Search Results (10,702)

This study introduces a novel robust finite-time adaptive sliding mode control (FTSMC) strategy, emphasizing its contributions to the synchronized deployment of hydraulically actuated multi-arm systems in confined environments, such as coal bunker cleaning. Key innovations include the integration of adaptive sliding mode control with guaranteed finite-time convergence, a distributed leader–follower framework, and a graph-theoretical communication topology for localized interactions. Specifically, we developed a dynamic model for a multi-agent system comprising one leader and multiple followers, incorporating nonlinear dynamics and unknown external disturbances. The proposed controller ensures rapid finite-time convergence of tracking errors while maintaining robustness against parameter uncertainties, frictional forces, and external perturbations. The theoretical analysis, based on Lyapunov stability, rigorously proves the boundedness and convergence of all system states. Simulation results on a three-arm robotic platform validate the method’s superiority, demonstrating higher tracking accuracy, faster convergence, and stronger disturbance rejection compared with baseline controllers, including SMC, ETASMC, PID, Fixed-Time Consensus Control (FTCC), Disturbance Observer-Based Control (DOBC), and Adaptive Sliding Mode Control (ASMC). This research provides a practical and scalable solution for multi-arm coordination in unstructured environments, significantly advancing the autonomy and reliability of industrial robotic systems. Full article

This study analyzes network coherence in two-layer and three-layer networks with positive and negative inter-layer correlation patterns. Using algebraic graph theory, we construct the Laplacian matrices for different correlated graph structures and compute their Laplacian spectra. The impact of correlation patterns on network coherence is investigated for two-layer and three-layer structures, and numerical evaluations are performed. The results show that negative-correlation patterns yield better network coherence than positive ones. This work provides fundamental insights into the structural robustness of layered networks and offers theoretical guidance for the design of robust networked systems. Full article

Human alpha-herpesvirus 1 (HSV-1) acute infection culminates in life-long latency in sensory neurons in trigeminal ganglia and certain neurons in the central nervous system. Previously, E2F family members and glucocorticoid receptor (GR) were shown to stimulate HSV-1 and bovine herpesvirus 1 (BoHV-1) replication. Consequently, we hypothesized GR and E2F family members activate certain HSV-l promoters. To test this hypothesis, we determined if four HSV-1 ICP0 cis-regulatory modules (CRM) upstream of the ICP0 promoter were activated by E2F. GR and E2F2, but not E2F1, E2F3a, or E2F3b, cooperatively transactivate the ICP0 CRM-C, but not CRM-A, -B, or -D fragments upstream of a minimal promoter in a luciferase reporter construct. CRM-C sequences contain two E2F consensus binding sites, a GC-rich motif that E2F2 can bind, and a consensus ½ GR response element (GRE) adjacent to the consensus E2F #2 binding site. Mutating the ½ GRE or the 3 E2F binding sites significantly reduced GR- and E2F2-mediated transactivation. Chromatin immunoprecipitation studies revealed E2F2 occupied ICP0 CRM-C sequences during productive infection and mutating the E2F binding sites prevented E2F2 binding. These studies reveal GR and E2F2 transactivate ICP0-promoter activity, which may enhance viral replication in certain cell types. Full article

This study examines the dialectic between “navigating secularism” and “lived religion” in the context of modern Jewish Orthodoxy, focusing on the rulings of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (1910–1995) regarding secular Jews. The research relies on two analytical models: Ravitzky’s theological model, based on the Chazon Ish’s distinction between a “full wagon” and an “empty wagon”; and the phenomenological model of Zohar and Sagi, which examines the halakhic distinction between belonging to the religious collective versus the ethnic collective. Contrary to the consensus of 20th-century halakhic authorities, who applied the category of “captured child” (tinok shenishba) to modern secular Jews, Rabbi Auerbach rejects this categorical expansion and reinstates the traditional halakha: one who publicly desecrates the Sabbath has the status of a gentile in all matters. This normative decision yields far-reaching halakhic implications: prohibition of a secular person’s contact with wine, prohibition of inviting a secular person for festivals, and more. The study identifies an internal tension in Rabbi Auerbach’s rulings: theoretically, he considers whether it might be preferable to die than to live as a gentile, but practically, he permits saving secular Jews on the Sabbath based on extra-halakhic theological reasoning. This tension reflects a conflict between his loyalty to halakhic deontology and his humane character. The study classifies Rabbi Auerbach within the ahistorical approach, which views the halakhic conceptual system as an eternal entity. Nevertheless, the religious public perceives him as a lenient authority toward secular Jews. This gap is explained through Wolfgang Iser’s hermeneutics and the category of “textual indeterminacy”: readers interpret his words through the prism of an expectation for tolerance, based on their perception of his warm personality, thereby creating a subjective textual meaning. Full article

Background/Objectives: Mid-regional pro-adrenomedullin (MR-proADM) is a biomarker of endothelial dysfunction in sepsis. Its relationship with real-time microcirculatory alterations in critically ill patients remains insufficiently characterised. Methods: In a prospective cohort of 59 ICU patients with sepsis, serial sublingual microcirculation assessments were performed using sidestream dark field (SDF) imaging. Serum MR-proADM concentrations were measured with BRAHMS Kryptor assays. Automated software quantified microvascular structure and flow. Associations with disease severity and outcomes were evaluated using correlation, regression, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT05357339). Results: Higher MR-proADM concentrations at ICU admission were modestly associated with impaired microvascular perfusion (perfused number of crossings [PNOC]: ρ = −0.32; perfused De Backer density [PDBD]: ρ = −0.32; consensus proportion of perfused vessels [CPPV]: ρ = −0.26; all p < 0.05). Rising MR-proADM levels over time were strongly associated with worsening perfusion (ΔPDBD: ρ = 0.52; ΔPNOC: ρ = 0.54). MR-proADM correlated with SOFA and APACHE II scores and predicted the need for renal replacement therapy (AUC = 0.799, p = 0.041), but not ICU length of stay or hospital mortality. Conclusions: MR-proADM correlates with in vivo microcirculatory dysfunction in sepsis. Its dynamic association with microvascular impairment supports its potential role as a translational biomarker for monitoring endothelial and microcirculatory failure in critically ill patients. Full article

Background: Physical activity can help prevent and manage diseases, mental health conditions, and improve social connectedness and quality of life. However, integrating physical activity into long-term care settings remains a structural challenge. This paper presents a comprehensive overview of the systematic development and synthesis of a national, multidisciplinary guideline for integrating physical activity into routine long-term care practice. Methods: A multidisciplinary working group (n = 13) developed the guideline. A national online questionnaire (April–May 2023), disseminated through 20 organisations, identified and prioritised key challenges for implementing physical activity in long-term care. Next, critical questions were formulated and answered by systematic literature reviews, complemented with input from a focus group and sounding board groups, including all stakeholders. Recommendations were drafted and finalised through structured consensus procedures, integrating scientific evidence, stakeholder perspectives, contextual considerations, and professional expertise. Results: The guideline addressed the following critical questions: Why is physical activity important? How can care organisations best organise physical activity-focused care? How can care and support professionals integrate physical activity into the daily lives of clients? How and which physical activities can best be applied to stimulate physical activity? How can technology help? How can clients and their informal caregivers be motivated to engage in physical activity? Concrete recommendations were provided and remaining knowledge gaps identified. Conclusions: This guideline represents an important step towards embedding physical activity as a fundamental component of long-term care. It offers practical and evidence-informed recommendations for incorporating physical activity in routine long-term care practices, specifically addressing the unique challenges encountered in long-term care settings. The knowledge gaps can guide research to further support practice to normalise physical activity in long-term care. Full article

Background/Objectives: Histological healing, primarily assessed by the absence of neutrophils in mucosal biopsies, is increasingly used to evaluate treatment efficacy in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and may identify residual inflammation despite endoscopic mucosal healing. We aimed to quantify histological parameters commonly linked to active disease in patients with endoscopic healing and to explore their association with neutrophil-defined histologic activity in endoscopically healed mucosa. Methods: We assessed 371 colonoscopies from IBD patients with an endoscopic report of mucosal healing at a reference center. For each procedure, we recorded the number of biopsy samples obtained and histologic features according to ECCO consensus/position statements, including neutrophil infiltration, lymphoplasmacytic infiltrate, eosinophil infiltrate, and mucosal lesions. Results: Histologic activity was found in 21/98 (21.4%) procedures with one to three biopsy samples and in 89/273 (32.6%) procedures with more than three samples (p = 0.04). Neutrophils were absent in 207/212 (97.6%) procedures with normal lymphoplasmacytic infiltrate versus 55/159 (34.6%) with increased lymphoplasmacytic infiltrate (p < 0.00001). Eosinophils were below cut-off values in 122/168 (72.6%) procedures with normal lymphoplasmacytic infiltrate versus 90/203 (44.3%) with increased lymphoplasmacytic infiltrate (p < 0.00001). Eosinophils were below cut-off in 148/168 (88.1%) procedures without neutrophils and in 114/203 (56.2%) with neutrophils in the lamina propria (p < 0.00001). Conclusions: In IBD patients with endoscopic healing, the extent of biopsy sampling is associated with the detection of histologic activity. Lymphoplasmacytic and eosinophil infiltrates are strongly associated with neutrophil presence and are associated with neutrophil-defined activity and may serve as supportive indicators prompting closer pathological assessment in endoscopically healed mucosa. Full article

Diabetes mellitus is a growing global health challenge, and digital health technologies offer new opportunities to support self-management. Mobile applications can benefit both patients and healthcare professionals; however, awareness and integration of these tools into community pharmacy practice remain limited. As accessible frontline providers, pharmacists are well positioned to promote digital health, yet their readiness and engagement require further investigation. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among community pharmacists in Serbia using a structured questionnaire. Developed through a consensus-based process, the instrument assessed pharmacists’ awareness, attitudes, and experiences with digital health technologies, focusing on mobile applications for diabetes self-management. Only 15.8% of pharmacists were aware of such applications, and 2.4% reported receiving relevant training. Higher digital health technology literacy was associated with greater awareness, confidence, and preference for digital learning. Most participants supported expanding pharmacists’ roles in advising patients on digital tools and expressed interest in structured education and official guidance. These findings indicate limited awareness and training in mobile health applications among community pharmacists. Enhancing digital competencies through targeted education and structured guidance may facilitate greater integration of digital tools into routine pharmacy practice and strengthen pharmacists’ roles in chronic disease management. Full article

Blockchain technology is redefining the foundations of cybersecurity by introducing decentralized, tamper-resistant mechanisms for data integrity, trust management, and malware intelligence sharing. Traditional detection systems, which are dependent on centralized control and opaque validation, remain vulnerable to data manipulation and systemic compromise. The integration of blockchain transforms these paradigms because it provides verifiable provenance, distributed consensus, and autonomous enforcement through smart contracts. This review synthesizes fifteen years of progress (2010–2025) at the intersection of blockchain and malware detection and discusses core architectures, consensus protocols, and cryptographic properties that underpin decentralized defenses. The review follows a structured literature review methodology, which focuses on blockchain architectures, consensus protocols, and malware-detection pipelines reported in the cybersecurity literature. It also analyzes blockchain detection pipelines, performance tradeoffs, and data protection mechanisms in distributed learning systems and artificial intelligence models. Special attention is given to scalability constraints, regulatory compliance, and interoperability challenges that shape adoption. The review identifies three dominant design patterns: (i) decentralized threat-intelligence sharing with provenance guarantees, (ii) consensus-driven validation of malware artifacts, and (iii) on-chain trust and reputation mechanisms for detector accountability. Through the union of blockchain, artificial intelligence, edge computation, and federated learning, cybersecurity attains an auditable and adaptive architecture resilient to adversarial threats. The study concludes that blockchain provides a verifiable trust infrastructure for malware detection, but its practical deployment requires faster transaction validation and stronger protection of sensitive data; future research should address performance optimization and regulatory compliance. Full article

Periprocedural myocardial infarction after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) remains a debated entity, especially in the era of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin assays, which frequently detect biomarker rises even when clinically meaningful ischemia is absent. This review critically examines the main contemporary frameworks used to define these events, including the Fourth Universal Definition of Myocardial Infarction (UDMI), the Academic Research Consortium (ARC)-2 consensus, and the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) definition, comparing biomarker thresholds, requirements for objective evidence of ischemia, and procedural criteria. We discuss how differences among definitions shape reported event rates and contribute to heterogeneity in event adjudication across studies. Key pathophysiologic mechanisms of myocardial injury during PCI are summarized, including side-branch compromise, distal embolization, microvascular dysfunction, and mechanical complications. Particular attention is given to the limitations of current criteria, such as incomplete assay standardization, variability in sampling timing, inconsistent reliability of ancillary criteria, including electrocardiography and imaging, and an uneven relationship between biomarker elevation and subsequent outcomes. Finally, we outline priorities for future updates, including harmonization of biomarker thresholds, greater emphasis on relative biomarker dynamics, and structured adjudication that integrates biomarkers with objective ischemic evidence. These steps may improve diagnostic specificity, reduce misclassification, and strengthen the clinical and trial relevance of periprocedural ischemic endpoints. Full article

This paper investigates the event-triggered secure consensus problem for stochastic multi-agent systems (MASs) subject to bilateral false data injection attacks (FDIAs). To achieve reliable secure consensus while reducing resource consumption, an event-triggered defense scheme incorporated with a configurable waiting period is proposed. By introducing an adjustable time interval between consecutive trigger events, the developed scheme not only rigorously eliminates Zeno behavior but also alleviates the computational and sensing burdens. Notably, the analysis of event-triggered secure consensus for stochastic MASs is more challenging compared to conventional deterministic scenarios, due to the coupling effects of stochastic disturbances, event-triggered mechanisms, and bilateral FDIAs. To address this critical challenge, a stochastic convergence theorem is adopted in this study. Distinct from the traditional Lyapunov theorem for stochastic stability analysis, this theorem exhibits inherent similarities to the deterministic Barbalat lemma, which offers a more flexible analytical framework. A key advantage of the proposed approach is that it relaxes the positive definiteness constraint on the candidate Lyapunov function, thereby significantly enhancing the flexibility in constructing Lyapunov functions for stochastic MASs under bilateral FDIAs. Finally, two numerical simulation examples are presented to verify the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed control protocol and key theoretical results. Full article

This paper investigates the fully distributed observer-based dynamic double-event-triggered bipartite consensus tracking problem of fractional-order multi-agent systems (FOMASs) with input saturation under a directed graph. First, to address this complex challenge, a pull-based dynamic double-event-triggered mechanism (DDETM) with different event-triggered conditions and capable of operating independently is designed, which can effectively reduce communication costs and controller updates concurrently. Then, the low-gain feedback technique is used to solve the input saturation problem faced by FOMASs under a directed graph. Based on the estimated state information, a fully distributed control protocol with pull-based DDETM is proposed to ensure the achievement of bipartite consensus tracking for FOMASs. A noteworthy feature of this control protocol is its ability to achieve system stability without the need for global information. Correspondingly, the sufficient conditions for achieving bipartite consensus is obtained with the help of low gain feedback technology and Lyapunov stability theory. Moreover, the Zeno behavior is precluded. Finally, a simulation example is presented to illustrate the theoretical results. Full article

Backdoor attacks pose a critical security risk to pre-trained language models (PLMs) by utilizing concealed triggers to manipulate model outputs. Existing defense strategies largely depend on statistical thresholds, which often struggle to identify sophisticated backdoor samples that exhibit high cognitive similarity to benign data. Such similarities make precise threshold calibration difficult, frequently leading to unreliable or failed detection. To overcome these limitations, we propose a backdoor detection method based on consensus deviation, shifting the defensive paradigm from surface-level statistical metrics to deep cognitive consensus verification. This approach obviates the reliance on fixed thresholds, enabling the more robust identification of covert triggers. Extensive experiments on the SST-2, HSOL, and AG‘s News datasets revealed that our method achieved significantly lower attack success rates (ASRs) and enhanced robustness compared with the current baselines across word-, sentence-, and structural-level attack scenarios. Full article

Multi-UAV target localization relies on cooperative fusion of local, perception-derived geometric measurements over an edge network. While distributed fusion improves scalability and robustness compared with a centralized architecture, the iterative message exchanges may leak sensitive information to external eavesdroppers or honest-but-curious peers. This paper proposes a privacy-preserving distributed fusion method for multi-UAV localization via free-noise masking. The key idea is a double-injection mechanism. Specifically, each UAV masks its transmitted iterate with a locally generated bounded noise vector, while injecting the same noise into its local update so that the perturbations cancel exactly in the network-average dynamics under doubly stochastic mixing. As a result, the proposed PPDO-FN scheme preserves the practical convergence and weighted least squares localization accuracy of non-private distributed gradient descent, without requiring heavy cryptography or a trusted server. We further introduce reconstruction-based privacy metrics under transcript attacks and quantify the privacy–accuracy tradeoff. Simulation results demonstrate (i) near-identical accuracy and consensus behavior to the non-private baseline, (ii) monotonic privacy improvement with increasing masking strength, and (iii) the necessity of double-injection canceling compared with a naive single-injection baseline. Finally, we provide an end-to-end case study to connect the image-level detection to the geometric localization and then to privacy-preserving distributed fusion, illustrating engineering viability for our proposed approach. Full article

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide, and liver transplantation (LT) remains the only curative treatment addressing both tumor burden and underlying liver disease. Despite an adequate candidate selection, HCC recurrence after LT occurs in 8–20% of cases and is associated with a poor prognosis, particularly in patients who experience an early relapse. The management of HCC recurrence remains particularly challenging due to the lifelong immunosuppression required after LT, which may promote tumor progression and restrict therapeutic options. This review synthesizes the current evidence on systemic therapies for recurrent HCC after LT, focusing on tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), immunotherapy, and the current available immunosuppression strategies. Unfortunately, in this setting, robust prospective studies are lacking, and clinical decision-making remains based on retrospective data and expert consensus. Future research should prioritize the prospective evaluation of systemic regimens, integration of immunosuppression modulation, and careful exploration of immunotherapy or new target therapies in this special population. Full article