Search Results (659)

The growing penetration of renewable energy has intensified building load fluctuations, substantially increasing balancing costs. Electric vehicles (EVs) in building clusters often have considerable idle parking time beyond essential charging needs, enabling them to provide significant flexibility while meeting scheduled demands. This EV flexibility can balance intra-day load deviations and enable arbitrage in day-ahead electricity markets. However, conventional model-based approaches are fundamentally limited by their dependence on forecasting accuracy under high uncertainty from renewable generation and EV behavior. To address this, we propose a novel bi-level online optimization framework. The upper level employs a Lyapunov optimization-based algorithm that operates without predictions, making real-time decisions on total EV charging power to balance supply-demand mismatches. The lower level introduces novel flexibility metrics for individual EVs—encompassing temporal, volumetric, and cross-day dimensions—and optimizes power allocation by minimizing flexibility loss. Furthermore, we model EV flexibility as virtual queues and rigorously derive mathematical bounds on their limits, providing theoretical support for managing flexibility reserves. Rigorous analysis validates the framework’s feasibility, and comprehensive simulations demonstrate its superiority over benchmark algorithms, achieving significant cost reductions under various uncertainty scenarios. Full article

To address the pronounced interlayer productivity disparity and uneven reserve utilization during the development of multilayer low-permeability porous carbonate gas reservoirs, the G gas field on the right bank of the Amu Darya River was selected as the study area. Core-parallel physical simulation experiments, orthogonal numerical simulations, and production logging test (PLT) data were integrated to investigate the mechanisms of interlayer interference and its key controlling factors under multilayer commingled production. The results show that interlayer interference is primarily controlled by the permeability contrast and production differential. With increasing permeability contrast, high-permeability layers contribute a larger proportion of total production, whereas the utilization of medium- and low-permeability layers declines, thereby intensifying interlayer interference. Under the same permeability configuration, the interference coefficient increases with increasing production differential. Moreover, compared with the two-layer commingled-production cases, the three-layer system showed a stronger response to pressure-differential variation. When the production differential increased from 1 MPa to 5 MPa, the interference coefficient in the three-layer system increased from 9.84% to 27.83%, indicating more pronounced productivity loss in the medium- and low-permeability layers. Orthogonal numerical simulation indicates that the sensitivity of the main controlling factors follows the order of production differential ≥ permeability ratio > thickness ratio > gas viscosity. PLT data further validate the reliability of the experimental and numerical simulation results. During the development of Well G-22, the XVac layer consistently dominated gas production, whereas the XVm and XVp layers acted as supplementary contributors, indicating a dynamic production pattern in which high-permeability layers are preferentially activated and medium- and low-permeability layers contribute progressively at later stages. These findings demonstrate that permeability heterogeneity is the fundamental cause of interlayer interference, while the production differential serves as an important amplifying factor. This study provides a theoretical basis for zonal production allocation, optimization of the production differential, and stable production management in multilayer low-permeability porous carbonate gas reservoirs. Full article

Background: Hearing loss is highly prevalent among older adults and represents a growing public health burden. Increasing attention has been given to the associations between hearing loss, cognitive decline, and dementia risk. Cochlear implantation is an established intervention for adults with severe-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss who obtain limited benefit from conventional amplification, but its potential cognitive effects remain debated. Objective: This narrative review summarizes current evidence on cognitive outcomes after cochlear implantation in adults and older adults, with particular attention to cognitive domains, long-term trajectories, methodological limitations, and clinical implications. Main findings: Available evidence suggests that cochlear implantation may be associated with improvement or stabilization of selected cognitive domains, particularly attention, executive function, working memory, and memory. However, findings are heterogeneous across studies, cognitive tools, and follow-up durations. Prospective longitudinal studies using hearing-adapted or visually presented cognitive batteries support the possibility of postoperative cognitive benefit, but the magnitude and durability of this effect vary between individuals and domains. Long-term studies suggest that cognitive improvement may be strongest during the first postoperative years and may later stabilize or attenuate, whereas auditory and quality-of-life benefits appear more consistently sustained. Conclusions: Cochlear implantation should be regarded as an established hearing rehabilitation strategy with robust benefits for auditory performance and quality of life, and as a potentially cognition-supportive intervention in selected older adults with severe-to-profound hearing loss. Current evidence does not yet prove that cochlear implantation prevents dementia. Future studies should use standardized hearing-adapted cognitive protocols, longer follow-up, adequate comparison groups, and clinically meaningful cognitive endpoints. Full article

Plant invasions pose a significant threat to plant community integrity at high latitudes and altitudes, particularly under the backdrop of ongoing climate change and anthropogenic disturbance. However, how plant invasion and increasing invasion intensity reshape community functional traits and multidimensional diversity in high-altitude wetland ecosystems remain poorly understood. Here, we conducted a field survey across 284 quadrats in a subalpine wetland of Shennongjia National Nature Reserve, China. Nine invasive plant species were detected and occurred in 51.06% of all sampled quadrats. We compared functional trait composition between invaded and uninvaded communities and assessed species, functional, and phylogenetic diversity along invasion intensity gradients through inclusion and exclusion models of invasive species. Invaded communities showed 9.1% higher chlorophyll content and 30.7% larger specific leaf area but 26.1% lower leaf density than uninvaded communities. In addition, community-weighted traits and diversity indices showed stronger responses when invasive species were included. With increasing invasion intensity, species diversity and phylogenetic diversity declined, whereas functional richness increased. These results demonstrate that plant invasion simultaneously drives species loss and functional reorganization, reshaping both the functional composition and biodiversity of subalpine wetland communities. Our findings highlight how invasive species restructure plant communities in subalpine wetlands, with important implications for biodiversity conservation in high-altitude ecosystems. Full article

Urbanization can act as a powerful ecological filter, restructuring biodiversity through species loss, replacement, and altered resource pathways. While urban green spaces (UGS) are recognized as potential biodiversity refuges, the effectiveness and mechanisms for conserving insect diversity across the urban-to-natural gradient remain poorly understood. Here, we combine full-season Malaise trapping (April–November) with MinION-based DNA barcoding to test two predictions about how urbanization reshapes Diptera communities across five sites in Haidian District, Beijing, ranging from residential areas and urban parks to a nearby shallow mountain reserve (BWM). Based on 5528 barcoded individuals, we identified 686 putative species from 39 families. As predicted, β-diversity between urban and mountain sites was overwhelmingly driven by species turnover rather than nestedness, demonstrating that cities do not simply receive subsets of the surrounding fauna but actively reassemble communities. This filtering effect was, however, trophic-guild specific. Detritivores showed the highest replacement, consistent with a shift from natural to anthropogenic resource subsidies, while predators/parasitoids exhibited significant nested loss, aligning with their hypothesized sensitivity at higher trophic levels. Vegetation structure further clarified these patterns: vegetation density, not plant species richness, was the primary bottom-up driver for herbivore and predator/parasitoid diversity, whereas detritivores were decoupled from living plant biomass. These findings demonstrate that urban and near-natural habitats maintain distinct species pools via guild-specific assembly pathways, highlighting the need for guild-specific conservation strategies for urban biodiversity conservation. Extending beyond compositional analysis, we propose a temporal-abundance framework, classifying species by persistence and abundance, as a diagnostic tool for assessing ecological integrity and guiding conservation in urbanizing landscapes. Full article

Climate change threatens global biodiversity, with amphibians from climatically stable and geographically restricted ecosystems such as Mexico’s montane cloud forest (CF) being particularly vulnerable. This study evaluated the potential impacts of climate scenarios on the distribution and richness of 53 endemic anuran species. We used ecological niche models (MaxEnt) to project current and future distributions (year 2100) under the SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 scenarios, and assessed species representativeness within federal Protected Natural Areas (PNAs). The results indicate that 71.7% of species already fall into an IUCN threat category. Widespread habitat contraction is observed under the climate projections, with average losses of 40.3% (SSP2-4.5) and 45.5% (SSP5-8.5). Twelve species (22.6%) could lose over 90% of their current distribution, suggesting a high risk of functional extinction. Only 15.3% of occurrence records currently fall within PNAs, and key reserves such as Los Tuxtlas and La Sepultura are projected to experience significant richness declines. These patterns are consistent with an “escalator to extinction” process driven by altitudinal compression of climatic niches. Adaptive conservation strategies are urgently needed, including the identification of climate microrefugia and the establishment of connectivity corridors to enhance the long-term persistence of endemic anurans under climate change. Full article

This paper proposes a standards-aligned hybrid artificial intelligence–digital twin (DT) framework for predictive maintenance (PdM) in the maritime domain under conditions of data scarcity and heterogeneous sensor environments. The proposed framework adopts a DT-ready reference architecture centered on an ISO 19848-aligned data contract enabling consistent signal naming across vessels and equipment. On this foundation, the prognostics module is designed as a Domain-Knowledge Enhanced LSTM (DK-LSTM), a constraint-regularized sequence model in which three domain-informed constraints—(i) RUL non-negativity, (ii) monotonic degradation, and (iii) operating-range upper bounds—are formulated within the learning objective. Constraints (i) and (iii) are active throughout, while constraint (ii) is reserved for future work due to the structural limitation of batch-sort approximation in single-output architectures. An asymmetric safety penalty further suppresses hazardous over-predictions. Scenario-based virtual experiments are conducted using the NASA C-MAPSS turbofan degradation benchmark, evaluated under (1) sensor missingness via masking indicators and (2) structural domain shift comprising operational-condition shift (E3a: FD001 → FD002) and fault-mode shift (E3b: FD001 → FD003). Through systematic ablation of loss weights and stabilization techniques across multi-seed verification (seeds 0, 42, 123), the final stabilized configuration (DK-LSTM-v4) demonstrates robust safety-critical prediction in zero-shot domain-shift scenarios: 43.7% NASA Score improvement over the strongest baseline (GRU) under E3a and 20.8% improvement under E3b. The model trades modest in-domain performance for substantial cross-domain robustness, aligning with the core requirement of safety-critical maritime and defense applications where target-domain training data is unavailable. Full article

Thermal power units are the most important primary frequency regulation (PFR) resource for the power system with a high proportion of renewable energy. In order to provide higher PFR capacity during the dynamic process, thermal power units need to reserve more valve opening margin or set higher main-steam pressure under steady-state. However, higher PFR capacity leads to lower energy efficiency, which leads to a lack of sufficient quantity results. This study investigates the energy efficiency loss under different PFR operation strategies for a supercritical thermal power unit. New steady-state valve control strategies are designed to improve the PFR capacity based on the dynamic model during the PFR process. A coupled steady-state valve–turbine model is solved to quantify how different reserved control valve openings affect throttling loss, effective enthalpy drop, required steam flow, fuel demand, and heat rate. The control valve route has been modeled in detail, while the boiler side is treated as a fixed upstream boundary. Energy efficiency loss is obtained under different strategies by taking a 300 MW supercritical thermal power unit as a case. Results show that the steady valve opening from 0.95 to 0.70 lowers the valve-downstream pressure from 16.124 to 15.659 MPa, raise the required steam flow increases from 273.319 to 274.131 kg/s. Under the same 300.102 MW load condition, increasing the reserved control valve opening margin from 10% to 30%, i.e., a 20% absolute increase, reduces the steady-state operating efficiency by approximately 0.26%, with fuel flow and specific fuel consumption increasing by 0.059 kg/s and 0.714 g/kWh, respectively. Full article

Cardiovascular disease is traditionally interpreted through macrocirculatory parameters such as cardiac output, vascular resistance, and epicardial coronary anatomy. However, clinical outcomes frequently diverge from predictions based solely on these indices, particularly in syndromes such as heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), cardiogenic shock, and sepsis-associated myocardial dysfunction. Increasing evidence suggests that the integrity of the microvascular–immune interface plays a central role in determining tissue perfusion and cardiovascular resilience. This review proposes a staged framework of cardiovascular decompensation centered on progressive failure of this interface. In Stage 1, chronic cardiometabolic and inflammatory stress produces a primed but compensated microvascular state characterized by endothelial activation, glycocalyx vulnerability, pericyte remodeling, platelet sensitization, and reduced lymphatic reserve. Perfusion is preserved at rest, but vasodilatory reserve and microvascular stability are reduced, narrowing the effective perfusion window under physiologic stress. In Stage 2, acute insults such as infection, ischemia, or neurohumoral activation precipitate threshold instability within the microcirculation. Perfusion becomes governed by the arterial pressure–critical closing pressure (Pa − Pcrit) relationship rather than traditional arterial–venous gradients. As this window narrows, segmental capillary derecruitment and heterogeneous flow emerge, producing loss of hemodynamic coherence in which systemic blood pressure and cardiac output may appear preserved despite impaired tissue perfusion. In Stage 3, inflammatory amplification and immunothrombotic processes consolidate microvascular dysfunction. Pericyte contraction, endothelial injury, cytokine escalation, and neutrophil extracellular trap formation promote platelet–fibrin deposition and capillary obstruction, transforming reversible conductance failure into structural microvascular impairment. This framework provides a unifying physiologic lens for diverse cardiovascular syndromes, including Type 2 myocardial infarction, HFpEF decompensation, and cardiogenic shock. It also suggests that therapeutic efficacy may depend less on macrocirculatory normalization alone and more on preserving microvascular integrity before immunothrombotic consolidation occurs. Although this model remains hypothesis-generating, it highlights the microvascular–immune interface as a central determinant of cardiovascular stability and a potential target for future precision hemodynamic and immunomodulatory strategies. Full article

National and provincial surveillance of pine wood-boring pests in China is designed to detect damaging taxa, map occurrence, assess risk and loss, and support early warning, zoning and control decisions. Province-scale comparisons of alternative monitoring devices remain rare, especially under the operational conditions required by such programs in climatically and topographically heterogeneous forests. Using data from the 2025–2026 systematic survey of pine wood-boring pests in Yunnan Province, China, we integrated several monitoring datasets to compare baited logs, lure traps, and flight-intercept traps. The harmonized database comprised 2603 standard monitoring subcompartments and 3519 installed sites, including 4080 baited-log piles, 4807 lure-trap units, and 373 flight-intercept traps. Main performance analyses focused on active sites with at least one collection event (570 baited-log sites, 63 flight-intercept sites, and 496 lure-trap sites), whereas installed site summaries were retained to characterize operational coverage. Because the study was observational and the three devices have different sampling mechanisms, we interpreted detection probability as the primary early warning metric, and catch, operational taxon richness, standardized yield, and cost metrics as supporting indicators of diagnostic and operational return. Site-level comparisons were complemented with paired analyses of 21 co-located subcompartments, a more comparable subset defined within county × elevation band × host group strata represented by all three methods, county-clustered regression, and a taxonomic-resolution sensitivity analysis. Lure traps consistently had the highest detection probability (0.73), the greatest cumulative catch (8617 individuals), and the broadest operational taxonomic coverage (45 operational taxa). In county-clustered models, lure traps had higher odds of detection (odds ratio = 11.25, 95% CI: 5.64–22.43) and higher catch rates (incidence rate ratio = 5.97, 95% CI: 2.26–15.76) than baited logs after adjustment for elevation band, host group, and collection effort. The same ranking persisted in the more comparable subset and after exclusion of unresolved family-, subfamily-, genus-, and unknown-level records. Standardized yield peaked at 1500–2200 m. Scenario-based costing showed that lure traps had the lowest cost per captured and resolved captured individual, whereas detection cost estimates were interpreted together with absolute detections and operational taxonomic output. Overall, the results support a tiered surveillance architecture in which lure traps serve as the primary routine early warning tool, baited logs provide targeted complementary information, and flight-intercept traps are reserved mainly for exploratory or faunistic surveys. Full article

Traditional surgical decision-making in traumatic brain injury (TBI) has relied on static intracranial pressure (ICP) thresholds and fixed volumetric criteria, an approach that inadequately reflects the dynamic physiological nature of secondary brain injury. These conventional metrics fail to capture the critical determinant of clinical deterioration: the progressive loss of intracranial compliance, the brain’s capacity to buffer additional volume without harmful pressure escalation. This manuscript proposes a practical, compliance-based framework for selecting precise, personalized surgical strategies using real-time physiological, imaging, and neuromonitoring indicators. Based on the Intracranial Compartment Syndrome (ICCS) model, this approach translates the loss of compensatory reserve into actionable operative decisions. Compliance is assessed through multimodal tools, including ICP waveform morphology, cerebral oxygenation, and complementary noninvasive neuromonitoring. ICCS staging delineates three operative contexts: Stage 1, preserved compliance; Stage 2, compliance failure with maintained oxygenation requiring physiology-guided interventions to restore buffering capacity; and Stage 3, global decompensation with lost of compliance plus oxygenation failure requiring immediate, aggressive intervention for partial or total brain tissue survival. By shifting surgical reasoning from fixed anatomical thresholds to a physiology-centered assessment of intracranial compliance, this framework aims to enhance the timing, selection, and overall effectiveness of neurosurgical interventions in TBI. Full article

Background: Hypertension is one of the most prevalent comorbidities in patients with COVID-19 and a major contributor to chronic kidney disease (CKD). Traditional kidney injury markers, including creatinine, estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) and microalbuminuria, reflect renal injury only after substantial nephron loss has already occurred. Urinary podocyte proteins, such as nephrin (nephrinuria), have been suggested as early markers of glomerular barrier dysfunction; however, their clinical behavior and diagnostic value in hypertensive patients with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection are unknown. Aim: To assess urinary nephrinuria, microalbuminuria, transforming growth factor β1 (TGF-β1), aldosterone, vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A) and renal hemodynamics across different stages of hypertension in patients with and without a history of COVID-19 and to assess the response to conventional antihypertensive and nephroprotective treatment. Methods: In a prospective comparative cohort study, 120 patients (aged 30–60 years) with stage I–III essential hypertension were stratified by COVID-19 history into a post-COVID-19 group (n = 60) and a non-COVID-19 group (n = 60); within each group, 20 patients were assigned to each hypertension stage. Comparisons were performed between the post-COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 subgroups at the same hypertension stage. Serum creatinine, cystatin-C, aldosterone, TGF-β1 and VEGF-A, urinary microalbumin and nephrin and intrarenal Doppler hemodynamics were measured at baseline and after six months of guideline-based treatment. Results: Nephrinuria was markedly increased in post-COVID-19 patients in all stages of hypertension, including stage I, where serum creatinine, cystatin-C and eGFR were within the normal range (126.5 ± 9.1 vs. 91.9 ± 8.3 pg/mL, p < 0.01). Nephrinuria was strongly correlated with renal functional reserve (r = −0.824, p < 0.001), eGFR (r = −0.797, p < 0.001), microalbuminuria (r = 0.758, p < 0.001), aldosterone (r = 0.613, p < 0.001) and VEGF-A (r = 0.589, p < 0.001). Antihypertensive and nephroprotective treatment for six months decreased nephrinuria, blood pressure and TGF-β1, with more limited effects in stage III disease. Conclusions: Nephrinuria was found to be an early marker of renal involvement in COVID-19, occurring before microalbuminuria and conventional functional markers and with a greater relative difference than these markers in stage I disease, suggesting podocyte injury as an early and potentially reversible mechanism of post-COVID renal involvement in hypertensive patients. Nephrinuria seems to be a potential biomarker for early renal surveillance in this population and its prognostic role for incident CKD needs to be validated in longitudinal outcome studies. Full article

The steno-endemic Verbascum rupicola faces a precarious future due to its extreme habitat specialization on tectonically active hydrothermal quartz veins. This study presents a long-term assessment based on periodic population censuses spanning 18 years (2007, 2016, and 2025) to assess the demographic and spatial trends of its global population in the Tahtalı Dam basin, Türkiye. Field surveys, GIS-based habitat mapping, and controlled pollination experiments were integrated with seed germination kinetics and ex situ cultivation trials. Results reveal a precipitous 69.12% global population decline, primarily driven by a 33.41% habitat loss from agricultural expansion in 2011 and the total extirpation of three sub-populations by a major wildfire in 2017. Furthermore, a “reproductive squeeze” was identified, where climate-induced reductions in flower production (18.87%) are compounded by intensifying floral predation by Pieris rapae. Reproductive analysis revealed random monomorphic enantiostyly—reported for the first time in the genus—which functions as a flexible mating system prioritizing outcrossing while providing reproductive assurance. Despite high intrinsic seed viability (69.12%), ex situ cultivation largely failed (3.5% survival; 1 out of 28 transplanted individuals), underscoring the species’ obligate chasmophytic nature. Consequently, V. rupicola meets the criteria for Critically Endangered (CR) status, necessitating urgent “micro-reserve” protection of its remaining habitat and in situ restoration efforts. Full article

Given the large natural gas (NG) reserves of the Intermountain West (I-WEST) region in the USA, it can emerge as a leader in hydrogen (H₂) production. Currently, H₂ production via steam methane reforming (SMR) of NG releases carbon dioxide (CO₂) and the natural gas infrastructure has fugitive NG and H₂ losses during production, conversion and transportation. Integrated carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is a promising approach for producing hydrogen and CO₂ from the SMR process for industrial uses including power, chemicals and fuels. However, the NG losses and regional water availability can be limiting factors for H₂ production. H₂ production assessments are often made at the global scale and neglect regional factors such as abundant gas and limited water in the I-WEST. We demonstrate that a regional SMR process unit sitting near NG wells offers opportunities to significantly reduce fugitive NG losses. We show that regional H₂ production by SMR has a lower emissions profile than widespread natural gas combustion in the I-WEST and reduces the H₂ production cost as well. Replacing the I-WEST transportation sector with H₂ fuel cell vehicles and using 100% H₂-powered electricity can provide substantial reductions in water consumption and fuel costs. This is better than blending H₂ with NG which is more expensive. The captured CO₂ can be effectively used for enhanced oil recovery in I-WEST. Finally, the potential of utilizing produced, brackish and treated impaired water sources is assessed to meet the water needs for H₂ production in the I-WEST. Full article

The effective allocation of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds is critical for balancing timely access across patient groups of differing clinical urgency, particularly during demand surges. This paper extends the threshold-based loss-queuing framework to three patient classes, emergency, semi-urgent, and elective, governed by a two-tier coordinate reservation policy with thresholds $(k_1,k_2)$. Under Poisson arrivals, we derive an exact product form steady-state distribution and closed-form blocking probabilities for all three classes; under Interrupted Poisson Process (IPP) arrivals, we construct a block-tridiagonal Markov chain over the full $(i,j,l,\xi )$ state space and obtain dimensionally consistent blocking formulas via a lifted rate matrix. Fitted to the publicly available MIMIC-IV Medical ICU dataset, the IPP captures bursty emergency arrival patterns with mean and variance deviations below $0.1\%$. A comprehensive parameter sensitivity sweep over traffic utilization $\rho \in [0.40,0.95]$ and burstiness index $z\in [1.0,5.0]$ identifies three distinct operating regimes and yields policy recommendation charts for direct clinical use. An adaptive optimization framework selects $(k_1^{*},k_2^{*})$ to minimize a weighted blocking loss subject to fairness constraints, achieving a Jain fairness index above $0.999$ throughout the high-load region. Analytical predictions are validated against discrete-event simulation with a $100\%$ pass rate at a ±1.5 percentage-point criterion. We further demonstrate that the blocking probabilities for all three classes are insensitive to the LoS distribution beyond its mean across six service-time distributions spanning coefficients of variation from $0.45$ to $2.24$, with a $100\%$ pass rate across all 72 (class, distribution, setting) combinations, broadening the model’s applicability to diverse real-world scenarios. The findings provide actionable guidance for ICU managers in determining fair and efficient three-tier bed reservation thresholds. Full article