Search Results (6,276)

The global construction industry faces persistent challenges of low productivity and labor shortages, positioning Off-Site Construction (OSC) as a critical solution. However, standardized industrialization indices for objectively evaluating OSC adoption remain underdeveloped, particularly in emerging markets. This study aims to identify a benchmark policy model and derive design principles for future indices. Specifically, this study focuses on ‘policy-driven markets’ where strong government intervention is essential for initial ecosystem formation, excluding mature market-driven economies where the ecosystem is already established (e.g., USA, Sweden, Japan). To identify an optimal benchmark, a comparative assessment was conducted on five institutional frameworks across four countries (UK, Malaysia, Singapore, and China). Notably, within China, Hong Kong SAR was analyzed as a distinct regulatory jurisdiction separate from Mainland China due to its unique construction governance system. This assessment was based on five key policy dimensions: Legal Mandate, Scope, Indicator Composition, Enforcement Mechanism, and Sustainability. The analysis identified Singapore’s ‘Buildability Score’ as the most comprehensive model in terms of systemic completeness and practical efficacy. A virtual project simulation demonstrated that the scoring system functions as a powerful regulatory mechanism, effectively driving the adoption of standardized, dry-process, and modularized high-productivity methods from the earliest design stages. While Singapore’s system serves as an effective policy tool for OSC proliferation, it exhibits clear limitations regarding reduced architectural design flexibility and insufficient sustainability integration. Consequently, future industrialization indices must evolve to balance productivity with architectural design diversity and integrate sustainability criteria while reflecting specific regional construction ecosystems. Full article

As a primary economic engine and strategic region in China, the development of the green building industry in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) holds demonstrative significance for the low-carbon transition of the country’s construction sector. Utilizing panel data from 11 provinces and municipalities within the YREB during 2012–2022, this study constructs a comprehensive evaluation index system to measure the coupling coordination degree (CCD) between the green building industry and the development environment. The spatio-temporal evolution of the CCD is analyzed using methods including kernel density estimation, the Dagum Gini coefficient, spatial autocorrelation, and standard deviational ellipse. A fixed-effects model is further employed to identify its influencing factors. The results show that (1) both the green building industry and its development environment in the YREB exhibited upward trends, with the gap between them gradually narrowing. (2) The CCD across provinces and municipalities showed an overall upward trend, characterized by simultaneous “overall improvement” and “internal gradient differentiation” in spatio-temporal distribution, and displayed a spatial pattern of “higher values in the east and lower in the west.” (3) Urbanization level, government regulation, technological innovation, and consumption capacity exerted significant positive effects on the CCD, whereas the influence of education level and public environmental awareness remained insignificant. This study provides insights for formulating differentiated regional policies and optimizing the development environment for the green building industry. Full article

Water-scarce river basins face the dual challenge of sustaining development progress while maintaining water resources carrying capacity (WRCC), yet city-scale evidence remains limited on how New Quality Productive Force (NQPF)-driven high-quality development reshapes WRCC through coupled coordination and development–pressure decoupling processes. Using a balanced panel of 15 cities in the Weihe River Basin (WRB) during 2014–2023, an integrated analytical framework was implemented by combining composite index evaluation (WRCC and the high-quality development index (HQDI)), the Coupling Coordination Degree (CCD) model, Tapio decoupling diagnosis between HQDI and total water use (TWU), and logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) decomposition. The results indicate that: (1) both the HQD index and WRCC exhibited sustained growth, with their CCD improving significantly from mild imbalance to primary coordination, while a distinct spatial pattern of “Guanzhong leading, northern Shaanxi improving, and eastern Gansu stabilizing” emerged; (2) the HQDI–WRCC linkage was further supported by pooled statistical tests and a two-way fixed effects specification with city-clustered robust standard errors, confirming a significant positive association (Pearson = 0.517, p < 0.01; Spearman = 0.183, p < 0.05) and a stable positive effect of HQDI on WRCC (β = 0.194, p = 0.0088); (3) Tapio results reveal an overall transition from earlier volatility toward a later-period regime dominated by Weak Decoupling (WD) and Strong Decoupling (SD), implying that development progress became less dependent on rising TWU, although pronounced inter-city heterogeneity persisted; (4) LMDI decomposition further identified water use intensity and industrial structure as primary inhibitors of water consumption, whereas the R&D scale effect increased nearly 60-fold, emerging as a major driver of water demand. This study provides a mechanistic basis for coordinating ecological protection and high-quality development under rigid water constraints in water-scarce basins. Full article

Industrial information systems based on web technologies (ISOWT) face escalating security challenges, particularly in critical sectors such as energy. Traditional qualitative security assessments often lack the ability to deliver actionable, real-time insights for managing complex, dynamic threats. This paper proposes a novel security index for evaluating ISOWT in industrial organizations by integrating fuzzy logic, metric-based evaluation, fuzzy Markov chains, and multi-agent systems. The proposed index quantifies deviations from an ideal “center of safety,” enabling early risk detection and proactive mitigation. The methodology is validated through two real-world case studies on Syria’s energy sector, namely the Ministry of Electricity website and Mahrukat fuel management system. Experimental results demonstrate substantial improvements, including a 45.9–58.5% increase in security index, 56.9–60.3% reduction in page load times, and 78.3–82.4% decrease in detected vulnerabilities. Comparative analysis shows that the proposed approach outperforms existing methods in terms of quantitative precision, real-time monitoring, and predictive capabilities. The proposed framework is scalable, automated, and adaptable, addressing key limitations of existing ISOWT security assessment techniques and providing a robust tool for enhancing system resilience. Its flexibility enable applicability across diverse industrial domains, contributing to advanced cybersecurity practices for critical infrastructure. Future work will focus on integrating advanced technologies, expanding the framework to additional sectors, developing adaptive fuzzy models, accounting for human factors, and improving visualization techniques to further address the evolving security challenges faced by industrial organizations. Full article

The steel industry contributes to approximately 7%–9% of global anthropogenic CO_2(g) emissions, with traditional blast furnace–basic oxygen furnace (BF–BOF) routes emitting up to 1.8 t_CO2 per ton of steel. In contrast, Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) steelmaking, especially when integrated with hydrogen direct-reduced iron (DRI), can reduce emissions by over 40%, positioning EAFs as a key enabler of low-carbon metallurgy. However, despite its lower direct emissions, the EAF process still depends on fossil carbon sources for slag foaming and FeO reduction, which are essential for arc stability and energy efficiency. Slag foaming plays a critical role in controlling the thermal efficiency of the EAF by shielding the electric arc, reducing radiative heat losses, and stabilizing the arc’s behavior. This review examines the mechanisms of slag foaming, discussed through empirical models that consider the foaming index (Σ) and slag foaming rate as critical parameters, and highlights the influence of physical properties such as slag viscosity, surface tension, and density on gas bubble retention. Also, the work embraces the potential use of alternative carbon sources including biochar, biomass, and waste-derived materials such as plastics and rubber to replace fossil-based reductants and foaming agents in EAF operations. Finally, it discusses the use of new materials with a biological base, such as nanocellulose, to serve as reactive templates for producing nanohybrid materials, containing both oxides, which can contribute to slag basicity (MgO and/or CaO, for example), together with a reactive carbonaceous phase, derived from the organic fiber’s thermal degradation, which could contribute to slag foaming, and could replace part of the fossil fuel charge to be employed in the EAF process. In this context, the development and characterization of renewable carbonaceous materials capable of simultaneously reducing FeO and promoting slag foaming are essential to achieving net-zero steel production and enhancing the sustainability of EAF-based steelmaking. Full article

With the rapid development of the shipping industry, the collision risk among ships in open waters has been steadily increasing, making effective multi-ship collision avoidance decision-making a critical issue for ensuring navigational safety. This paper proposes a multi-ship collision avoidance decision-making method based on the COLREGs. First, a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method is used to construct a collision risk index model. Then, considering navigational safety, COLREG compliance, turning amplitude, and path economy, an objective function for ship collision avoidance is formulated. Next, the AVOA is improved by incorporating SA to simulate the foraging and navigation behavior of vultures. The Metropolis acceptance criterion is applied to help the algorithm escape local optima and enhance global search capabilities. Experiments conducted in the VSC simulation environment show that the proposed method significantly improves decision-making performance in multi-ship encounter scenarios compared to the standard AVOA. Full article

Although responsible for 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, Latin America faces disproportionate vulnerability to climate-related events, making the need for clear, transparent, and rigorous action critically urgent. Corporate disclosure practices across the region show high variability in transparency and methodological consistency, posing a substantial obstacle in evidence-based measures against climate change. This study provides the first multi-country assessment of the quality and rigor of carbon footprint disclosures in the Latin American context, analyzing 103 company reports across five countries (Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru) with the Carbon Integrity Index, a 10-indicator standardized metric quantifying the transparency of Scopes 1, 2, and 3 and uncertainty disclosures. Three distinct patterns emerged from the analysis. Although 83.5% of companies disclose some value-chain emission data, Scope 3 disclosure quality remains a systemic deficiency across the region (average 0.19–0.31) with uncertainty quantification nearly absent (94% non-disclosure). Median scores for all five countries cluster narrowly (2.65–4.20), independently of heterogenous governance frameworks. Finally, disclosure deficiencies appear uniform across sectors, suggesting structural rather than industry-specific barriers. These findings suggest that voluntary or international frameworks produce regional convergence at low quality levels, whereas adequate transparency requires differentiated capacity-building initiatives and national enforcement frameworks in emerging market contexts. Full article

Collagenases can specifically degrade collagen, showing a wide application prospect in food, leather, waste utilization, biotechnology, and other industries. Currently, Hathewaya histolytica is commonly used in industry to produce collagenases, but its application is greatly limited by its pathogenicity. This study first identified five potential Pseudomonas-derived collagenases by sequence alignment. Bioinformatics tools were used to analyze their structures and functions. Heterologous expression of two P. chlororaphis-derived collagenases was achieved in E. coli, and their enzymatic properties were characterized. Bioinformatics analysis shows that the Pseudomonas-derived collagenases had low molecular weights (22.1~50.5 kDa) and good thermal stability (aliphatic index 73.73~88.81). Deletion of P. chlororaphis GP72ANO strain colP1 and colP2 genes had no significant effect on cell growth. The yields of collagenase ColP1 and ColP2 obtained from E. coli BL21(DE3) cultivation broth were 148 mg/L and 322 mg/L, respectively. The optimum temperature of each collagenase was 28 °C, and the soluble collagen activities of ColP1 and ColP2 were up to 42.64 U/mg and 21.21 U/mg, respectively. Collagenase ColP1 had the highest enzyme activity at pH 8, while collagenase ColP2 had the highest enzyme activity at pH 4. Metal ions such as Na⁺, K⁺, Mg²⁺, Ca²⁺, Ni²⁺, and Mn²⁺ inhibited the activity of collagenases to different degrees. This study successfully achieved recombinant expression and preliminary purification of Pseudomonas-derived collagenases in E. coli and explored their function and physicochemical properties. Full article

To address the challenge of defect detection in tempered glass panel production rising from sample scarcity, this paper proposes a few-shot detection methodology that integrates an enhanced Stable Diffusion model with Mask R-CNN. Specifically, the approach utilizes a Mask Encoder to optimize the Stable Diffusion architecture, employing the Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM) to evaluate sample quality. This process generates high-fidelity virtual samples to construct a hybrid dataset for training data augmentation. Furthermore, a resource isolation strategy is adopted to facilitate online detection using an improved semi-supervised Mask R-CNN framework. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed scheme effectively resolves detection difficulties for eight defect types, including edge chipping and scratches. The method achieves an mAP50 of 81.5%, representing a nearly 47% improvement over baseline methods relying solely on real samples, thereby realizing high-precision and high-efficiency industrial defect detection. Full article

Postharvest lignification of juice sacs in Meizhou pomelo is a major physiological disorder that compromises fruit quality and limits sustainable industry development. Through a comprehensive three-year field study, we investigated the effects of key factors—soil organic matter, storage temperature, and tree age—on fruit lignification, and evaluated the efficacy of ten plant growth regulators (PGRs) and their combinations in mitigating granulation. Our results demonstrated that soil rich in organic matter and exchangeable calcium significantly reduced the granulation index. Constant storage at 15 °C effectively suppressed weight loss and lignification compared to fluctuating ambient temperatures. Among the tested PGRs, 28-Homobrassinolide (28-homo-BR), 28-Epihomobrassinolide (28-epi-BR), 24-Epibrassinolide (24-epi-BR), and 14-Hydroxybrassinosteroid (14-hydro-BR) exhibited the most pronounced effects in alleviating granulation. Two superior PGR combinations were subsequently identified, which functioned by synergistically downregulating the activities of key phenylpropanoid pathway enzymes—phenylalanine ammonia-lyase, 4-coumarate: CoA ligase, cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase, and peroxidase. This downregulation likely contributed to reduced lignin biosynthesis and accumulation. Metabolomic profiling further revealed an accumulation of phenylpropanoid precursors, including ferulic acid and p-coumaric acid, in lignified juice sacs, indicating that the overactivation of this pathway is a key metabolic feature associated with lignification. This finding provides critical evidence for the potential mechanism whereby PGRs suppress lignification, thus offering both mechanistic insights and practical strategies for controlling lignification in pomelo and other citrus fruits. Full article

Background: Sleep deprivation may contribute to increased abdominal adiposity. Although weekend catch-up sleep is associated with various health outcomes, its role in abdominal adiposity remains unclear, particularly among female fixed-shift workers. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the association of workday sleep deprivation and weekend catch-up sleep with abdominal adiposity indicators in Brazilian female fixed-shift workers. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 450 female fixed-shift workers aged ≥ 18 years from a large industrial group in Southern Brazil. Abdominal adiposity indicators linked to cardiovascular risk were assessed: waist circumference (WC ≥ 88 cm), waist-to-height ratio (WHtR > 0.5), weight-to-waist index (WWI ≥ 11), conicity index (C-Index ≥ 1.27), and WC & Body Mass Index (combined WC ≥ 88 cm and BMI ≥ 30 kg/m²). Workday sleep deprivation was defined as <6 h (h) of sleep on workdays, and weekend catch-up sleep (absolute difference between weekend and workday sleep duration) was defined as >2 h longer sleep on weekends vs. workdays. Associations were estimated using a Poisson regression with robust variance adjusted for demographic, socioeconomic, behavioral, reproductive, and occupational confounders. Results: The mean age was 34.9 ± 9.9 years. The prevalence rates of abdominal adiposity were 45.3% for WC, 47.6% for WHtR, 26.2% for WWI and C-Index, and 28.7% for WC&BMI. Workday sleep deprivation and weekend catch-up sleep were reported by 27.1% and 43.3% of the participants, respectively. After adjustment for confounders, workday sleep deprivation was consistently associated with higher abdominal adiposity: Prevalence Ratio (PR) = 1.37 (95% CI: 1.10–1.69) for WC; 1.25 (95% CI: 1.02–1.53) for WHtR; 1.48 (95% CI: 1.07–2.04) for WWI; 1.43 (95% CI: 1.03–1.99) for C-Index, and 1.59 (95% CI: 1.17–2.16) for WC&BMI. Longer weekend catch-up sleep was positively associated with WHtR (PR = 1.24; 95% CI: 1.03–1.49) and WC&BMI (PR = 1.39; 95% CI: 1.04–1.85). Conclusions: Workday sleep deprivation was consistently linked to increased abdominal adiposity, whereas associations with longer weekend catch-up sleep were less consistent. These findings underscore the potential metabolic risk of insufficient sleep among female shift workers. Full article

Species of Sanghuangporus produce abundant bioactive compounds, including flavonoids, polysaccharides, and triterpenoids, among which flavonoids exhibit prominent antioxidant activity and great development potential. Taking the peak extracellular flavonoid (EF) concentration in fermentation broth as the index, we optimized the liquid fermentation media and conditions for three Sanghuangporus strains (wild S. vaninii Z-0090, cultivar S. vaninii Z-0119, and cultivar S. baumii Z-0118) via single-factor experiments and the Box–Behnken response surface methodology. We further evaluated the antioxidant activity of the fermentation broth and analyzed its correlation with EF concentration using Pearson correlation analysis. After optimization, the EF concentrations of strains Z-0090, Z-0119 and Z-0118 were increased by 22.82%, 13.47% and 16.66%, respectively, compared with the control group. Antioxidant assays showed that strain Z-0090 had the highest hydroxyl radical scavenging rate (88.63%), strain Z-0119 presented balanced performance across all antioxidant indicators, and strain Z-0118 exhibited the strongest ABTS radical scavenging capacity (184.96 μg Trolox equivalents/mL), which was highly correlated with its EF concentration. This study provides a theoretical basis for the application of Sanghuangporus EFs in food, medicine, and industrial flavonoid production. Full article

Hollow-core microstructured optical fibres exhibit excellent properties, such as a low loss, tuneable high birefringence, and low nonlinearity, finding extensive applications across communications, industry, agriculture, medicine, military, and sensing technologies. This paper designs two types of asymmetric hollow-core photonic bandgap fibres featuring a high birefringence and low confinement loss. Both feature a cladding structure of rounded hexagonal honeycomb lattice, while the core structures comprise elliptical hollow cores and rounded rhombic hollow cores, respectively. By adjusting the radius of the cladding air holes and the core structure parameters, this study aims to maximise the birefringence coefficient and minimise the confinement loss. The control variable method is employed to optimise the parameters of two fibres. The simulation results indicate that, at a wavelength of 1.55 μm, the birefringence coefficient of the rhombic core, after parameter optimisation, reaches 1.4 × 10⁻⁴, with the confinement loss achieving 4.4 × 10⁻³ dB/km. Its bending loss remains at the order of 10⁻³ dB/km, indicating that this fibre maintains an exceptionally high transmission efficiency even when wound with a small curvature radius (such as within the resonant cavity of a compact fibre optic gyroscope). The elliptical core’s birefringence coefficient also reaches 3 × 10⁻⁴, with the confinement loss achieving 1.9 × 10⁻¹ dB/km. Specifically, this paper employs bismuth tellurite glass as the substrate material to simulate the performance of elliptical cores. Within a specific refractive index range, the elliptical-core fibre with a bismuth tellurite glass substrate exhibits a confinement loss comparable to quartz glass, whilst its birefringence coefficient reaches as high as 5.8 × 10⁻⁴. Therefore, the hollow-core photonic bandgap fibres designed in this thesis provide valuable reference and innovative significance, both in terms of the performance of two asymmetric core structures and in the exploration of polarisation-maintaining hollow-core photonic bandgap fibres on novel material substrates. Full article

Digital transformation has been widely studied for its impact on corporate performance, innovation, and efficiency, yet its effect on ESG imbalance has received little attention. We address this gap by constructing a text-based digital empowerment index from corporate annual reports of Chinese listed firms in 2010–2020, while ESG imbalance is measured using the standardized absolute difference between environmental and social responsibilities. The results reveal that digital empowerment significantly exacerbates ESG imbalance, with the effect being more pronounced in mid-central cities, competitive industries, and heavily polluting sectors. Strong governance, state ownership, and balanced resource allocation are found to mitigate this imbalance, while dynamic analysis confirms its persistence over time. These findings highlight the need for targeted policies that enhance governance capacity, promote equitable resource allocation, and address sustainability risks associated with digital transformation. Full article

Introduction: Today, scientists are searching for alternative approaches to preventing metabolic diseases, particularly non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which reduces the healthy life expectancy of the working population. Fungi, such as Hericium coralloides (Scop.) Pers., are promising raw materials for extracting bioactive substances with preventative potential. Materials and Methods: This review covered review and research articles published over the last 42 years and indexed in the databases of the eLIBRARY.RU, the National Center for Biotechnology Information, and Scopus. Results and Discussion: It has been established that H. coralloides is valued for its nutritional properties due to its rich protein, fat, and mineral composition. It is in demand for pharmaceutical purposes due to its content of bioactive metabolites. The most studied metabolites are lovastatin and ergothioneine. The activity of these biologically active substances against NAFLD has been confirmed by studies in vitro and in vivo. Market analysis revealed that most dietary supplements contain fungal mycelium or its extract. It is preferable to use pure metabolites of H. coralloides as nutrients in dietary supplements and functional foods, since it allows the scientists to standardize their doses, target the therapeutic effect (immunity, neuroprotection, or antitumor), and reduce the required intake of the product. Since this fungus is a rare species in nature, its biomass should be grown in vitro for industrial use. Conclusions: Further research will focus on developing methods for extracting H. coralloides metabolites and assessing their biopotential in vivo and clinical studies. Full article