Search Results (228,736)

Sulfur(VI) fluoride exchange (SuFEx) chemistry is a powerful click reaction for modular synthesis, distinguished by high chemoselectivity, broad functional-group tolerance and the formation of robust sulfur(VI)-based linkages. These attributes are particularly valuable for polymer functionalization, as S(VI)–F handles on either the polymer or the modifier enable covalent coupling under controlled conditions. This review spans SuFEx-mediated post-polymerization modification and architectural control of synthetic polymers, surface, interfacial and porous-material functionalization, and SuFEx-based conjugation and covalent capture in natural and sequence-defined biopolymers. Across these contexts, we compare the advantages, supporting mechanistic and analytical evidence, current limitations and future opportunities of SuFEx-enabled polymer functionalization. Full article

Astragalus species have long been recognized for their pharmacological relevance, yet the antidiabetic properties of Astragalus cruciatus Link (Ac) remain poorly explored. This study aimed to investigate the antidiabetic potential of A. cruciatus Link and to elucidate possible underlying mechanisms. The ethanolic extract of Ac (AcEE) was prepared and analyzed for phenolic and flavonoid content. Antioxidant activity was assessed through a series of in vitro assays. The in vitro inhibition of α-amylase and α-glucosidase was assessed, followed by molecular docking to probe ligand-enzyme interactions. LC-ESI-MS analysis revealed a polyphenol-rich profile, with rutin (953.54 µg/g extract) and quinic acid (797.18 µg/g of extract) identified as main compounds. The AcEE showed significant inhibitory activity against both α-amylase and α-glucosidase (IC₅₀ = 239.30 ± 7.40 and 192.60 ± 15.51 μg/mL, respectively). Moreover, low cytotoxic effects were observed in hepatic cell lines. Computational analysis revealed stable interactions between rutin and both enzymes (−12.935 and −8.073 Kcal/mol, respectively). Network pharmacology revealed that AcEE may modulate key targets, including IL-6, TNF-α, IL-1β, Akt-1, STAT3, EGFR, and INSR as well as pathways related to insulin resistance, AGE-RAGE, and inflammation. These findings suggest that AcEE exerts significant antidiabetic effects through multitarget modulation, highlighting its potential as a natural therapeutic agent for T2DM. Full article

Background: Residential wood combustion (RWC) is a major local source of fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) in Nordic regions. We quantified the health impacts and economic costs of long-term exposure to PM_2.5 from RWC in Västerbotten County, northern Sweden. Methods: High-resolution annual mean concentrations of PM_2.5 from small-scale residential heating in 2023 were obtained from a national dispersion-modelling system. Population-weighted exposure was calculated by combining grid-level concentrations with home address coordinates for the resident population. Health impact assessment (HIA) followed the framework used in Nordic studies and the VALESOR project, applying a near-source PM_2.5–mortality exposure–response function with a relative risk of 1.26 per 10 µg/m³ for natural-cause mortality and VALESOR default functions for morbidity (ischaemic heart disease, stroke, COPD, lung cancer, type 2 diabetes, dementia, childhood asthma, cardiovascular hospital admissions). Attributable cases and years of life lost (YLL) were estimated, and the economic valuation used VALESOR unit costs for Sweden to derive central, low and high damage-cost estimates. Results: The population (n = 280,742)-weighted mean RWC-PM_2.5 exposure was 0.16 µg/m³ (interquartile range 0.10–0.21). This was associated with an estimated 30 years of life lost (YLL) per year from natural-cause mortality, plus incident morbidity of approximately 0.3 lung cancer cases, four childhood asthma cases, three COPD cases, three IHD events, one stroke, two dementia cases, one diabetes case and 0.8 cardiovascular hospital admissions annually. The total annual health-related cost attributable to RWC-PM_2.5 was about €7.0 million (95% uncertainty range €4.6–9.4 million), dominated by mortality and disutility costs. Conclusions: PM_2.5 concentrations from residential wood burning are associated with health impacts costing multi-million Euros in a Nordic region, supporting policies to reduce emissions from residential wood heating and to promote cleaner heating alternatives. Full article

Energy planning is a growing challenge driven by the global push for decarbonization and the need to modernize aging power grids. This issue is particularly critical for islands, which often endure energy vulnerability and a high dependency on imported fossil fuels. While the electrification of transport is a popular option to reduce emissions, the integration of Electric Vehicles into weak island grids presents significant stability challenges due to the intermittent nature of renewable sources. This article provides a systematic bibliometric analysis to identify the advances made in bridging the gap between long-term energy balance and short-term dynamic stability in isolated systems. This paper analyzes islands’ stability needs and showcases smart charging systems, exploring their roles as distributed energy storage and as providers of ancillary services. First, the most relevant international scientific journals are identified to allow the subsequent selection and quantitative and qualitative analysis of articles dealing with EV-island stability pathways. A total of 7469 publications were screened, of which 284 articles were finally selected. Full article

Food spoilage is mainly driven by lipid oxidation and microbial proliferation. To counteract these challenges, multifunctional protective films have emerged as effective solutions for suppressing both reactions. In this work, biodegradable polylactic acid (PLA) was selected as the polymer matrix to fabricate composite films. Colloidal ZIF-8 nanoparticles loaded with the natural antioxidant astaxanthin (AST) were mixed with PLA. By precisely controlling temperature and humidity during the solution-casting process, a honeycomb-structured PLA/AST@ZIF-8 composite film was successfully prepared. The structural and physico-chemical properties of the as-prepared film were systematically characterized by FE-SEM, FTIR, Raman, XRD, and TGA. The results confirm the formation of a well-defined honeycomb morphology, with AST uniformly dispersed throughout the PLA matrix. Importantly, films with AST content above 2.0% exhibit weak antibacterial properties. Practical application tests for preserving beef tenderloin demonstrate that the film provides excellent antioxidant and antibacterial effects. On the seventh day, the water loss, pH, ΔE and total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N) values of beef samples treated with the PLA/ZIF-8/2.5%AST film remained within acceptable thresholds, effectively extending the shelf life of fresh meat. Safety assessments on overall migration (OM) and Zn²⁺-specific migration confirm that the PLA/AST@ZIF-8 composite film fully complies with EU Regulation No. 10/2011. These results demonstrate the great application prospects of the composite film for high-performance food preservation. Full article

The Yang local fractional calculus was developed to analyze discontinuous mappings. The results obtained within this framework are equally useful in the classical sense. The study of integrals and their approximation rules is an interesting field of research. Among them, the Gaussian quadrature rules are more useful due to their accuracy. In this manuscript, we will explore the error inequalities of the four-point Lobatto–Legendre Quadrature rule incorporating fractal calculus. Our approach is based on the generation of inequalities through a generalized fractal identity. First, we develop an auxiliary result. Then, the applications of various classes of mappings are defined over ${\mathbb{R}}^{\mathsf{t}}$ and auxiliary results, and we develop several new estimates. Additionally, an Artificial Neural Network ($\mathit{A}\mathcal{N}\mathcal{N}$) framework is used to analyse the profile and computational stability of the derived inequalities. Lastly, we have focused on the applicable analysis of the proposed results. This is the first study carried out on Lobatto-type inequalities within fractal space. Full article

Territorial ecological restoration involves a continuous chain of tasks, including degradation diagnosis, target identification, zoning-based governance, process monitoring, effectiveness assessment and adaptive management. The relevant knowledge is widely distributed across policy plans, monitoring reports, restoration cases and the academic literature, and is characterized by multi-source heterogeneity, cross-scale associations and dynamic change. Existing knowledge organization approaches mainly rely on textual synthesis, indicator systems or general-purpose knowledge graph construction tools, and therefore struggle to simultaneously handle cross-context implicit relations, domain-rule constraints, inconsistent entity expressions and evidence traceability in ecological restoration knowledge. To address these limitations, this paper proposes EcoRestore-KG, a multi-agent knowledge graph construction framework for territorial ecological restoration. The framework unifies heterogeneous inputs through controlled evidence representation and adaptive context segmentation, and organizes ontology-guided triple mining, cross-context relation inference, graph quality control, entity canonicalization, relation endpoint remapping and evidence binding into a progressive workflow for the automatic extraction, auditing and assembly of ecological restoration knowledge. Experimental results show that EcoRestore-KG outperforms general-purpose large language models and existing knowledge graph construction baselines in relation extraction, entity coverage and semantic-quality evaluation. It achieves relation precision, recall and F1 scores of 71.4% ± 0.3%, 69.5% ± 4.4% and 70.3% ± 2.3%, respectively, improving relation F1 by 9.9 percentage points over the strongest baseline. Its entity F1 reaches 79.8% ± 0.7%, and its LLM-S score reaches 8.48 ± 0.11. Single-module and combined ablation experiments further demonstrate that evidence representation, context segmentation, cross-context relation inference, relation quality auditing and entity canonicalization jointly support the performance gains of the framework. This study provides a verifiable methodological pathway for structured organization, quality auditing, evidence tracing and subsequent integration of newly available knowledge. Full article

Aluminum matrix composites (AMCs) reinforced with natural mineral ilmenite offer a cost-effective and thermally stable alternative to conventional cast iron brake drum materials. This study investigates the synergistic effect of fine (32–50 µm) and coarse (75–106 µm) ilmenite particles at four fine-to-coarse weight ratios (1:4, 2:3, 3:2, and 4:1) and three reinforcement contents (5, 10, and 15 wt.%) on the thermal stability and dry sliding wear behavior of stir-cast LM30 Al composites. Ilmenite reinforcement progressively reduces the coefficient of thermal expansion of the LM30 matrix, with the 15 wt.% 4:1 fine-to-coarse ratio composite (15DRP41) exhibiting the lowest coefficient of thermal expansion of ~16.54 × 10⁻⁶/°C, a ~33.3% reduction relative to the unreinforced alloy (~24.8 × 10⁻⁶/°C). The 15DRP41 composite demonstrates the lowest wear rate of all the fabricated composites, 1.82 × 10⁻³ mm³/m at 9.81 N and 9.56 × 10⁻³ mm³/m at 68.67 N at 200 °C. Under the most severe load condition (68.67 N, 200 °C), the coefficient of friction of 15DRP41 is reduced by up to 44% compared with the LM30 alloy. A comparative test against commercial grey cast iron shows that 15DRP41 has a similar wear rate up to 200 °C, while its density (~2.9 g/cm³) is significantly lower and it has excellent dimensional stability. Scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy of worn surfaces and debris confirm a progressive change from oxidative and mild abrasive wear at low loads and temperatures to severe wear by delamination at 68.67 N and 300 °C, as evidenced by the presence of a multi-component mechanically mixed layer. The results have confirmed that the optimum fine-to-coarse ratio for the reinforcement was 4:1, which led to the maximum wear resistance and thermal stability in ilmenite-reinforced LM30 composites for lightweight automotive brake drum applications, and that the optimum weight percentage for the reinforcement was 15 wt.%. Full article

Tree-related microhabitats act as key links between forest structure and biodiversity, but these pathways may be altered in urban forests. In Mediterranean urban forests, we found that deadwood-related processes were weaker than hypothesized, while structural diversity remained the primary driver of microhabitat richness. We evaluated whether hierarchical pathways linking structure, diversity, and richness are maintained under urban conditions. A Structural Equation Model was applied to 180 plots across three Italian cities (Florence, Rome, Campobasso), assessing relationships among tree and deadwood volume, diversity, richness, and landscape variables (forest area, patch shape complexity, canopy cover). A consistent bottom-up hierarchy emerged, in which structural heterogeneity was associated with microhabitat richness through diversity-mediated pathways. However, deadwood-related pathways were positive but less consistent than living-tree-related pathways. Landscape context acted mainly as a secondary filter, although canopy cover positively influenced some richness components. Overall, urban forest microhabitat richness depended more on structural heterogeneity than biomass; patterns are consistent with the hypothesis that management, including deadwood removal, may constrain habitat continuity. Maintaining structurally diverse stands, retaining deadwood where compatible with public safety, and integrating microhabitat monitoring into spatial planning are essential to support biodiversity and ecosystem services in urban forests. Full article

Background/Objective: Cinnamaldehyde (CA) is a naturally occurring bioactive compound derived from the leaves, bark, roots, and flowers of the Chinese medicinal plant Cinnamomum cassia. It exhibits a broad spectrum of pharmacological properties, encompassing antioxidant, antibacterial, anti-diabetic, antifungal, and anticancer activities. Notably, it has shown potential therapeutic benefits in the management of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Ochratoxin A (OTA), a common contaminant found in foods such as cereals, coffee, and raisins, is also present in traditional Chinese medicinal materials, including Astragalus and liquorice. T2DM and NAFLD share intertwined pathophysiological pathways, including insulin resistance, dyslipidaemia, chronic low-grade inflammation and oxidative stress, with insulin resistance serving as the common pathological hub for both conditions. Consequently, they frequently co-occur and exacerbate each other. OTA exerts dual-targeted toxicity to the pancreas and liver, which may synergistically drive the development of the comorbidity of T2DM and NAFLD. These two processes are mutually causal and together constitute the pathological basis of metabolic comorbidity. Methods: Network toxicology employs toxicological data, gene expression, and protein–protein interaction (PPI) networks to predict the targets of toxins, while network pharmacology, based on systems biology principles, reveals how drugs exert regulatory effects through multiple targets and pathways. In this study, we employed an integrated network toxicology and network pharmacology approach to jointly decipher the potential mechanisms by which CA intervenes in OTA-induced comorbid T2DM-NAFLD. First, a network toxicology approach was employed to preliminarily screen for core toxicological targets responsible for OTA’s pathogenicity. Subsequently, network pharmacology was used to identify potential targets of CA-mediated intervention in the disease. Finally, the common overlap among the CA intervention targets, OTA toxicity targets, and disease targets was defined as the final set of potential targets for CA-mediated intervention in OTA-induced T2DM-NAFLD comorbidity. A PPI network was constructed using the STRING database, and topological analysis was performed with Cytoscape. Core targets were selected using the median values of six parameters—betweenness centrality, closeness centrality, degree centrality, eigenvector centrality, LAC (local average connectivity) score, and network centrality—as cut-off thresholds, and the top 10 key genes were further identified using the cytoHubba plugin. Gene Ontology (GO) functional enrichment and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analyses were conducted via the DAVID database, and the results were visualized on the CNSknowall platform. Lastly, molecular docking of the core targets was performed using the CB-DOCK2 platform to validate binding affinity. Results: Based on an integrated analysis of network toxicology, network pharmacology, and molecular docking, 10 key targets were systematically identified. These may serve as potential mediators of cinnamaldehyde in the treatment of OTA-induced T2DM-NAFLD comorbidity. Among these, six targets—albumin (ALB), glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor (TNF), actin beta (ACTB), and estrogen receptor 1 (ESR1)—possess crystal structures amenable to molecular docking. KEGG enrichment analysis revealed that CA and OTA jointly participate in key pathological processes such as the cancer pathway, the lipid and atherosclerosis pathway, the advanced glycation end-products–receptor for advanced glycation end-products (AGE-RAGE) signaling pathway, the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase–protein kinase B (PI3K-Akt) signaling pathway, the TNF signaling pathway, and the interleukin-17 (IL-17) signaling pathway. OTA exacerbates inflammatory responses, impairs insulin signaling, promotes hepatic steatosis, and disrupts systemic metabolic homeostasis, ultimately contributing to T2DM-NAFLD comorbidity. Conversely, cinnamaldehyde counteracts these pathological processes through multiple mechanisms, including antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects as well as regulation of glucose and lipid metabolism, thereby restoring metabolic homeostasis. Conclusions: This study has preliminarily identified the toxicological targets of OTA and the potential intervention targets of CA, offering new avenues for preventing and intervening in OTA-induced metabolic toxicity. Furthermore, it provides a theoretical basis for CA as a potential multi-target therapeutic agent and presents novel insights worthy of further investigation into the prevention of T2DM-NAFLD comorbidity. Full article

High temperature can impair leaf water status, photosynthetic function, and membrane stability in ornamental woody seedlings. However, integrated evidence combining gas exchange, chlorophyll fluorescence, oxidative injury, antioxidant activity, and osmotic-adjustment-related responses in heat-stressed Syringa oblata remains limited. One-year-old seedlings from a single nursery batch were exposed for 7 d to 25/18 °C or 40/30 °C day/night conditions and sprayed with either a solvent solution or 0.5 mM salicylic acid. Growth, leaf water status, photosynthetic pigments, gas exchange, pulse-amplitude-modulated fluorescence, OJIP/JIP-test parameters, oxidative-injury markers, antioxidant enzyme activities, and osmotic-adjustment-related compounds were evaluated. Heat treatment reduced leaf relative water content, photosynthetic performance, and photosystem II function and increased reactive oxygen species accumulation, lipid peroxidation, and electrolyte leakage. Compared with heat treatment alone, seedlings receiving salicylic acid under heat showed an 82.2% higher net photosynthetic rate, a 12.2% higher maximum quantum efficiency of photosystem II, and a 116.4% higher performance index on an absorption basis. Hydrogen peroxide, malondialdehyde, and electrolyte leakage were 35.1%, 35.8%, and 32.5% lower, respectively. Antioxidant enzyme activities were also higher under heat plus salicylic acid than under heat alone, whereas additional increases in proline and soluble sugars were not statistically confirmed; soluble protein was partially maintained. Gas exchange was measured after treatment at a common leaf-chamber temperature of 25 °C and therefore represented retained photosynthetic capacity under standardized conditions. Overall, foliar application of 0.5 mM salicylic acid was associated with partial maintenance of photosynthetic function and lower oxidative injury during short-term heat exposure. Because one chamber was assigned to each treatment combination in a single experimental run, possible chamber-specific effects could not be statistically separated from treatment-related differences. Independent validation is therefore required. Full article

Over several decades, digital cultural heritage has been increasingly reused across research, education, creative practice and through public community engagement. However, these activities remain undescribed or inconsistently documented and difficult to compare. Organisations typically rely on ‘proxy metrics’ such as downloads, page views or reverse searches to assess use/reuse. However, these metrics reveal little about how materials were transformed, interpreted, or how they generated value and impact. GLAMs often rely on unstructured anecdotes to capture/trace reuse, as it is difficult to retrospectively document reuse when GLAMs publish cultural heritage data openly without the expectation of users to tell the organisation what they did with the digital cultural heritage they accessed and used. Documenting reuse approaches often focuses on single dimensions or factors such as sector, content type, audience or impact. This has resulted in fragmented knowledge about digital cultural heritage reuse, which has created limitations in carrying out evaluations across examples, learning from good practice and planning digital cultural heritage initiatives. This article introduces and empirically grounds a flexible, multi-dimensional schema for documenting and planning digital cultural heritage reuse. Using an abductive methodology that combines literature analysis and synthesis, practitioner interviews, user-journey examinations and iterative prototyping, we developed a six-category framework capturing (1) organisation and context, (2) heritage assets and technologies, (3) purpose and process, (4) users and engagement modes, (5) nature of use and availability, and (6) impact and sustainability. Applied across real-world examples, this framework can reveal forms of value, dependency and risk, often absent from conventional reporting in the reuse of digital cultural heritage. We argue that reuse documentation functions as a form of socio-technical infrastructure, enabling a shared vocabulary and understanding for cross-case comparison, cumulative learning and strategic design of digital heritage initiatives. By shifting categorisation from retrospective description to include prospective planning, the framework supports a more meaningful impact assessment and sustainable reuse of digital cultural heritage as a societal resource. Full article

Managing safety and operational efficiency in large-scale events requires decision-support tools capable of representing complex crowd dynamics while enabling rapid and evidence-based operational assessment. This paper presents a Generative AI-driven simulation-enabled digital twin prototype that integrates an agent-based crowd simulation framework, an API-based execution pipeline, and a Large Language Model (LLM)-driven conversational interface within a unified architecture. The proposed framework enables the dynamic configuration, execution, and analysis of crowd scenarios under different operational conditions, including high-demand situations and emergency evacuation contexts. Experimental results show that the system can reproduce nonlinear crowd dynamics, identify congestion patterns, and assess evacuation performance. While evaluated under TRL-4 conditions, these results demonstrate the framework’s architectural potential to provide actionable insights for planning and safety evaluation once empirically calibrated with real-world data. A central contribution of this work is the introduction of an API-based execution paradigm that exposes the complete simulation lifecycle, including configuration, validation, execution, and output retrieval, through programmatic interfaces. This design supports reproducible, modular, and scalable what-if analysis. In addition, the integration of an LLM-based conversational interface allows non-technical users to interact with complex simulation models through natural language, improving accessibility without compromising execution control. The framework is validated through a TRL-4 prototype, demonstrating stable performance and reliable interaction behavior. Scalability is strictly confirmed within the evaluated hardware configuration, model abstraction level, and tested agent scale (up to 60,000 agents), providing a foundation for localized event management. Overall, the proposed system serves as a simulation-enabled digital twin prototype, demonstrating how models can transition from static analytical representations toward executable, interactive, and user-centered platforms, laying the necessary architectural groundwork for future operational decision support in complex urban environments. Full article

This study conceptualizes forest experiences into multidimensional values rather than a single metric and demonstrates that a statistically non-significant linear path does not imply theoretical irrelevance. Comprehensive evaluations of the structural pathways through which accumulated forest tourism experiences relate to quality-of-life value perceptions from a transformative perspective are lacking. We investigated the linear and nonlinear structural relationships of forest tourism activities on the quality-of-life value perceptions and overall satisfaction of the exchange population. Survey data from 1163 forest tourism-experienced respondents in South Korea were analyzed using a hybrid model combining partial least-squares structural equation model, Random Forest, and Shapley additive explanations (SHAP). Increased exchange frequency was linearly associated with social, growth-need, and intellectual values. Social, esthetic, emotional-health, and intellectual value perceptions were positively associated with overall satisfaction. Random Forest and SHAP analyses exploratorily supported Herzberg’s Motivation–Hygiene Theory’s applicability; maintaining Close Relationship was the dominant hygiene factor for the dissatisfied group, whereas Emotional Comfort and Discovery of Natural Beauty were key motivators for the satisfied group. These findings suggest shifting from linear satisfaction management to a systemic approach: using emotional-esthetic factors for initial influx and social-intellectual values for potential long-term engagement. Full article