Search Results (8,140)

The study tests the efficacy of subconjunctival ranibizumab and bevacizumab treatments in determining the oxidant and antioxidant levels during alkali-induced corneal neovascularisation. The researchers assigned 24 New Zealand White rabbits into four different groups, which included a healthy control, an alkali-injured control, a BV-treated group, and an RN-treated group, with six rabbits per group. All animals received alkali injury treatment except for the HC group. The AC group received six doses of subconjunctival saline 24 h after their injury, while the BV group and RN group received one dose of 0.5 mg of their respective treatment. The researchers conducted 14-day assays on normal tissue, blood plasma, and erythrocytes to determine total antioxidant status and total oxidant status. The researchers performed biochemical assays for total antioxidant status TAS and total oxidant status TOS on samples that were collected after the 14-day observation period. The corneal TOS levels increased in all injured groups when matched against the HC group. The RN group showed the highest corneal TOS levels, but the difference between the RN and AC and BV groups did not reach statistical significance. The injured groups showed higher corneal TAS levels than HC (p = 0.002), but the AC, BV, and RN groups showed no differences. The injured groups showed a significant decrease in erythrocyte TAS compared with HC (p < 0.001), but the injured groups showed lower plasma TOS levels than HC (p < 0.001). The researchers found no other systemic differences between the groups that received anti-VEGF treatment. The study results show that alkali injury leads to both local and systemic changes in redox status. The two anti-VEGF agents caused numerical changes in corneal oxidative parameters, but these changes did not achieve statistical significance. The research requires further investigation to understand potential agent-related effects on corneal redox balance, which should take place in larger, more detailed studies. Full article

Background: Polysaccharide-based dynamic hydrogels are promising for wound management due to their biocompatibility, injectability, and tunable biofunctionality. The integration of therapeutic gasotransmitter donors offers a strategy to modulate the wound microenvironment. Objectives: This study aimed to develop an injectable, self-healing carbohydrate hydrogel capable of sustained hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) release for burn wound therapy, and to evaluate its physicochemical properties, in vivo efficacy, and mechanism of action. Methods: A dynamic hydrogel (ACMOD) was fabricated via Schiff-base crosslinking between oxidized dextran (OD) and carboxymethyl chitosan (CMCS), incorporating the H₂S donor 5-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-3H-1,2-dithiole-3-thione (ADT-OH). Rheological and recovery tests characterized its mechanical and self-healing properties. Efficacy and mechanisms were assessed in a rat full-thickness burn model, analyzing wound closure, histology, oxidative stress, macrophage polarization, angiogenesis, and collagen deposition. Results: ACMOD exhibited shear-thinning, rapid self-healing, and strong tissue adherence. Sustained H₂S release from ACMOD significantly accelerated wound closure and improved tissue regeneration compared to controls. Mechanistically, H₂S attenuated oxidative stress, promoted a pro-regenerative M2 macrophage phenotype, enhanced angiogenesis via VEGF upregulation, and fostered organized collagen deposition and extracellular matrix remodeling. Conclusions: This work demonstrates a versatile, carbohydrate-based dynamic hydrogel platform that synergizes polymer network dynamics with bioactive H₂S delivery to effectively promote burn wound healing. The findings underscore the potential of polysaccharide hydrogels with integrated gasotransmitter release for regenerative therapy and biomaterials applications. Full article

The use of resource-saving technology in road construction material production is a current problem, the solution of which will allow us to increase the environmental and economic efficiency of the road construction industry. Nowadays, secondary raw materials are widely used in highway construction, obtained both from the waste of old road construction materials and collected from other industries. During asphalt production, up to 90% of raw materials can be replaced by reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP). This technology requires residual binder modification to reduce the negative impact on the technological and operational asphalt concrete properties. On the other hand, the use of rubber crumbs or granules obtained from the disposal of old car tires in asphalt–concrete mixtures is widespread. However, some types of car tires cannot be used as raw materials to produce an effective modifier. Truck tires and tires from special vehicles are suitable for use as a modifier for asphalt–concrete mixtures. Tires designed for passenger cars do not contain enough polymer. As an experiment on asphalt–concrete mixture production using secondary resources only, a testing facility was developed. The testing facility uses hot gas obtained by burning automobile tires in a special oven as a heat source. Rubber residues from the recycling of automobile tires are used as fuel, which cannot be used to produce rubber powder or granules. RAP obtained by cold milling of the pavements of city and public roads was used as the object of the research. When studying the characteristics of the asphalt–concrete-mixture-based binder, it was found that the sulfur compounds present in the composition of hot gases change the properties of the binder, leading to a serious deterioration in the technological characteristics of asphalt–concrete mixtures. The asphalt–concrete mixture obtained during RAP processing is characterized by a narrow temperature range in which it can be laid and compacted to the required density values. After laying the pavement, quality control revealed a significant variation (the number of air voids ranged from 0.8 to 5.5%) in the average density of samples taken from the compacted layer. In addition, there were significant violations of the longitudinal evenness of the finished coating. Experiments were carried out to extract the binder from asphalt–concrete mixtures before and after regeneration. The physico-mechanical and rheological characteristics were studied and qualitative analysis of the binder was realized by IR spectroscopy. The data obtained allow us to establish the mechanism of how sulfur-containing gases influence the bitumen binder’s properties in asphalt mixtures. Additionally, the features of thermo-oxidative degradation occurring during the hot recycling of asphalt–concrete mixtures were established. A justification is also given for the need to use anti-aging modifiers to restore the properties of the residual binder. Full article

Efficient and accurate active fire detection is crucial for timely firefighting and mitigating hazards. Geostationary satellites deliver high-frequency observations that offer valuable data for near-real-time fire monitoring. However, current operational fire detection algorithms often underutilize temporal information, failing to decouple fire-induced anomalies from inherent surface thermal heterogeneity, which results in frequent false alarms. To address this limitation, we constructed a ten-day historical background brightness temperature (BT) reference database from multi-year Himawari-8/9 data, serving as a stable, fire-undisturbed baseline. Based on this, an active fire detection algorithm was developed that integrates instantaneous spatial–contextual differences with historical deviations of these differences from the reference database. Evaluated against a robust dataset of over 55,000 fire pixels (cross-verified using 10 m Sentinel-2 burn-scar data), the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms the Himawari-8/9 Wildfire (WLF) product, achieving a commission error (CE) of 2.9%, an omission error (OE) of 37.5%, and an F1-score of 0.76. The framework demonstrated superior detection accuracy in challenging scenarios such as low-temperature, smoke-obscured, and early-stage fires, while maintained robust performance across diverse fire types. The approach enables rapid full-disk fire detection in less than one minute and can be adapted to other geostationary satellites, providing a technical foundation for building a globally coordinated fire monitoring system. Full article

Major trauma induces innate immune suppression, yet the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Resistin is an immunosuppressive molecule that is systemically elevated post-injury. However, its role in trauma-induced immune dysfunction and clinical outcomes is poorly defined. Here, we acquired blood samples from 147 adult trauma patients (≤1, 4–12, 48–72 h post-injury) and 95 burns patients (days 1, 3, 7, 14, 28 post-burn). We measured plasma resistin concentrations, studied resistin gene expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and neutrophils, and measured resistin production by lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-challenged whole blood leukocytes. To identify potential novel triggers of resistin secretion by immune cells, we examined the effect that stimulation with mitochondrial-derived damage-associated molecular patterns (mtDAMPs) had on resistin production by neutrophils isolated from healthy donors. We also treated neutrophils, from healthy donors, and THP-1 cells with resistin prior to stimulation with Phorbol 12-myristate-13-acetate (PMA) or LPS to study its effects on reactive oxygen species (ROS) and cytokine production, respectively. Injured patients presented with significantly elevated circulating resistin concentrations and increased resistin gene expression in PBMCs and neutrophils. LPS and mtDAMP stimulation promoted resistin secretion by whole blood leukocytes and neutrophils. Plasma resistin concentrations were negatively associated with PMA-induced ROS generation by neutrophils, and LPS-induced cytokine production by monocytes. Resistin-treated THP-1 cells and neutrophils exhibited impaired functional responses upon secondary stimulation with LPS or PMA, respectively. Trauma patients who developed multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) presented with significantly elevated resistin concentrations, which at 48–72 h post-injury showed good performance as a predictor of post-traumatic MODS (AUROC, 0.796). Hyperresistinemia is an immediate and persistent feature of the inflammatory response to injury that may contribute to the development of innate immune dysfunction. Full article

Thermal contextual algorithms for 375 m VIIRS active fire detection can produce substantial commission errors over persistent non-wildfire heat sources (e.g., refineries, gas flares, and volcanoes), and globally fixed thresholds may be suboptimal under heterogeneous thermal backgrounds. We present a lightweight spatiotemporal prior layer that augments by applying prior-guided, pixel-level parameter switching during the discrimination stage. The layer combines: (i) a persistent non-wildfire thermal anomaly mask (PFM) derived from multi-year VNP14IMG recurrence and seasonality statistics on a 0.004° grid, and (ii) a short-term heat-source mask (SHM) based on nighttime VIIRS I4/I5 brightness temperature stability to capture newly emerged or rapidly intensifying static sources. Pixels flagged by either prior are processed with a stricter parameter set, while other pixels follow the baseline setting. We evaluate the method using a stratified validation dataset (N = 3435) spanning industrial/urban clusters, volcanic regions, forest/grassland wildfires, and fragmented crop residue burning, with validation supported by independent high-resolution imagery (Sentinel-2/Landsat) and external POI datasets. The framework markedly reduces false positives in high-interference zones (industrial/urban false positive rate from 88.6% to 22.7%; volcanic from 100.0% to 57.3%) while preserving high performance for forest/grassland wildfires (F1 ≈ 0.999). For fragmented residue burning, omission error decreases from 11.2% to 1.3%, improving detection completeness without an apparent increase in commission errors. Overall, the results suggest that integrating long- and short-term spatiotemporal priors via threshold switching can improve the robustness and interpretability of contextual VIIRS fire detection under complex thermal backgrounds in the evaluated scenarios. Full article

Straw burning is a major source of regional air pollution. However, its reliable remote sensing detection faces problems in distinguishing agricultural fires from non-agricultural thermal anomalies, adequately leveraging burning seasonality, and overcoming the scarcity of pixel-level annotations. To comprehensively address these issues, this study proposes an end-to-end framework for straw burning identification that integrates spatio-temporal weighting and semi-supervised learning. The framework introduces a data-driven spatial weight optimization method to automatically learn discriminative weights for diverse land cover types (e.g., farmland, industry), replacing subjective empirical settings. Furthermore, a temporal weighting model, developed using Kernel Density Estimation, dynamically adjusts classification confidence according to historical burning seasonality, enhancing recall during peak seasons while suppressing off-season false positives. Finally, an adapted Dual-Backbone Dynamic Mutual Training (DB-DMT) strategy collaboratively leverages both limited labeled (24.5%) and abundant unlabeled (75.5%) high-resolution imagery, significantly improving model generalization in label-scarce scenarios. Validation across five representative regions of China demonstrated the framework’s superior performance, achieving a semantic segmentation mean Intersection over Union (mIoU) improvement of 3.33% (to 71.92%) and increasing precision in Henan from 95.21% to 97.71%. Crucially, the framework effectively reduced the off-season false positive rate (FPR) from 5.14% to a mere 0.23% in highly industrialized regions like Tianjin. By systematically mitigating both spatial geolocation bias and seasonal phenology confusion, our approach offers a robust and scalable solution for straw burning monitoring and a transferable paradigm for other environmental remote sensing applications. Full article

Crop residue plays a significant role on soil health, nutrient cycling, and crop yield, making residue management a key consideration in agricultural production. This review aims to synthesize current knowledge on two different aspects of crop residue in grain production systems: common management practices and their effects. A comprehensive literature survey was conducted using the Scopus database, covering worldwide publications from 1990 to 2025. First, this review explores various crop residue management practices, including burning, stubble retention, and different tillage methods (conservation tillage vs. conventional tillage). This section mainly focuses on tillage practices with an emphasis on the environmental, economic, and agronomic consequences of each approach. Then this review paper explores the effects of crop residue on soils and ecosystems, including the role of crop residues in improving soil quality and enhancing soil organic carbon sequestration. The interaction between crop residues and hydrological processes such as water infiltration and runoff is also examined in this section. The relationships between residue management practices and crop growth and yield responses are also critically assessed. This review highlights the shift from conventional, environmentally detrimental practices toward conservation-oriented approaches, especially reduced tillage, no tillage, and residue retention. Key knowledge gaps and research priorities are identified, particularly regarding crop residue effects on deep soil carbon sequestration, hydrology, crop growth and yields, and the lack of practical management guidelines across agroecosystems. This review provides an integrated framework to support crop residue management and guide future research in conservation agriculture. Full article

Cellular automata-based wildfire simulation models are widely used to support fire management, risk assessment, and operational decision-making, due to their efficiency and computational advantages. However, the accuracy of these models heavily depends on the quality of input data provided by the user, including the composition and geospatial extend of forest fuels, current meteorological conditions and terrain information. This publication examines how quantitative and spatial input data uncertainties affect the estimates of the impacted areas. Using a series of simulation experiments, inaccurate data are introduced to specific input variables (such as the vegetation type and the fuel moisture content) to reflect realistic levels of uncertainty commonly observed in operational scenarios, where users with different cognitive backgrounds fail to properly identify key characteristics of a fire. Model outputs are then compared using spatial and temporal performance metrics, including the rate of spread and burned area extent. The results demonstrate that uncertainties in fuel models and meteorological inputs exert a dominant influence on simulated fire behavior. Our findings highlight the sensitivity of wildfire simulations to compounded input uncertainties and stress the need for improved in-field data acquisition strategies. Full article

The performance improvement of mechanical components often relies on heat treatment processes, but these processes inevitably result in oxidation burn-off. The repeated formation and spallation of Fe₂O₃ rich oxide scales lead to substantial iron depletion and surface deterioration. Consequently, environmentally sustainable and economically viable protective coatings are required to suppress oxidation induced burn off. In this work, a TiO₂-MgAl₂O₄ composite coating was synthesized from magnesium slag and applied to Q235 carbon steel to enhance its performance during prolonged high temperature heat treatment. Oxidation tests conducted at 900 °C for 60 min demonstrated that the coating markedly improved the oxidation resistance of carbon steel, with an enhancement of approximately 87% relative to the uncoated specimens. To elucidate the protective mechanism, SEM-EDS, XRD, TG-DSC, and XPS analyses were employed. Based on Wagner Theory, the formation of interfacial phases such as Mg_7.92Al_15.31Fe_0.66O₃₂, which effectively impeded oxygen ion diffusion and thereby enhanced the oxidation resistance during high-temperature exposure. Furthermore, the synergistic effect of aluminum-, magnesium-, and titanium-containing compounds in the coating contributed to suppressing the diffusion of oxygen and iron ions, thus further improving the protective performance. This study provides a systematic theoretical foundation and practical guidance for addressing material loss during high-temperature processing of mechanical components, as well as for promoting the resource utilization of magnesium slag. Full article

Wound healing is a dynamic and multifaceted biological process involving hemostasis, inflammation, proliferation, and tissue remodeling. Topical therapy is widely preferred for wound management due to its localized action and reduced systemic adverse effects. However, the effective delivery of therapeutic agents is often limited by the skin’s barrier properties, the complex wound microenvironment, and the physicochemical characteristics of drugs. This review highlights the key physicochemical parameters governing topical drug delivery in wound therapy, including drug solubility, molecular size, lipophilicity, vesicle size distribution, surface charge, encapsulation efficiency, lipid composition, ethanol concentration, and vesicle deformability, which collectively influence drug permeation and retention at the wound site. Nanovesicular delivery systems have emerged as promising strategies to overcome these limitations. In particular, ultradeformable vesicles such as ethosomes, transferosomes, and transethosomes have demonstrated enhanced skin permeation and improved drug deposition in periwound tissue due to their flexible membrane structure and optimized physicochemical properties. This review systematically discusses the composition, preparation techniques, and critical formulation parameters of these vesicular systems that determine their stability, elasticity, and permeation performance. Furthermore, their applications in delivering anti-inflammatory drugs, antimicrobial agents, bioactive phytochemicals, and regenerative therapeutics for different wound types are examined. Widely used in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo evaluation methods, including permeation studies and wound healing models such as excision, burn, infected, and diabetic wounds, are also summarized. Finally, the review outlines current challenges related to formulation standardization, physicochemical characterization, safety assessment, and large-scale production, while highlighting the future potential of ultradeformable vesicles as next-generation nanocarriers for advanced wound healing therapies. Full article

Synanthropic cockroaches, especially Blattella germanica and Periplaneta americana, are persistent pests of human dwellings, healthcare facilities, food establishments, farms, and transport infrastructure. Accumulating field and laboratory studies indicate that synanthropic cockroaches carry clinically important bacteria, fungi, and parasites, including multidrug-resistant strains harbouring extended-spectrum β-lactamase, carbapenemase, and other antimicrobial-resistant determinants. Cockroaches acquire these organisms from sewage, waste, food residues, animal excreta, and contaminated clinical environments, and retain them on the cuticle and within a complex gut microbiota. Dissemination is predominantly mechanical, via contact transfer and deposition of regurgitate and faeces on food, equipment, and surfaces, but may be amplified by gut colonisation, microbial interactions, and horizontal gene transfer within the cockroach microbiome. In hospitals, cockroaches can connect high-burden reservoirs (drains, waste areas, kitchens) with vulnerable units, including intensive care units (ICUs), neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), burn units, and haemato-oncology wards. In food and livestock systems, they may contaminate housing, ingredients, and finished products, enabling spillover along supply chains and at ports. This review synthesises current evidence and highlights the following priorities: integrate cockroaches into infection prevention, food safety, and biosecurity; incorporate cockroach sampling into antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and genomic surveillance; and advance mechanistic research on cockroach–microbiota–pathogen interactions to improve pest management and safely explore cockroach-derived antimicrobial compounds. In this review, we distinguish external mechanical carriage (cuticular contamination) from internal gut carriage; we use “gut colonisation” only when persistence/replication or prolonged shedding is demonstrated. Full article

In developing countries, where rural communities face limitations in terms of solid waste management (SWM), they often resort to practices such as prolonged storage and open burning. Proper planning helps reduce environmental, health, and economic impacts and moves towards more sustainable waste management. This study analyses SWM in the rural community of Sahuangal (Ecuador) and proposes a pilot management plan based on community participation. A three-phase methodology was applied: (i) preliminary analysis, surveys, and Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT-TOWS) analysis; (ii) infrastructure design for the pilot plan, integrating the physical characterisation of waste for infrastructure sizing; (iii) economic- and financial evaluation and multicriteria prioritisation using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The survey results indicate that 75.86% of households reported a predominance of organic waste, whereas the pilot-level characterisation conducted in a typical household identified an organic fraction of 69.81%. The SWM pilot plan is cost-effective and, by relying on small-scale infrastructure built with local materials and community labour, incorporates social and environmental sustainability criteria. The combination of SWOT-TOWS analysis with AHP emphasised community participation, the viability of composting, and the recovery of recyclables as the predominant criteria, suggesting that the plan can be adapted to other rural communities with similar conditions. Full article

Increasing global demand for animal-based protein has created a critical environmental management challenge regarding manure accumulation in intensive livestock production. Gasification offers a sustainable solution by converting organic residues into renewable synthetic gas (syngas) and carbon-rich biochar. This study systematically evaluated the performance of three major types of animal waste—dairy manure, poultry litter, and swine manure—against a lignocellulosic control (wood veneer waste) in a top-lit updraft (TLUD) gasifier. Three airflow rates (10, 15, and 20 L min⁻¹) were studied. The results indicated that increasing airflow significantly elevated the gasifier flame front temperatures, with poultry litter achieving the highest peak temperature (825.5 °C), followed by swine manure and dairy manure (753.7 and 727.0 °C, respectively) at 20 L min⁻¹ airflow. While dairy manure exhibited the fastest linear burning rate (25.7 mm/min), poultry litter demonstrated the highest mass consumption rate (32.8 g/min). Feedstock chemistry drove distinct reaction pathways in syngas composition. Poultry litter emerged as the superior feedstock for H₂ production, achieving a peak H₂ concentration of 10.78% at 20 L min⁻¹, which attributed to a synergistic combination of outstanding temperature, moisture content and catalytic alkali metals that promoted steam reforming and water–gas shift reactions. CO production was dominated by wood veneer (17.6%), which was driven by the dominance of elemental carbon and fixed solid (FS) content that favored partial oxidation and a Boudouard reaction. These findings suggest that while airflow regulates thermal kinetics, the specific energy profile of the produced syngas is fundamentally determined by the physiochemical properties of the biomass precursor. Full article

Hydrogen combustion is known to be fast compared to traditional hydrocarbon fuels. The fast combustion leads to a higher thermal efficiency. In this research a 600 cc single cylinder hydrogen engine was tested at 1250 rpm, lambda = 2 and 3, and three load levels (load was represented by Manifold Absolute Pressure (MAP); MAPs tested were 75, 95 and 120 kPa) and compared to operation with gasoline and propane. The fast burn duration (Mass Fraction Burnt MFB10% to MFB90%) and the MFB 50% were determined and analyzed. The hydrogen MFB50% location for Minimum Timing for Best Torque (MBT) was found to occur at around the typical 8 Crank Angle Degrees (CADs) After Top Dead Center (ATDC). Measurements of ignition delay based on the fast data direct measurement of spark ignition coil current drop to the change in polarity of net heat release are presented. With shifts towards direct injection and higher injection pressures, consideration was given to the hydrogen pressurization penalty, where it was calculated that pressurizing hydrogen to 100 bar at the flow required for lambda = 2 operation is 2.3 bar, i.e., higher than the Friction Mean Effective Pressure (FMEP)! Furthermore, hydrogen is widely cited to have a higher heat loss than typical hydrocarbon fuels. In this paper, detailed analyses at lambda 2 and lambda 3 showed that hydrogen in fact has lower heat losses. Full article