Search Results (43)

Camera-reconstructed 3D scenes often require offline visual cleanup before inspection, presentation, or reuse as renderable virtual-scene assets. Representative applications include removing temporary furniture, parked vehicles, equipment, signage, and other distracting or obsolete objects from reconstructed indoor and outdoor environments. Such editing requires not only accurate target localization across viewpoints but also plausible recovery of the previously occluded background. Existing methods often depend on manually specified masks or category-restricted detectors, while projection-based pipelines independently inpaint multiple views and subsequently refine the 3D representation, potentially introducing cross-view appearance and geometry inconsistencies. We present OVR-GS (Open-Vocabulary Removal in Gaussian Splatting), an instruction-driven object-removal framework for pre-trained 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) scenes. Given a free-form instruction, a language parser generates target-oriented queries and a textual background-completion condition. Grounding DINO and the Segment Anything Model (SAM) produce multi-view candidate masks, which are filtered using Contrastive Language–Image Pre-training (CLIP). The proposed Semantic-Aware Gaussian Selector (SAGS) aggregates rendering-contribution-weighted mask evidence, groups spatially coherent candidates, and identifies the target Gaussian subset through rendered-cluster semantic verification. After removal, new Gaussians are initialized from boundary-adjacent primitives and interior samples and optimized locally using Score Distillation Sampling (SDS), while the original background remains fixed. On IMFine, SPIn-NeRF, and Inpaint360GS, OVR-GS achieves peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) values of 19.78, 17.82, and 24.62 dB and Fréchet inception distance (FID) values of 142.30, 148.60, and 34.80, respectively. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of localized Gaussian optimization for instruction-driven cleanup of reconstructed environments before visual inspection, presentation, or reuse as renderable virtual-scene assets. Full article

Background/Objectives: Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) can be masked by pelvic organ prolapse (POP), resulting in so-called latent SUI, and can also worsen postoperatively after POP surgery. Preoperative urodynamic (UD) testing can help identify such hidden dysfunctions, though its routine use and predictive value remain unclear. Material and Methods: This retrospective cohort study included women who underwent POP surgery between January 2019 and October 2025 and who underwent selective preoperative UD and postoperative follow-up (FU). The primary endpoint was to identify urodynamically latent SUI in women undergoing POP surgery, defined as clinical loss of urine during UD with prolapse reposition in patients without preoperatively diagnosed SUI. Secondary endpoints included evaluating de novo SUI rates, incontinence outcomes in women with preoperative UI, and the predictive value of UD for postoperative SUI in asymptomatic patients. SUI outcomes were assessed using validated questionnaires (International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire—Urinary Incontinence Short Form, German pelvic floor questionnaire), clinical stress testing, and anamnesis. Results: A total of 261 patients were included. Of those, 70 patients (26.8%) reported SUI, 16 (6.1%) urgency urinary incontinence, and 101 (38.7%) mixed urinary incontinence. Ninety-four patients (36%) received incontinence surgery. Latent SUI was identified in 13 patients (5%): of these, one underwent Burch colposuspension, and two underwent tension-free vaginal tape implantation, while the remaining 10 patients (76.9%) did not undergo incontinence surgery. At FU, 12 of 13 patients (92.3%) were continent; data were missing for one patient (7.7%). De novo SUI occurred in 6 patients (2.3%); these patients did not undergo incontinence surgery and did not show signs of latent SUI in UD. Preoperative UD demonstrated low sensitivity (0–44.4%) but moderate specificity (73.8–77.3%) for predicting postoperative SUI, with high negative predictive values (up to 98%), although these findings should be interpreted in light of the low event rates. Conclusions: In this selected cohort of women undergoing POP surgery, preoperative UD showed limited predictive value for postoperative SUI. Full article

Flexible sensors are important for wearable health monitoring, strain detection, and temperature sensing because of their mechanical flexibility and functional versatility. Here, a femtosecond laser direct scanning method was used to fabricate porous laser-induced graphene (LIG) and further modify it with platinum nanoparticles (PtNPs), forming Pt/LIG. This mask-free and rapid process enables simultaneous patterning and functionalization of flexible sensors. The introduction of PtNPs improves the electron transport and surface adsorption properties of LIG. As a result, the sheet resistance of Pt/LIG is reduced to 2.41 Ω/sq, enhancing electrical conductivity and suitability for sensing applications. Based on this method, highly sensitive strain and temperature sensors were fabricated. The Pt/LIG strain sensor shows a ΔR/R₀ of 1141.8 at a bending angle of 90°, about 213% higher than that of pristine LIG, with fast response and recovery times of 36 and 56 ms, respectively. The temperature sensitivity also improved by about 650%, with a temperature coefficient of resistance of 0.240%/°C, compared with −0.032%/°C for pristine LIG. Overall, this work provides a fast and precise strategy for fabricating nanoparticle–graphene composites for flexible electronics, wearable health monitoring, and environmental sensing. Full article

Caprylhydroxamic acid (CHA) exhibits strong chelating capacity toward several metal ions and thereby inhibits microbial growth. Not being a conventional preservative, CHA is typically viewed as an emerging alternative in cosmetic formulations. Despite its growing application, CHA is not explicitly regulated under current EU, USA or Chinese cosmetic guidelines, leading to unsupervised usage and potential safety concerns. Consequently, there is an urgent need to establish reliable analytical methods for the detection of CHA in cosmetics, ensuring product safety and regulatory compliance. Herein, a chromogenic system is developed for the dual-mode detection of CHA in cosmetics, allowing both quantitative spectrophotometric and semi-quantitative colorimetric analysis. First of all, Fe³⁺ is introduced to catalyze the oxidation of 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) under acidic conditions to produce a blue color. When CHA is added, it chelates Fe³⁺ strongly, forming a stable complex that competes with the TMB oxidation reaction, thereby causing the blue color to fade. The change in absorbance of the system at 656 nm exhibits a linearity with the concentrations of CHA ranging from 0.1 mmol/L to 2.0 mmol/L. The proposed method enables the detection of CHA in various cosmetics, including facial mask, cream, spray, and toner. A detection limit of 0.007% was achieved, far below the 0.3% limits set by South Korea and Australia, confirming its compliance with regulatory monitoring requirements. AGREE assessment of the method gave a score of 0.76, demonstrating its greenness. The dual-mode detection approach serves as an effective, rapid on-site screening tool, working alongside HPLC-UV for confirmatory analysis in the laboratory. In summary, the method is free of complex pretreatment and expensive instruments, providing a low-cost, on-site, and green approach for rapid screening. It can serve as a complement to routine laboratory detection methods. Full article

Referring Remote Sensing Image Segmentation (RRSIS) is a representative multimodal understanding task for remote sensing, which segments designated targets from remote images according to free-form natural language descriptions. However, complex remote sensing characteristics, such as cluttered backgrounds, large-scale variations, small scattered targets and repetitive textures, lead to unstable visual grounding and further spatial grounding drift, resulting in inaccurate segmentation results. Existing approaches typically perform implicit visual–linguistic fusion across encoding and decoding stages, entangling spatial grounding with mask refinement. This tightly coupled formulation lacks explicit structural constraints and is prone to cross-modal ambiguity, especially in complex remote sensing layouts. To address these limitations, we propose a Structurally consistent and Grounding-aware Stagewise Reasoning Framework (SGSRF) that follows a grounding-first, segmentation-second paradigm. The framework decomposes inference into three cascaded stages with progressively imposed structural constraints. First, Cross-modal Consistency Refinement (CCR) lays the foundation for stable spatial grounding by enhancing visual–textual structural alignment via CLIP-based features and Structural Consistency Regularization (SCR), producing well-aligned multimodal representations and reliable grounding cues. Second, Grounding-aware Prompt (GPG) Generation bridges grounding and segmentation by converting aligned representations into complementary sparse and dense prompts, which serve as explicit grounding guidance for the segmentation model. Third, Grounding Modulated Segmentation (GMS) leverages the Segment Anything Model (SAM) to generate fine-grained mask prediction under the joint guidance of prompts and grounding cues, improving spatial grounding stability and robustness to background interference and scale variation. Extensive experiments on three remote sensing benchmarks, namely RefSegRS, RRSIS-D, and RISBench, demonstrate that SGSRF achieves state-of-the-art performance. The proposed stagewise paradigm integrates structural alignment, explicit grounding, and prompt-driven segmentation into a unified framework, providing a practical and robust solution for RRSIS in real-world Earth observation applications. Full article

Quercetin, one of the most abundant flavonoids in nature, has attracted the attention of many researchers due to its chemical and biological properties. A series of metal–quercetin complexes (Cu²⁺, Co²⁺, Zn²⁺, Sn²⁺, Al³⁺, Cd²⁺ and Mg²⁺) were synthesized and systematically characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), UV-visible spectroscopy (UV–Vis) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). These analyses confirmed that the complexes predominantly form through coordination with the 4-carbonyl group and adjacent phenolic hydroxyls. This induces measurable shifts in the ν(C=O), ν(O–H), and π→π* transition bands relative to free quercetin. The antioxidant capacity of the complexes was evaluated using 2,2-Diphenyl-1-Picrylhydrazyl (DPPH^•) radical scavenging method, 2,2′-Azinobis(3-Ethylbenzothiazoline-6-Sulfonic Acid) (ABTS^•)⁺ radical activity, and Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power (FRAP) assay. Several complexes exhibited higher radical scavenging efficiency than quercetin, with inhibition percentages exceeding 80% in the DPPH^• and ABTS^•+ assays. Others showed reduced activity due to the masking of redox-active hydroxyl groups during metal coordination. FRAP results corroborated these trends, indicating metal-dependent modulation of reducing power. Antimicrobial evaluation revealed that selected complexes were more active than free quercetin, particularly against Staphylococcus aureus and Candida spp., with minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) ranging from 75–250 μg mL⁻¹. Overall, metal complexation significantly alters the electronic structure and biological behavior of quercetin, highlighting the potential of metal–flavonoid complexes as multifunctional antioxidants and antimicrobials. Full article

This study developed a biodegradable dissolvable face mask incorporating liposomal kojic acid (KA) and licochalcone A from licorice extract (LE) to enhance skin delivery and performance. Liposomes were prepared by thin-film hydration method. The film matrix, composed of PVA/PVP/PEG400/HA, was optimized using factorial design to achieve suitable mechanical strength and rapid dissolution. The optimized mask, containing liposomal KA (1% w/v) and licochalcone A (0.025% w/v), was evaluated for antioxidant activity, ex vivo skin deposition, and short-term efficacy (Approval from the Institutional Review Board of Silpakorn University, Thailand; Ethics Approval No. REC 67.1001-146-7726/COA 68.0320-013 Date of registration: 20 March 2025). The optimized liposomes exhibited a mean particle size of 66–72 nm, entrapment efficiency above 65%, and a zeta potential of −12.5 mV (licochalcone A) and −1.67 mV (KA). Liposomal licochalcone A and KA showed potent antioxidant activity compared to their native forms. The optimized film dissolved within approximately 15 min on moist skin and showed favorable handling properties. Ex vivo studies revealed significantly higher skin deposition of both KA and licochalcone A from the liposomal mask compared with free and liposomal dispersions (p < 0.05). In a 7-day clinical evaluation, the mask significantly improved skin hydration and reduced melanin index (p < 0.05). No irritation or adverse reactions were observed, and user satisfaction was high. This liposomal dissolvable mask offered an effective, well-tolerated, and eco-friendly approach to enhancing skin brightness and hydration, supporting its potential as a sustainable cosmeceutical innovation. Full article

The term ‘conspiracy theory’ is used increasingly frequently, and its meaning is taken as common sense. However, I identify its recent popularisation with the ideology of neoliberalism. Tracing its origins to the theory of Karl Popper, which also influenced neoliberal thought, I show how the concept of the ‘conspiracy theory’ emerged to fulfil a crucial function within neoliberal ideology. Neoliberalism configures social relations as a transparent market of rational, self-interested individuals, free from collective, conspiratorial forms of power like class or state intervention, and at the same time materially depends on conspiratorial forms of power. The concept of the ‘conspiracy theory’ enables the disavowal of conspiratorial forms of power, masking this contradiction and perpetuating neoliberal ideology. This conspiracy-phobic attitude is exemplified by the dismissal of conspiratorial narratives in contemporary academic and popular discourse, alongside other discourses, like critical theory, which similarly challenge neoliberal systems of thought. With developments in neoliberalism (and post-neoliberalism) which suggest the return of explicitly political rather than economic configurations of power, a future in which the label ‘conspiracy theory’ is impotent and conspiratorial forms of power are directly challenged seems possible. Full article

Wide band gap (WBG) oxide and metal nanocomposites can possess bifunctionality from combining tightly coupled nanoobjects with different physicochemical properties. Adjusting synthesis conditions tunes these properties through modulating the process–morphology–function relationship. However, the controllable synthesis of such nanocomposites and their related applications are still underexplored. Here, we present a novel process flow to synthesize crystalline ZnO nanosheaves dotted with silver nanoparticles. The uniqueness of our strategy lies in the use of a silver mask for vertical growth of ZnO nanosheaves and thermal evaporating/dewetting Ag film to form a photocatalytic/plasmonic heterostructure. Upon combining a huge specific surface area and nanocrystallinity of ZnO nanosheaves, we enabled its surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-activity free of plasmonic components, yet their Ag modification resulted in improving detection limit in relation to Ellman’s reagent. Ag/ZnO nanosheaves showed dramatic photocatalytic activity to clean SERS-active surface. The systematic approach to synthesize Ag/ZnO heterostructure holds great promise in practical applications associated with interest in both photocatalytic and plasmonic properties. Full article

Sequential recommendations seek to predict the next item a user will interact with by modeling historical behavior, yet most approaches emphasize either temporal dynamics or item relationships and thus miss how structural co-intents interact with dynamic preference shifts under realistic evaluation. IntentGraphRec introduces a dual-level framework that builds an intent graph from session co-occurrences to learn intent-aware item representations with a lightweight GNN, paired with a shift-aware Transformer that adapts attention to evolving preferences via a learnable fusion gate. To avoid optimistic bias, evaluation is performed with a leakage-free, full-catalog ranking protocol that forms prefixes strictly before the last target occurrence and scores against the entire item universe while masking PAD and prefix items. On MovieLens-1M and Gowalla, IntentGraphRec is competitive but does not surpass strong Transformer baselines (SASRec/BERT4Rec); controlled analyses indicate that late fusion is often dominated by sequence representations and that local co-intent graphs provide limited gains unless structural signals are injected earlier or regularized. These findings provide a reproducible view of when structural signals help, and when they do not, in sequential recommendations and offer guidance for future graph–sequence hybrids. Full article

Background/Objectives: Pediatric drug administration is hindered by difficulties in swallowing conventional medications and the unpalatable taste of many drugs. Among diseases highlighting the need for improved pediatric delivery, tuberculosis (TB) stands out. One form of the disease is latent TB infection (LTBI), which is concerning in children. Effective LTBI treatment is crucial for prevention, with isoniazid (INH) widely used for its proven efficacy and safety. This study aims to develop innovative 3D-printed chewable gels containing INH for LTBI treatment. Methods: The gels were formulated using gelatin and carrageenan gum, sugar-free sweeteners, and flavoring. Two batches were prepared, and using 3D printing (3DP) with a semi-solid extrusion (SSE) module, chewable gels were produced. Rheological properties were measured to assess the feasibility of 3DP-SSE, evaluating the structural integrity and adequate fluidity of the formulation. The 3D-printed chewable gels were evaluated by visual, mass, and dimensional characteristics. In addition, the water activity, texture profile, INH and degradation product content, in vitro release, and taste-masking were investigated. Results: The optimized formulation maintained suitable rheological properties for 3DP-SSE, demonstrating consistent weight, dimensions, and stability after the process. The texture achieved a balance between printing parameters and shape maintenance, and the INH presented an immediate-release profile (>85% within 30 min). The chewable gels showed an improvement in palatability compared to conventional INH tablets. Conclusions: This innovative approach offers a promising solution for pediatric LTBI treatment, as it improves efficacy, medication acceptability, and on-demand access. Full article

Environmental control based on growth stage is critical for enhancing the yield and quality of industrially cultivated Pleurotus pulmonarius. Challenges such as scene complexity and overlapping mushroom clusters can impact the accuracy of growth stage detection and target segmentation. This study introduces a lightweight method called the real-time detection model for the growth stages of P. pulmonarius (GSP-RTMDet). A spatial pyramid pooling fast network with simple parameter-free attention (SPPF-SAM) was proposed, which enhances the backbone’s capability to extract key feature information. Additionally, it features an interactive attention mechanism between spatial and channel dimensions to build a cross-stage partial spatial group-wise enhance network (CSP-SGE), improving the feature fusion capability of the neck. The class-aware adaptive feature enhancement (CARAFE) upsampling module is utilized to enhance instance segmentation performance. This study innovatively fusions the improved methods, enhancing the feature representation and the accuracy of masks. By lightweight model design, it achieves real-time growth stage detection of P. pulmonarius and accurate instance segmentation, forming the foundation of an environmental control strategy. Model evaluations reveal that GSP-RTMDet-S achieves an optimal balance between accuracy and speed, with a bounding box mean average precision (bbox mAP) and a segmentation mAP (segm mAP) of 96.40% and 93.70% on the test set, marking improvements of 2.20% and 1.70% over the baseline. Moreover, it boosts inference speed to 39.58 images per second. This method enhances detection and segmentation outcomes in real-world environments of P. pulmonarius houses, offering a more accurate and efficient growth stage perception solution for environmental control. Full article

Pronucleotides, after entering the cell, undergo chemical or enzymatic conversion into nucleotides with a free phosphate residue, and the released nucleoside 5′-monophosphate is then phosphorylated to the biologically active form, namely nucleoside 5′-triphosphate. The active form can inhibit HIV virus replication. For the most effective therapy, it is necessary to improve the transport of prodrugs into organelles. The introduction of new functional groups into their structure increases lipophilicity and, as a result, facilitates the interaction of pronucleotide molecules with components of biological membranes. Studies of these interactions were performed using the Langmuir technique. The prototype of the biological membrane was a thin monolayer composed of phospholipid molecules, DPPC (1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine). The pronucleotides were 3′-azido-3′-deoxythymidine (AZT) analogs, formed by the phosphorylation of AZT to monophosphate (AZTMP) and containing various masking moieties that could increase their lipophilicity. Our results show the influence of the pronucleotide’s chemical structure on the fluidization of the model biomembrane. Changes in monolayer morphology in the presence of prodrugs were investigated by BAM microscopy. It was found that the incorporation of new groups into the structure of the drug as well as the concentration of AZT derivatives have a significant impact on the surface properties of the formed DPPC monolayer. Full article

The fortification of bread is considered an effective approach for improving its nutritional properties. However, the incorporation of free bioactive components into bread formulations may affect the overall quality of breads in different ways, depending on the sensitivity of bioactive components to baking factors. In this study, the incorporation of encapsulated vitamin C (ascorbic acid and its salts) and fish oil in breads was investigated for their stability and effect on bread quality. The combination of fish oil emulsions increased the retention of encapsulated ascorbic acid, calcium ascorbate, or sodium ascorbate in breads compared to that of the free non-combined vitamin. At the same time, the combination of vitamin gels increased the retention of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and decreased the lipid oxidation in breads compared to the non-combined encapsulated forms. The highest retention values of ascorbic groups, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and DHA were about 70%, 88%, and 95% in breads after baking, respectively. There was the negative correlation between the ABTS radical scavenging capacity and peroxide value in breads. The specific volume of breads was improved by vitamin gels but reduced by fish oil emulsions. Their combination resisted individual impact on the specific volume of breads. The breads with combined ascorbic acid gels and fish oil emulsions showed similar textural properties to the control one. The functional bread with calcium ascorbate gel and fish oil emulsion had the highest moisture content of 45.87%. The inclusion of vitamin gels plus fish oil emulsion decreased free water but increased the bound water. Combining ascorbic acid gels with fish oil emulsions effectively reduced and masked the fishy flavor. The integration of encapsulation techniques and multi-nutrient fortification is proposed as an effective way to enhance the nutritional value and quality of functional bread through synergistic effects. Full article

The CO₂ adsorption capacity and the CO₂/N₂ selectivity of a series of Supported Ionic Liquid-Phase adsorbents (SILPs), including the novel inversely structured SILP “Inverse SILPs”, are thoroughly investigated. ZIF-8, ZIF-69 and ZIF-70 were involved as the solid matrix, while ILs, having tricyanomethanide (TCM) as an anion and alkyl-methylimidazolium of different alkyl chain lengths (C₂, C₆, C₈) as a cation, were used as the liquid constituents of the SILPs. The ultimate target of the work was to ratify a few recently reported cases of enhanced CO₂ absorptivity in ILs due to their incorporation in ZIFs and to corroborate phenomena of CO₂/N₂ selectivity improvements in ZIFs, due to the presence of ILs. This ambiguity originates from the vague assumption that the pores of the ZIF are filled with the IL phase, and the free pore volume of a SILP is almost zero. Yet, through the integration of theoretical predictions with N₂ porosimetry analysis of an actual sample, it is suggested that a thin layer of IL covered the exterior surface of a ZIF crystal. This layer could act as an impermeable barrier for N₂, inhibiting the gas molecules from reaching the empty cavities laying underneath the liquid film during porosimetry analysis. This consideration is based on the fact that the solubility of N₂ in the IL is very low, and the diffusivity at 77 K is negligible. In this context, the observed result reflects an averaged adsorptivity of both the IL phase and the empty pores of the ZIF. Therefore, it is incorrect to attribute the adsorption capacity of the SILP solely to the mass of the IL that ‘hypothetically’ nests inside the pore cavities. In fact, the CO₂ adsorption capacity of SILPs is always less than the average adsorptivity of an ideal ZIF/IL mixture, where the two phases do not interact. This reduction occurs because some ZIF pores may become inaccessible, particularly when the IL forms a layer on the pore walls, leaving only a small empty core accessible to CO₂ molecules. Additionally, the IL layer masks the active sites on the ZIF’s pore walls. It should also be noted that the CO₂/N₂ selectivity increases only when the ZIF’s pores are completely filled with the IL phase. This is because ILs have a higher CO₂/N₂ selectivity compared to the bare ZIF. Full article