Search Results (8,893)

Background/Objectives: The health-protective properties of olive oil phenolics, including their potential chemopreventive and anticancer effects, have attracted considerable scientific interest. However, their in vivo efficacy and mechanisms of action remain insufficiently understood. Recent advances in extraction and purification technologies have enabled large-scale production of highly purified olive oil phenols and phenolic-rich extracts, facilitating translational research. Methods: Herein, the antitumor efficacy of isolated olive oil phenols and phenolic-rich formulations was investigated in an MDA-MB-231 triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) xenograft model. Results: Intraperitoneal administration of oleocanthal (OLC), oleuropein aglycone (OleA) or their combination reduced endpoint tumor burden, with OLC exhibiting the most pronounced effect. Oral administration of total olive oil phenolics (OOPs) achieved comparable efficacy. Pre-treatment initiated before tumor cell implantation conferred the greatest protection, consistent with a prophylactic mode of action. In contrast, delayed intervention displayed diminished or no antitumor benefit. Phenolic-rich extra virgin olive oil likewise showed an inhibition trend in tumor progression. Mechanistically, OOPs attenuated plasma protein oxidation, modulated proteasome mediated proteolysis, and reduced γH2AX levels in vivo. Furthermore, OOPs negatively affected the MDA-MB-231 cell migration in a concentration-dependent manner in vitro. Conclusions: Collectively, these findings are consistent with antitumor activities of olive oil phenolics via multiple mechanisms and support their further investigation as prophylactic agents in TNBC and as nutraceuticals. Full article

Driven by China’s “Dual Carbon” strategy, medium-deep closed-loop geothermal energy has become a mainstream clean heating technology owing to the advantage of “heat extraction without groundwater production”. However, its large-scale application is restricted by low single-well heat output and an unclear matching mechanism between working fluids and wellbores. Taking sandstone geothermal reservoirs in Dezhou, Northwestern Shandong Depression, as the research object, a 3D coupled heat transfer model of the wellbore–reservoir was established via COMSOL Multiphysics. The heat transfer characteristics of water and CO₂ under variable injection temperature, mass flow rate and wellbore layout were compared. The results show that: (1) injection temperature dominates the heat extraction performance of water, which matches branched wells and delays overall reservoir thermal depletion during long-term exploitation; (2) CO₂ performance is highly sensitive to mass flow rate and suitable for connected wells, and an asymmetric geothermal field with “cooled injection zone and heated production zone” forms under a high flow rate; (3) limited by low specific heat capacity, CO₂ delivers lower heat power at an identical flow rate, while equivalent heat yield can be achieved when its flow rate doubles that of water. This study clarifies matched development schemes for two working fluids and provides a theoretical reference for optimized exploitation of closed-loop geothermal systems in sandstone reservoirs in Northwestern Shandong. Full article

Although ceramic materials exhibit excellent thermal stability, high melting points, and chemical inertness, their intrinsic brittleness restricts their application across various fields. To address this challenge, ceramic fibers possessing the flexibility and functionality demanded by advanced applications have emerged. This review provides an overview of recent progress in ceramic fibers, emphasizing four major spinning techniques, including melt spinning, electrospinning, solution blow spinning, and wet spinning, along with their underlying fabrication mechanisms and process–structure relationships. The fibrous architectures (including aerogels, textiles, and membranes) demonstrate exceptional performance in thermal protection, extreme environment, wave absorption, thermoelectric energy conversion, and wearable electronic textiles and high-temperature catalysis. Despite these advancements, challenges remain in scalable continuous production, long-term stability under realistic service conditions, multifunctional integration, and cost-effective sustainability. This review provides a roadmap for translating laboratory innovations into practical, large-scale deployment in aerospace, energy, and electronic systems. Full article

Carminic acid (CA) is a high-value natural anthraquinone pigment used in foods, cosmetics, textiles, and pharmaceuticals, but its current industrial supply depends largely on extraction from the scale insect Dactylopius coccus, creating constraints in yield, cost, sustainability, and allergen control. This review summarizes recent progress from pathway elucidation to microbial production. We first outline the structure, occurrence, applications, and biosynthetic logic of CA, emphasizing the convergence of type III polyketide assembly with insect-associated tailoring reactions, especially C-glycosylation. We then compare heterologous production strategies in Escherichia coli, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Yarrowia lipolytica, and Aspergillus nidulans, focusing on chassis-specific advantages, bottlenecks, precursor supply, malonyl-CoA engineering, dynamic regulation, enzyme compatibility, compartmentalization, and downstream processing. Structurally related anthraquinone pigments are further discussed to extract broader design principles for pathway diversification and synthetic biology. Finally, we highlight key challenges for industrial translation, including low titers, incomplete enzyme characterization, host–pathway incompatibility, and scalable purification, and propose integrated strategies combining precursor-pathway rewiring, AI-assisted enzyme engineering, biosensor-based regulation, and process optimization to develop competitive microbial cell factories. Full article

Ceramides (Cer), as bioactive substances, hold significant research importance in fields such as biology, medicine, and daily chemicals. As a significant bioactive substance, Cer has garnered considerable attention in various fields in recent years. Especially in the field of daily chemicals, Cer serves as a core functional ingredient in skincare products, which ameliorate skin dryness and sensitivity and reinforce the barrier function of the stratum corneum. Among them, ultra-long-chain Cer assemble compact and ordered epidermal lipid layers to block exogenous oxidative stress, reduce intracellular ROS accumulation, and mitigate lipid-peroxidation-mediated skin barrier damage, while excess medium- and short-chain Cer disrupt the ordered arrangement of stratum corneum lipids and further aggravate cutaneous oxidative-stress imbalance. Such chain-length-dependent functional divergence reflects the core regulatory effect of structure–activity relationships on cutaneous physiological phenotypes. The acquisition of Cer is of great significance for advancing their research and applications. Currently, there is a lack of comprehensive reviews that introduce the acquisition pathways of Cer and discuss efficient preparation strategies for different methods. Cer and their related raw materials can be obtained through three main pathways: microbial fermentation, natural extraction, and chemical synthesis. This review provides a comprehensive comparison and analysis of these three approaches, focusing on recent advancements and developments in the field. The purpose of this review is to enable researchers to gain a comprehensive understanding of the current research status of the preparation strategies for biological Cer. And the discussion of these studies will be propitious to the future improvement of green synthesis and large-scale production, further promoting the wide application of Cer. Full article

Alternative pre-mRNA splicing is a central layer of gene regulation that enables a limited number of genes to generate a far larger and more context-dependent transcriptome and proteome. In cancer, splicing is disrupted by mutations in cis-regulatory sequences, recurrent lesions in spliceosome components, altered abundance or activity of RNA-binding proteins, and changes in transcription, chromatin, RNA modification, metabolism and stress signalling. These alterations are not merely by-products of malignant transformation. They can create oncogenic protein isoforms, eliminate tumour-suppressive products, remodel cellular identity, promote metastasis and drug resistance, and generate tumour-restricted peptides that are visible to the immune system. Large pan-cancer datasets, long-read sequencing, single-cell isoform profiling, proteogenomics and functional perturbation screens are now resolving this complexity at unprecedented scale. In parallel, multiple therapeutic strategies are advancing, including modulators of the SF3B complex, molecular glues that degrade RBM39, inhibitors of protein arginine methyltransferases and splicing kinases, splice-switching oligonucleotides, programmable RNA-targeting systems, and vaccines or T-cell receptors directed against splicing-derived neoantigens. This review integrates the molecular logic of splice-site selection with the cancer-specific mechanisms that perturb it, summarizes representative isoform switches across the hallmarks of cancer, evaluates emerging technologies and clinical biomarkers, and discusses the opportunities and constraints of translating splicing biology into precision oncology. Particular emphasis is placed on tumour specificity, intratumoural heterogeneity, proteomic validation, therapeutic windows and rational combination strategies. Full article

Steel production contributes significantly to global resource consumption and accounts for nearly 8% of worldwide CO₂ emissions. As the construction industry moves toward decarbonization, the reuse of structural steel has emerged as a highly impactful strategy for reducing embodied carbon and extending material life cycles. However, most end-of-life structures are still demolished using conventional methods that prioritize recycling for scrap value rather than recovering reusable steel components, resulting in the loss of high-quality material and reduced environmental and economic benefits. Despite growing interest in circular construction, systematic analyses of real-world structural steel reuse projects remain limited. This restricts the understanding of the practical conditions required for scalable implementation. Moreover, there is a lack of structured approaches for identifying the factors influencing deconstruction and large-scale structural steel reuse across reverse supply chains. This study addresses these gaps by developing a framework of factors affecting efficient deconstruction and structural steel reuse, identified through a thematic analysis of the literature and structured around structure attributes, business attributes, value chain activities, project management, and regulations. Fifteen case studies were analyzed: two from North America, twelve from Europe, and one from Asia. A structural steel reuse classification model is introduced to support cross-case comparison of coordination demands, implementation barriers, and scalability potential within reverse supply chains. The results demonstrate that reuse pathways differ substantially in coordination requirements, implementation complexity, and scalability outcomes. They further indicate that the dominant challenges to structural steel reuse are no longer primarily technical, but instead stem from system-level coordination gaps, limited information availability, and insufficient integration across reverse supply chains. Based on these findings, targeted solutions are identified, including improved dismantling strategies, enhanced documentation systems, dedicated storage infrastructure, and stronger regulatory alignment. This study provides a structured analytical approach and practical recommendations to support decision-making, stakeholder coordination, and the scalable implementation of structural steel reuse. Full article

Agricultural drones have been increasingly adopted to improve production efficiency and address labor shortages in agriculture. However, their broader socioeconomic effects remain unclear, particularly regarding whether drone-assisted farming may increase unemployment pressure or attract excessive capital intervention that threatens farmers’ access to farmland and the sustainable development of agricultural production systems. To address these issues, this study evaluates the development scale and economic effects of agricultural drones in China. A comparative analytical framework is constructed to quantify production costs, return on investment (ROI), and labor demand under traditional and drone-assisted farming modes. Corn and citrus are selected as representative grain and fruit crops for empirical analysis. The results indicate the following: (1) Drone-assisted farming reduces production costs. (2) At the baseline prices, the ROI of drone-assisted corn and citrus production increases to 10.53% and 7.65%, respectively, but remains low, suggesting a limited risk of excessive capital intervention. (3) At the national scale, drone-assisted farming generates estimated cost savings for corn and citrus. (4) In terms of labor effects, agricultural drones mainly help alleviate agricultural labor shortages rather than generate large-scale unemployment, while also improving production efficiency and supporting sustainable agricultural development. Full article

The growing focus on environmental sustainability in construction has driven advancements in the design and production of masonry materials, including bricks and concrete blocks. A major development is the incorporation of agricultural and industrial waste, such as fly ash, rice straw ash, bagasse ash, and other by-products, to reduce dependence on non-renewable resources and lower the carbon footprint of traditional manufacturing processes. This systematic review examines the potential of waste materials in masonry unit production by analysing Scopus-indexed studies published between 2015 and 2025. After screening, 30 studies were selected, covering fired bricks, unfired bricks, and concrete blocks, with emphasis on physical, mechanical, thermal, and durability properties. The findings show that industrial wastes typically improve mechanical strength through pozzolanic reactions, while agricultural wastes contribute to lower density and improved thermal insulation. However, performance depends on waste type, replacement level, and production conditions. Optimal incorporation levels are generally below 20%. Despite promising results, challenges remain, including the absence of standardised testing methods, limited durability evaluations, and insufficient evidence for large-scale industrial adoption. This review highlights current research trends and future opportunities for integrating waste materials into sustainable construction products. Full article

Agricultural nonpoint source pollution mainly causes lake eutrophication in China, largely affected by variations in crop distribution. To analyze the multiscale relationships between the long-term evolution of cropping patterns and lake water quality at the macro scale, this study analyzed nationwide datasets for 2000 and 2020 covering 420 relatively large lakes. We systematically examined the spatial restructuring of six major food and cash crops—wheat, rice, maize, soybean, peanut, and rapeseed—and evaluated their multiscale associations with lake total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) concentrations and how these associations changed over time. The results showed the following: (1) From 2000 to 2020, the spatial distributions of the six major crops underwent substantial restructuring. The dominant production areas of rice, wheat, and maize were maintained or further reinforced, whereas soybean, rapeseed, and peanut exhibited varying degrees of regional redistribution and localized concentration. (2) Lake water quality differed between the flood and non-flood seasons. TN exhibited pronounced seasonal differences between the two study periods, whereas temporal changes in TP were generally limited; both nutrients nevertheless showed marked regional heterogeneity among the five major lake regions. (3) The crop–water quality relationship exhibits significant scale dependence and crop-specific variations. The XGBoost model demonstrated a certain degree of out-of-field (OOF) predictive capability for both TN and TP, with OOF R² values of 0.448 and 0.447, respectively. For TN, the highest OOF R² values were observed in the 1000–2000 m buffer zone in both 2000 and 2020; the optimal prediction scale for TP shifted from 1000–2000 m in 2000 to 2000–5000 m in 2020. SHAP results showed that corn maintained a high and relatively stable predictive importance in the TN model, followed by wheat, peanuts, and rice; in the TP model, corn and rapeseed were the crop predictors with the highest relative SHAP importance. PDP results further indicate that there are generally nonlinear or non-monotonic relationships between different crop coverage proportions and TN and TP. (4) Pronounced spatial heterogeneity was observed across the five lake regions. The Eastern Plain Lake Region was characterized by associations involving multiple crops, whereas maize was the most prominent crop in the Northeast Plain and Mountain Lake Region. In the Inner Mongolia–Xinjiang Plateau Lake Region, maize predominated, with wheat and rapeseed also showing notable importance. In the Tibetan Plateau Lake Region, TN was associated with multiple crops, whereas TP was primarily related to maize and rapeseed. The Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau Lake Region exhibited particularly strong scale-dependent differences. This study provides a nationwide analytical framework for comparing the scale differences and regional variations in the statistical associations between the spatial distribution of crops and lake water quality at the specific crop level. The findings can provide a scientific basis for formulating differentiated agricultural nonpoint source pollution control strategies that are adapted to the evolving characteristics of crop planting structures. Full article

Morocco’s National Green Hydrogen Roadmap targets large-scale hydrogen exports, yet the offshore wind and tidal resources of the Atlantic Sahara coast remain underexplored, and single-resource electrolysis plants suffer from low, variable electrolyser utilisation. This study presents a reproducible, model-based techno-economic assessment of a 560 MW hybrid offshore wind–tidal hub at Dakhla that produces hydrogen by proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysis and exports it as liquid hydrogen (LH₂) to Jorf Lasfar. The assessment is entirely theoretical: it couples reanalysis-based resource characterisation, harmonic tidal modelling, hourly dispatch, and discounted levelised cost of hydrogen (LCOH) analysis, and does not include experimental or in situ measurements. The hybrid plant reaches a 45.5% capacity factor and produces 36,781 t of hydrogen per year at 60% electrolyser utilisation. The 2025 base-case production LCOH is 7.53 USD/kg (10.04 USD/kg delivered), falling to 4.45 USD/kg under a 2030 learning scenario that approaches the national 2–4 USD/kg target band. Because the wind and tidal resources are almost uncorrelated, hybridisation firms the supply and reduces electrolyser cycling rather than adding bulk energy; capacity factor and electrolyser-specific energy consumption are the dominant cost drivers. This work provides the first integrated wind–tidal hydrogen assessment for the Moroccan Atlantic coast and a transparent platform for future optimisation. Full article

Coffee fermentation is a critical yet under-optimized stage of the coffee value chain, with significant implications for beverage quality, process consistency, and smallholder livelihoods. Pichia species, together with several non-Saccharomyces yeasts historically associated with the genus, are frequently detected in natural and semi-dry coffee fermentation; however, their functional roles remain insufficiently characterized, constraining evidence-based starter-culture design. Direct coffee evidence implicates P. kudriavzevii, P. kluyveri, and Meyerozyma guilliermondii (formerly Pichia guilliermondii) in substrate transformation, fermentation dynamics, and sensory quality development. However, these findings are derived exclusively from studies conducted on single farms during single harvest seasons, without independent validation across multiple farms, harvest seasons, origins, or production environments, limiting their broader applicability. In contrast, ecologically prevalent species, including P. fermentans, Wickerhamomyces anomalus (formerly Pichia anomala), and Debaryomyces hansenii (formerly Pichia hansenii), remain largely unexplored in the context of coffee fermentation. To contextualize the current knowledge and identify promising avenues for future research, this review synthesizes evidence from cocoa, Baijiu, bakery, vinegar, dairy, and other solid-state fermentation systems. Across these diverse matrices, Pichia and related non-Saccharomyces yeasts frequently exert a disproportionate influence on flavor development, microbial succession, and process stability relative to their population abundance. The reported mechanisms include ester and higher-alcohol production, modulation of bacterial community dynamics, extracellular enzymatic activity, and bioprotective effects. Notably, functional impact often occurs without numerical dominance; ester production can increase alongside declining ethanol yield, and ecological persistence may increase despite declining absolute abundance, implicating community-level interactions in addition to direct metabolic activity. However, both the mechanisms and the magnitudes of these effects vary across fermentation systems, underscoring that functions demonstrated in one matrix cannot be assumed to translate directly to coffee without experimental validation. Future progress will require strain-level characterization, mechanistic studies, deliberate multi-species consortium design, process optimization, and field-scale validation in diverse coffee-producing environments. Such efforts will provide a scientific foundation for evidence-based starter-culture development capable of improving coffee quality, consistency, and producer value. Full article

This study presents an integrated framework for developing kinetic models of vacuum gas oil (VGO) catalytic cracking under sparse experimental data conditions. Experiments were performed in the CREC Riser Simulator at different C/O (catalyst/VGO) weight ratios. The CREC Riser Simulator is a bench-scale mini-fluidized reactor capable of reproducing the short contact times and operating conditions of industrial fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) risers. Product distributions were characterized by using a five-lump scheme consisting of unconverted VGO, light cycle oil (LCO), gasoline, light gases, and coke. To address the limitations associated with sparse datasets, a feedforward neural network (FNN) was used to reconstruct continuous reaction trajectories from discrete experimental measurements. These synthetic trajectories enabled the estimation of kinetic parameters for a phenomenological five-lump reaction network that incorporates catalyst deactivation. The resulting kinetic model established was subsequently implemented in a 1D heterogeneous model of a large-scale industrial FCC riser, providing reliable predictions of VGO conversion, product selectivity, and axial temperature profiles. Full article

The use of manufactured sand (MS) as a substitute for natural sand or quartz sand in the production of ultra-high-performance manufactured sand concrete (UHPMC) represents a critical approach to alleviating the shortage of high-quality aggregates and promoting low-carbon development. However, after steel fibers and steel rebars are introduced into this material system, the synergistic working mechanism and damage evolution characteristics of the resulting ultra-high-performance manufactured sand-reinforced concrete (UHPMRC) beams under flexural loading remain largely unexplored. Acoustic emission (AE) technology, owing to its high sensitivity to the initiation and propagation of microcracks, enables real-time dynamic monitoring of UHPMRC beams throughout the entire process from the elastic stage to fracture failure, thereby providing an effective means to reveal the internal performance degradation law. Accordingly, this study conducted simultaneous AE monitoring on small-scale reinforced beams under four-point bending and investigated the effects of MS replacement ratios (0%, 50%, 100%) and steel fiber contents (1.0%, 1.5%, 2.0%). Results show that UHPMRC beams with 100% MS replacement and 1.5% steel fiber content achieve optimal performance. Compared to 0% MS specimens, those with 100% MS exhibit superior early stiffness, ductility, and flexural capacity due to the combined effects of steel fibers and MS. Beams with 2% steel fiber content experienced fiber clustering, reducing bridging capability and promoting earlier cracking relative to those with 1.5% fibers. AE energy parameters accurately identified cracking and characterized crack propagation in UHPMRC beams. Increasing MS content raised the proportion of shear cracks while reducing tensile cracks. The highest shear signal proportion occurred at 1.0% steel fiber content. These findings provide a valuable reference for the design of sustainable high-performance reinforced-concrete structures using manufactured sand. Full article

While climate change is a significant pressure point for pollinators and honeybees, its long-term relationship with managed honeybee colonies and honey production remains unclear and context sensitive. This study, using FAOSTAT data from 1961 to 2024, examined the relationships between land surface temperature anomalies and the number of registered beehives, the constant-price honey production value, and the normalized honey production value per colony, both globally and specifically for 18 Mediterranean countries. To differentiate between long-term structural trends and short-term temperature relationships, correlation, regression, bootstrap confidence interval, temperature series sensitivity analysis, cross-correlation function, and normalized index analyses were used together. The study results show strong long-term co-movement between temperature anomalies and recorded beekeeping indicators at the global and Mediterranean scale in the level series; however, first-differenced (year-to-year) analyses show this association weakens substantially and, for Mediterranean honey production value, reverses sign, indicating that the level-series correlations are driven largely by common long-term trends. The relationship between temperature anomalies and beekeeping indicators shows a context-dependent structure among Mediterranean countries. The findings show that the increase in colony size does not always coincide with the increase in the constant-price honey production value per colony; in some cases, these two indicators can move in different directions. This indicates the need for an analytical decomposition of the dynamics of quantitative growth and economic production value per colony in the beekeeping sector. Full article