Search Results (158,197)

Background/Objectives: Testicular cancer is one of the most common malignancies affecting young adult males. With the rise in artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, many patients seek health information online. Yet chatbot responses specific to testicular cancer remain unassessed. This study aims to evaluate the role of AI chatbots in providing patient information about testicular cancer in terms of its quality, readability and actionability. Methods: Fourteen frequently asked questions about testicular cancer were identified using Google Trends and the Cancer Council Australia website. Questions were then inputted into four different publicly accessible AI platforms: ChatSonic, Bing AI, ChatGPT 4.0 and Perplexity. Chatbot responses were recorded and evaluated using three validated instruments: DISCERN (1–5), Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT)-Understandability and Actionability (0–100%) and Flesch-Kincaid readability scores. Results: All platforms scored low on the DISCERN score with a median of 1 (interquartile range [IQR] 1–4). The median readability score was 34.1 (IQR 26.0–52.2), indicating a reading level suitable for college students. The median word count was 61.5 (IQR, 41.3–91.3). The overall PEMAT-Understandability was moderate (median 58.3, 50.0–66.7), whilst the PEMAT-Actionability was very poor (median 0, IQR 0–25). Conclusions: AI chatbots deliver moderately understandable information on testicular cancer, but this information is typically not actionable and is delivered at an above-average reading level. Despite this, patients may continue to use AI chatbots (AICs) to access health information. It is important that clinicians counsel patients on the benefits and downfalls of this strategy, advocating for the use of AICs as an adjunct rather than a replacement for clinician-led education. Full article

Smartwatches are widely used to monitor physiological responses during exercise; however, their accuracy in measuring heart rate (HR) and energy expenditure (EE) across different exercise modalities remains insufficiently characterized. This study evaluated the accuracy of HR and EE measurements obtained from four commercially available smartwatches in comparison with gold-standard reference methods. Sixty-two healthy adult men performed standardized endurance and resistance exercise protocols while simultaneously wearing four smartwatches (Apple, Galaxy, Fitbit, and Garmin). HR was measured using electrocardiography (ECG), and EE was determined using indirect calorimetry. Measurement accuracy was assessed using repeated-measures analysis of variance, Pearson’s correlation analysis, intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs), and Bland–Altman analyses. All smartwatches demonstrated high accuracy in HR measurements during both endurance and resistance exercises. During endurance exercise, HR measurements from all smartwatch brands were comparable to those obtained via ECG, whereas during resistance exercise, only the Apple Watch showed no significant difference from the ECG. HRs showed strong correlations with ECG readings (r = 0.64–0.97), excellent reliability (ICC > 0.94), and narrow limits of agreement (approximately ±10 bpm). In contrast, the EE measurements exhibited limited accuracy across all devices. During endurance exercise, EE was consistently underestimated with wide limits of agreement. EE accuracy further deteriorated during resistance exercise, showing weak correlations with indirect calorimetry (r = 0.10–0.34) and poor reliability (ICC < 0.45). Overall, smartwatches provide accurate HR measurements across endurance and resistance exercise modalities, supporting their use in exercise intensity monitoring and HR-based training. However, smartwatch-derived EE estimates do not accurately reflect the metabolic demands, particularly during resistance exercises. Future research should focus on improving EE estimation algorithms through multimodal biosignal integration and machine-learning approaches, and validating these methods across diverse populations and exercise modalities. Full article

Education plays a crucial role in climate adaptation and mitigation, specifically in the current context of environmental challenges and disasters. This article analyzes initiatives to integrate content on sustainability, climate change, and disaster risk reduction into Spanish educational legislation and other specific regulations, such as civil protection. It reviews the alignment of Spanish legislation with international frameworks such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sendai Framework, as well as the incorporation of environmental and climate education into regulations related to climate change and civil protection. The article highlights the importance of teacher training and the recent implementation of a mandatory disaster education plan following a devastating rainfall and flood disaster in 2024 (known in Spanish as the DANA disaster), which aims to strengthen the resilience and preparedness of the entire educational community. It concludes that significant progress has been made in integrating this content into the curriculum. However, the challenge of consolidating a culture of climate change awareness in Spanish society remains. Full article

Metal ion-based chemo-immunotherapy is often limited by rigid intracellular metal homeostasis, insufficient reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation, and an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME). To overcome these limitations, we engineered an ATP-responsive, core–shell bimetallic nanoreactor (Cu/ZIF@PDA, termed CZP) featuring a precisely controlled ~25 nm biomimetic polydopamine (PDA) coating. Triggered by elevated tumoral ATP levels, CZP undergoes coordination-induced disassembly and promotes oxidative stress amplification. Specifically, the PDA shell acts as a superoxide dismutase (SOD) mimetic to continuously supply H₂O₂, fueling Cu²⁺-mediated Fenton-like reactions to unleash highly toxic hydroxyl radicals (•OH) while aggressively depleting the intracellular glutathione (GSH) pool. This irreversible oxidative damage, coupled with Zn²⁺-induced mitochondrial dysfunction, triggers profound mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) leakage. Crucially, this cytosolic DNA robustly activates the cGAS-STING signaling axis, driving a massive surge in immunogenic cell death (ICD) and significantly promoting dendritic cell (DC) maturation. Furthermore, CZP markedly inhibited primary tumor growth in vivo and showed protection in a tumor re-challenge model, accompanied by enhanced dendritic cell maturation. These findings support the potential of this ATP-responsive bimetallic nanoplatform to promote antitumor immune activation. Full article

Challenges remain in developing a comprehensive understanding of spatial cognition, including gender and developmental differences, partly due to limitations of well-established spatial measures. Many traditional tasks face accessibility constraints and are not well suited for use across broad age ranges, populations, or ability levels. The present study introduced two game-based tasks, Q-bitz^® and Spot it!^®, designed to assess mental rotation and object location memory, respectively. We examined whether these game-based measures meaningfully complement established spatial tests, the Mental Rotation Test (MRT) and the Object Location Memory (OLM) task, across a wide age range (7–79 years, N = 114). Results indicated that MRT scores were strongly related to Q-bitz performance, whereas OLM scores were strongly related to Spot it! performance, supporting the convergent validity of the game-based tasks. Notably, gender-specific patterns emerged in the relationships among spatial measures, suggesting differences in spatial function. Age was associated with performance on speeded tasks (Q-bitz and Spot it!) but not with accuracy-based MRT or OLM performance. Together, these findings demonstrate that game-based assessments capture meaningful spatial constructs and reveal gender-specific patterns across the lifespan, providing a practical and ecologically valid approach for advancing research on spatial cognition. Full article

Educational trajectories developed by students throughout their schooling are shaped by experiences across multiple domains, where learning opportunities coexist with factors that may hinder academic achievement and the development of successful trajectories. The aim of this study was to analyze the personal, family, school, and contextual factors associated with educational trajectories and academic achievement among primary and secondary school students. A systematic review of the literature was conducted based on quantitative longitudinal studies published between 2022 and 2025 and identified through the Web of Science, Scopus, and Education Resources Information Center databases. The results indicate that educational trajectories linked to academic achievement tend to begin in primary education and show relative stability throughout secondary education, with variations over time associated with the interaction of individual, family, school, and contextual factors. These findings have practical implications for behaviorally informed interventions aimed at strengthening self-regulation, teacher support, socioemotional competencies, and family engagement to promote more equitable academic pathways. Overall, the evidence underscores the need to implement comprehensive and differentiated educational interventions articulated across multiple levels to reduce inequalities and foster sustainable academic development. Full article

Central nervous system (CNS) disorders represent a growing healthcare burden, and various drugs are developed for their treatment. However, the blood–brain barrier (BBB) prevents over 98% of therapeutics from reaching brain tissue. Intranasal delivery provides a promising alternative by exploiting olfactory and trigeminal nerve pathways to circumvent the BBB. This review surveys recent advances in nose-to-brain delivery technologies, from carrier design to evaluation methods. Polymeric and lipid-based nanocarriers show enhanced mucosal penetration and prolonged residence time, and microneedle platforms further enable controlled drug release with minimal discomfort. To evaluate these delivery strategies, sensor-integrated organ-on-chip models provide more physiologically relevant testing than static cultures. Although persistent challenges such as rapid mucociliary clearance and formulation stability remain, combining nanotechnology with microfluidic devices and computational modeling shows potential for developing patient-specific therapeutics. Full article

This study examines how Vietnam regulates overseas study and how this regulatory structure shapes international student mobility to South Korea. Through a qualitative analysis of key legal and policy instruments, especially Decree No. 86/2021/ND-CP, it finds that Vietnam governs overseas study through a centralized legal-administrative system that structures eligibility, student management, intermediary oversight, and return obligations. It also finds that important implementation gaps persist, particularly in relation to private intermediaries, monitoring capacity, and the gap between formal regulation and students’ actual mobility trajectories. These findings suggest that receiving countries such as South Korea should pay closer attention to the pre-departure institutional conditions that influence student mobility before arrival. The study contributes by providing a legally grounded account of how sending-state regulation operates in the Vietnamese case and why pre-departure institutional conditions matter for receiving-country contexts such as South Korea. Full article

Enhancing soil nutrient content is fundamental to the ecological restoration of degraded soils. The application of microalgae represents a sustainable approach for soil remediation, as it contributes to environmental CO₂ sequestration while recycling nutrients into degraded ecosystems. Through a 105-day laboratory incubation experiment, this study investigated the impact of applying a mixed microalgal suspension containing active/inactive Chlorella ZJ and Anabaena azotica on the C and N fractions of an alkaline, degraded purple soil. The results showed that both active and inactive microalgae treatments (AM and IM) significantly decreased soil pH and increased soil moisture content (SMC). The AM treatment notably increased the proportion of large soil aggregates and enhanced soil structure. Both treatments significantly enhanced soil C and N fractions: dissolved organic carbon/nitrogen (DOC/DON) increased by 6.41/5.81 times (AM) and 4.22/4.76 times (IM) that of the control (without microalgae application); total organic carbon (TOC) rose by 147.07% (AM) and 138.73% (IM); and the contents of coarse particulate and mineral-associated organic C and N were also significantly elevated. Total nitrogen (TN) significantly increased only under the AM treatment. Soil C and N mineralization capacities were enhanced by 1.01–1.34 times and 7.56–8.43 times that of the control, respectively, indicating a more pronounced stimulation of N mineralization. Fluorescence analysis revealed that both AM and IM treatments increased the complexity and humification of dissolved organic matter. The application of microalgae significantly improved the soil structure and chemical characteristics of the degraded soil and enhanced the C/N pools, thereby creating favorable conditions for soil restoration. Full article

The rapid expansion of English major enrollment has exposed critical limitations in traditional academic assessment methods regarding efficiency and accuracy, constraining educational quality enhancement. This paper introduces an English proficiency assessment approach utilizing an improved RegNet architecture integrated with a dual attention mechanism. The multidimensional academic data processed by our model include attendance, online participation, language practice, and assessment scores for listening, speaking, reading, and writing from undergraduate English majors. The initial downsampling module of RegNet is optimized through a dual convolutional structure to augment shallow feature extraction. Subsequently, a deformable attention mechanism (DAT) is incorporated to enhance focus on salient features, while a graph attention network (GAT) facilitates interaction and fusion among academic node features. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves an average accuracy of 99.46% in proficiency assessment, substantially outperforming mainstream models including EfficientNet and AlexNet. Additionally, it demonstrates robust edge deployment capabilities, providing an effective technical solution for intelligent academic management of English programs within smart campus frameworks. Full article

Accurate large-scale crop mapping is critical for yield prediction, agricultural disaster monitoring, and global food security. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR), with its all-weather imaging capability, plays a vital role in remote sensing based on crop mapping studies. However, although feature-level fusion has been widely explored in remote sensing, existing VV and VH fusion approaches for rice mapping are still predominantly conducted at the data level and fail to adequately integrate their complementary information across the rice growth cycle, so the simplistic fusion methods yield features that are redundant or conflicting at field boundaries and in heterogeneous areas, thereby increasing classification errors. To address these challenges, this study proposes a novel spatiotemporal attention model (SimTA) for feature fusion to improve rice mapping. (1) A VV-VH feature-level fusion scheme is designed, integrated with a Content-Guided Attention (CGA) fusion method which effectively exploits the complementary information of the dual-polarized SAR data for achieving deep spatiotemporal dynamics fusion. (2) A Central Difference Convolution Spatial Extraction Conv (CDCSE Conv) Block is designed, enhancing sensitivity to edge variations in rice fields by combining standard and central difference convolutions. (3) To achieve efficient spatiotemporal feature integration across SAR time series, a Temporal–Spatial Attention (TSA) Block is developed, utilizing large-kernel convolutions for spatial feature extraction and a squeeze-and-excitation mechanism for capturing long-range temporal dependencies of rice time series. Extensive experiments were conducted by comparing SimTA with different models under five fusion schemes. Results demonstrate that feature-level fusion consistently outperforms other schemes, with SimTA achieving the best performance: OA = 91.1%, F1 score = 90.9%, and mIoU = 86.2%. Compared to the baseline Simple Video Prediction (SimVP), SimTA improves F1 score and mIoU by 0.8% and 2.1%, respectively. The CGA enhanced feature-level fusion further boosts SimTA’s performance to OA = 91.5% and F1 = 91.4%. SimTA bridges the gap between existing VV-VH deep fusion schemes and modern spatiotemporal modeling demands, offering a more accurate and generalizable approach for large-scale rice field mapping. Full article

Hordeum brevisubulatum ‘Mengnong No. 2’ is a new forage variety developed using traditional group selection breeding techniques. It features notable advantages in plant height, tillering capacity, and overall biomass yield. However, key molecular breeding techniques such as molecular marker identification and genetic manipulation have yet to be established for this variety, limiting improvements in important traits. Consequently, we assessed the biomass of ‘Mengnong No. 2’ against ‘Mengnong No. 1’, the most widely cultivated variety in the central and western regions of Inner Mongolia, China. We report that fresh forage, dry forage, and seed yields of ‘Mengnong No. 2’ increased by 20.6%, 31.78%, and 34.35%, respectively, compared with the control variety, indicating broad prospects for its application and promotion. To enable rapid identification of ‘Mengnong No. 2’ during its promotion and to prevent production losses caused by variety admixture, we used three screened SSR primer pairs (GST25, GST37, GST127) to construct a DNA fingerprint for five H. brevisubulatum varieties, including ‘Mengnong No. 2’. With the percentage of polymorphic bands exceeding 95%, these profiles enabled precise identification of the ‘Mengnong No. 2’ variety. Furthermore, callus regeneration in H. brevisubulatum represents a bottleneck for directed molecular breeding techniques such as genetic transformation and gene editing. Accordingly, we selected the inflorescences of ‘Mengnong No. 2’ as explants and investigated the callus induction and regeneration capacity of inflorescences at different developmental stages. We found that explants at the spikelet primordia differentiation stage exhibited the highest callus induction and regeneration efficiencies, reaching 62.7% and 72.8%, respectively. The resulting embryogenic callus lines can serve as recipients for Agrobacterium-mediated transformation or gene gun bombardment, facilitating the development of subsequent high-efficiency genetic transformation and gene-editing systems. The SSR-based variety identification system and the highly efficient regeneration technology using inflorescence-derived callus established in this study lay a solid foundation for the development of a molecular breeding system for ‘Mengnong No. 2’. Full article

The recycling of pesticide packaging waste is crucial for the sustainable development of agriculture and the advancement of ecological civilization. However, the current recycling management still faces challenges. This study adopts a dynamic analytical framework of “ex-ante behavioral cognition and post-event outcome perception” to investigate the impact of digitalization on farmers’ recycling behavior of pesticide packaging waste. The analysis draws on data from the 2020 China Rural Revitalization Survey and examines two dimensions of digitalization: digital technology access and digital technology usage. The findings indicate that integrating digital technologies into farming practices significantly increases the likelihood of farmers participating in pesticide packaging waste recycling programs. These results remain robust after conducting robustness checks and addressing potential endogeneity issues. A heterogeneity analysis reveals that the promotional effect of digitalization varies significantly across different categories of rural elite status, cooperative membership, education level, pesticide spraying methods, and income structure. Mechanism testing further indicates that hazard cognition regarding pesticide packaging serves as a mediating factor in the impact of both digital technology access and usage on farmers’ recycling behavior. In contrast, farmers’ satisfaction with their living environment mediates only the effect of digital technology usage on recycling behavior. Overall, these findings provide both theoretical and empirical support for the hypothesis that digitalization can facilitate the recycling of pesticide packaging waste and enhance the ecological effectiveness of agricultural policy governance. Full article