Search Results (9,105)

Food adulteration poses severe threats to the integrity and safety of global food supply chains. Innovations in analytical techniques, especially the rapid development of LAMP-based detection methods, are indispensable for addressing these risks. However, the dominant research paradigm, which has long prioritized accelerated amplification kinetics and ultralow detection limits, largely obscures a critical limitation: insufficient detection reliability when deployed in complex field environments. This review consolidates state-of-the-art advances targeting reliability optimization and delineates key technical strategies to construct robust, improved-reliability LAMP platforms for real-food testing. Specifically, we summarize critical factors at the reaction and readout levels that compromise the reliability of LAMP under realistic scenarios, such as inexperienced operators, degraded samples, matrices containing inhibitory substances, and uncontrolled environments. We further elaborate on effective solutions to bridge the reliability gap between laboratory validation and on-site deployment, which requires coordinated technical improvements throughout the full LAMP testing pipeline. Ultimately, we propose a forward-looking developmental principle for next-generation LAMP assays: analytical reliability and operational robustness should be elevated to equal priority alongside the traditionally pursued ultra-rapid amplification and high sensitivity. This balanced technical framework may help pave the way toward large-scale standardization of LAMP-enabled food authentication, although its presumptive results must be confirmed by an independent validated method before they can support regulatory enforcement or other formal decisions. Full article

Historic buildings are important carriers of traditional Chinese culture; however, they currently face the dual challenges of long-term deterioration and inappropriate interventions. In Zhejiang Province, more than 75,000 immovable cultural heritage sites have been incorporated into the protection system, while a large number of historic buildings remain in urgent need of conservation. In response to the complexity of conventional digital reconstruction processes and the low efficiency of authenticity-oriented restoration, this study proposes an AI-generated content (AIGC)-driven Methodological Framework for efficient and authenticity-oriented digital reconstruction of historic buildings. Taking Xiangxian Hall in Changle Village, Lanxi, Zhejiang, as a case study, this research follows authenticity-oriented criteria, including accurate morphological characteristics, realistic materials and textures, realistic color and light–shadow effects representation, precise proportion and scale, and comprehensive historical and cultural representation. Based on these criteria, a systematic evaluation framework for authenticity-oriented digital reconstruction is established. Furthermore, an AIGC-driven full-process Methodological Framework is proposed that integrates intelligent knowledge retrieval, cross-modal generation models, AI-assisted image-based 3D reconstruction, and inverse rendering. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach, supported by AIGC technologies, can deeply integrate multi-source information, including field investigation data, the existing conditions of historic buildings, and historical and cultural context, thereby achieving efficient and authenticity-oriented digital reconstruction of historic buildings. Furthermore, it provides an integrated technical pathway and practical solution for the conservation and digital inheritance of historic buildings. Full article

Taking as its departure point the urgent calls for nonviolence and reconciliation articulated by Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV, this paper examines how Buddhist philosophy provides a systematized framework for understanding and enacting nonviolence, forgiveness, and healing after harm. While papal teachings offer a critical diagnostic of contemporary geopolitical division, militarism, and systemic inequality, a Buddhist lens deepens this discourse by illuminating the internal, psychological mechanisms required for genuine reconciliation. Drawing across Theravāda, Mahāyāna, and Tibetan traditions, this paper investigates three key dimensions: first, how Buddhist ethics conceptualizes forgiveness as an active, transformative engagement rooted in the brahmavihāras; second, how mind-training methods such as those detailed in the Vitakkasaṇṭhāna Sutta and Lojong offer concrete tools to convert afflictive anger into compassionate understanding; and third, how these interior practices inform nonviolence education in contexts of structural injustice, demonstrating that authentic reconciliation must resist forced resolution and instead emerge through an embodied awareness of interbeing. Full article

Cryptographic inventories and runtime detection identify cryptographic use but do not establish implementation conformance or policy satisfaction. We present a deterministic composition linking admitted runtime evidence, provenance closure, exact implementation identity, Contract-registered NIST test-vector conformance, and content-addressed policy appraisal to ACCEPT, REJECT, or REVIEW verdicts. Controlled SHA-256 and AES-256-GCM workloads produced 12 runtime executions and six provenance-distinct occurrences. The frozen subjects produced expected outputs for all 130 SHA-256 inventory entries and 375 AES-256-GCM ENCRYPT cases, yielding two conformance results. A policy precommitted before authentic appraisal produced six positive-path ACCEPT verdicts; controls demonstrated REJECT and REVIEW. Conformance replay was byte-identical in 10/10 executions per subject, and the complete six-occurrence appraisal reconstructed identically in 10/10 replays. All 12 conformance and 25 appraisal, REVIEW, and anti-fabrication controls passed. No raw AES key or registered direct encoding was detected within the scanned retained-artifact boundary. Public access supports validation of released non-secret evidence and eligible tests, not full regeneration of the original experiment: the workload key, private history, and runnable registered OCI images are unavailable in that release. The contribution is a bounded assurance composition; finite test success and policy ACCEPT do not establish exhaustive correctness, certification, or production authorization. Full article

Background: Online postgraduate (PG) public health education must develop higher-order competence and readiness for practice. Generative artificial intelligence (genAI) may enhance feedback, simulation and scaffolding, but may also substitute for learner reasoning. This review examined pedagogical conditions supporting higher-order learning and how AI interacts with them to influence competence and real-world readiness in online PG public health education. Methods: Following JBI guidance and PRISMA-ScR, PubMed and Scopus were searched for literature published from 2010 to 2026, with the final search conducted on 20 August 2026. Eligible sources addressed higher-order learning, authentic learning, competence or professional readiness in PG public health education, or provided transferable evidence from health professions and higher education settings. Of 5777 records identified, 253 duplicates were removed and 5524 screened. Data were charted using a structured evidence matrix and stratified into direct, transferable, synthesis, and contextual evidence layers. Results: Of 401 records undergoing detailed eligibility and analytic-role assessment, 338 were retained. Core evidence comprised 92 studies: 27 direct and 65 transferable; 32 syntheses provided triangulation. AI featured in 11.1% of direct versus 87.7% of transferable studies. Applied competence/skills occurred in 59.8%, synthesis/integration in 44.6%, critical thinking in 26.1%, and real-world cases/scenarios in 51.1%. Practice/workplace transfer was more prominent in direct than in transferable evidence (66.7% vs. 13.8%). Direct AI evidence in PG public health was limited, and heterogeneity across studies constrained direct comparison and precluded quantitative pooling. Conclusions: Higher-order learning depended more on pedagogical architecture than modality or AI adoption. AI may amplify cognition when preserving learner reasoning, verification, and judgement, but may substitute for cognition when generated outputs replace these processes. No external funding was received for this review. Full article

Essential oils (EOs) of Lamiaceae family have been reported to possess antimicrobial properties. However, commercial preparations of EOs are often of variable quality and inconsistent efficacy due to adulteration and chemotypic variation. This study comprehensively profiled six retail Lamiaceae EOs (Origanum vulgare, O. vulgare subsp. hirtum, Thymus vulgaris, Lavandula angustifolia, Salvia officinalis, and Melissa officinalis) available in Türkiye using GC-MS, complemented by principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) to discern chemotypic relationships. Antimicrobial and anti-biofilm activities were evaluated against standard bacterial and fungal strains via disc diffusion, broth microdilution, and crystal violet assays. GC-MS and chemometric analyses resolved three distinct chemotypes: phenol-rich (carvacrol/thymol, 49.7–78.2%), ester/alcohol-rich (linalool/linalyl acetate, ~74%), and ketonic/aldehydic-rich (thujone/camphor or citral, 38–54%). Phenol-dominant EOs exhibited potent broad-spectrum activity, with MIC values as low as 0.19% v/v against Enterococcus faecalis and 0.78% v/v against Candida albicans, often surpassing reference antibiotics against Gram-positive and fungal pathogens. In contrast, non-phenolic EOs showed selective or reduced bioactivity, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa remained highly resistant across all samples. These findings confirm that retail Lamiaceae EOs retain authentic phytochemical profiles that emphasize their robust, constituent-dependent antimicrobial efficacy, supporting their therapeutic reliability for consumers when quality is assured. Full article

Background/Objectives: Lyssaviruses pose a persistent global public health threat, underscoring the need for broad-spectrum neutralizing antibodies to improve rabies post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP). The humanized monoclonal antibody cocktail SYN023 is approved for PEP in China and under active global regulatory review. This study aimed to validate pseudovirus-based neutralization assays, verify SYN023 epitope prediction accuracy, and systematically characterize its pan-lyssavirus neutralizing activity. Methods: Assay validation was performed by directly comparing neutralization titers obtained with authentic rabies virus (RABV) and pseudotyped virus. Epitope analysis was performed, followed by in vivo evaluation in a canine PEP challenge model. The pseudovirus-based neutralization assay was used to assess SYN023 broad-spectrum activity across diverse lyssaviruses. Results: Neutralization titers from authentic and pseudotyped viruses showed high concordance (R² = 0.8341, p < 0.0001), supporting the pseudovirus system as a reliable surrogate assay. Epitope analysis confirmed that SYN023’s epitope is fully conserved in the highly virulent New York City (NYC) RABV strain. In canine PEP challenge studies using the NYC strain, SYN023 conferred strong protection at 0.1–0.5 mg/kg. SYN023 exhibited potent neutralizing activity against phylogenetically diverse non-rabies lyssaviruses, including Mokola virus (MOKV; EC₅₀ = 14.74 µg/mL), whereas three clinically validated reference antibodies failed to neutralize MOKV even at concentrations up to 1000 µg/mL. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that the pseudovirus-based neutralization assay is a reliable surrogate assay. It also confirms the functional accuracy of the epitope mapping strategy and demonstrates the broad neutralization spectrum of SYN023 against a diverse panel of lyssaviruses. Full article

This article highlights how analytical approaches act as an essential pillar against cultural heritage counterfeiting and illicit trafficking, considering that different methodologies can be used in forensic science applied specifically to cultural heritage. The study provides a comprehensive overview of the history of counterfeiting, contextualizing how illicit practices evolved alongside historical art markets. Furthermore, it examines the progressive integration of diagnostic technologies over the last century, showing how material analysis has reshaped the objectivity of forensic sciences applied to cultural heritage. International protocols are also fundamental when it comes to evaluate if a piece of art is counterfeit. Through a narrative literature review of publications spanning 2021 to 2025, this paper examines both consolidated analytical techniques and emerging experimental methods currently being trialed in the field. Ultimately, this work demonstrates how combining historical context with state-of-the-art analytical tools provides forensic investigators and conservation scientists with the necessary means to authenticate artworks, reconstruct provenance, and effectively disrupt global illicit trafficking networks, thereby protecting collective historical memory. Full article

Skeleton-based human action recognition is a pivotal research area in computer vision. While conventional methods predominantly model human actions as rigid displacements strictly adhering to structural symmetry, the essence of authentic action is actually an elastic spatio-temporal fluid driven by highly asymmetric motion states. This over-reliance on symmetrical priors leads to severe representational bottlenecks: Spatially, traditional models solidify topological structures based on inherent anatomical symmetry, failing to capture the dynamic fluid coupling between cross-regional joints. Temporally, they employ fixed sliding windows for uniform, symmetrical sampling, which risks truncating core features during asymmetric action bursts while incorporating substantial noise during stationary periods. To address these issues, we propose a novel Elastic Spatio-Temporal Fluid Graph Convolutional Network (ESTF-GCN). The Spatial Fluid Topology (SFT) module introduces a motion-driven morphological principle to transcend rigid anatomical symmetry, adaptively reconstructing a task-driven dynamic fluid topology. Concurrently, the Temporal Flexible Evolution (TFE) module overcomes the limitations of symmetrical sampling by dynamically scaling the temporal receptive field, expanding during action bursts and retracting during redundant periods. Extensive experiments on the NTU RGB+D 60, NTU RGB+D 120, and NW-UCLA datasets demonstrate that ESTF-GCN significantly improves recognition accuracy while maintaining low computational complexity. Full article

The use of new psychoactive substances (NPSs) is increasing, and their chemical diversity together with potential postmortem changes demands accurate screening and confirmatory analysis in biological matrices. This study highlights the analytical value of combining ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-high-resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC-ESI^(+/−)-Orbitrap-HRMS) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) for the broad-coverage screening of classical psychoactive substances (CPSs), NPSs, and their metabolites in a selected cohort of 25 postmortem urine samples with suspected NPS consumption; given this limited size, results should be regarded as a proof-of-concept rather than epidemiologically representative. Forty-four drugs/metabolites were identified, most confirmed against authentic standards (Level 1), while a subset of minor or emerging metabolites received tentative/probable identifications (Level 2) based on accurate mass, isotopic pattern, and fragmentation. Ketamine, one of the most prevalent drugs (88% LC/MS, 84% GC/MS), followed by cocaine (68% LC/MS, 12% GC/MS); amphetamine-type substances (ATS) showed marked technique-dependent detection (e.g., 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA): 48% LC/MS, 8% GC/MS). LC/MS offered broader polarity coverage. GC/MS reliably detected parent drugs and derivatizable xenobiotics. Together, both platforms provided complementary confirmed and tentative-level coverage for forensic urine screening; quantitative validation and larger cohorts are needed before diagnostic, impairment, or epidemiological extrapolation can be made. Full article

This essay draws on a delimited corpus of publicly circulating materials associated with Abelardo de la Espriella’s digital campaign in the 2026 Colombian presidential election to examine a form of algorithmic–affective campaigning. Through a qualitative, discursive, and multimodal approach, it examines a core analytical corpus comprising the complete stream with Westcol and six digital posts, supplemented by materials from a broader documentary mapping and journalistic coverage used to contextualize provenance, circulation, and controversies. The central argument holds that the campaign used streaming and generative AI as technological mediations to organize and intensify patriotic and religious language of threat, protection, certainty, belonging, and authenticity. Through the streamed interview with Westcol, a Colombian creator known for gaming content and a large online presence, the campaign staged performative authenticity and proximity through digital codes associated with youth cultures; its use of generative AI contributed to the construction of visual narratives of threat, order, and national salvation. The article develops the notion of the algorithmic homeland and defines it as an imaginary of the nation represented as a threatened, morally ordered community in need of protection, configured through platform infrastructures, media formats, and affective languages. This concept makes it possible to interpret a form of electoral legitimacy construction in which technological mediation and affective languages jointly participate in the production of visibility, proximity, and authority within platform democracy. Full article

Software-Defined Perimeter (SDP) hides protected services until communicating entities have been authenticated and authorized. In operational SDP gateways, each successful Single Packet Authorization (SPA) request creates transient authorization state that must be enforced and subsequently revoked, potentially imposing substantial rule-management overhead under high-churn access workloads. This paper presents SDP-FW, a dynamic firewall architecture for managing transient authorization in SDP-based Zero Trust networks. SDP-FW uses Time-Based One-Time Password (TOTP)-based dynamic SPA port selection to reduce the persistence of the SPA entry point and a remove-after-connection strategy to promptly remove temporary firewall openings after connection establishment. It further separates authorization-state tracking, implemented with a scalable counting Bloom filter, from kernel-level packet enforcement through Netfilter hooks and connection tracking. We implement an SDP-FW prototype in the Linux kernel and evaluate its security properties, runtime performance, and storage cost. Comparisons with iptables, ipset, nftables, and eBPF further characterize its performance and storage behavior. Experimental results show that SDP-FW maintains efficient insertion, lookup, and removal as the number of transient authorization states increases, while the measured remove-after-connection mechanism substantially shortens the residual exposure window. Full article

Sacred space is commonly associated with formal places of worship and ritual settings. However, within the Islamic tradition, certain meanings and practices associated with the sacred can also be experienced and sustained within domestic life. This study aims to explain how sacredness is manifested in the Iranian–Islamic home and to examine its relationship with intangible cultural heritage. Using a qualitative, interpretive–historical approach, the study analyzes 18 historical Iranian houses based on theoretical and religious texts, historical sources, written documents, inscribed intangible cultural heritage elements, and architectural plans. The findings demonstrate that the manifestation of sacredness in the home differs from that in formal places of worship and, within domestic space, depends on the continuity of meanings, practices, and behaviors grounded in religious beliefs. Two overlapping analytical pathways were also identified: “behavioral–experiential sacredness,” in which meanings associated with the sacred are sustained through rituals, customs, and lived experience; and “behavioral–spatial sacredness,” in which spatial organization, together with behavior and experience, enables the manifestation and continuity of certain religious practices and meanings. The results further indicate that the continuity of this experience, through intergenerational transmission, continuous re-creation, self-identification, and the safeguarding of authenticity, can be analyzed within the framework of intangible cultural heritage. Full article

Culinary heritage is often safeguarded and promoted through commercial reproduction, yet a food icon’s value may depend on limiting replication beyond its place of origin. This article examines Lord Stow’s Bakery, widely credited with creating the Macau egg tart, as place-bound culinary heritage. Drawing on heritage-making, authenticity, socioemotional wealth and organisational memory, it conceptualises selective scaling as expanding a heritage-bearing business in some directions while deliberately limiting its replication in others. The study combines interviews with the founder’s sister and co-owner, a multilingual media archive spanning more than three decades, 127 online posts and comments, and field observation, analysed abductively. In the co-owner’s account, the family regards further franchising and flavour diversification as threats to quality, founder legacy and ties to Macau, even as local outlets, production capacity and a few long-standing overseas partnerships continued. Recipes, hand-centred production, stable packaging, the minimally altered Coloane shop and a curated new outlet form a living memory infrastructure, while family, media and visitor practices turn queuing, photographing, eating and sharing into heritage-making. Selective scaling thus helps sustain the bakery’s place-bound value, although safeguarding Macau’s wider egg tart tradition depends on a broader community of practice. Full article

Synthetic cannabinoid products are commonly smoked as plant-based mixtures, yet the compounds transferred to or generated in smoke remain poorly characterized. This study qualitatively compared an unheated seized herbal product containing JWH-210 with smoke condensate generated using a vacuum-assisted laboratory apparatus. Cigarette tubes packed with 800 mg of the seized product were combusted for 1 min, and smoke drawn through the collection train was retained on a C18 solid-phase extraction cartridge. The cartridge was sequentially eluted with methanol and dichloromethane, and the extracts were screened by gas chromatography–electron ionization–mass spectrometry. Compound annotations considered mass-spectral library matches, diagnostic ions, signal-to-noise ratios, and retention-index agreement. The representative unheated extracts contained 19 annotated chromatographic peaks representing 13 unique tentative annotations, whereas, the representative smoke-condensate extracts contained 48 peaks representing 43 unique tentative annotations, including 35 observed only after smoke generation. A signal tentatively assigned to JWH-210 was observed before and after smoke generation. Two additional synthetic-cannabinoid-related library matches occurred only in the methanolic smoke extract but remain provisional because authenticated standards, high-resolution mass spectrometry, and matrix-matched controls were unavailable. These findings provide a case-specific qualitative smoke fingerprint relevant to forensic screening but do not establish concentrations, formation pathways, exposure, or toxicological risk and should not be extrapolated directly to human inhalation exposure. Full article