Search Results (1,739)

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) causes significant losses for livestock farmers in affected countries and regions, including Southeast Asia, where several countries are progressing through different stages of the Progressive Control Pathway (PCP) under diverse resource settings. The PCP, developed by the World Organization for Animal Health and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, is an outcome-oriented strategy designed to support progress toward the elimination of FMD. In this review paper, we propose an evidence-based framework linking epidemiological tools to each PCP stage requirements based on studies conducted in eight Southeast Asian countries through peer-reviewed research and gray literature. The findings indicate that Stage 1 progression is supported through risk-factor analyses, seroprevalence studies, and participatory epidemiology, while Stage 2 relies on spatial analyses and evaluations of control strategies. Progression to Stage 3 requires evidence of active surveillance systems for rapid detection of new viral incursions, whereas later stages depend on risk assessment, sustained surveillance, and restricting transboundary animal movement. Regional challenges include underreporting, surveillance-system deficiencies, and inconsistent vaccination monitoring. The framework proposed herein provides a practical approach for aligning the generation of evidence with PCP requirements. Ultimately, strengthened regional collaboration that coordinates transboundary risk management is crucial for progress toward sustainable FMD control in Southeast Asia. Full article

Electromyography (EMG)-based sensing is an important tool for assessing neuromuscular activity and monitoring athlete development; its reliability depends on electrode placement, signal quality, and accurate identification of muscle activation periods. This study proposes an intelligent EMG sensing framework integrating preliminary electrode placement assessment, muscle activity detection, feature extraction, and regression-based progression prediction. A placement assessment indicated that positioning the electrode adjacent to the innervation zone produced the highest RMS under the tested conditions. A two-stage activity detection method based on clustering and probabilistic modeling achieved an average error of 1.5% and a temporal deviation of 19 ms. Nine time-domain EMG features extracted from the detected activity segments were used to characterize athlete progression and estimate the time required to reach a reference neuromuscular profile. Among the methods, Linear Regression provided the best fit to the data, obtaining R² = 0.987 and RMSE = 4.21 and suggesting a predominantly linear relationship between the EMG-derived features and training duration within the dataset. However, these results were obtained from only six longitudinal observation periods for a single representative athlete, with each period represented by a 90-dimensional EMG feature vector derived from the ten movement classes. Therefore, the results should be interpreted as preliminary, athlete-specific goodness-of-fit findings rather than evidence of generalizable predictive performance. Validation using larger longitudinal cohorts and independent datasets is required. The proposed framework is compatible with future IoT-enabled wearable and edge-computing architectures; however, hardware-level implementation was beyond the scope of this study. Full article

Repeated mining of shallow-buried close-distance coal seams can disturb the fractured strata remaining in the goaf of the upper coal seam. Under gully terrain, mining disturbance is coupled with surface-relief effects, which may reactivate the overburden structure and induce dynamic strata-pressure behavior. In particular, when the working face advances across gullies, the change in surface slope alters the spatial distribution of roof load, while lower-seam extraction further disturbs the fractured rock mass formed by upper-seam mining, increasing the risk of severe strata-pressure behavior and support-crushing accidents. Taking the cross-ditch mining of the 2⁻² and 3⁻¹ coal seams in Anshan Coal Mine as the research object, this study integrates field geological investigation, theoretical calculation, physical similarity simulation, and field engineering verification to analyze overburden structural evolution, key-stratum breaking characteristics, and support-load variation under gully terrain. The results show that gully landforms generate obvious nonuniform loading above the working face. During upslope advance, the roof load gradually increases from the goaf side to the solid-coal side, causing tensile stress concentration at the fixed end of the key stratum and accelerating rock-stratum failure. A cantilever rock-beam mechanical model subjected to parabolic nonuniform loading was established, and the maximum breaking interval of the key stratum was calculated as 24.09 m. With increasing gully slope angle, the load gradient intensifies, the rock-beam breaking interval decreases, and the risk of overburden instability increases. Physical similarity simulation indicates that, when the 2⁻² coal seam working face passes through the 45° steep-slope section, the fractured overburden is more likely to form a stepped rock-beam structure, accompanied by slope rotation, stepped surface subsidence, and a sharp increase in support pressure. Under the 30° gentle-slope condition, The lateral confinement effect is stronger, roof movement is more gradual, and support-pressure fluctuation is reduced. During subsequent extraction of the lower 3⁻¹ coal seam, repeated mining disturbance reactivates the overlying goaf structure, and the upper stepped rock beam and lower hinged rock beam couple to form a double composite structure. When the fracture lines of the upper and lower key strata are staggered, the instability load of the upper structure is mainly buffered by caved gangue and interburden strata. The calculated support resistance in the asynchronous breaking stage is 8248.04 kN, which agrees well with the field-measured value of 8273 kN. When the fracture lines tend to coincide and synchronous breaking occurs, the unstable load of the upper key block is transferred downward and superimposed on the structural load of the lower key block, increasing the required support resistance to 15,165.55 kN, far exceeding the rated working resistance of the ZY9200/15/29 hydraulic support. Sensitivity analysis indicates that gully slope angle is the dominant factor affecting support resistance. As the slope angle increases from 30° to 60°, the support resistance increases from 13,228.65 kN to 18,278.43 kN, and the normalized support-resistance index increases from 0.872 to 1.205. Therefore, synchronous breaking of double key strata is the main mechanical cause of sudden support-load increase and support-crushing risk during cross-ditch mining of shallow-buried close-distance coal seams. The results can provide a basis for hydraulic support selection, roof weakening, weighting-interval control, and dynamic strata-pressure prevention under similar conditions. Full article

Music-to-dance generation requires precisely aligning movement dynamics with musical rhythm, yet existing methods rely on shallow conditioning or auxiliary beat-alignment objectives that fail to establish stable beat–motion correspondences. We present ChoreDiffusion, a diffusion-based framework that integrates explicit beat guidance directly into the denoising process. Central to our approach is a beat-enhanced cross-modal attention mechanism that injects beat-salience cues at every refinement step, promoting fine-grained synchronization beyond the reach of conventional conditioning pipelines. To support multiple dance styles within a unified model, we incorporate lightweight low-rank adaptation (LoRA) modules that encode style-specific motion signatures with only a small set of additional parameters per style, and a three-stage progressive curriculum stabilizes the joint learning of rhythmic alignment and stylistic expressivity. Experiments on two public multi-style dance benchmarks (AIST++ and FineDance) show that ChoreDiffusion achieves the lowest FID values among the compared generation methods on both benchmarks, while maintaining competitive rhythm alignment and multi-style controllability. These results indicate that embedding beat-aware guidance during generation, rather than applying it afterwards, is an effective route toward human-like musicality in music-driven choreography. Full article

Targeting the rock burst hazard induced by the hard roof key stratum during deep mining at the Mengcun Coal Mine in the Binchang mining area, this study takes the No. 403109 working face as the engineering background and systematically investigates the rockburst prevention mechanism and effectiveness of ground hydraulic fracturing through theoretical analysis, UDEC numerical simulation, and surface microseismic monitoring. The results indicate that fracturing pre-weakens the overlying key stratum, transforming its load-bearing mode from a long-beam rigid support to a segmented flexible support. This significantly reduces the cantilever length, lowers the accumulation of elastic strain energy, and enables flexible load transfer and stress redistribution in the overburden. Numerical simulations reveal that after fracturing, the breakage timing of the key stratum advances, the fragmentation size decreases, and the over-burden movement shifts from stepwise fracturing to sequential caving, with the stress concentration zone substantially narrowed. In the field, a total of 44 fracturing stages were implemented in wells MC-05L and MC-06L, creating a fracture network with an average fracture length of 317 m and an average fracture height of 55 m, achieving an effective stimulated volume ratio of 86.7%. During the mining period, microseismic events exhibited a median energy of only 868.14 J, characterized by high frequency and low energy. The average weighting interval was 13.69 m, the peak coal stress was controlled within 5.0–6.7 MPa, and the loads on roadway bolts and cables remained within safe limits. This study validates the source-control effect of ground hydraulic fracturing on working faces with strong rock burst risks in deep mining, providing a theoretical basis and engineering reference for mines with analogous conditions. Full article

Most existing creep studies on NEPE propellant focus on room and high temperatures, lacking systematic investigation into low-temperature creep damage. In this work, uniaxial creep tests at −10 °C, −30 °C and −50 °C under three stress levels were conducted. All specimens show complete three-stage creep behavior. Higher stress accelerates interface debonding and shortens rupture life, while low temperature restricts molecular chain movement and suppresses damage growth. Combined with continuum damage mechanics and strain-equivalence hypothesis, a modified time-hardening creep model embedded with the Kachanov damage-evolution equation is established. All fitting coefficients of determination exceed 0.989. A FORTRAN UMAT subroutine is developed on ABAQUS (version 2024) for numerical simulation, using SDV1 and SDV8 to output creep strain and damage variables respectively. Simulation strain curves match experimental data well and reproduce full-range creep evolution. Damage remains low for most of the service time and surges only in the final 5–10% of the lifetime. The proposed model and subroutine accurately characterize the low-temperature creep and damage evolution of NEPE propellant, supporting grain structural integrity analysis and long-term storage life prediction. Full article

Background/Objectives: Most children and adolescents do not meet recommended physical activity (PA) levels. Artificial intelligence (AI) may enable personalized and adaptive interventions, but evidence across delivery formats remains unclear. This scoping review mapped AI-enabled PA interventions for children and adolescents aged 6–18 years. Methods: Following PRISMA-ScR and Joanna Briggs Institute guidance, six databases were searched on 24 May 2026 for English-language studies published since 2018. Eligible studies used AI in intervention delivery and empirically evaluated at least one participant-level PA-related outcome following exposure to the intervention. The review protocol was registered during data analysis. Results: Seven studies published between 2022 and 2026 were included. Primary AI techniques were computer vision (n = 3), generative AI or large language models (n = 2), reinforcement learning (n = 1), and evolutionary computation (n = 1). Interventions included immersive systems (n = 2), conversational agents (n = 2), exergames or serious games (n = 2), and a robot (n = 1). Three studies used controlled designs and four were single-arm pilot or feasibility studies. Conclusions: AI supported movement recognition, content generation, personalization, and adaptive feedback. However, the small, heterogeneous, and predominantly early-stage evidence base precludes conclusions about effectiveness. Rigorous controlled studies and transparent AI-specific reporting are needed. Full article

Vietnam’s domestic gold price has persistently exceeded the world price by a wide margin, even as recent reforms have begun to relax the state’s historical monopoly over gold-bar production and imports. This paper asks why the gap persists, and whether it is confined to normal market conditions or extends into periods of extreme price movement. Using daily data spanning 2 January 2019 to 31 July 2026 (1856 trading days), covering the reform introduced by Decree No. 232/2025/ND-CP we decompose the domestic premium into a currency component and a pure physical-gold component, and use a copula-based framework to separately assess average price linkage and tail (extreme-event) co-movement between the domestic and world markets. Domestic gold bars traded at an average premium of 16.0% over import-parity world prices, of which 13.8 percentage points reflect the physical-gold component driven by constrained arbitrage, while currency factors account for only about 2 percentage points. The average linkage between the two markets is weak, indicating persistent segmentation, and this segmentation extends into the tails of the distribution for most of the sample. The premium itself carries substantial latent risk: a reversion to price parity would imply a one-off loss of about 9.6% of value, roughly eight to ten times the historical one-day 5% Value-at-Risk. Following the reform’s effective date, however, we find early evidence of emerging co-movement specifically in extreme upside price movements, even though the physical premium itself has not yet narrowed—consistent with a reform that has been enacted in law but remains at an early stage of operational implementation. The results indicate that administrative restrictions on the physical gold supply chain, rather than currency controls, are the principal source of Vietnam’s persistent gold-price gap, with direct implications for how the ongoing liberalization process should be sequenced. Full article

The Anatolian Caracal Optimization Algorithm (ACOA), a swarm-based optimization approach inspired by nature, approximately describes the characteristic hunting strategy of the Anatolian caracal, shaped by its superior auditory–visual perception and extraordinary agility, using mathematical models. The algorithm structures this process into three main stages by integrating and modifying established search mechanisms within a sequential framework: (i) wide-area scanning (exploration), which supports a broad exploration of the solution space through prey-focused movements; (ii) tracking–approach, which uses Brownian (continuous, small steps) and Lévy (occasional long jumps) movements to support the transition from exploration to exploitation; and (iii) predatory leap (exploitation), which represents the Anatolian caracal’s jump with a dimensionless projectile-inspired formulation and supports the refinement of candidate solutions. ACOA has been benchmarked across the CEC 2017, CEC 2019, CEC 2020, and CEC 2022 test suites, including unimodal and multimodal functions with fixed and varying dimensions, as well as real-world engineering design problems, for a total of 131 functions. It has been compared against 11 recent and well-known optimization algorithms. The best mean performance is achieved by ACOA in 111 out of 131 cases. In terms of stability, consistently low standard deviation is maintained by ACOA across the majority of the evaluated functions, indicating a strong reproducibility of the obtained solutions across independent runs. These findings indicate that the proposed three-stage framework provides a competitive exploration–exploitation behavior and can offer effective and stable solutions for a wide range of benchmark and engineering optimization problems. Full article

EEG-based motor imagery (MI) decoding is commonly evaluated in open loop, but strong offline performance does not necessarily translate into stable real-time control once decoder outputs drive a physical device. This issue is especially relevant for lower-limb exoskeletons, where initiating movement, sustaining movement, stopping movement, and maintaining rest can impose different controller-level demands. This study presents a proof-of-concept controller-level validation of an EEG-driven ankle exoskeleton framework, using a staged design that links open-loop decoder development to real-time closed-loop controller testing. Open-loop EEG data were collected from nine able-bodied participants during static and dynamic ankle MI using an eight-channel g.tec Unicorn Hybrid Black system, with matched PA-SEMI outputs available for eight participants in the primary open-loop comparison. We used a hybrid feature representation combining spectral, spatial covariance, and temporal complexity descriptors to compare a supervised Passive–Aggressive (PA) classifier with a Semi-supervised latent learning network (SEMI). Performance was assessed using epoch-level and persistence-based event metrics intended to reflect controller triggering. Under the evaluated model-specific protocols, SEMI produced higher open-loop accuracy and lower false-trigger rates than PA. The reported SEMI analysis was transductive: feature windows from the target-participant evaluation runs were available without labels during consistency training, and their labels were withheld until final evaluation. However, we selected PA for the primary matched closed-loop validation because it could be retrained, checked, and deployed within the same-day workflow. Since SEMI was not evaluated in a balanced matched closed-loop comparison, this study does not determine whether PA or SEMI provides superior real-time controller performance. Deployment-oriented PA updates were audited using limited same-day calibration data and evaluated in matched PA-based closed-loop trials with three participants, based on online controller logs. The closed-loop experiments were conducted on RehAnkle, a pre-commercial robotic ankle rehabilitation device operated here as a single-active-DoF ankle platform for dorsiflexion-oriented EEG control. In closed-loop trials, start and stop commands were generally reliable, whereas sustained movement and sustained rest were less stable. These proof-of-concept results indicate that command generation and state maintenance should be evaluated as separate controller-level problems, and that open-loop accuracy alone is insufficient to characterize real-time exoskeleton control. Full article

It is widely proposed that perceptual expertise is characterized by an increased reliance on peripheral visual information during search, as described by Holistic Visual Processing (HVP) theory. HVP predicts that experts make longer saccades to construct a holistic representation of the visual scene and facilitate target detection. Our previous work challenged this prediction by showing that expert architects made shorter, rather than longer, saccades during visual search. The present study investigated how this atypical search strategy develops by comparing expert architects, intermediate architects, and naïve observers performing the same visual search task. Intermediate architects exhibited shorter saccades than naïve observers, but not to the extent observed in experts, while demonstrating search efficiency intermediate to the two groups. Analyses of the temporal organization of search further revealed that intermediate architects had already adopted the overall structure of the expert search strategy despite not yet exhibiting expert-level reductions in saccadic amplitude. These findings suggest that perceptual expertise in architecture develops through a layered progression in which the organization of visual search precedes the full refinement of eye movement behavior. More broadly, these findings suggest that eye movement research should interpret gaze metrics such as saccadic amplitude within the context of domain-specific task demands and developmental stage, while considering the temporal organization of search as an additional window into the emergence of perceptual expertise. Full article

In a PV array, mismatch among modules changes the shape of the P–V curve and may create several power peaks. This makes maximum power point tracking (MPPT) more difficult, especially when the tracker needs to distinguish the global maximum power point (GMPP) from local peaks. This paper studies this problem with SVM-ILEA, a hybrid MPPT method that combines support vector machine (SVM) regression and an improved love evolution algorithm (ILEA). The SVM model takes module irradiance and temperature as inputs and predicts a voltage close to the GMPP. ILEA uses this voltage as the search center and avoids scanning the full voltage range. The modified convergence factor and adaptive distance factor further adjust the voltage movement during iteration, giving wider search steps at the early stage and smaller corrections near the optimum to reduce steady-state power oscillations. The simulation setup in MATLAB/Simulink R2019b includes standard test conditions (STC) and static partial shading with non-uniform irradiance and temperature distributions, as well as dynamic operating conditions. Across the four static conditions, SVM-ILEA achieves mean tracking times of 0.0233–0.0303 s and mean steady-state power fluctuations of 0.0111–0.0500 W. Across the three dynamic tests, the mean MPPT efficiency ranges from 97.9057% to 98.2991%. The results obtained demonstrate fast GMPP tracking, small power fluctuation, and stable re-tracking under complex PV operating conditions. Full article

Objective: To explore the association of glucocorticoid (GC) exposure with objectively assessed sleep architecture in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods: A single-center exploratory pilot study involving 20 consecutive patients with RA (9 GC users and 11 non-users; mean age 64.9 years) was conducted. Using single-channel electroencephalography (EEG) and accelerometry, objective sleep architecture and autonomic balance were evaluated. Sleep parameters included wake after sleep onset (WASO), sleep stages, and delta EEG power during the first sleep cycle, while heart rate variability, expressed as low frequency/high frequency (LF/HF) ratio, was used as an index of autonomic balance. RA disease activity was evaluated using the Disease Activity Score in 28 joints based on C-reactive protein (DAS28-CRP). Associations between clinical variables and objective sleep parameters were evaluated using Spearman rank correlation analysis. Results: Disease activity, assessed by DAS28-CRP, did not differ significantly between GC users and non-users. Compared with non-users, GC users had longer WASO (p = 0.011), shorter non-rapid eye movement (NREM) stage N3 duration (p = 0.010), and lower delta power (p = 0.014) than non-users. A higher nighttime-to-daytime LF/HF ratio was also observed in GC users, although this difference did not reach statistical significance. Total sleep time, sleep latency, and sleep efficiency were comparable between the groups. WASO was positively correlated with age, GC use, and GC dose, whereas NREM stage N3 duration and delta power were negatively correlated with GC exposure. No significant associations were observed between age or sex and objective measures of deep sleep. Conclusions: Among patients with RA, GC exposure was associated with poorer sleep continuity and reduced deep sleep despite comparable disease activity. Given the small sample size of this exploratory single-center study, these findings should be interpreted cautiously. Larger longitudinal studies using objective sleep measures are warranted to confirm these associations. Full article

Background/Objectives: One-stage revision has become an increasingly accepted strategy for the treatment of chronic periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) of the knee in carefully selected patients. The use of a resorbable defensive antibacterial coating (DAC^® hydrogel) represents an attractive adjunct to reduce bacterial adhesion and biofilm formation on revision implants. However, evidence regarding its long-term performance is limited. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 52 consecutive patients undergoing one-stage revision for knee PJI or an infected spacer between 2014 and 2023 using a standardized surgical and antimicrobial protocol including local application of DAC hydrogel loaded with vancomycin alone or vancomycin plus meropenem. Clinical, microbiological, and radiographic outcomes were evaluated. Infection-free survival was assessed using Kaplan–Meier analysis. Results: Forty-eight patients underwent revision for PJI and four for septic spacers. Four patients were unavailable for final evaluation. At follow-up of 7.7 ± 2.9 years (range 2.5–12.2 years), 47 of 48 clinically evaluable patients remained infection-free, corresponding to a crude infection-free proportion of 97.9%. Kaplan–Meier infection-free survivorship at 12 years was 98.1% (95% CI, 87.1–99.7%). Mean Knee Society Score improved from 47.7 to 84.4 points, while functional KSS improved from 41.9 to 82.9 points. Pain at rest decreased from 6.9 to 0.7 and pain during movement from 8.1 to 1.6 on the visual analogue scale. Conclusions: This series represents, to our knowledge, the longest reported follow-up of one-stage knee revision using the DAC hydrogel coating. The favorable outcomes observed with this hybrid fixation strategy support further investigation of this approach in larger, long-term, comparative multicenter studies. Full article

The Timed Up and Go (TUG) test is widely used to assess functional mobility in Parkinson’s disease (PD), although total test duration may overlook phase-specific biomechanical alterations. This cross-sectional study investigated whether phase-specific analysis of the instrumented TUG (iTUG) could identify candidate biomechanical markers characterizing differences among early-stage PD subgroups and healthy controls. Seventy-nine participants (38 PD, 41 controls) performed four iTUG trials in the OFF-medication state. Movement data were collected using synchronized inertial measurement units and optoelectronic motion capture systems. The iTUG was segmented into six phases, and temporal, spatiotemporal, variability, and multisegmental kinematic parameters were analyzed. Participants with PD at modified Hoehn and Yahr (mH&Y) stage 2 performed the iTUG more slowly than controls (p < 0.001), mainly due to impairments during walking (p = 0.012) and turning. Turning was the only phase that distinguished controls from individuals with PD at mH&Y stages 1–1.5 (p = 0.015), who also showed increased elbow asymmetry (p = 0.009). Participants with PD at mH&Y stage 2 exhibited broader differences, including increased double-support time, shorter stride length, lower walking speed, reduced frontal-plane control, and reduced trunk, elbow, hip, and ankle motion, whereas gait variability did not differ significantly between groups. Sagittal trunk ROM on the less affected side was the only variable that significantly differed between the two PD subgroups. These findings suggest that phase-specific iTUG analysis may reveal candidate biomechanical markers associated with mH&Y stage and functional mobility impairment and support sensor-based assessment for objective characterization of functional mobility in PD. Full article