Search Results (2,952)

Accurate tomato detection in greenhouse imagery is essential for robotic harvesting, yield estimation, and crop monitoring, yet visual clutter, fruit overlap, partial occlusion, and variable illumination remain challenging for object detectors. Although attention modules are frequently used in agricultural vision studies to improve feature discrimination, their practical contribution is often reported without controlled comparison against strong baseline detectors. This study presents a reproducible and deployment-aware benchmark for single-class greenhouse tomato detection using 895 images with 4930 annotated tomato instances in PASCAL VOC format. The first experimental block used a fixed 70/20/10 split to compare Faster R-CNN, four attention-augmented Faster R-CNN variants, Cascade R-CNN with ResNet101-DCN-FPN, and YOLOv11s attention variants. A second extended protocol converted the annotations to YOLO format and evaluated YOLO-family detectors and RT-DETR-l under a stratified 70/15/15 split, including ablation, robustness, seed-stability, and deployment analyses. The annotation audit confirmed valid bounding boxes, no empty images, and a high proportion of small tomato instances. In the first block, attention integration did not consistently improve detection performance, whereas Cascade R-CNN achieved the highest accuracy with 92.80% ${\mathrm{mAP}}_{0.5}$ and 90.80% $F_1$-score. In the extended protocol, RT-DETR-l obtained the highest test accuracy with 91.49% ${\mathrm{mAP}}_{0.5}$ and 58.59% ${\mathrm{mAP}}_{0.5:0.95}$, while Final-YOLO11s achieved comparable performance with lower latency, reaching 91.42% ${\mathrm{mAP}}_{0.5}$, 58.37% ${\mathrm{mAP}}_{0.5:0.95}$, and 86.19% $F_1$-score. Across three seeds, Final-YOLO11s obtained a stable mean ${\mathrm{mAP}}_{0.5}$ of 90.84%. Robustness analysis showed that motion blur and Gaussian noise caused the largest degradation, whereas compact YOLO models exported reliably to ONNX and TensorRT. Overall, the results indicate that localization quality, robustness, latency, model size, stability, and export capability should be considered together, and that adding attention modules by default is less reliable than evidence-driven detector selection. Full article

This paper develops an original philosophical anthropological account of hope, arguing that hope is the essence of freedom—the inner propulsive principle without which freedom cannot move or sustain itself. Three levels of hope are distinguished. Ontological hope is the invariable, pre-reflective orientation of the human being toward the possibility of adequate response to the demand of ontological emptiness—the raison d’être of freedom itself, and the central contribution of this paper. Fundamental hope is its variable existential actualisation—the dispositional, non-object-directed orientation that emerges from the human being’s encounter with the totality of reality and is carried by the spiritual unconscious. Fragmental hope is the most variable and most familiar mode—the hope directed at particular, temporary needs and solutions. It is ontological hope—invariable, constitutive, and prior to every conscious act of hoping—that is the essence of freedom: the phenomenon that opens the space of ontological emptiness and gives freedom access to the demand of the latter, making its exercise possible at all. The paper further introduces and analyses three original concepts: certainty-mania—the obsessive quest for certainty that severs consciousness from the unconscious and from the fundamental hope it carries—showing that the loss of hope is always rooted in fear and the compulsive need for predictability; the distinction between anticipating joy (Freude-auf) and existential joy (erlebte Freude), arguing that pre-emptive certainty eliminates the tension that genuine hoping requires and thereby empties the present of its capacity to fulfil; and an original etymological and phenomenological analysis of disappointment as Enttäuschung—disillusionment, the medicinal return from illusion to reality. The paper situates its account in relation to Marcel’s ontological hope and Moltmann’s eschatological hope, and engages Frankl, Marcel, Moltmann, Fromm, Heidegger, Camus, Kierkegaard, Tillich, and Blondel as principal interlocutors. Full article

The hallmark feature of empty follicle syndrome (EFS) is failure to retrieve oocytes from apparently mature follicles despite adequate ovarian stimulation and appropriate ovulation triggering. Although considered uncommon, with a reported prevalence ranging from 0.2% to 7%, EFS may have a profound clinical and psychological impact and can recur in assisted reproductive technology (ART) cycles. Modern classification systems divide EFS into genuine and false forms. Genuine EFS is potentially associated with intrinsic abnormalities involving luteinizing hormone/choriogonadotropin receptor (LHCGR) signaling, oocyte competence, and cumulus–oocyte interaction, whereas false EFS is primarily attributed to pharmacokinetic or pharmacodynamic factors resulting in inadequate trigger exposure. Borderline EFS represents a third phenotype characterized by incomplete or partial impairment of final oocyte maturation. This review examines the pharmacodynamics of ovulation-triggering agents, including human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonist protocols, and dual-trigger strategies, and their roles in regulating final oocyte maturation. The molecular aspects of periovulatory signal transduction and the mechanisms of LHCGR activation, epidermal growth factor (EGF)-like pathways, and meiotic resumption in relation to EFS etiopathogenesis will be described. The impact of patient-dependent conditions like obesity, poor ovarian reserve, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and pituitary response on trigger response will be assessed. New approaches like post-trigger monitoring of hormones and rescue treatment with gonadotropins represent a valuable method for avoiding cycle cancellation in patients at risk. Overall, EFS is increasingly regarded not as a single disorder but as a heterogeneous spectrum of periovulatory dysfunction arising from pharmacological, endocrine, and intrinsic ovarian factors that impair completion of final oocyte maturation. Full article

Low-temperature stress severely limits early-spring melon (Cucumis melo L.) production. However, the regulatory roles of NAC transcription factors in melon responses to abiotic stress remain insufficiently understood. In this study, the melon cultivar ‘Xizhoumi No. 17’ was used as the experimental material, and an Agrobacterium-mediated root transformation system was employed to generate CmNAC29-overexpressing and empty-vector control plants. Phenotypic analysis, physiological measurements, transcriptome sequencing, and molecular interaction assays were performed to systematically investigate the regulatory mechanism by which CmNAC29 mediates chilling tolerance in melon roots. The results showed that CmNAC29 overexpression significantly alleviated cold stress-induced growth inhibition in melon seedlings, reduced membrane lipid peroxidation, and enhanced antioxidant enzyme activities and proline accumulation. Transcriptome analysis revealed that differentially expressed genes associated with CmNAC29 overexpression were significantly enriched in functional categories related to oxidoreductase activity. Further validation showed that CmNAC29 upregulated the expression of antioxidant enzyme genes, the key proline biosynthesis gene CmP5CS1, and core components of the Inducer of CBF Expression–C-repeat Binding Factor–Cold-Regulated pathway. Molecular assays confirmed that CmNAC29 possesses transcriptional activation activity and directly binds to the promoters of CmP5CS1-1 and CmCOR413 by recognizing NAC-binding sites, thereby activating their transcription. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that CmNAC29 positively regulates chilling tolerance in melon seedlings by coordinately enhancing antioxidant defense, osmotic adjustment, and cold signal transduction. This study provides an important genetic resource and theoretical basis for the molecular breeding of cold-tolerant melon cultivars. Full article

Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) is an economically important vegetable crop worldwide, but its yield and quality improvement are often constrained by drought stress. To investigate the physiological and molecular mechanisms by which exogenous allantoin enhances drought tolerance in cucumber, cucumber seedlings were sprayed with 6 mM allantoin solution once (A1), three times (A3), or five times (A5), while control plants were sprayed with distilled water (CK1, CK3, CK5). Each treatment consisted of three biological replicates. After treatment, drought stress was simulated by irrigating with 20% polyethylene glycol 6000 (PEG-6000) solution. The results showed that the protective effect of exogenous allantoin against drought stress was cumulative. After five applications (A5), the net photosynthetic rate (Pn) and water-use efficiency (WUE) of the plants were significantly higher than those of the corresponding control (CK5) (p < 0.01). The detached leaf water loss rate progressively decreased with an increasing number of allantoin applications, while the total leaf wax content increased approximately 2-fold (p < 0.01). Measurements of wax content in different plant tissues indicated that allantoin mainly induced wax accumulation in aboveground organs (leaf, stem, and fruit epidermis), and this effect was validated in three commercial varieties. Integrated transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses revealed that the cucumber CsCER1 gene (encoding a very-long-chain aldehyde decarbonylase) is a core allantoin-responsive gene. After silencing CsCER1 using virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS), the allantoin-induced wax accumulation and drought tolerance were almost completely lost: the wilting severity and detached leaf water loss rate of the silenced plants were comparable to those of the empty vector control, and no significant increase in wax content was observed. This study reveals a novel mechanism by which exogenous allantoin enhances drought tolerance in cucumber through activating CsCER1-mediated cuticular wax synthesis, providing a theoretical basis for the chemical regulation of drought tolerance in cucurbit crops. Full article

We analysed nine Pseudomonas guariconensis-clade genomes from environmental and clinical sources across four continents to test whether carriage of acquired resistance is associated with the acquisition of mobile elements. FA-1, our tick-derived anchor from Hyalomma dromedarii on Saudi camels, sits at 87.52–87.94% ANI to the other genomes on the longest external branch of the core-genome ML phylogeny. In the current NCBI type-strain ANI taxonomy check, FA-1 is conspecific with the recently described Pseudomonas shiyinii type strain ST4 (98.05% ANI). The recently reported Vietnamese hospital-wastewater isolate KNHN1 groups within the sensu stricto clinical clade alongside USA-Nashville and India at 99.7%/99% (SH-aLRT/UFBoot) support. Across the nine genomes, three distinct carbapenemase architectures emerged: Dao (chromosomal KPC-2 + NDM-1 + AFM-5), Ethiopia (chromosomal NDM-1 × 2 + plasmid VIM-4), and Korea (plasmid VIM-2). Dao and Ethiopia chromosomes share a MOBH-family relaxase signal, extending the MOBH marker to the clinical compartment. MBL-positive genomes carried more mobile elements (Dao 55; Ethiopia 22; Korea 16; 16–55 hits) than MBL-negative comparators (0–8 hits), an unadjusted descriptive observation (n = 3 vs. 6). Ethiopia presented an integron-rich chromosomal and plasmid architecture (six structures), while Dao carried IS-bounded transposon islands on the chromosome. Three of four Dao chromosomal ICE predictions and one Ethiopia ICE prediction lay 27–50 kb from IS-bounded carbapenemase loci; a fourth Dao ICE was standalone and the major Ethiopia NDM-1 + OXA-10 cassette lacked an adjacent complete ICE prediction, indicating descriptive ICE-cassette proximity rather than functionally demonstrated mobility. Together, these findings are consistent with mobile-element acquisition as a plausible route for the emergence of clinical resistance within this clade, with environmental relatives retaining empty insertion sites at the AMR-cassette locus. Full article

Septic shock is a life-threatening manifestation of sepsis characterized by dysregulated immune responses, excessive inflammation, oxidative stress, and progressive multi-organ dysfunction. Despite advances in antimicrobial therapy and supportive care, mortality remains high, highlighting the need for therapeutic strategies that target immune dysregulation in addition to infection control. The review evaluates the potential of hollow nanoparticles as immunomodulatory therapies for septic shock, focusing on lipid-based, polymeric, protein-based, biomimetic, inorganic, carbon-based, and hybrid nanoparticle platforms. Current evidence suggests that these systems can modulate key pathological processes through reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) scavenging, regulation of inflammatory signaling, macrophage modulation, neutralization of bacterial toxins and antigens, and, in some cases, direct antimicrobial activity. Among the available platforms, lipid-based and biomimetic nanoparticles appear to possess the greatest translational potential owing to their favorable immunomodulatory properties and improved biocompatibility. Nonetheless, several challenges continue to limit clinical translation, including nanoparticle-associated systemic and organ toxicity, unintended immunogenicity, limited long-term safety data, and the lack of standardized comparative studies across nanoparticle classes. Despite these limitations, the progression of VBI-S, a phospholipid nanoparticle formulation, to Phase III clinical evaluation highlights the growing clinical feasibility of such nanoparticle-based approaches for septic shock. Future research should focus on optimizing nanoparticle design, improving safety profiles, and establishing standardized preclinical and clinical evaluation frameworks. Collectively, the available evidence suggests that hollow nanoparticles represent a promising antibiotic-independent strategy for restoring immune homeostasis and improving outcomes in septic shock. Full article

A set S of vertices in a graph G is a total dominating set if every vertex of G is adjacent to (totally dominated by) some vertex of S. The number of vertices in S that totally dominate a vertex v of G is denoted by ${\sigma }_S\left(v\right)$. A total dominating set S is a $pt$-dominating set (or $pt$-dominating set) if ${\sigma }_S\left(u\right)\ne {\sigma }_S\left(v\right)$ for every two adjacent vertices u and v of G. The $pt$-domination number ${\gamma }_{pt}\left(G\right)$ of a graph G is the minimum cardinality of a $pt$-dominating set in G. Two well-known classes of highly symmetric graphs are investigated here, namely fans and wheels. For $n\ge 2$, the fan $F_n$ is the join $P_n\vee K_1$ of the path $P_n$ of order n and the complete graph $K_1$ of order 1, while for $n\ge 3$, the wheel $W_n$ is the join $C_n\vee K_1$ of the cycle $C_n$ of order n and $K_1$. For a positive integer t, the general fan $F_{n,t}$ is the graph $P_n\vee {\overline{K}}_t$ and the general wheel $W_{n,t}$ is the graph $C_n\vee {\overline{K}}_t$ where ${\overline{K}}_t$ is the empty graph of order t. All fans, wheels, general fans and general wheels are determined that possess $pt$-dominating sets. Furthermore, $pt$-domination numbers of all these graphs are determined as well. Full article

Salvia przewalskii Maxim. is a perennial alpine plant with significant ornamental and medicinal value. However, previous studies have shown that this species has a low germination rate under natural conditions, and its artificial propagation techniques remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate the seed quality and the effects of various pre-sowing treatments (storage, chemical, physical, hormonal, combined) and soil substrates on S. przewalskii germination. The results indicated that S. przewalskii seeds demonstrated high viability (>85%) but exhibited high empty seed rate (45.32%) and physiological dormancy. Compared with the control (20%), dehydration (24.44%), demucilage + dehydration combination (35.56%), storage at 4 °C for 360 (53.33%) and 450 (54.29%) days, and GA₃ (44.44–55.56%) treatments significantly enhanced S. przewalskii germination percentages. Demucilage, H₂SO₄ and KNO₃ treatments had negative effects on seed germination, while 6-BA treatment did not significantly improve seed germination. Among tested soil substrates, S. przewalskii seeds pre-chilled for 450 days showed the highest germination rate (71.11%) and optimal seedling growth in peat:vermiculite (3:1), representing the most suitable soil substrate. These findings demonstrate that understanding germination characteristics of S. przewalskii is crucial for developing protocols to enhance germination efficiency that can improve large-scale propagation capacity through shorter germination periods, ultimately enhancing the species regeneration potential and protecting its stability in nature. Full article

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) is an incretin hormone secreted in response to food intake that acts biologically by binding to GLP-1 receptors. The primary function of GLP-1 is to stimulate insulin secretion and inhibit glucagon secretion, which helps limit after-meal spikes in blood glucose. GLP-1 reduces intestinal contractility, slows down gastrointestinal motility and emptying, and also acts directly on the hypothalamus, thereby regulating appetite and food intake. Due to its metabolic effects, GLP-1 forms the basis of medications currently used to treat type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and obesity. However, it has also been observed that the use of GLP-1 agonists in the treatment of obesity or diabetes has a beneficial effect on comorbid respiratory conditions. This narrative review analyzes the scientific literature and describes the most recent information on the impact of GLP-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA) therapies on the most common respiratory disorders—both the beneficial and undesirable effects. We discuss evidence that acute lung injury, COVID-19, pulmonary fibrosis, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and obstructive sleep apnea can benefit from therapies with various GLP-1 RAs. They can complement existing lung-targeted treatments, but as research progresses, they are likely to play an ever more important role in the treatment of respiratory diseases. Full article

This paper studies a stochastic service system with N-policy, Bernoulli interruption vacations, and a patient server. When the number of waiting customers reaches the threshold N during a vacation, the server interrupts the vacation with probability $p(0\le p\le 1)$, otherwise continuing the vacation until its completion. If the system is empty when a vacation ends, the server waits for a patience period before starting a new vacation. Service station failures occur during service, and interrupted service resumes after repair. We derive the Laplace transform expressions for the transient queue length probabilities and recursive formulas for the stationary queue length distribution. In addition, cost optimization models for the threshold N and the vacation length T are developed, both without and with an average waiting time constraint. Using the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm, numerical examples under phase-type distributions illustrate how the probability p affects the optimal control policy. Full article

Background/Objectives: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease in which senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP)-related transcriptional programs may contribute to synovial inflammation and fibroblast activation. This study aimed to integrate bulk transcriptomic cohorts with the gene-expression component of a single-nucleus multimodal dataset to identify reproducible SASP-related candidate biomarkers and prioritize fibroblast-associated signals in RA. Methods: SASP-score correlation analysis, differential expression analysis, cross-cohort evaluation, logistic regression, gene set enrichment analysis, single-nucleus transcriptomic characterization, predicted regulatory network analysis, and RT-qPCR assessment were performed. GSE89408 was used as the discovery bulk transcriptomic cohort, GSE77298 as the external evaluation cohort, and GSE243917 as the single-nucleus gene-expression dataset. Results: Fibroblasts showed relatively high SASP-related transcriptional scores within the RA single-nucleus dataset. The cross-cohort evaluation retained RCAN1, IRF1, CFB, and TIMP1 as reproducibly elevated candidates. Among all 15 non-empty panels derived from these four genes, the RCAN1/IRF1/CFB panel achieved the highest five-fold cross-validated AUC in GSE89408 and tied for the highest external AUC in GSE77298. Adding TIMP1 did not improve the external AUC or the 95% confidence interval. Among the retained genes, CFB showed the strongest fibroblast-associated expression pattern and SASP-score correlation. The RT-qPCR analysis provided preliminary mRNA-level support for the increased expression of RCAN1, IRF1, and CFB in the RA-related cell samples. Conclusions: RCAN1, IRF1, and CFB form a reproducible SASP-related candidate panel in RA, with CFB prioritized as a fibroblast-associated marker. Further protein-level, functional, and controlled single-cell validation studies are required. Full article

Background/Objectives: The obesity epidemic coexists with the phenomenon of “hidden hunger” (Type B malnutrition)—a micronutrient deficiency amidst a caloric excess. Traditional dietary assessment methods often distort the actual picture by ignoring technological losses during cooking, which necessitates the use of digital tools. Methods: A cross-sectional study (N = 3267) was conducted using the digital platform “NIAP”. The analysis was based on valid 3–7-day dietary records with algorithmic accounting for nutrient retention factors during thermal processing. The nutrient profiles of individuals with a normal body mass index (BMI) and obesity (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m²) were compared. Results: The epidemiology of intake shortfalls was highly prevalent and pronounced: 99.9% of the cohort had ≥1 inadequacy (with a mean negative deviation of −77.3% for vitamin D and −59.2% for Omega-3), and 61.5% exhibited ≥10 simultaneous multiple intake shortfalls. These inadequacy rates remained robust in a sensitivity analysis excluding under-reporters. The obesity group consumed significantly more energy, saturated fatty acids, added sugars, cholesterol, and sodium, but demonstrated a lower relative macronutrient intake (g/kg of body weight). Absolute fiber intake did not differ between the groups, indicating a decrease in its density per 1000 kcal in the diet of individuals with obesity; the intake of Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) showed a downward trend. The Na:K ratio was significantly higher in the obesity group (1.19 vs. 1.04, p < 0.001). Correlation analysis confirmed an inverse relationship between BMI and the overall nutrient density of the diet. Conclusions: A high-energy diet does not compensate for systemic micronutrient inadequacy among the evaluated cohort. Obesity is associated with a dietary imbalance favoring “empty calories” and pro-inflammatory components against a background of severe multiple dietary inadequacies. The integration of algorithmic dietary assessment that accounts for cooking losses is critical for objective diagnosis and personalized nutritional intervention. Full article

Grain moisture content is a key variable for safe storage, drying control, and quality management. Microwave sensing is attractive because water strongly modulates the complex relative permittivity ($\epsilon *={\epsilon }^{\prime }-j{\epsilon }^{″}$) of granular agricultural products, thereby shaping broadband scattering-parameter spectra. This study presents a meter-referenced feasibility evaluation of an interpretable S-parameter–permittivity–moisture chain using a vector network analyzer over 2–18 GHz. Wheat, maize, and mung bean were prepared at six moisture levels, and the moisture values were referenced to two commercial grain moisture meters (MC_ref) to represent rapid on-site benchmarking rather than absolute gravimetric moisture determination. Therefore, the reported errors should be interpreted as commercial-meter-referenced calibration indicators rather than absolute gravimetric moisture prediction accuracy. Two free-space configurations were compared on the same platform: a two-horn transmission setup under controlled packing and a metal-backed double-pass reflection setup intended to represent single-sided access under loose bulk packing. After SOLT calibration and empty-holder background normalization, ${\epsilon }^{\prime }$ and ${\epsilon }^{″}$ were retrieved via complex-domain nonlinear least-squares fitting of physics-based slab models to measured S21 spectra. The results show that moisture-dependent dielectric responses were grain- and configuration-dependent. In particular, ${\epsilon }^{″}$ generally provided a more robust moisture-sensitive feature in the free-space transmission configuration, whereas the optimal single-parameter predictor in the metal-backed configuration differed among grains. A mid-band frequency window of approximately 8–16 GHz provided more stable inversion by avoiding low-frequency coupling artefacts and high-frequency signal-to-noise degradation. The metal-backed configuration preserved moisture trends but yielded lower effective ${\epsilon }^{\prime }$ values, likely due to increased air fraction under loose packing. These results indicate that packing state, grain type, and frequency-window selection are critical factors for transferring microwave moisture calibration from laboratory measurements to practical grain-handling scenarios. Full article

Background: Gastroparesis presents with frequently debilitating symptoms of nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, bloating and early satiety, resulting in high healthcare utilization. Resilience, defined as the inherent and modifiable ability of an individual to adapt and recover positively to stress, is crucial for patients with chronic diseases but has not been studied in gastroparesis. We aimed to investigate if resilience correlates with acute care utilization and symptom severity in patients with gastroparesis. Methods: We conducted a single-center prospective observational study of patients with gastroparesis. Resilience was assessed using the 10-item Connor–Davidson Resilience scale (CD-RISC). Symptom severity was assessed through the Gastroparesis Cardinal Symptom Index (GCSI). Gastric emptying severity using scintigraphy or wireless motility capsule was categorized as mild, moderate, or severe based on consensus recommendations. Acute care utilization and hospitalizations in the last 12 months, comorbidities, medications, and demographic information were collected. Count outcomes were modeled using negative binomial regression due to overdispersion. Models were adjusted for age, sex, and symptom severity. Results: Among 40 consecutive patients (mean age 39 ± 16, 88% female), gastric emptying severity was mild in 35%, moderate in 15%, severe in 30%, and unknown in 20%. Mean resilience score was 29 ± 8 and mean GCSI was 2.96 ± 1.14. Gastroparesis symptoms did not correlate with gastric emptying severity (p = 0.5). In a linear regression model, no statistically significant correlation was observed between resilience and mean GCSI score in unadjusted or adjusted models. In negative binomial regression models, greater symptom severity was strongly associated with higher Emergency Department (ED)/urgent care visits (IRR 3.12; 95% CI 1.60–6.98; p < 0.001) and hospitalization rates (IRR 3.36; 95% CI 1.62–8.57, p = 0.006). Resilience was not a significant predictor of either (IRR 1.07; 0.95–1.22; p = 0.2 and IRR 1.02; 0.89–1.18; p = 0.7). Conclusions: Among patients with gastroparesis, no statistically significant association was detected between resilience and symptom severity, gastric emptying, or acute-care utilization after accounting for clinical and demographic factors. Symptom severity was the dominant predictor of ED visits and hospitalizations. These findings suggest that symptomatic disease burden, rather than objective gastric emptying severity, is the primary driver of acute healthcare utilization in this cohort. Full article