeholder diversity, and compressed consultation timelines. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of legal texts, policy documents, and technical documentation, the article introduces the concept of temporal governance, the idea that planning time is not merely a constraint but a governable resource. Through this lens, planning delays are reframed as either pathological (caused by inefficiency and fragmentation) or productive (used strategically to enhance environmental assessment and stakeholder engagement). A new conceptual framework is proposed to classify types of planning time, differentiate delays, and support temporal calibration in governance design. Findings show that effective planning outcomes hinge not only on legal architecture or participatory norms but also on the institutional ability to balance speed with deliberation and strategic foresight with procedural pragmatism. The paper concludes by calling for adaptive governance models that integrate time as a dynamic dimension of spatial planning, with implications for environmental resilience, democratic value, and, above all, institutional trust. Full article

This study explores how Speech and Elocution Training (SET) activates language potential and fosters career-oriented development among higher vocational students through self-efficacy mechanisms. Through qualitative interviews with four vocational graduates who participated in SET 5 to 10 years ago, the research identifies three key findings. First, SET comprises curriculum content (e.g., workplace communication modules such as hosting, storytelling, and sales pitching) and classroom training using multimodal TED resources and Toastmasters International-simulated practices, which spark language potential through skill-focused, realistic exercises. Second, these pedagogies facilitate a progression where initial language potential evolves from nascent career interests into concrete job-seeking intentions and long-term career plans: completing workplace-related speech tasks boosts confidence in career choices, planning, and job competencies, enabling adaptability to professional challenges. Third, SET aligns with Bandura’s four self-efficacy determinants; these are successful experiences (including personalized and virtual skill acquisition and certified affirmation), vicarious experiences (via observation platforms and constructive peer modeling), verbal persuasion (direct instructional feedback and indirect emotional support), and the arousal of optimistic emotions (the cognitive reframing of challenges and direct desensitization to anxieties). These mechanisms collectively create a positive cycle that enhances self-efficacy, amplifies language potential, and clarifies career intentions. While highlighting SET’s efficacy, this study notes a small sample size limitation, urging future mixed-methods studies with diverse samples to validate these mechanisms across broader vocational contexts and refine understanding of language training’s role in fostering linguistic competence and career readiness. Full article

This study provides a comprehensive comparison between Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Microwave Imager (GMI) and Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) measurements through analysis of collocated precipitation at the 19 GHz footprint scale for pixels during hemispheric summer seasons (JJA for Northern Hemisphere and DJF for Southern Hemisphere). Precipitation pixels exceeding 0.2 mm/h are categorized into convective, stratiform, and mixed types based on DPR classifications. While showing generally good agreement in spatial patterns, the GMI and DPR exhibit systematic differences in precipitation intensity measurements. The GMI underestimates convective precipitation intensity by 13.8% but overestimates stratiform precipitation by 12.1% compared to DPR. Mixed precipitation shows the highest occurrence frequency (47.6%) with notable differences between instruments. While measurement differences for convective precipitation have significantly improved from previous Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) estimates (62% to 13.8%), the overall difference has increased (from 2.6% to 12.6%), primarily due to non-convective precipitation. Latitudinal analysis reveals distinct precipitation regimes: tropical regions (below ~30°) produce intense convective precipitation that contributes about 40% of total precipitation despite lower frequency, while mid-latitudes (beyond 30°) shift toward stratiform-dominated regimes where stratiform precipitation accounts for 60–90% of the total. Additionally, geographical variation in GMI-DPR differences shows a see-saw pattern across latitude bands, with opposite signs between tropical and mid-latitude regions for convective and stratiform precipitation types. A fundamental transition in precipitation characteristics occurs between 30° and 40°, reflecting changes in precipitation mechanisms across Earth’s climate zones. Analysis shows that tropical precipitation systems generate approximately three times more precipitation per unit area than mid-latitude regions. Full article

Recently, significant effort has been devoted to enhancing magnetic anisotropy energy (MAE) and the Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction (DMI) in two-dimensional (2D) ferromagnetic materials through various tuning approaches. Among these methods, defect engineering is one of the most effective strategies. However, the influence of these charged defects on the MAE and DMI is unclear. Therefore, we systematically investigate the defect effect on the MAE and DMI of I vacancy-doped (v_I-CrI₃), 3d-transition-metal-doped (TM = Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, and Zn) (3d-TM_i@CrI₃), and v_I-TM co-doped (3d-TM_i@v_I-CrI₃) monolayer CrI₃ using first-principles calculations. Our results indicate that Cr-rich conditions can promote the defect formation of v_I-CrI₃, 3d-TM_i@CrI₃, and 3d-TM_i@v_I-CrI₃ systems and demonstrate that 49 types of charged systems are stable. Among these systems, the Cu_i@v_I-CrI₃ in the +1 charge state (Cu_i^•@v_I-CrI₃) system has a smaller defect formation energy, exhibiting a large MAE exceeding 30 meV, and the ratio (D/J) of the antisymmetric magnetic exchange parameter (D) to the Heisenberg exchange parameter (J) reaches 1.04. The large MAE originates from the transition from single-ion anisotropy (SIA) to covalent interaction anisotropy (CIA) due to the coupling variation between the p_y and p_x orbitals of I atoms near the Fermi level caused by charge states. The enhancement of the DMI is due to the electrostatic potential differences between the I-top and I-bottom layers, which are conducive to forming stable chiral spin textures. This study provides insight into the defect charge state modulating the magnetism of 2D magnetic materials. Full article

Background: Asymptomatic congenital cytomegalovirus (acCMV) infections represent 85–90% of all congenital CMV infection. The incidence of late-onset sequelae in these cases significantly contribute to the burden of CMV disease. The timing of maternal infection (TMI) has been identified as the main predictor of late-onset sequelae in acCMV infants, and follow-up programs in Europe are currently calibrated according to the TMI. Our aim was to evaluate neonatal viremia as a possible predictor of the TMI in acCMV infections. Methods: Plasma viral loads (PVLs) were assessed in the first month of life in a population of acCMV-infected newborns delivered by women who suffer a primary CMV infection during pregnancy. TMI was assigned to a trimester of pregnancy according to the maternal serological screening. PVLs were evaluated in relation to the TMI and gestational age (GA) at birth. Results: One hundred and ten newborns were, respectively, assigned to preconceptional (6.4%), 1st (27.3%), 2nd (38.2%), and 3rd (28.2%) trimester infections. Median neonatal PVLs values were significantly different between groups (p < 0.001). First-trimester infections exhibited significantly higher PVLs when compared with third-trimester ones (p < 0.001). Overall, PVLs showed an inverse correlation with GA at birth (p = 0.003). Conclusions: Median neonatal PVLs are significantly higher in 1st trimester infections if compared with 3rd trimester ones, but a wide overlap between PVL values prevent their possible use as a predictor of the TMI. In our population, a significant inverse relationship, mainly dependent on 1st and 2nd trimester infections, is demonstrated between PVLs and GA. Overall, fetal viremia is already decreasing weeks before the term of pregnancy. Full article

Travel mode identification (TMI) plays a crucial role in intelligent transportation systems by accurately identifying travel modes from Global Positioning System (GPS) trajectory data. Given that trajectory data inherently exhibit spatial and kinematic patterns that complement each other, recent TMI methods generally combine these characteristics through image-based projections or direct concatenation. However, such approaches achieve only shallow fusion of these two types of features and cannot effectively align them into a shared latent space. To overcome this limitation, we introduce multi-view contrastive fusion (MVCF)-TMI, a novel TMI framework that enhances identification accuracy and model generalizability by aligning spatial and kinematic views through multi-view contrastive learning. Our framework employs multi-view learning to separately extract spatial and kinematic features, followed by an inter-view contrastive loss to optimize feature alignment in a shared subspace. This approach enables cross-view semantic understanding and better captures complementary information across different trajectory representations. Extensive experiments show that MVCF-TMI outperforms baseline methods, achieving 86.45% accuracy on the GeoLife dataset. The model also demonstrates strong generalization by transferring knowledge from pretraining on the large-scale GeoLife dataset to the smaller SHL dataset. Full article

As a renewable and degradable biomass material, cellulose diacetate (CDA) has significant development potential and has gained widespread interest from researchers. However, its poor thermal stability at high temperatures limits its practical use in the extrusion process and restricts its applications in other fields, such as high-heat airflow filters, battery separators and special textile materials. To enhance the thermal stability of CDA, three heat-resistance additives, i.e., polyphenylene sulfide (PPS), polycarbonate (PC) and polyimide (PI), were introduced to synthesize PPS/CDA, PC/CDA and PI/CDA composite materials through melt extrusion. The incorporation of three heat-resistant additives increased the glass transition temperature (T_g), initial melting temperature (T_mⁱ) and final melting temperature (T_m^f) of the composites, and it reduced the heat loss at 195 °C. After conducting the isothermal thermogravimetry test for 3 h at 215 °C in an air atmosphere, the weight loss of PPS/CDA, PC/CDA and PI/CDA composites was 4.6%, 4.1% and 3.7%, respectively, which was 5.1% lower than that of pure CDA. Morphology characterization tests using a 3D digital microscope and a field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) revealed the compatibility order with CDA as the following: PC > PPS > PI. Additionally, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT–IR) disclosed that hydrogen bonds were formed between heat-resistant additives and CDA molecules, and the carbonyl groups in CDA showed conjugation and hyperconjugation effects with the benzene rings in the additives. Therefore, the enhanced thermal stability of CDA composites can be attributed to the molecular entanglement and crosslinking between additives and CDA molecules. Full article

Hole-doped manganese oxides exhibit a gigantic negative magnetoresistance, referred to as colossal magnetoresistance (CMR), owing to the interplay between double-exchange (DE) ferromagnetic metal and charge-ordered antiferromagnetic insulator/semiconductor phases. Magnetoresistive manganites display a sharp resistivity drop at the metal–insulator transition temperature (T^MI). CMR effects in perovskite manganites, specifically La_0.67Ca_0.33MnO₃ (La-Ca-Mn-O or LCMO), have been extensively investigated. This review paper provides a comprehensive introduction to the crystallographic structure, as well as the electronic and magnetic properties, of LCMO films. Furthermore, we delve into a detailed discussion of the effects of epitaxial strain induced by different substrates on LCMO films. Additionally, we review the early findings and diverse applications of LCMO thin films. Finally, we outline potential challenges and prospects for achieving superior LCMO film properties. Full article

GRP78/BiP, a stress-induced protein and autoantigen in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), exhibits different expressions in various biological fluids and tissues, including blood, synovial fluid (SF), and synovium, all of which are pertinent to the disease activity and progression of RA; however, there is a scarcity of data linking both intracellular and extracellular GRP78/Bip to disease activity and progression of RA. This study was undertaken to investigate the differential expression of GRP78/Bip in blood, SF, and synovium, and to determine their association with disease activity and progression of RA. Patients with RA, osteoarthritis (OA), and traumatic meniscal injury (TMI) without radiographic OA were consecutively recruited for the study. Among patients with RA, six different subgroups were established based on their disease activity and progression. Disease activity was measured using the DAS28 (Disease activity scores in 28 joints) criterion, while disease progression was evaluated using the Steinbrocker classification grade. The levels of GRP78/Bip, TNF-α, and IL-10 were significantly elevated in the serum, SF, and synovium of patients with RA when compared to both the control (CON, TMI Patients) and the inflammation control (iCON, OA Patients) groups (p < 0.05). In terms of disease activity status, as opposed to remission status in RA, the levels of GRP78/Bip, TNF-α, and IL-10 were all elevated in serum and synovium (p < 0.05). However, GRP78/Bip and IL-10 levels were found to be reduced in SF, while TNF-α levels remained elevated. With respect to disease progression in RA, GRP78/Bip levels exhibited a positive correlation with both the stage of RA and the levels of TNF-α and IL-10 in serum and synovium. Nonetheless, a negative correlation was observed between GRP78/Bip levels and the stage of RA in SF, while positive correlations with the levels of TNF-α and IL-10 persisted. The differential expression of GRP78/Bip in blood, SF, and synovium indicated that the potential role and function of GRP78/Bip might vary depending on its specific location within these biological fluids and tissues. The presence of intracellular and extracellular GRP78/Bip was associated with disease activity and progression of RA, suggesting the involvement of GRP78/Bip in the pathogenesis and development of this debilitating autoimmune disorder, as well as its potential as a biomarker for monitoring disease activity and progression of RA. Full article

This research utilized the bagging machine learning algorithm along with the Thornthwaite moisture index (TMI) to enhance the understanding of climate variability and change, with the objective of identifying the most efficient climate service pathways in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Monthly datasets at a 0.5° resolution (1960–2020) were collected and analyzed using R 4.2.2 software and spreadsheets. The results indicate significant changes in climatic conditions in Sudan, with aridity escalation at a rate of 0.37% per year. The bagging algorithm illustrated that actual water use was mainly influenced by rainfall and runoff management, showing an inverse relationship with increasing air temperatures. Consequently, sustainable strategies focusing on runoff and temperature control, such as rainwater harvesting, agroforestry and plant breeding were identified as the most effective climate services to mitigate and adapt to climate variability in SSA. The findings suggest that runoff management (e.g., rainwater harvesting) could potentially offset up to 22% of the adverse impacts of climate variability, while temperature control strategies (e.g., agroforestry) could account for the remaining 78%. Without these interventions, climate variability will continue to pose serious challenges to food security, livelihood generations, and regional stability. The research calls for further in-depth studies on the attributions of climate variability using finer datasets. Full article

Background: Temporomandibular disorders (TMDs) represent a range of clinical issues affecting the temporomandibular joint (TMJ), the chewing muscles, and surrounding structures. This study aimed to identify the morphological profiles and skeletal malocclusions that most significantly influence the development of TMDs. Materials and Methods: The analysis was performed using cephalometric data from patients undergoing low-dose cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) at the Orthodontics Department of Gabriele D’Annunzio University. The Results and Conclusions showed significant differences in cephalometric parameters and condylar positions between male and female patients with TMDs, emphasizing the need for individualized diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. Further research is needed to assess the implications of these variations for TMD management. Full article

In this work, we conducted a numerical analysis to investigate the combined effect of thermal lensing and bending-induced mode distortion on transverse mode instability in conventional large-mode-area (LMA) step-index fibers. Utilizing the finite element method, conformal mapping, and thermal conduction equations, we simulated the mode profiles in LMA 20/400 and 25/400 fibers subjected to both bending and thermal lensing effects; the corresponding evolution of mode loss and effective area were explored as well. Additionally, by introducing the derived mode profiles to the TMI coefficient calculations, we analyzed the influence of bending and thermal lensing (TL) on TMI; the simulation results indicate that the mode distortion caused by bending and the TL effect, under the bending conditions commonly encountered in practice, do not have pronounced impacts on TMI coefficient and TMI threshold. Full article

With the rapid development of information technology from one side and the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic from the other side, people presently prefer to access healthcare services remotely. Telecare Medical Information System (TMIS) provides more flexible, faster, and more convenient e-healthcare services available to all people, particularly those who lack access to physicians due to their geographical restrictions. However, due to the sensitivity of medical information, preventing unauthorized access to patient data and preserving patient privacy is crucial. In this paper, we propose an authenticated key agreement scheme for TMIS to preserve the privacy of the patient’s identity from all internal (even the health server and the physician) and external entities. Moreover, the physician’s identity is kept secret from all external entities. Formal and informal security analysis of the proposed scheme indicates that it is secure against all attacks in the context. Full article

The exploration of porphyry deposits in Greenland has become increasingly important due to their significant economic potential. We utilized total magnetic intensity (TMI) and mobile magnetotelluric (MobileMT) airborne data to delineate potential porphyry mineralization zones. The TMI method was employed to map variations in the Earth’s magnetic field caused by subsurface geological features, including mineral deposits. By analyzing anomalies in TMI data, potential porphyry targets were identified based on characteristic magnetic signatures associated with mineralized zones. Complementing TMI data, MT airborne surveys provided valuable insights into the electrical conductivity structure of the subsurface. Porphyry deposits exhibited distinct conductivity signatures due to the presence of disseminated sulfide minerals, aiding in their identification and delineation. Integration of the TMI and MobileMT datasets allowed for a comprehensive assessment of porphyry exploration targets in Flammefjeld. The combined approach facilitates the identification of prospective areas with enhanced geological potential, optimizing resource allocation and exploration efforts. Overall, this study demonstrates the efficacy of integrating TMI and MobileMT airborne data for porphyry exploration in Greenland, offering valuable insights for mineral exploration and resource development in the region. Full article

Utilizing long-wavelength laser diodes (LDs) for pumping to achieve high-power fiber laser output is an effective method for attaining high quantum efficiency and excellent thermal management. In this work, we report on a Master Oscillator Power Amplifier (MOPA)-structured long-tapered Yb³⁺-doped fiber laser directly pumped by long-wavelength laser diodes. By shifting the center wavelength of the pump source to 1010 nm, the heat generation within the fiber laser is effectively controlled, thereby increasing the transverse mode instability (TMI) threshold. Additionally, the use of a long-tapered fiber enlarges the mode area and suppresses stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) effects that typically arise from increased fiber length. As a result, an output of 6030 W is achieved with an optical-to-optical (O–O) efficiency of 83.7%, a SRS suppression ratio exceeding 50 dB, and no occurrence of dynamic TMI. This approach provides a valuable reference for optimizing long-wavelength pumping to suppress nonlinear effects and also holds potential for wide-temperature operational applications. Full article