Search Results (31,645)

Equitable access to health-promoting public services is an important component of socially sustainable urban development, yet fitness-facility accessibility is often assessed under homogeneous demand assumptions. This study develops an age-differentiated framework for central Harbin, China, integrating 100 m age-stratified population data, facility functional area, pedestrian-network travel costs, and physical-activity participation rates within an MGH-3SFCA model. Accessibility was evaluated for four age groups at 15 min, with shorter-threshold comparisons, population exposure analysis, bivariate LISA, and sensitivity tests. Adults and students generally formed the relatively higher-accessibility pair, whereas children and seniors remained more disadvantaged. More than 91% of each age group was located in zero, very low, or low accessibility classes. High-intensity ball-sports facilities were dominated by geographic non-coverage, while resistance-training facilities were more widely reachable but mostly at very low levels. The adult–senior zero-accessibility population gap widened from 3.52 percentage points at 15 min to 13.66 at 5 min. High–Low clusters occupied only 5.90–7.39% of land grids but contained 11.77–13.25% of corresponding populations. Broad spatial patterns were stable to alternative composite weighting, while some age contrasts were specification-dependent. The framework supports age-responsive and socially sustainable neighbourhood planning by distinguishing spatial coverage, population exposure, and potential local mismatch. Full article

Rockburst intensity prediction from heterogeneous engineering databases is constrained by small sample sizes and inconsistent grading practices across data sources. This study develops a framework that couples the pre-trained tabular foundation model TabPFN with ensemble consistency-based data quality screening and evaluates the screening effect within a nested design. Repeated predictions on the final 356-case database identified 69 cases (19.4%) with persistently high misclassification rates as potentially inconsistent. Sensitivity analysis showed that single-pass TabPFN accuracy varied by only 1.19 percentage points across 20 screening settings. Single-pass and nested screening produced different performance estimates, while nested screening did not consistently improve generalisation over the unscreened baseline. Under 30 repeated nested 60:40 splits, TabPFN achieved the highest mean accuracy of 63.03% ± 3.60% without task-specific hyperparameter tuning. Its advantage over LightGBM was significant (+6.95 percentage points, p = 0.031), while differences from RF and SVM were not. Random Forest proxy SHAP and direct TabPFN permutation importance both ranked W_et first, with σ_θ and rock type also ranking among the three most important feature groups in both analyses. Predictions for two Erlihe field cases were consistent with their engineering records. The framework therefore provides a practical approach for auditing heterogeneous rockburst databases and evaluating screening effects in small-sample rockburst classification. Full article

Black soil regions are among the world’s major grain-producing areas and are also key regions for the implementation of conservation tillage. However, whether and how conservation tillage is related to farmers’ production resilience remains insufficiently understood. To address this research gap, this study develops a multidimensional evaluation framework and quantifies farmers’ production resilience using an entropy-weighted composite index constructed from multiple indicators of absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities. Based on survey data from 492 farm households in the black soil region of Northeast China, we examine the relationship between conservation tillage adoption and farmers’ production resilience and explore the associated pathways. The baseline model estimates that conservation tillage adoption is associated with a 0.036-unit higher composite production resilience index on a 0–1 scale, with the estimated association statistically significant at the 1% level. This relationship is consistent with pathways involving improved soil production condition, higher farming income, and optimized labor allocation. The estimated association also varies significantly across age groups, technical-training status, and levels of land fragmentation. The results also reveal complementarity between no-tillage or minimum tillage and straw mulching: their combined adoption is associated with higher resilience than adopting either practice alone, particularly at partial or high residue-retention levels. These findings suggest that conservation tillage may contribute not only to soil conservation but also to farmers’ capacity to cope with external shocks in the black soil region of Northeast China. They also highlight the potential importance of promoting integrated conservation tillage technology packages and improving the intensity and quality of conservation tillage adoption in this region. Full article

Background: Malnutrition in older adults commonly takes the form of undernutrition and is often associated with adverse health outcomes. This study aimed to evaluate the nutritional profile and eating habits, and their association with in-hospital mortality, in a large cohort of hospitalized older patients. Methods: The REPOSI (Registro POliterapie SIMI) register collected clinical and pharmacological data on patients aged 65 years and more hospitalized in a network of Italian internal medicine and geriatric wards. From January 2025, we added to the registered dataset the collection of data on dietary habits data through a Food Frequency Questionnaire, as well as on the non-dietary determinants of nutritional status. We employed the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) to evaluate the nutritional status and the Medi-Lite and the MedQ-Sus MD tools to evaluate adherence to the Mediterranean Diet (MD). Results: Of the 1008 patients enrolled, 787 were assessable for this study. The MNA identified a high prevalence of nutritional impairment: 10.1% of cases were malnourished and 44.9% at risk of malnutrition. Adherence to MD was generally poor, with only 22.4% of participants showing a high adherence according to the Medi-Lite, and much lower according to the MedQ-Sus MD (7.9%). Increasing age, and lower MD adherence were associated with poorer nutritional status. Nutritional impairment was associated with higher in-hospital mortality (HR = 6.36, 95% CI: 1.90–21.24). Conclusions: Malnutrition in hospitalized older patients is often unrecognized, despite affecting nearly half of this cohort and being associated with in-hospital mortality. This highlights the need for preventive strategies and intensive follow-up. Full article

Eye-tracking studies of decision making have traditionally relied on Area-of-Interest (AOI) statistics, scan-path metrics, fixation measures, and transition analyses. Although these approaches have provided important insights, AOI-based methods require predefined semantic spatial regions and may not fully characterize the broader spatial organization of gaze behavior. This study proposes an image-based framework in which eye movement trajectories are represented as grayscale images on a regular spatial grid and analyzed using established image-analysis techniques, including texture analysis, Fourier analysis, wavelet decomposition, and singular value decomposition (SVD). Non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) was also examined as a candidate method, but was not included in the final integrated analysis because its contribution was limited in the present sample. The remaining heterogeneous image-derived features were integrated using a Tucker-1-based framework and examined using principal component analysis (PCA) and probabilistic PCA (PPCA). The framework was demonstrated using eye-tracking data from insurance decision tasks involving multiple pieces of decision-relevant information. The first principal component showed strong and consistent correlations with conventional fixation count and fixation duration across both insurance tasks, supporting its interpretation as a global fixation-intensity dimension, whereas higher-order components showed substantially weaker associations with these conventional measures. Bootstrap analyses further indicated that the exact PPCA dimensionality was sensitive to sampling variability, although relatively high-dimensional latent structures were consistently supported. Overall, the proposed framework provides a complementary representation of gaze behavior that does not require predefined semantic AOI boundaries and may capture both conventional fixation-related information and additional spatial or structural characteristics of eye movement trajectories. Full article

The retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is a monolayer of cells located between retinal photoreceptors and the choroid, playing a critical role in maintaining visual function by protecting the retina and supporting photoreceptor metabolism. Damage to RPE cells can lead to visual disorders, including macular degeneration. Chronic exposure to high-energy blue light has been shown to elevate intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) in RPE cells, causing oxidative stress and cellular damage. In this study, a microfluidic platform incorporating a gradient-generating structure was developed to establish controllable and stable gradients of blue light intensity and chemical concentrations. This platform was used to investigate the effects of varying blue light intensities and antioxidant concentrations on oxidative stress in human RPE cells ARPE-19. Cells cultured within the microfluidic channels were exposed to different blue light intensities in combination with chemical treatments. Results demonstrated that ROS production increased with higher blue light intensity, whereas higher antioxidant concentrations effectively reduced ROS accumulation, supporting the ability of these antioxidants to attenuate blue-light-induced intracellular oxidative stress. The present microfluidic device enables simultaneous evaluation of multiple conditions within a single experiment, reducing reagent consumption and enhancing experimental efficiency. This in vitro microfluidic platform integrates chemical and light gradients to assess retinal oxidative damage and antioxidant effects, offering significant potential for ophthalmic drug screening and investigations of retinal protective mechanisms. Full article

Antimicrobial resistance is a growing global crisis that threatens to return humanity to a pre-antibiotic era where common infections become deadly. This narrative review synthesizes evidence from 2000 to early 2026, including Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance data and World Health Organization surveillance, to outline the problem’s scale, drivers, and solutions. In 2019, bacterial resistance directly caused 1.27 million deaths and was linked to 4.95 million more. Low- and middle-income countries bear the heaviest burden. ESKAPE pathogens, especially carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii and NDM-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae, drive intensive care unit mortality near 50% and cause untreatable neonatal sepsis. One Health drivers include antibiotic overuse in humans, with 30% of prescriptions unnecessary in high-income settings; agriculture, consuming 70% of global antibiotics; and environmental pollution, with resistance genes found in 72% of rivers. Bacteria spread resistance through horizontal gene transfer and mutations such as gyrA S83L, creating pan-drug-resistant strains that make surgeries, transplants, and cancer treatment risky. Economic modeling studies suggest that unchecked antimicrobial resistance could reduce annual global GDP by 1.1–3.8%, with some scenarios projecting losses of up to approximately 5% by 2050, depending on assumptions about healthcare costs, labor productivity, and livestock production. Solutions require subscription-based payment models, enforceable agricultural regulations, integrated genomic surveillance, and equity-focused diagnostics for low- and middle-income countries. Without binding 2030 targets, the post-antibiotic era would become a clinical reality within a decade. Full article

Host genetic variation is a key determinant of malaria susceptibility, particularly in endemic regions where intense transmission has driven strong selective pressures on red blood cell-related genes. However, Senegalese and other African populations remain underrepresented in genomic studies, limiting population-specific inference. We analyzed malaria-related host genetic variants in 140 febrile patients from southern and south-eastern Senegal, focusing on key loci (ACKR1, Dantu blood group, HBB and G6PD) and on composite Multilocus Genotype Profiles (MGPs). We described the co-occurrence of the variants within individuals, allowing exploratory assessment of combined genetic architectures. We identified both well-established malaria-protective variants, including the Duffy-negative Fy(a–b–) phenotype (observed in all individuals), G6PD key variants (e.g., G202A with an allelic frequency of ~3%, A376G at ~40%, T968C at ~1%), and HBB variants (HbS at ~7% and HbC at ~1%), as well as some rare and less characterized polymorphisms. To the best of our knowledge, this study provides the first description in the Senegalese population of the Dantu variant (rs186873296) and the rare ACKR1 rs577808287 variant, each observed in 2 distinct individuals. Five major composite MGPs across the four loci were predominantly observed and together represented more than 75% of individuals. Excluding Duffy status, most of these profiles included at least one variant previously reported in the literature as malaria-protective, a pattern consistent with the hypothesis of malaria-driven balancing selection, despite the presence of potentially deleterious alleles. This study highlights substantial genetic heterogeneity in malaria-relevant host genes in Senegal and demonstrates the value of integrating composite genetic architectures into malaria research. These findings provide population-specific data that are critical for improving malaria risk assessment, clinical interpretation, and public health strategies in endemic regions. Moreover, the relatively high frequencies of some variants may reflect balancing selection, possibly partially driven by the adaptive benefits they confer in populations exposed to malaria. Full article

High-strength steels often require surface pretreatment before welding to remove contaminants and ensure weld quality. Compared with conventional mechanical grinding, which is time-consuming, labor-intensive, environmentally unfriendly, and potentially damaging to the substrate, laser cleaning offers a contact-free alternative to conventional surface-treatment methods and may reduce the use of abrasive or chemical cleaning agents. In this study, nanosecond laser cleaning of oxide films on 10CrNi2Mo3Cu2V steel was investigated in air and argon to determine the optimal process window. A 1064 nm, 100 ns pulsed fiber laser was employed for single-pass scanning at fluences of 5.10–10.19 J/cm². The cleaned surfaces were characterized by SEM, EDS, XPS, laser confocal microscopy, microhardness testing, and vacuum electron-beam welding. In argon, the optimal fluence was 7.64 J/cm², at which the oxide-related surface products were effectively removed in the analyzed area, the oxygen content decreased to 2.11 wt.%, the roughness reached 5.2 μm, and the hardness became comparable to that of the ground sample. At higher fluences, secondary oxidation increased and surface quality deteriorated. The optimized laser-cleaned joints were pore-free and achieved a tensile strength of 881.4 MPa, exceeding that of both the untreated and ground controls. Full article

The marine microalga Nannochloropsis oceanica is a promising organism for sustainable production of lipids, omega-3 fatty acids, and biomass with a high nutritional value. We demonstrate UV mutagenesis combined with visual screening to generate novel non-GMO strains with improved industrial traits. Four mutants displayed altered pigmentation and/or enhanced growth after UV treatment, of which mutants M34 and M181 were selected for detailed characterization. Mutant M34 displayed enhanced biomass productivity under high light conditions (400 µmol m⁻² s⁻¹) in small-scale photobioreactor cultivations, indicating improved tolerance to elevated irradiance. Pigment analyses revealed reduced levels of several xanthophyll carotenoids, suggesting altered light adaptation and photoprotective responses. However, the improved growth phenotype was not consistently maintained at medium and pilot scale, highlighting the strong influence of cultivation conditions on measured strain performance. Mutant M181 exhibited strongly reduced chlorophyll content, accompanied by impaired growth at elevated light intensities. Pilot-scale cultivation demonstrated significantly increased lipid accumulation, reaching up to 25% of dry matter compared to 17% in the wild type. While M181 showed an unaltered composition of amino acids, total fatty acids, and eicosapentaenoic acid, we found elevated vitamin D3 accumulation after UVB exposure and significantly higher menaquinone-4 (MK-4) bioaccessibility, potentially improving the nutritional functionality. The results demonstrate that UV mutagenesis combined with simple visual screening is an effective strategy to generate N. oceanica strains with altered biomass composition and growth performance. Our study shows the importance of evaluating mutants under industrially relevant conditions, as phenotypes observed at laboratory scale may not translate well to pilot-scale systems. Full article

Landing underactuated quadrotors on inclines is challenging as sudden contact transients convert translational kinetic energy into critical edge-tipping moments. Conventional controllers struggle to mitigate these sub-second impacts without computationally intensive prior terrain models or payload-restricting mechanical shock absorbers. This paper introduces a stabilization approach combining a Zero Moment Point (ZMP)-guided anchoring strategy with an impact-resilient Model Reference Adaptive Control Neural Network (MRAC-NN). The ZMP serves as a proactive geometric threshold. Evaluating overturning moments directly in the body frame before physical tilt occurs triggers immediate asymmetric bidirectional thrust. This artificially augments the surface normal force, thereby securing the vehicle on steep inclines that exceed natural static friction limits. Concurrently, the computationally efficient MRAC-NN suppresses unstructured aerodynamic disturbances and high-frequency impact shocks. To prevent parameter wind-up during sudden kinematic arrest at touchdown, the neuro-adaptive law is structurally augmented with robust bounding and dynamic state-locking mechanisms, mathematically guaranteeing Uniform Ultimate Boundedness (UUB). The framework is validated through high-fidelity simulations that incorporate Linear Complementarity Problem (LCP) rigid-impact constraints and stick–slip friction. Results demonstrate the architecture effectively suppresses post-impact bouncing and transforms critical tipping moments into controlled planar slides, reducing stabilization penalties by up to $47.5\%$ and expanding the survivable flight envelope to ${60}^{\circ }$ inclines where classical methods fail. Full article

Secure transmission and storage of color images remain challenging tasks due to strong inter-pixel correlations and high data volume. This work proposes a one-dimensional sine-tent-logistic-exponential map (STLEM) equipped with numerical boundary correction rules to mitigate finite-precision numerical degradation so as to enhance the unpredictability of chaos-driven cryptosystems. We benchmark STLEM against classic logistic, tent, and sine maps via Lyapunov exponents, autocorrelation, approximate entropy, permutation entropy, Lempel-Ziv complexity, and Kolmogorov–Sinai entropy. Bifurcation diagrams, the 0–1 test, and NIST statistical tests are further adopted to characterize its chaotic dynamics and randomness. Comparative results verify that STLEM achieves improved dynamical complexity and randomness performance. Built upon the proposed STLEM, this paper constructs a color-image encryption scheme that employs a 256-bit master key and two groups of chaotic parameters to produce key-related chaotic sequences. The cryptosystem integrates dynamic edge expansion, chaotic permutation, position-dependent adaptive DNA encoding, DNA-domain chained diffusion, and two successive row-column permutation phases. HMAC-SHA-256 is utilized to generate plaintext-aware initial conditions and perform ciphertext authentication prior to decryption. Experimental validations demonstrate complete plaintext recovery under valid secret inputs, while authentication rejects invalid keys and tampered ciphertexts. Ciphered images exhibit high information entropy, negligible adjacent-pixel correlations, and satisfactory number of pixel change rate (NPCR) and unified average changing intensity (UACI) metrics. Benefiting from a sufficiently large key space and $O\left(MN\log \right(MN\left)\right)$ computational complexity, the proposed scheme is resilient against brute-force attacks and well suited for secure color-image communication scenarios, rather than acting as a general-purpose replacement for standard block ciphers. Full article

Storm-surge residuals represent one of the most destructive marine-coastal hazards, and reliable short-term surge residual prediction is critical for coastal disaster preparedness. Conventional empirical forecasting approaches suffer from limited cross-regional generalization, while high-fidelity physics-based hydrodynamic models such as ADCIRC-SWAN can reproduce complete storm-surge physical processes but demand substantial computational resources. In this study, a three-layer back-propagation neural network (BPNN) for storm-surge residual forecasting is constructed, which is driven by output datasets from the validated ADCIRC-SWAN coupled hydrodynamic model. Wind speed, significant wave height, sea-surface atmospheric pressure, and the simulated current-time storm-surge residual are selected as input predictors. Simulation-derived samples are pre-processed via data cleaning and Min-Max normalization, and two different dataset partitioning strategies (random mesh-point-based partition and time-sequential partition) are implemented for comparative experiments. After hyperparameter sensitivity tests, the optimal network configuration with 30 hidden-layer neurons is determined. Model predictive performance is quantitatively evaluated via multi-station time-series comparison and universal statistical metrics including R, NSE, and RMSE. The results show that the BPNN achieves satisfactory performance under random mesh-point-oriented partitioning, yet obvious performance degradation occurs under time-sequential temporal extrapolation, with prominent underestimation of surge peaks. On the basis of BPNN-predicted spatial surge residual fields, storm-surge intensity grading is carried out following the Chinese national standard GB/T 39418-2020. Statistical comparisons between the full computational domain and the Pearl River Estuary sub-region reveal strong spatial aggregation of high-intensity storm-surge grids within the estuary driven by funnel-shaped topographic amplification. This work demonstrates the feasibility of using a BPNN as a surrogate emulator for hydrodynamic outputs under a given typhoon condition; however, limitations in temporal extrapolation performance still need to be addressed before this approach can be practically used in operational early-warning applications. Full article

Background: Art-based interventions, including music therapy, are increasingly used in palliative care to support symptom management and improve quality of life in patients with advanced cancer. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to evaluate their efficacy in adults with advanced cancer receiving palliative care. Methods: The review protocol was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42025636049). A systematic search of PubMed, MEDLINE (Ovid), and Embase was conducted from database inception to 17 December 2024 (PubMed), 21 December 2024 (MEDLINE (Ovid)), and 10 January 2025 (Embase), and was updated in February 2026. Additional searches were conducted in ClinicalTrials.gov, WHO ICTRP, Cochrane CENTRAL, and Google Scholar in August 2026. Studies comparing art-based interventions with standard care or active control interventions were included. Risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane RoB 2 tool, and certainty of evidence using the GRADE approach. Results: Eleven reports with 9 RCTs (involving 675 patients) met the inclusion criteria, all evaluating music-based interventions. Music-based interventions in addition to routine palliative care were associated with a statistically significant reduction in pain intensity compared with control conditions (SMD = −0.51; 95%CI: −0.98 to −0.03; p = 0.04; k = 3; n =224), although high between-study heterogeneity was observed (I² = 67.69%). They were also associated with higher quality-of-life scores (SMD = 0.92; 95%CI: 0.59 to 1.24; p < 0.0001; k = 2; n = 168; I² = 0%); however, the certainty of evidence was very low, making this effect highly uncertain. Conclusions: Evidence for music-based interventions remains very uncertain, precluding firm conclusions regarding clinical benefit. Further high-quality trials, including other forms of art-based interventions, are needed. Full article

Self-leadership is increasingly important in service and knowledge-intensive work, yet sustained self-regulation may also create hidden psychological costs. This study introduces self-leadership overload (SLO) as a distinct self-regulatory strain state and examines whether it emerges nonlinearly, whether the self-leadership–SLO association is stronger under high work pressure, and whether SLO shows indirect associations with employee outcomes through work rumination. A two-wave survey of 408 full-time employees across seven service and knowledge-intensive sectors was analyzed using scale-development procedures, iterative PLS-SEM, two-stage nonlinear and moderation models, bootstrapped indirect-effect analysis, incremental-validity tests, and supplementary robustness checks. Self-leadership was positively associated with work happiness and sustainable performance, while its quadratic terms for these outcomes were nonsignificant. By contrast, the quadratic self-leadership–SLO term was positive and significant, indicating a progressively stronger association with overload at higher levels of self-leadership, and work pressure strengthened this association. SLO was associated with lower work happiness and sustainable performance and higher burnout and turnover intention; significant indirect associations through work rumination were observed for all four outcomes. SLO also explained additional variance beyond demographic and employment controls, conventional self-leadership, work pressure, and organizational and personal resources (ΔR² = 0.049–0.123). General organizational resources did not show the hypothesized buffering pattern, whereas health-oriented self-care was negatively associated with overload. The findings refine the self-leadership paradox by showing that a beneficial self-regulatory capability can coexist with an escalating internal burden without a corresponding direct curvilinear downturn in positive outcomes. The study contributes a theoretically bounded and empirically differentiated SLO construct and highlights workload boundaries, recovery, and health-oriented self-care as important conditions for sustainable self-leadership. Full article