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20 pages, 922 KB  
Article
Perceptions of Medical Malpractice Liability and Informed Consent Among Hospital Healthcare Workers: A Cross-Sectional Study
by Alina Doina Tănase, Ștefania Dinu, Raluca-Mioara Cosoroabă, Adriana Pădure and Cristina Ioana Talpoș Niculescu
Healthcare 2026, 14(17), 2680; https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare14172680 (registering DOI) - 23 Aug 2026
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Rising malpractice litigation and the strengthening of patient-rights legislation have changed the way hospital staff approach informed consent and legal risk. This study aimed to (i) assess the distribution of informed-consent knowledge, malpractice anxiety, and defensive practice across professional and [...] Read more.
Background and Objectives: Rising malpractice litigation and the strengthening of patient-rights legislation have changed the way hospital staff approach informed consent and legal risk. This study aimed to (i) assess the distribution of informed-consent knowledge, malpractice anxiety, and defensive practice across professional and departmental groups; (ii) identify independent predictors of high defensive practice; and (iii) evaluate experience-related moderation of the legal-literacy–anxiety association and predictor consistency across defensive-practice severity. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of 146 healthcare workers (physicians, nurses, midwives, and allied health professionals) from four departments of a tertiary academic hospital network, using a 46-item pilot-tested instrument measuring informed-consent knowledge (0–20), malpractice anxiety (0–100), and defensive-practice behaviors. Results: Physicians showed higher informed-consent knowledge than nurses (14.1 vs. 12.0 points, p < 0.001) but also higher malpractice anxiety (63.4 vs. 57.6, p = 0.015). High defensive practice was associated with a prior malpractice claim (adjusted odds ratio 3.24), surgical specialty (2.47), low consent literacy (2.21), physician role (2.10), and knowing a sued colleague (1.88). Anxiety was highest in emergency medicine; predictors also operated across ordered defensive-practice severity, and the legal-literacy–anxiety association was stronger at lower experience (interaction p = 0.023). Conclusions: Knowledge, anxiety, and defensive practice were unevenly distributed; defensive practice reflected professional context and direct or vicarious litigation exposure, while the legal-literacy–anxiety association varied with experience. Medico-legal education may therefore be best paired with structured consent procedures and experience-sensitive support; larger multi-center studies are needed. Full article
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25 pages, 8420 KB  
Article
Optimization of Process Parameters for Protein Extraction from Sludge by Isoelectric Point Precipitation Based on Ensemble Learning
by Xiaohong Xu, Huanhuan Zhang, Pengfei Ni and Bo Zhang
Processes 2026, 14(17), 2686; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr14172686 (registering DOI) - 23 Aug 2026
Abstract
Municipal sewage sludge contains considerable amounts of protein, making protein recovery a viable route for sludge valorization. In this work, sludge disintegration was achieved by cyclone cutting coupled with ozone oxidation, and the mixed liquor of foam standing liquid and supernatant was used [...] Read more.
Municipal sewage sludge contains considerable amounts of protein, making protein recovery a viable route for sludge valorization. In this work, sludge disintegration was achieved by cyclone cutting coupled with ozone oxidation, and the mixed liquor of foam standing liquid and supernatant was used as the feedstock for protein recovery via isoelectric point precipitation. Pretreatment tests showed that under 60 mg/L ozone concentration, 10 °C and 60 min, alkaline conditions enhanced sludge lysis; the mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS) removal rate reached 87.65% at pH 9, and the protein concentration in the foam layer reached 1530.14 mg/L at pH 11, yielding a protein-rich feedstock suitable for subsequent extraction. In the isoelectric point precipitation stage, single-factor and L9(34) orthogonal experiments were conducted to examine the effects of pH, temperature and centrifugal speed on extraction rate, and four ensemble learning algorithms (GBR, RF, XGBoost and CatBoost) were employed to build prediction models. The results showed that the factor influence order was pH > centrifugal speed > temperature, with pH being extremely significant (p < 0.01). Under leave-one-out cross-validation, the XGBoost model performed best (R2 = 0.9243, MAE = 2.78%, RMSE = 3.52%). Response surface analysis determined the optimal parameters as pH 4.0, 5 °C and 3500 r/min, with both predicted and measured precipitation-stage extraction rates of 86.19%. Amino acid analysis indicated that essential amino acids accounted for 39.9% of the extracted protein, with good rehydration and foaming stability. Ensemble learning algorithms can reveal the multi-factor nonlinear coupling in isoelectric point precipitation, providing data support for process optimization of sludge protein recovery. Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Chemical Processes and Systems)
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28 pages, 7548 KB  
Review
Review and Analysis of Electrochemical Instrumentation Design for Continuous Multi-Analyte Microfluidic Sensor Arrays
by Samuel Lobert, Zahid Rashid Sheikh, Navid Yazdi, Derek Goderis and Andrew J. Mason
Sensors 2026, 26(17), 5334; https://doi.org/10.3390/s26175334 (registering DOI) - 23 Aug 2026
Abstract
Electrochemical sensor arrays that perform simultaneous multi-technique (SMT) measurements within a shared electrolyte are essential for continuous, multi-analyte detection in microfluidic platforms for environmental and healthcare monitoring. This review examines the potentiostat architectures and electrode geometries relevant to SMT operation. Traditional single channel [...] Read more.
Electrochemical sensor arrays that perform simultaneous multi-technique (SMT) measurements within a shared electrolyte are essential for continuous, multi-analyte detection in microfluidic platforms for environmental and healthcare monitoring. This review examines the potentiostat architectures and electrode geometries relevant to SMT operation. Traditional single channel and multi-electrode potentiostat topologies are surveyed, and their suitability for multi-cell shared-electrolyte environments is evaluated. Additionally, crosstalk mechanisms in shared electrolytes are classified into chemical, electrical, and a newly identified category termed stability-based interference, which arises from conflicting feedback loops in conventional grounded working electrode instrumentation. A survey of existing multi-cell platforms reveals that most reported systems either avoid true SMT operation or address crosstalk primarily through electrode geometry without systematic evaluation of instrumentation effects. Based on this analysis, we introduce an instrumentation and electrode geometry co-design framework that provides a unified design pathway toward continuous multi-analyte microfluidic sensors for wearable and point-of-care applications. Full article
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19 pages, 4362 KB  
Article
Selective Removal of Iron from Ferruginous Manganese Ore by Low-Temperature Magnetizing Roasting and Dry Magnetic Separation
by Alibek Baisanov, Nina Vorobkalo, Askhat Akuov, Yerulan Samuratov, Amir Makishev, Symbat Sharieva and Zhanna Ibrakhimova
Metals 2026, 16(9), 940; https://doi.org/10.3390/met16090940 (registering DOI) - 23 Aug 2026
Abstract
The beneficiation of ferruginous manganese ores is limited by the intimate intergrowth of manganese-, iron-, and silicate-bearing phases. This study evaluated coal-based magnetizing roasting followed by dry magnetic separation in an externally heated chamber furnace with a charge capacity of up to 100 [...] Read more.
The beneficiation of ferruginous manganese ores is limited by the intimate intergrowth of manganese-, iron-, and silicate-bearing phases. This study evaluated coal-based magnetizing roasting followed by dry magnetic separation in an externally heated chamber furnace with a charge capacity of up to 100 kg. A 0–5 mm ore fraction with an initial Mn/Fe ratio of 2.9 was roasted with Shubarkol coal. The best separation was obtained at an actual ore–coal bed temperature of 550–600 °C and an ore-to-coal mass ratio of 1:0.4. Relative to the magnetic-separation feed, 80.0–83.4% of Fe was recovered in the magnetic fraction, while 69.9–72.6% of Mn remained in the non-magnetic product. Its Fe content decreased to 3.2–3.5%, increasing the Mn/Fe ratio to 7.30–7.84. X-ray diffraction showed preferential concentration of magnetite and jacobsite in the magnetic fraction, whereas hausmannite and braunite were concentrated mainly in the non-magnetic fraction together with the gangue phases. Multipoint measurements also demonstrated a substantial difference between the combustion-zone and actual bed temperatures. The results demonstrate that controlled low-temperature roasting can generate sufficient magnetic contrast for selective iron removal from ferruginous manganese ore. Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Extractive Metallurgy)
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20 pages, 2794 KB  
Article
PES-PointPillars: LiDAR-Based 3D Object Detection for Autonomous Driving with Directional Convolution, Adaptive Feature Fusion, and Decoupled Regression
by Yanbo Song and Meichen Liu
Electronics 2026, 15(17), 3767; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics15173767 (registering DOI) - 22 Aug 2026
Abstract
LiDAR-based 3D object detection for autonomous driving must balance localization accuracy with real-time inference, while sparse point measurements make small-scale objects such as pedestrians and cyclists particularly challenging to represent at long range. This paper presents PES-PointPillars, an enhanced PointPillars detector with three [...] Read more.
LiDAR-based 3D object detection for autonomous driving must balance localization accuracy with real-time inference, while sparse point measurements make small-scale objects such as pedestrians and cyclists particularly challenging to represent at long range. This paper presents PES-PointPillars, an enhanced PointPillars detector with three coordinated design changes. First, pinwheel-shaped convolution (PConv) replaces selected backbone convolutions to expand horizontal and vertical receptive fields for sparse structural patterns. Second, an Improved Inter-Layer Feature Correlation (I-EFC) module uses soft gating and adaptive thresholding to fuse multi-level features through continuous, input-dependent weights. Third, a Smooth L1-NWD (SNWD) loss applies normalized Wasserstein distance to planar position and scale while retaining Smooth L1 regression for vertical position, height, and orientation. Using the parameter settings and configuration of the original PointPillars implementation, the locally executed PES-PointPillars experiment achieves Moderate 3D average precision values of 77.1% for cars, 46.7% for pedestrians, and 62.9% for cyclists at 68.3 FPS on the KITTI validation split. Relative to the source-reported PointPillars reference, the corresponding numerical differences are 2.1, 3.2, and 3.8 percentage points. The reported component-wise and staged ablations show category-dependent gains, with the complete model providing the strongest aggregate performance among the evaluated configurations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Feature Papers in Electrical and Autonomous Vehicles, Volume 2)
22 pages, 6472 KB  
Article
Landmark Recognition Beyond Curated Benchmarks: Cross-Domain Evaluation of a Multi-Threshold Selective YOLO11 Ensemble on User-Generated Imagery, with a Zero-Shot Multimodal LLM Baseline
by Ulugbek Hudayberdiev, Abdimumin Alikulov, Adkham Israilov, Muhiddin Xidirov and Javokhir Musaev
J. Imaging 2026, 12(8), 397; https://doi.org/10.3390/jimaging12080397 - 21 Aug 2026
Viewed by 98
Abstract
Landmark recognition for smart tourism is usually validated on curated benchmark images. In deployment, however, the classifier must handle user-generated photographs whose viewpoint, lighting, resolution, occlusion, and compression differ sharply from curated data. This paper evaluates a previously published multi-threshold enhancement and selective [...] Read more.
Landmark recognition for smart tourism is usually validated on curated benchmark images. In deployment, however, the classifier must handle user-generated photographs whose viewpoint, lighting, resolution, occlusion, and compression differ sharply from curated data. This paper evaluates a previously published multi-threshold enhancement and selective YOLO11n-cls ensemble under this shift, and provides a preliminary zero-shot comparison of three general-purpose multimodal large language models (MLLMs) on the same task. To measure the shift, we build Samarkand v2-SNS, a 300-image out-of-distribution test set of social-media photographs of 12 Samarkand landmarks, disjoint from the training and validation data. Under the shift, four supervised baselines fall by 12.73–22.08 percentage points to 73–80% accuracy, and their in-distribution ranking does not hold. The selective ensemble degrades least (99.24% to 93.00%, −6.24 points) and outperforms the strongest baseline by 13 points. A capacity-matched ablation shows that most of this robustness comes from enhancement diversity, not from generic ensembling. In a preliminary comparison, zero-shot MLLMs (GPT-5, Claude Sonnet 4.5, Gemini 2.5) reach only 24.81–54.26%, far below deployment needs. The results argue for reporting out-of-distribution accuracy alongside curated benchmarks, and for hybrid systems that pair compact specialised recognisers with MLLM-based interpretation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition)
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21 pages, 907 KB  
Article
Rule Graph-Based Low-Code Control for Renewable Energy and Storage Stations
by Jiacheng Li, Menghan Xiao, Chang Ye, Xun Xu and Yuwei Gui
Electronics 2026, 15(16), 3745; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics15163745 - 21 Aug 2026
Viewed by 155
Abstract
Renewable energy and energy storage stations require frequent updates of monitoring and control logic across heterogeneous devices and changing operating strategies. This paper proposes a rule graph-based reference architecture that combines low-code logic configuration, graph–model semantic binding, and microservice-oriented functional decomposition. A component [...] Read more.
Renewable energy and energy storage stations require frequent updates of monitoring and control logic across heterogeneous devices and changing operating strategies. This paper proposes a rule graph-based reference architecture that combines low-code logic configuration, graph–model semantic binding, and microservice-oriented functional decomposition. A component status matrix separates the target architecture from the implemented subset. The runnable subset comprises a minimal FastAPI backend, REST/WebSocket telemetry interfaces, an in-process queue, and stateful rule evaluators; gateway, authentication, external message bus, time-series database, visual editor, and industrial protocol services remain design-level elements. Beyond the original single-rule example, a priority-ordered multi-device rule is implemented for cooperative BESS dispatch, communication/topology blocking, low-SOC protection, frequency-based load shedding, backup request, and five-sample recovery release. Existing local network benchmarks are complemented by a 600-step software-in-the-loop trace with scripted telemetry fluctuations and communication quality faults and by 500 in-process ASGI timing samples at each of the four point levels. The trace produced no safety dispatch or protected device violations. P99 application path latency ranged from 1.1962 to 5.5287 ms, but one 75.3065 ms outlier exceeded a 50 ms reference deadline, demonstrating that the Windows/FastAPI path is not deterministic. No industrial controller, hardware-in-the-loop facility, field data, or engineer usability study was used. Accordingly, the paper makes no claim of industrial real-time readiness or measured development effort reduction. Full article
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16 pages, 2231 KB  
Article
Precision Nitrogen Management in Dryland Agriculture: Soil and Topographic Drivers of Multi-Year Yield Stability
by Francesco Toscano, Lucas Santos Santana, Daniel Albiero, Mario Vitelli, Felice Modugno and Paola D’Antonio
Agronomy 2026, 16(16), 1611; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy16161611 - 20 Aug 2026
Viewed by 174
Abstract
Variable-rate nitrogen (VRN) management in dryland crop rotations requires prescription maps that remain valid across years and for different crops, and that can be generated from sensors compatible with standard farm equipment. We examined how the ranking of yields in individual fields remained [...] Read more.
Variable-rate nitrogen (VRN) management in dryland crop rotations requires prescription maps that remain valid across years and for different crops, and that can be generated from sensors compatible with standard farm equipment. We examined how the ranking of yields in individual fields remained consistent from one season to another, how much of the variation in yields among individual field locations could be attributed to differences in the permanent physical characteristics of those field locations, and if the spatial structure of fertility was transferable among the different crops in a rotational sequence using a multi-seasonal wheat–corn–millet crop rotation dataset from northeast Colorado (n = 721; n = 18 management units; n = 321 location points; 2019–2022). There was a significant positive correlation between wheat yield rankings from non-consecutive growing seasons (ρ = 0.39–0.59), with 80.80% of the total variability explained by spatial effects that are stable over time. Approximately 20% of the within-field yield variability in wheat, the only crop with repeated within-position measurements, could be attributed to permanent differences in physical properties of the field such as topography (TPI) and soils (soil: 2.20%; TPI: 11.50%, both unique; 6.30% both shared), which represented an estimate of the maximum amount of within-field variability possible to explain based on static variables alone in this dataset. After accounting for year and field effects, all three Spearman correlations for each combination of two crops were positive and statistically significant (Wheat–Corn: ρ = +0.29; Wheat–Millet: ρ = +0.48; Corn–Millet: ρ = +0.30), indicating a common spatial fertility structure among all three crops in the rotational sequence. These results suggest that a pedotopographic map created using RTK-GPS elevation data and on-the-go soil sensors provides a partially transferable baseline spatial framework for variable-rate N applications throughout the entire cropping cycle. This baseline would need to include adjustments for average rate applied per crop, while the remainder of the within-field variability (approximately 80%) could be addressed through additional layers of annual sensing (e.g., UAV multispectral indices, active optical sensors, satellite imagery). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Integrating Yield Maps, Soil Data, and IoT for Smarter Farming)
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29 pages, 17754 KB  
Article
Structure-Prior-Guided Multi-Stage Cross-Modal Collaborative Network for RGB-D Semantic Segmentation
by Yifan Yu, Zhiwei Zhong, Fan Min and Song Deng
J. Imaging 2026, 12(8), 394; https://doi.org/10.3390/jimaging12080394 - 20 Aug 2026
Viewed by 167
Abstract
Red–green–blue and depth (RGB-D) semantic segmentation combines appearance cues from RGB images with geometric information from depth maps, but sensor noise, missing measurements, and boundary-inconsistent depth responses can introduce conflicting evidence during cross-modal fusion. We propose the Structure-Prior-Guided Network (SPGNet), a dual-branch, multi-stage [...] Read more.
Red–green–blue and depth (RGB-D) semantic segmentation combines appearance cues from RGB images with geometric information from depth maps, but sensor noise, missing measurements, and boundary-inconsistent depth responses can introduce conflicting evidence during cross-modal fusion. We propose the Structure-Prior-Guided Network (SPGNet), a dual-branch, multi-stage framework that follows a correction-before-fusion strategy. At each feature scale, SPGNet estimates a learned structure prior from cross-modal agreement and discrepancy. The Cross-Modal Correction Module (CCM) uses this prior to regulate bidirectional information transfer, suppressing unreliable responses while retaining complementary cues. The Dual-branch Enhancement Fusion Module (DEF) then enhances the corrected RGB and depth features and integrates them through shared-representation-guided interaction, after which a lightweight multi-scale decoder produces the segmentation output. Under a unified training and evaluation protocol, SPGNet achieved three-run mean Intersection over Union (mIoU) scores of 50.845% on NYU Depth V2 and 48.457% on SUN RGB-D. Compared with the best reproduced baseline on each dataset, SPGNet improved mean mIoU by 2.111 and 0.899 percentage points, respectively. These results suggest that separating reliability-oriented correction from multimodal fusion can limit the propagation of unreliable cross-modal responses and improve indoor RGB-D semantic segmentation performance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Section AI in Imaging)
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47 pages, 17399 KB  
Article
FedMARL-LTI: Federated Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning with LLM-Compatible Threat Intelligence for Cooperative Cyber Defense
by Fatih Şahin
Appl. Sci. 2026, 16(16), 8278; https://doi.org/10.3390/app16168278 - 20 Aug 2026
Viewed by 256
Abstract
Cross-organization cyber defense must reconcile collaborative learning with privacy and adversarial robustness, yet standard federated learning ships full gradient tensors, leaking sensitive posture and inviting Byzantine manipulation. We present FedMARL-LTI, a federated multi-agent reinforcement learning framework whose architecture answers both pressures with a [...] Read more.
Cross-organization cyber defense must reconcile collaborative learning with privacy and adversarial robustness, yet standard federated learning ships full gradient tensors, leaking sensitive posture and inviting Byzantine manipulation. We present FedMARL-LTI, a federated multi-agent reinforcement learning framework whose architecture answers both pressures with a single decision: each organization’s threat intelligence is shared only as a differentially private 768-dimensional semantic embedding, never as raw data. In the evaluated system, a Weight-DP-protected model-weight delta is also exchanged through the federated aggregator (the semantic abstraction embedding is a parallel channel); the privacy guarantee below is stated for the semantic abstraction channel, and an embeddings-only architecture—which the guarantee enables—is the design this points toward. The contribution is fourfold. (1) Semantic Abstraction (SA) channel: per organization, each round, the local gradient is summarized by an LLM, projected to a 768-dim embedding, L2-clipped, and Gaussian-noised before any numeric quantity leaves the host. The bottleneck reduces the aggregate noise magnitude—the expected L2 norm of the DP noise vector—from O(dmodel) to O(m) with m=768dmodel3×105. (2) Formal privacy analysis: the SA + DP cascade satisfies (ε,δ)-DP and bounds per-round mutual information leakage by min{Ttoklog2V, m/2log2(1+C2/(mσ2))}, with Rényi composition over T federation rounds. Scope of the guarantee: this bound certifies (i) the semantic-abstraction channel. It does not by itself cover (ii) the weight-aggregation channel, whose Weight-DP protection is analyzed separately, nor (iii) the whole deployed system, which is the composition of the two. We therefore state the ≈1.4-bit/MI bound as a per-round guarantee on information leaving the organization through the SA channel not over every byte the system emits; an embeddings-only configuration—which this bound enables—closes the gap to a whole-system guarantee. (3) Byzantine-resilient ClippedClustering aggregator combining L2 clipping with cosine-similarity clustering. (4) Hierarchical MARL policy with threat-profile-aware LLM-IRR reward shaping, wired end-to-end and disclosed honestly (the evaluated system uses a deterministic Johnson–Lindenstrauss projection in place of the LLM call for reproducibility; the architecture is thus LLM-compatible rather than dependent on a specific model, and a full LLM deployment is the planned extension). We evaluate on CybORG CAGE-4 with n=5 organizations, 30 federation rounds × 5 episodes × 100 steps per round. Releasing the SA channel in parallel shows no statistically detectable reward cost at N = 5 vs. the no-privacy baseline; this is measured at reward-shaping coefficient β = 0, so it establishes that the private semantic release does not disturb weight-channel training rather than that semantic sharing improves defense: SA-only Δreward = +4.58 (t=+1.37, NS), dual SA + Weight-DP Δreward = +4.31 (t=+1.30, NS), all N=5 seeds, all |t|<1.4. A controlled signal/noise probe confirms a 19.58× improvement of SA over Weight-DP at a fixed DP budget—matching the predicted d/m19.8. Under Byzantine sign_flip at 30% (N=15), ClippedClustering is directionally strongest (F1=0.025 vs. FedAvg 0.020, Krum 0.016) but the edge is not statistically significant (CC vs. Krum t=+1.59, p=0.15, d=+0.58; the earlier N=53.4×” gap was small-sample optimism); its Byzantine behavior is on the harsher random_noise attack. Under a corrected implementation, the undefended baselines do not diverge or collapse; the earlier reading (Krum 0.002, ClippedClustering 0.020) was a noise-injection artifact and is withdrawn; ClippedClustering is now directionally best on F1 but not significantly, and trails Krum on reward (superseded Cohen’s d=+3.77). The cooperative-PPO family (MAPPO, IPPO) outperforms value/actor-critic (QMIX, MADDPG) by 20 reward units, p<0.001. All host-level F1 values stay below 0.05 at the 15K-step training horizon used here; the relative claims of the paper (no detectable privacy reward cost, ClippedClustering’s competitive (not decisive) Byzantine behavior on the harsher attacks, cooperative-PPO dominance) are unaffected by this scope. A 200K-step long-horizon replication lifts F1 above the 15K plateau (to 0.044, N=5)—confirming that horizon, not the privacy/Byzantine machinery, gates absolute accuracy—but a finer 60-checkpoint run shows the climb is volatile and non-monotonic and does not reach deployment-grade, an honest stability-not-compute limitation. FedMARL-LTI is therefore presented as a proof-of-concept for the relative privacy and robustness trade-offs it isolates, not as an operationally deployable cyber defense system. We release all 141 raw run JSON outputs (Phases 1–3, the L4 backend comparison, and the algorithm/aggregator baselines), the figures, and analysis scripts for replication. Full article
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24 pages, 6431 KB  
Article
Estimation of Residential Building Repair Costs Using Selected Machine Learning Algorithms
by Justyna Dzięcioł and Grzegorz Wrzesiński
Buildings 2026, 16(16), 3304; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings16163304 - 19 Aug 2026
Viewed by 127
Abstract
This study examines the feasibility of predicting net repair costs (Estimated Cost, PLN) for multi-family residential buildings from data extracted from technical inspection reports. Rather than merely comparing algorithmic performance, the analysis was designed as a diagnostic sequence aimed at identifying the sources [...] Read more.
This study examines the feasibility of predicting net repair costs (Estimated Cost, PLN) for multi-family residential buildings from data extracted from technical inspection reports. Rather than merely comparing algorithmic performance, the analysis was designed as a diagnostic sequence aimed at identifying the sources of prediction error. Four machine learning algorithms (Extra Trees, Random Forest, XGBoost, and GBM) were first applied to direct regression of repair cost. We then tested whether the difficulty of estimating exact cost values stems from the high variability of the target variable and whether this limitation can be mitigated by a two-stage approach: assigning observations to one of three cost-risk bands (Low, Moderate, High) and subsequently estimating cost within the assigned band. The empirical cost distribution was strongly right-skewed (median: 4500 PLN; mean: 63,402 PLN; maximum: 3,680,524 PLN). The best direct regression model achieved an R2 of 0.452, while the best fully deployable two-stage model, combining an XGBoost classifier with a Random Forest regressor, achieved an R2 of 0.392. When it was assumed that the actual cost-risk bands were known, an R2 value of 0.839 was obtained, indicating that the main source of error is not regression within the bands, but rather the initial stage of assigning the bands. These results demonstrate that reporting a single global R2 for highly skewed, weakly identifiable cost data can be misleading, and that decomposing predictive performance into band-assignment and within-band regression components provides a more informative evaluation. This article also points to concrete directions for improving the underlying database, particularly through the inclusion of variables describing repair quantity, unit of measure, and detailed repair scope. Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Construction Management, and Computers & Digitization)
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38 pages, 46738 KB  
Article
Georeferencing Using Automated Reference Point Search for Engineering Geodesy Purposes
by Peter Otruba, Jakub Chromčák, Jozef Meluš, Ján Tucík and Jana Ižvoltová
Appl. Sci. 2026, 16(16), 8269; https://doi.org/10.3390/app16168269 - 19 Aug 2026
Viewed by 124
Abstract
The primary objective of this paper is the automation of the point cloud georeferencing process through the algorithmic localization of various control point types and the subsequent calculation of transformation parameters. The proposed approach utilizes iterative methods to identify matching control points between [...] Read more.
The primary objective of this paper is the automation of the point cloud georeferencing process through the algorithmic localization of various control point types and the subsequent calculation of transformation parameters. The proposed approach utilizes iterative methods to identify matching control points between the reference and local networks, with a strong emphasis on robustness against gross measurement errors. The adjustment pipeline is executed in several core steps: first, reference targets are identified based on their geometric shape, and their local coordinates are determined. Subsequently, the coordinates derived from the point cloud are compared with the actual coordinates provided as the transformation baseline. Utilizing the spatial configuration of both networks, the system pairs points that satisfy the geometry of the scanned point cloud, assigns real-world coordinates to the control points, and computes the initial transformation key. Then, through reverse transformation in the spatial regions of undetected targets, the algorithm systematically verifies the presence of control points, calculates their coordinates, and includes them in the iteration process to refine the final transformation key. A seven-parameter Helmert transformation, implemented via the Umeyama algorithm, was utilized for the coordinate system conversion. The final output consists of a georeferenced point cloud accompanied by the root-mean-square errors of individual reference points. The experimental results demonstrated transformation residual root-mean-square error (RMSE) values of 13.6 mm and 15.6 mm, which are fully comparable to the manual point-picking approach, exhibiting a discrepancy of only 3.0 to 4.0 mm. Crucially, the presented automation achieved a multi-fold reduction in processing time compared to the manual workflow. Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Civil Engineering)
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25 pages, 8211 KB  
Article
Stepped-Frequency Doppler-Coded Integrated Joint Division Multiple Access Waveform for High-Precision Traffic MIMO Radar
by Jianhu Liu, Canyu Wang, Xiaoyuan Ren, Libing Jiang and Zhuang Wang
Remote Sens. 2026, 18(16), 2809; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs18162809 - 19 Aug 2026
Viewed by 164
Abstract
Slow-time coding techniques, including Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Doppler Division Multiple Access (DDMA), and joint CDMA–DDMA coding, are widely used in Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) millimeter-wave radar systems to improve transmit-channel isolation, angular resolution, and field of view (FOV). However, traffic radar applications [...] Read more.
Slow-time coding techniques, including Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Doppler Division Multiple Access (DDMA), and joint CDMA–DDMA coding, are widely used in Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) millimeter-wave radar systems to improve transmit-channel isolation, angular resolution, and field of view (FOV). However, traffic radar applications also require a high range resolution and long unambiguous detection range, which cannot be fully achieved by MIMO coding alone. This paper proposes a stepped-frequency Doppler-coded integrated joint division multiple access (SF-DC-JDMA) waveform that embeds stepped-frequency (SF) modulation into a jointly encoded CDMA–DDMA MIMO framework. In the proposed design, inter-group CDMA coding provides group-level transmit separation, intra-group DDMA modulation supports Doppler-domain Tx identification, and stepped-frequency synthesis improves range resolution. The resulting waveform combines multi-Tx orthogonality with synthesized wide-band ranging, enabling simultaneous channel separation, high-resolution range estimation, and long-range detection. The simulations and real-scene measurements demonstrate that, under the same range coverage, the proposed SF-DC-JDMA waveform achieves a significantly improved range resolution relative to the conventional FMCW waveform integrated by CDMA and DDMA modulation, and yields denser point-cloud representations of traffic targets. Full article
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61 pages, 8382 KB  
Review
A Review of Machine Learning Applications in Monitoring Data Processing for Underground Engineering
by Mingfei Li, Yongjun Zhang, Yu Wang and Yan Wang
Buildings 2026, 16(16), 3285; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings16163285 - 18 Aug 2026
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Abstract
With the acceleration of global urbanization and the large-scale development of underground spaces, underground engineering faces extremely complex and variable geological environments and high-risk construction disturbances. The widespread application of the Internet of Things and novel sensing technologies has given rise to structural [...] Read more.
With the acceleration of global urbanization and the large-scale development of underground spaces, underground engineering faces extremely complex and variable geological environments and high-risk construction disturbances. The widespread application of the Internet of Things and novel sensing technologies has given rise to structural health monitoring data increasingly characterized by massive volume, high dimensionality, multi-source heterogeneity, and strong spatiotemporal coupling. Traditional data processing methods based on mechanical analysis, empirical formulas, or numerical simulation have increasingly exposed limitations of insufficient accuracy, lengthy computation times, and weak generalization capability when confronted with such engineering big data. Machine learning and deep learning technologies, by virtue of their superior nonlinear mapping capability, advantages in feature extraction from massive data, and flexible architectural design, provide solutions for efficient knowledge extraction and intelligent assessment of underground engineering monitoring data. This paper reviews the current application status and frontier advances of machine learning technologies in the field of underground engineering monitoring data processing in recent years. First, the development trajectory of analytical algorithms evolving from classical shallow machine learning, through temporal and spatial deep learning, to physics-data dual-driven approaches is delineated. Second, targeting the critical challenges of missing field data and sparse sensor deployment, spatiotemporal fusion imputation techniques and spatial reconstruction methods incorporating mechanical prior knowledge are thoroughly evaluated, elucidating the paradigm shift in monitoring philosophy from discrete point-based alarming to inference-augmented sparse sensing that approximates full-field state awareness through model-dependent estimation rather than direct measurement. Third, the applications of machine learning in underground structural deformation mechanism interpretation, key influencing factor identification based on explainable artificial intelligence (AI), and rapid back-analysis of geomechanical parameters are summarized. Finally, composite network architectures and physics-constrained guidance strategies for non-stationary deformation time series prediction under complex and variable working conditions are discussed. A methodological audit of the 73 included studies—of which 33 enter the quantitative comparison tables—reveals that 26 of the 33 audited studies (78.8%) validate exclusively on single-project data, only 1 study conducts rigorous out-of-distribution generalization testing, and none of the 33 studies (0%) provides uncertainty quantification. These findings highlight cross-project generalization and probabilistic prediction as important methodological challenges. This paper aims to provide theoretical references and methodological guidance for safety early warning, intelligent construction, and full life-cycle health management of underground engineering. Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Construction Management, and Computers & Digitization)
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Article
Multi-Source Digital Documentation and YOLO–HBIM Deterioration Information Management for Qiaopi Office–Residence Heritage in Lingnan Under Disaster-Prone Weather Conditions
by Tukun Wang, Jingyang Li, Xi Wang, Shaoji Luo, Youwei Yang, Guibin Zhang and Wenqing Liu
Buildings 2026, 16(16), 3286; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings16163286 - 18 Aug 2026
Viewed by 176
Abstract
Integrated qiaopi office–residence heritage preserves the material setting of remittance-letter operations together with domestic, educational, and ritual activities. In Lingnan’s hot–humid and disaster-prone environment, condition records need to be repeatable, spatially traceable, and continuously updatable. Taking Jingzu Jiashu and Mingde Jiashu, two former [...] Read more.
Integrated qiaopi office–residence heritage preserves the material setting of remittance-letter operations together with domestic, educational, and ritual activities. In Lingnan’s hot–humid and disaster-prone environment, condition records need to be repeatable, spatially traceable, and continuously updatable. Taking Jingzu Jiashu and Mingde Jiashu, two former qiaopi office sites in Chaoshan, as case studies, this research develops an evidence-traceable digital conservation workflow integrating multi-source documentation; an adopted YOLOv8 surface-deterioration baseline; qualitative Grad-CAM visualization; structured deterioration records; and semi-automatic, human-confirmed Revit/HBIM association. UAV and terrestrial photography, mobile LiDAR/scanning, handheld measurement, measured drawings, point-cloud and reality-based products, and geometric models were organized into case-specific HBIM environments. The adopted deterioration dataset comprised 362 original images at 512 × 512 pixels and 2024 bounding-box annotations for five visually identifiable categories: spalling, staining, plants, saltpetering, and crack. The original images were divided into 253 training, 72 validation, and 37 independent-test images, while augmentation was restricted to the training subset, increasing the training pool to 1600 images. The previously established YOLOv8 baseline achieved a Precision of 0.85, Recall of 0.72, mAP50 of 0.83, and mAP50–95 of 0.58. Grad-CAM heatmaps were used as qualitative aids to examine model-emphasized image regions. Retained detections associated with Jingzu Jiashu and Mingde Jiashu were converted into versioned records containing source-image identifiers, deterioration classes, detector confidence, survey information, spatial references, verification states, and revision histories. Candidate spatial associations were generated through case identifiers, façade or space zones, element identifiers, and available spatial evidence, while final M1–M3 associations required human confirmation. By preserving source provenance, spatial uncertainty, and record histories, the workflow provides an auditable information basis for routine inspection, post-event review, maintenance prioritization, repair interpretation, and resilience-oriented preventive conservation. The workflow supports screening-level deterioration recognition and information management but does not provide causal diagnosis, structural assessment, exact affected-area measurement, building-independent generalization, or automatic repair recommendations. Full article
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