Search Results (224)

Background/Objectives: The recent development of four-dimensional X-ray velocimetry (4DXV) technology (three-dimensional space and time) provides a unique opportunity to obtain preclinical quantitative functional lung images. Only single-scan measurements in non-survival studies have been obtained to date; thus, methodologies enabling animal survival for repeated imaging to be accomplished over weeks or months from the same animal would establish new opportunities for the assessment of pathophysiology drivers and treatment response in advanced preclinical drug-screening efforts. Methods: An anesthesia protocol developed for animal recovery to allow for repetitive, longitudinal scanning of individual animals over time. Test–retest imaging scans from the lungs of healthy mice were performed over 8 weeks to assess the repeatability of scanner-derived quantitative imaging metrics and variability. Results: Using a murine model of fibroproliferative lung disease, this longitudinal scanning approach captured heterogeneous progressive changes in pulmonary function, enabling the visualization and quantitative measurement of averaged whole lung metrics and spatial/regional change. Radiation dosimetry studies evaluated the effects of imaging acquisition protocols on X-ray dosage to further adapt protocols for the minimization of radiation exposure during repeat imaging sessions using these newly developed image acquisition protocols. Conclusions: Overall, we have demonstrated that the 4DXV advanced imaging scanner allows for repeat measurements from the same animal over time to enable the high-resolution, noninvasive mapping of quantitative lung airflow dysfunction in mouse models with heterogeneous pulmonary disease. The animal anesthesia and image acquisition protocols described will serve as the foundation on which further applications of the 4DXV technology can be used to study a diverse array of murine pulmonary disease models. Together, 4DXV provides a novel and significant advancement for the longitudinal, noninvasive interrogation of pulmonary disease to assess spatial/regional disease initiation, progression, and response to therapeutic interventions. Full article

The use of additive manufacturing (AM) has seen increased utilization over the last decade, thanks to well-documented advantages such as lower startup costs, reduced wastage, and the ability to rapidly prototype. The poor surface finish of unprocessed AM components is one of the major drawbacks of this technology, with the research literature suggesting a measurable impact on flow characteristics and burner operability. For instance, surface roughness has been shown to potentially increase resistance to boundary layer flashback—an area of high concern, particularly when utilizing fuels with high hydrogen content. A more detailed understanding of the underlying thermophysical mechanisms is, therefore, required. Computational fluid dynamics can help elucidate the impact of these roughness effects by enabling detailed data interrogation in locations not easily accessible experimentally. In this study, roughness effects on a generic gas turbine swirler were numerically modeled using a low-y+ detached eddy simulation (DES) approach. Three DES models were investigated utilizing a smooth reference case and two rough cases, the latter employing a literature-based and novel equivalent sand-grain roughness (k_s) correlation developed for this work. Existing experimental isothermal and CH₄ data were used to validate the numerical simulations. Detailed investigations into the effects of roughness on flow characteristics, such as swirl number and recirculation zone position, were subsequently performed. The results show that literature-based k_s correlations are unsuitable for the current application. The novel correlation yields more promising outcomes, though its effectiveness depends on the chosen turbulence model. Moreover, it was demonstrated that, for identical k_s values, while trends remained consistent, the extent to which they manifested differed under reacting and isothermal conditions. Full article

This study interrogates whether Augmented Reality (AR) enhances vocabulary and content acquisition within Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), situating the question in the broader debate on how immersive, multimodal technologies shape achievement and engagement. This study’s novelty lies in its direct AR-versus-print comparison in a real CLIL classroom using markerless, smartphone-based technology. Using a mixed-methods, classroom-based experiment, we drew on a convenience sample of 129 secondary students (ages 16–18), assigning them to an AR intervention (n = 64) or a print-based control (n = 65). Both cohorts received parallel instruction covering identical objectives and materials; vocabulary attainment was gauged using matched pretest and post-test measures, while engagement, attitudes, and perceived usefulness were captured through paired pre- and post-surveys and open-ended prompts. Quantitative analyses compared change scores across conditions and were complemented by qualitative summaries of learner comments. Results indicate that exposure to AR exerted a positive influence on learners’ engagement and supported learning processes, with perceptible shifts in students’ views of AR between baseline and post-intervention; nevertheless, effects were heterogeneous across instruments, items, and subgroups, suggesting that benefits accrued in a targeted rather than uniform fashion. Compared to the print-based group, students using AR demonstrated greater gains on visually supported vocabulary and content items, while other items showed no significant differences between groups. We conclude that AR constitutes a promising pedagogical resource for CLIL, capable of scaffolding vocabulary/content development and motivating participation, while the observed variability underscores the need for principled, context-sensitive integration. Future work should specify boundary conditions—such as task type, prior proficiency, cognitive load, and technology familiarity—and employ robust mixed-methods designs to determine for whom, and under which instructional circumstances, AR yields the greatest and most sustainable gains. Full article

Fiber optic technologies have strong potential to augment and improve existing areas of sensor performance across many applications. Magnetic sensing, in particular, has attracted significant interest in structural health monitoring and ferromagnetic object detection. However, current technologies such as fluxgate magnetometers and inspection gauges rely on measuring magnetic fields as single-point sensors. By using fiber optic distributed strain sensors in tandem with magnetically biased magnetostrictive material, static and dynamic magnetic fields can be detected across long lengths of sensing fiber. This paper investigates the relationship between Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG)-based strain sensors and the magnetostrictive alloy Metglas^® 2605SC for the distributed detection of static fields for use in a compact cable design. Sentek Instrument’s picoDAS system is used to interrogate the FBG based sensors coupled with Metglas^® that is biased with an alternating sinusoidal magnetic field. The sensing system is then exposed to varied external static magnetic field strengths, and the resultant strain responses are analyzed. A minimum magnetic field strength on the order of 300 nT was able to be resolved and a variety of sensing configurations and conditions were also tested. The sensing system is compact and can be easily cabled as both FBGs and Metglas^® are commercialized and readily acquired. In combination with the robust and distributed nature of fiber sensors, this demonstrates strong promise for new means of magnetic characterization. Full article

This theoretical article explores the contrasting ontologies, axiologies, and political economies of transhumanism and posthumanism. Transhumanism envisions the human as an enhanced, autonomous agent shaped by neoliberal and Enlightenment ideals. Posthumanism challenges this by emphasizing relationality, ecological entanglement, and critiques of commodification. Both engage with technology’s role in reshaping humanity. Drawing on Braidotti’s posthumanism, Haraway’s cyborg figuration, Ahmed’s politics of emotion, Berlant’s cruel optimism, Massumi’s affective modulation, Seigworth and Gregg’s affective intensities, Zuboff’s surveillance capitalism, Fisher’s capitalist realism, Cooper’s surplus life, Sadowski’s digital capitalism, Lupton’s quantified self, Schafheitle et al.’s datafied subject, Pasquale’s black box society, Terranova’s network culture, Bratton’s platform sovereignty, Dean’s communicative capitalism, and Morozov’s technological solutionism, the article elucidates how subjectivity, data, and infrastructure are reorganized by corporate systems. Introducing technogensis as the co-creation of human and technological subjectivities, it links corporate-platform practices to future trajectories governed by Apple, Meta, and Google. These branded technologies function not only as enhancements but as infrastructures of governance that commodify subjectivity, regulate affect and behavior, and reproduce socio-economic stratification. A future is extrapolated where humans are not liberated by technology but incubated, intubated, and ventilated by techno-conglomerate governments. These attention-monopolizing, affective-capturing, behavior-modulating, and profit-extracting platforms do more than enhance; they brand subjectivity, rendering existence subscription-based under the guise of personal optimization and freedom. This reframes transhumanism as a cybernetic intensification of liberal subjectivity, offering tools to interrogate governance, equity, agency, and democratic participation, and resist techno-utopian narratives. Building on this, a posthumanist alternative emphasizes relational, multispecies subjectivities, collective agency, and ecological accountability, outlining pathways for ethical design and participatory governance to resist neoliberal commodification and foster emergent, open-ended techno-social futures. Full article

In this study, we present a wearable sensing system for monitoring the physiological status of damaged biological tissues based on a flexible, frequency-coded electromagnetic spiral resonator array. The physiological parameter evaluation is performed in a contactless way, avoiding the placing of electronically active elements directly upon the patient’s skin, thus ensuring safety and comfort. Firstly, we report in detail the physical principles behind the sensing strategy: a passive array is interrogated through an actively fed external single-loop probe that is inductively coupled with the double-layer spiral unit cells. The variation in the physiological parameters influences the array response, thus providing sensing information, due to the different complex dielectric permittivity values related to the tissue status. Moreover, the proposed frequency-coded approach allows for spatial information on the lesion to be retrieved, thus increasing the sensing ability. In order to prove the validity of this general methodology, we created a numerical test case, designing a practical implementation of the wearable sensing system working at a radiofrequency regime (10–100 MHz). In addition, we also fabricated prototypes, exploiting PCB technology, and realized stratified phantoms by incorporating opportune additives to control the dielectric properties. The numerical results and the experimental verification demonstrated the validity of the developed sensing strategy, showing satisfying agreement and, thus, proving the good sensibility and spatial resolution of the frequency-coded array. These results can open the path to a radically novel approach for self-care and monitoring of inflamed status and, more generally, for wearable sensing devices in biomedical applications. Full article

The essay offers an expansive and multi-stratified investigation into the role of esoteric traditions within the development of Russian modernity, reframing occultism not as an eccentric deviation but as a foundational epistemological regime integral to Russia’s aesthetic, philosophical, and political evolution. By analyzing the arc from Petrine-era alchemical statecraft to the techno-theurgical aspirations of Russian Cosmism and the esoteric visual regimes of the avant-garde, this essay discloses the deep ontological entanglement between sacral knowledge and modernist radical experimentation. The work foregrounds figures such as Jacob Bruce, Wassily Kandinsky, and Kazimir Malevich, situating them within broader transnational currents of Hermeticism, Theosophy, and Rosicrucianism, while interrogating the role of occult infrastructures in both late-imperial and Soviet paradigms. Drawing on recent theoretical frameworks in the global history of esotericism and modernist studies, the long-read article elucidates the metaphysical substrata animating Russian Symbolism, Abstraction, Malevich’s non-Euclidian Suprematism and Moscow Conceptualism. This study contends that esotericism in Russia—far from marginal—served as a generative matrix for radical aesthetic innovation and ideological reconfiguration. It proposes a reconceptualization of Russian cultural history as a palimpsest of submerged sacral structures, where utopia and apocalypse, magic and technology, converge in a distinctively Russian cosmopoietic horizon. Ultimately, this essay reframes Russian and European occultism as an alternate technology of cognition and a performative semiotic universe shaping not only artistic modernism but also the very grammar of Russian historical imagination. Full article

Sporadic Parkinson’s Disease (PD) affects 3% of people over 65 years of age. People are living longer, thanks in large part to improvements in global health technology and health access for non-neurological diseases. Consequently, neurological diseases of senescence, such as PD, are representing an ever-increasing share of global disease burden. There is an intensifying research focus on the processes that underlie these conditions in the hope that neurological decay may be arrested at the earliest time point. The concept of neuronal death linked to ageing- neural senescence- first emerged in the 1800s. By the late 20th century, it was recognized that neurodegeneration was common to all ageing human brains, but in most cases, this process did not lead to clinical disease during life. Conditions such as PD are the result of accelerated neurodegeneration in particular brain foci. In the case of PD, degeneration of the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc) is especially implicated. Why neural degeneration accelerates in these particular regions remains a point of contention, though current evidence implicates a complex interplay between a vast array of neuronal cell functions, bioenergetic failure, and a dysfunctional brain immunological response. Their complexity is a considerable barrier to disease modification trials, which seek to intercept these maladaptive cell processes. This paper reviews current evidence in the domain of neurodegeneration in Parkinson’s disease, focusing on alpha-synuclein accumulation and deposition and the role of oxidative stress and inflammation in progressive brain changes. Recent approaches to disease modification are discussed, including the prevention or reversal of alpha-synuclein accumulation and deposition, modification of oxidative stress, alteration of maladaptive innate immune processes and reactive cascades, and regeneration of lost neurons using stem cells and growth factors. The limitations of past research methodologies are interrogated, including the difficulty of recruiting patients in the clinically quiescent prodromal phase of sporadic Parkinson’s disease. Recommendations are provided for future studies seeking to identify novel therapeutics with disease-modifying properties. Full article

The ability to model the earliest stages of human embryonic development in vitro using pluripotent stem cells offers researchers new ways to understand and interrogate the intricacies of implantation. It also raises important ethical and regulatory considerations, both those common to research involving human embryos, as well as those unique to stem cell-based embryo and endometrial models. This review examines the underpinning scientific discoveries that have led to the development of this rapidly expanding area of research, and how three-dimensional embryo models could be employed in advancing assisted reproductive technologies and understanding implantation failure. Importantly, we also discuss the ethical and legal implications and explore various governance models that have been proposed to foster responsibility and innovation in this area of research. Given the heightened interest in the scientific community on this topic, we finish on the question of how and when to involve the public in the development of this technology and its regulation. Full article

The signal-processing architecture of passive surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensors presents significant implementation challenges due to its radar-like operational principle and the inherent complexity of discrete component-based hardware design. While System-in-Package (SiP) has demonstrated remarkable success in miniaturizing electronic systems for smartphones, automotive electronics, and IoT applications, its potential for revolutionizing SAW sensor interrogator design remains underexplored. This paper presents a novel architecture that synergistically combines time-domain ADC design with SiP-based miniaturization to achieve unprecedented simplification of SAW sensor readout systems. The proposed time-domain ADC incorporates an innovative delay chain calibration methodology that integrates physical unclonable function (PUF) principles during time-to-digital converter (TDC) characterization, enabling the simultaneous generation of unique system IDs. The experimental results demonstrate that the integrated security mechanism provides variable-length bit entropy for device authentication, and has a reliability of 97.56 and uniqueness of 49.43, with 53.28 uniformity, effectively addressing vulnerability concerns in distributed sensor networks. The proposed SiP is especially suitable for space-constrained IoT applications requiring robust physical-layer security. This work advances the state-of-the-art wireless sensor interfaces by demonstrating how time-domain signal processing and advanced packaging technologies can be co-optimized to address performance and security challenges in next-generation sensor systems. Full article

Measuring pH is a critical parameter in environmental monitoring, biomedical diagnostics, food safety, and industrial processes. Optical fiber sensors have proven highly effective for pH detection due to their exceptional sensitivity, rapid response, and resistance to electromagnetic interference, making them well suited for real-time monitoring. This review offers a comprehensive analysis of recent advances in optical fiber-based pH sensors, covering key techniques such as fluorescence-based, absorbance-based, evanescent wave, and interferometric methods. Innovations in Fiber Bragg Grating and Surface Plasmon Resonance technologies are also examined. The discussion extends to the impact of pH-sensitive coatings—ranging from nanomaterials and polymeric films to graphene-based compounds—on enhancing sensor performance. Recent advancements have also enabled automation in data analysis and improvements in remote sensing capabilities. The review further compares the economic viability of optical fiber sensors with traditional electrochemical methods, while acknowledging persistent issues such as temperature cross-sensitivity, long-term stability, and fabrication costs. Overall, recent developments have broadened the functionality and application scope of these sensors by improving efficiency, accuracy, and scalability. Future research directions are outlined, including advanced optical interrogation techniques, such as Addressed Fiber Bragg Structures (AFBSs), microwave photonic integration, and optimized material selection. These approaches aim to enhance performance, reduce costs, and enable the broader adoption of optical fiber pH sensors. Full article

Evolving technologies available to clinical laboratories and laboratory-related updates to clinical guidelines both drive the need for clinical laboratories to keep their test menu updated and in line with current technological and clinical developments. Our laboratory has developed a targeted Illumina-based amplicon next-generation sequencing (NGS) assay to interrogate the hsp65 and erm(41) genes of Mycobacterium spp. for the purposes of providing species-level ± subspecies-level identification of Mycobacterium spp. organisms in clinical samples and genotypic predictions for inducible macrolide resistance (in the case of M. abscessus complex members). The developed assay demonstrated 100% sensitivity and specificity for M. tuberculosis and M. abscessus complex cultured organisms, 98% ID overall concordance relative to the available reference identification, and a nearly 60% “rescue” rate for primary samples that could not be identified using our previous method. There was 94.6% concordance between genotypic and phenotypic results for inducible macrolide resistance. The developed assay was successfully implemented in our clinical laboratory and has been accredited for clinical use. Full article

The histological changes in the gastric epithelium are crucial in the progression from premalignant to neoplastic lesions. TLR4, TLR5 and TLR9 have been localized in the gastric epithelium and studied separately using conventional histological techniques without a focus on the protein or cell interactions within the microenvironment. Therefore, we developed a multiplex immunohistochemistry/immunofluorescence (mIHC/IF) technology for the simultaneous detection of TLR4, TLR5 and TLR9 on a single tissue section of human gastric biopsies from 10 paired cases collected in two independent visits, and its correlation with the OLGA/OLGIM scoring and H. pylori status after eradication. The results confirmed that mIHC/IF is useful for simultaneously interrogating six biomarkers and demonstrated that TLR4 and TLR9 are significantly associated with H. pylori infection. However, only TLR9 is positively related to the presence of intestinal metaplasia. TLR5 was mainly present in goblet cells (TFF3+) but did not show any significant association with H. pylori or the presence of intestinal metaplasia. Our results suggest that a more comprehensive strategy to interrogate the tissue microenvironment in premalignant lesions may improve the interpretation of the earned risk of gastric cancer in patients with chronic gastritis and evidence of failure in H. pylori eradication. Full article

Despite substantial instructional attention to large-enrollment university courses in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), they tend to have high rates of D, F, and Withdraw (DFW) at the introductory level that disproportionally disadvantage historically minoritized and underrepresented students, such as students identified as women, low-income, first-generation, or of color. While postsecondary institutions have recently explored big data and learning analytics to drive their institutional student success efforts, well-known shortfalls in student success in large STEM courses remain. This chapter documents an evidence-based approach at a large, R1 midwestern university that enriches robust data infrastructure with qualitative ethnographic methods. Applied to a gateway computer science course, these methods center students’ day-to-day learning realities, including disparate educational opportunities, in ways that interrogate barriers to and shortfalls in student success. The resulting case study describes our ethnographic approach, the shortfalls it uncovers, our future directions with this work, and how other faculty members and institutions can apply lessons learned to promote efficacy, attainment, and equity in gateway STEM courses. Implementations drawn from course vignettes point to revisions in design and preparation of group learning activities, strategic integration of lecture and lab sessions, course navigation aids, and pedagogical training for teaching assistants. Full article

‘Marriage equality’ has been a widely used slogan and mobilizing concept for LGBTQ+ rights’ movements across the globe striving for formal recognition for ‘same-sex’ or ‘same-gender’ marriages. In this article, we critically interrogate the terminology and political rationality that have given shape to ‘marriage equality’ campaigns. We demonstrate the structural erasure of non-monogamous relations and populations from the changes hoped for and envisioned in these mobilizations. The lack of any genuine and substantial concern with consensual non-monogamies (CNMs) from most of the literature in the field highlights the close entanglement of marriage with monogamy. As a result, ideas are scarce about how meaningful and adequate legal recognition and social policy provisions for a wide range of intimate, sexual, familial, and/or caring bonds or constellations on the CNM continuum could look like. We argue that the critique of the mononormativity inherent to marriage is fundamental to understanding the role of this in the 21st century. We identify the roots of the mononormativity of marriage in its governmental role as a necropolitical and biopolitical technology, evidenced by its ‘civilizing’ function in white settler colonial projects. Because of this, an expansion of the call for equality to include non-monogamous populations does not resolve but rather aggravates the problem. We conclude that any truly queer politics of CNM consequently needs to be anti-marriage. Full article