Search Results (17,552)

14-3-3 proteins are highly conserved regulatory proteins that integrate signaling pathways governing plant growth, development, and stress responses. However, the 14-3-3 gene family in oat (Avena sativa) has not been systematically investigated. Here, we performed a comprehensive analysis of oat 14-3-3 genes, including their physicochemical properties, gene structures, phylogeny, conserved motifs, promoter cis-elements, and selective pressures. A total of 19 AsGF14 genes were identified and classified into the ε and non-ε groups. The AsGF14 gene family expanded primarily through segmental duplications and has been under strong purifying selection during evolution. qRT-PCR analysis revealed that six AsGF14 genes were significantly upregulated at one or more time points under drought stress. Notably, AsGF14k exhibited sustained and significant upregulation. Subcellular localization analysis showed that AsGF14k localized to both the nucleus and the cytoplasm. Furthermore, Y2H assays indicated that AsGF14k does not form homodimers. Our results provide a systematic characterization of the AsGF14 gene family and their drought-responsive expression patterns, establishing a preliminary basis for the functional validation of AsGF14 genes under drought stress. Full article

Sweet peppers (Capsicum annuum L.) are an important dietary source of antioxidants. Optimizing fruit antioxidant quality under reduced inputs is essential to valorize sustainable pepper production. Here, we evaluated seven Spanish genotypes (traditional/local, derived experimental hybrids and commercial hybrids) across six treatments combining two fertilization (100% and 50%) and irrigation (100% and 75%) regimes, with plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) applied under reduced fertilization treatments. Vitamin C and flavonoids were quantified by HPLC at the green-ripe and fully ripe stages, and carotenoids were determined spectrophotometrically at the fully ripe stage. Several genotypes largely maintained antioxidant content under stress treatments, whereas specific genotype × ripening stage combinations showed maximum increases in vitamin C (+102%), flavonoids (+86% for kaempferol) and carotenoids (+67% for yellow-orange carotenoids) under certain low-input treatments compared to the control. The PGPR effects on vitamin C and carotenoids were generally small, with occasional reductions. However, the PGPR increased total and some individual flavonoids by up to 96% (luteolin) in green-ripe Piquillo and 128% (quercetin) in fully ripe Isabel F1 fruits compared to the corresponding non-inoculated treatments. This multi-genotype, two ripening-stage evaluation identifies Spanish traditional germplasm and derived hybrids with stable or improved antioxidant profiles under low-input conditions and provides insight into PGPR effects. These results support the use of traditional genotypes in breeding for sustainable production. Full article

Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) is a promising non-invasive sensing technique, yet its practical application in resource-constrained environments is often limited by the high computational cost of inverse image reconstruction. To address this challenge, we focus on specific sensing objectives rather than full image recovery. In this study, we propose a lightweight, task-oriented inference framework for object localization in EIT that bypasses the need to solve computationally expensive inverse reconstruction problems. This approach addresses the high computational demands and hardware complexity of conventional iterative methods, which often hinder real-time monitoring in resource-constrained edge computing environments. Training datasets were generated via finite element method (FEM) simulations for Opposite and Adjacent current injection configurations. A feedforward neural network was developed to independently estimate the radial and angular object positions as probability distributions. Our systematic evaluation revealed that the localization performance depends on the injection configuration and model depth; notably, the Opposite method achieved perfect classification accuracy (1.00) for radial estimation with an optimized architecture of four hidden layers, whereas the Adjacent method exhibited higher ambiguity. Results quantitatively evaluated using the Wasserstein distance show that the Opposite configuration produces more localized, unimodal probability distributions than the Adjacent configuration by utilizing current fields that traverse the entire domain. Compared with existing image-based reconstruction methods, including the conventional electrical impedance tomography and diffuse optical tomography reconstruction software (EIDORS ver.3.12), the proposed framework reduced energy consumption from 3.09 to 0.96 Wh, demonstrating an approximately 70% improvement in energy efficiency while maintaining a high localization accuracy without the need for iterative Jacobian updates. This task-oriented framework enables reliable, high-speed, and energy-efficient localization, making it well-suited for low-power EIT applications in mobile and embedded sensor systems. Full article

Vulnerable road users in informal urban environments confront a distinct set of hazards that standard computer vision datasets are ill-equipped to represent: artisanal speed bumps constructed without regulatory compliance, deteriorated road markings, and the mototaxi—a three-wheeled motorized vehicle that constitutes the primary informal transport mode in intermediate Andean cities yet is absent from all major international repositories. This paper presents QHAWAY—from Quechua qhaway, a transitive verb meaning “to look; to observe”—an Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) predicated on instance segmentation, monocular distance estimation via the pinhole camera model, and Time-to-Collision (TTC) computation, developed for the road environment of Ayacucho, Peru (2761 m a.s.l.), a city recognised by UNESCO as a Creative City of Crafts and Folk Art since 2019. A hybrid dataset comprising 25,602 images with 127,525 annotated instances across 12 classes was assembled by combining an original local collection of 4598 images (10,701 instances) captured through four complementary acquisition methods across the five urban districts of the Huamanga province with three established international datasets (BDD100K, BSTLD, RLMD; 21,004 images, 116,824 instances). A three-phase progressive training strategy with monotonically increasing resolution (640, 800, and 1024 pixels) was evaluated as an ablation study. A multi-architecture comparison spanning YOLOv8L-seg and the YOLO26 family (nano, small, large) identified YOLO26L-seg as the best-performing model, attaining mAP50 Box of 0.829 and mAP50 Mask of 0.788 at epoch 179. The integration of ByteTrack multi-object tracking with the pinhole equation $D=(H_{\mathrm{real}}\times f)/h_{\mathrm{px}}$ delineates operational risk zones aligned with the NHTSA forward collision warning standard (danger: <3 m; caution: 3–7 m; TTC threshold ≤ 2.4 s). The system sustains processing rates of 19.2–25.4 FPS on an NVIDIA RTX 5080 GPU. A systematic field survey established that 96% of the audited speed bumps fail to comply with MTC Directive No. 01-2011-MTC/14, constituting the first quantitative record of informal road infrastructure non-compliance in the Andean region. Validation was conducted under naturalistic driving conditions without staged scenarios. Grad-CAM explainability analysis, encompassing three complementary visualisation algorithms (Grad-CAM, Grad-CAM++, and EigenCAM), confirmed that model attention concentrates consistently on safety-critical objects. Full article

Groundwater in arid and semi-arid regions is increasingly stressed by low rainfall, high evaporation, population growth, agricultural expansion, and climate change. A critical question is whether non-renewable aquifers can sustain rising water demand without irreversible decline. This study addresses that question for the Al Kufrah Basin in southeastern Libya, part of the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System, the world’s largest fossil aquifer. A three-dimensional groundwater flow model (MODFLOW-2000) was calibrated using data from more than 1000 production wells and 32 piezometers spanning 1968–2022. The model was applied to simulate groundwater behavior under five scenarios extending to 2050, including the planned development of 150 new wells. The results indicate that over 85% of withdrawals are derived from aquifer storage rather than boundary inflows. While regional water levels remain relatively stable over the 25-year horizon, localized drawdowns of up to 11 m are expected near new well fields. These findings highlight short-term resilience but point to long-term vulnerability, as continued reliance on non-renewable reserves without recharge will ultimately lead to depletion. The study underscores the need for adaptive management, climate-resilient water strategies, and regional cooperation to ensure the sustainable use of this transboundary aquifer under increasing environmental and socio-economic pressures. Full article

Realizing high-quality-factor (high-Q) plasmonic resonances in the visible regime is critical for enhancing light-matter interactions and advancing biochemical sensing. However, traditional localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) typically suffer from broad spectral linewidths due to severe radiative damping. In this work, we propose a simple two-dimensional symmetric gold nanohole-array metasurface that supports a symmetry-protected bound state in the continuum (SP-BIC) at normal incidence. By introducing extrinsic symmetry breaking via oblique incidence, this non-radiative dark state is successfully transformed into an observable high-Q quasi-BIC Fano resonance. Cartesian multipole decomposition reveals that this sharp mode ($\lambda \approx 688$ nm) is predominantly driven by a tightly confined Magnetic Dipole (MD) excitation, which drastically suppresses radiative leakage compared to the highly damped Electric Dipole (ED)-dominated LSPR. Consequently, the quasi-BIC mode exhibits an ultra-narrow spectral linewidth ($\mathrm{FWHM}\approx 17.4$ nm). While its bulk sensitivity ($236.9$ nm/RIU) is slightly lower than that of the LSPR mode, the exceptionally sharp resonance yields a remarkably low Limit of Detection (LOD) of $7.35\times {10}^{-3}$ RIU, achieving a nearly five-fold improvement over the traditional LSPR. Furthermore, the quasi-BIC mode maintains an outstanding Figure of Merit (FOM up to ∼19.7 ${\mathrm{RIU}}^{-1}$) across the entire sensing range. By eliminating the need for complex asymmetric nanofabrication, this robust angle-tuned design strategy provides a highly promising platform for the development of high-resolution, low-cost optical biosensors. Full article

The globalization of the food supply chain presents complex challenges for safety assurance within a highly fragmented regulatory landscape. This review synthesizes the frameworks of eight influential jurisdictions—including the European Union (EU), the United States, China, and Codex Alimentarius—to evaluate how legal mandates function as regulatory drivers that guide the evolution of analytical chemistry. By examining legislation on Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs), positive list systems, and method validation guidelines (e.g., SANTE), we demonstrate that strict preventive controls have established chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (LC/GC-MS/MS) as the universal standard for multi-residue screening. We show that global regulatory fragmentation is not merely an administrative artifact, but is rooted in divergent toxicological philosophies and localized dietary exposure models. This regulatory heterogeneity requires analytical laboratories to adopt a posture of “defensive technological redundancy,” forcing them to continuously optimize targeted methods against the strictest global default limits (e.g., 0.01 mg/kg). We establish that this continuous methodological escalation for ultra-trace quantification has reached practical and operational limits. Consequently, we conclude that the future of food safety testing must transition from static target-list compliance toward adaptable, non-targeted chemical profiling using High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry (HRMS), enabling laboratories to proactively address emerging contaminants, food fraud, and the complexities of modern food matrices. Full article

Background: Despite the introduction in 2017 of mandatory vaccination for the hexavalent and the measles–mumps–rubella–varicella vaccines, childhood vaccination coverage in Sicily (Italy) remains below the recommended and safety threshold of 95%. A catch-up vaccination intervention was implemented for the pediatric population of the 2022–2023 birth cohorts residing in a health district of Palermo (Bagheria) where in 2024, 24-month coverage for polio and measles was 77.29% and 77.62%, respectively. Methods: A cross-sectional study with a before–after component was conducted between June 2025 and December 2025, with the aim of evaluating the increase in vaccination coverage. A questionnaire was administered to the parents of non-compliant children to investigate the determinants of infant vaccine hesitancy. Results: Collaboration with primary care pediatricians and the organization of active call sessions and extra vaccination sessions resulted in an increase in vaccination coverage of approximately 10–12 percentage points in both birth cohorts. The investigation of the determinants of vaccination adherence showed some significant associations: “perception of infectious disease risk” (OR: 7.91; p = 0.009) and “expectations of a positive outcome from vaccination” (OR: 8.62; p = 0.003). Vaccine information sources such as the internet and media were associated with refusal of catch-up vaccination (OR 0.47, p < 0.001; and OR 0.13, p = 0.026, respectively). Conclusions: Despite methodological limitations, such as the self-reported nature of the survey data, the study demonstrated the usefulness of local strategies aimed at vaccination catch-up, representing a valuable example of local public health practice and effectively contributing to improved vaccination coverage in the pediatric population. Full article

Maritime search and rescue (SAR) is a time-critical public safety mission that increasingly relies on unmanned vehicles to localize persons overboard. However, reliable onboard perception is challenged by extreme scale variation and heavy sea clutter under strict latency and compute budgets. We present R-DET, a deployment-oriented end-to-end Transformer detector built on the RT-DETR paradigm, featuring three rescue-oriented designs: (i) a lightweight backbone (Rescue-Net) preserving multi-scale cues, (ii) a bounded-cost global-context module (Rescue Attention) suppressing sea clutter, and (iii) an efficient fusion module (Rescue-FPN) injecting high-resolution details for tiny targets. We further introduce MarineRescue-8K, a benchmark collected from real maritime operations with a mission-aligned ignore region protocol that reduces the influence of non-critical clutter during optimization and evaluation. On MarineRescue-8K, R-DET achieves 84.1% mAP@0.5 with only 14.5 M parameters at 63.2 FPS (RTX 2080 SUPER), demonstrating a favorable accuracy–efficiency trade-off for deployment-oriented maritime SAR perception. Full article

Permeability anisotropy, which is widely present in natural soil deposits, plays an important role in controlling groundwater flow patterns and ground deformation during deep excavation dewatering. However, isotropic assumptions are still commonly adopted in engineering practice, making it difficult to accurately capture realistic subsurface hydraulic conditions. In this study, a deep foundation pit of a metro station in Jinan, China, is taken as a case study. A three-dimensional excavation–dewatering model incorporating permeability anisotropy is established using PLAXIS 3D to systematically investigate the influence of the permeability ratio (Kx/Kz) ranging from 0.1 to 10 on the seepage field evolution, dewatering influence radius, ground surface settlement, and consolidation time history. The results indicate that increasing permeability anisotropy promotes a fundamental transition of the seepage regime from vertically concentrated recharge to laterally dominated radial flow. Correspondingly, the dewatering influence radius exhibits a pronounced non-monotonic response to Kx/Kz, decreasing significantly with increasing permeability ratio and reaching a minimum at approximately Kx/Kz ≈ 5, followed by a slight rebound. Meanwhile, surface settlement profiles evolve from a localized concentration pattern to a widely distributed form as permeability anisotropy increases, accompanied by a remarkable outward expansion of the settlement influence zone. Both the magnitude and spatial distribution of settlement show high sensitivity to variations in permeability anisotropy. Based on these findings, a three-stage conceptual seepage structure model accounting for permeability anisotropy is proposed, characterized by vertically dominated flow, a transitional competition regime, and horizontally dominated flow. The staged evolution of seepage structures is shown to govern the non-monotonic variation in the dewatering influence radius and the spatial–temporal response of ground settlement. The results indicate a dual-scale influence mechanism of permeability anisotropy on dewatering-induced hydro-mechanical behavior, providing a theoretical basis for refined dewatering design and environmental impact assessment in deep excavation projects. Full article

In response to corrosion challenges encountered during the gathering and transportation of wet natural gas, this study systematically investigates the corrosion behavior of L245NCS steel in environments containing O₂, H₂S, CO₂ and simulated oilfield-produced water. The research employs a combined approach involving high-pressure autoclave experiments and transparent flow loop simulations. Autoclave tests reproduce gas phase, liquid phase, and gas–liquid interface conditions under a controlled O₂-H₂S-CO₂ mixture, while a visual flow loop equipped with elbows and undulating sections is used to examine liquid accumulation behavior and flow characteristics under dynamic, real-world operating conditions. Results indicate that corrosion is most severe at the gas–liquid interface. H₂S is identified as the primary corrosive agent, exerting a stronger influence than CO₂ or O₂. Liquid accumulation is the main factor leading to non-uniform corrosion distribution, and its formation is influenced by water content, pressure, temperature difference, and pipeline shutdown and restart operations. Critical areas such as low-lying sections, downhill bottoms, and the beginning of uphill sections exhibit localized corrosion rates up to 61.4% higher than areas without liquid accumulation. This integrated methodology bridges mechanistic understanding with engineering practice, providing a basis for corrosion risk assessment, optimal monitoring point placement, and integrity management of wet gas pipelines. Full article

This paper proposes and studies a new class of nonlinear nonlocal problem driven by a tempered Caputo-type fractional derivative with respect to an arbitrary smooth kernel. The novelty lies in treating a single nonlocal integro-delay setting that simultaneously couples an arbitrary kernel, exponential tempering, a delayed state, a lower-order distributed fractional memory term, and multipoint nonlocal initial data, rather than introducing a new fractional operator. The resulting problem can be viewed as a rigorous well-posedness prototype for hereditary systems with delayed feedback, tempered memory, and nonlocal initialization. First, an equivalent Volterra integral equation is derived. Then, the existence and uniqueness of solutions are obtained by the Banach contraction principle in a suitable Banach space of continuous functions. Next, a Picard successive approximation procedure is introduced and shown to converge uniformly to the unique solution, together with an explicit a priori error estimate. Moreover, a continuous dependence result is proved with respect to perturbations in the initial constants, the multipoint coefficients, and the nonlinear term. Finally, the main results are illustrated with two examples enhanced by graphs of explicit Picard approximations and convergence tables. Full article

We present a reproducible pipeline that converts color images into quantitative fluorescence maps by combining spectral measurement with a linear mixture model. The method is designed specifically for quantitative comparisons of Glo Germ™ on images of hands taken under different experimental conditions with controlled illumination. The emission spectrum of Glo Germ is measured using a spectral photometer and normalized to obtain its spectral power density function. This spectrum is projected into CIE XYZ coordinates and incorporated into a linear mixture model in which each pixel contains contributions from white light, UV-illuminated skin reflectance, and fluorophore emission. Component magnitudes are estimated with non-negative least squares, yielding a grayscale image whose intensity is a monotonic proxy for local fluorophore density. Spatial integration provides an image-level summary proportional to total detected material. Compared with single-channel proxies, the observer suppresses background structure, improves contrast, and remains radiometrically interpretable. Because the method depends only on measurable spectra and linear transforms, it can be reproduced across cameras and extended to other fluorophores. Full article

Efficient soil fertility monitoring is essential for sustainable agriculture, food security, and environmental management across Africa, yet conventional laboratory methods remain prohibitively costly and slow for continental-scale applications. Soil spectroscopy is considered as a rapid, non-destructive alternative with transformative potential. This review provides a systematic synthesis of spectroscopic applications across Africa, encompassing laboratory, field, airborne, and satellite-based platforms, while examining major data sources including the Africa Soil Information Service (AfSIS) and GEO-CRADLE spectral libraries. We critically evaluate the evolution of modeling approaches, revealing that Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR) dominates, but a shift toward advanced frameworks like hybrid physically based models, ensemble learning and deep neural networks is essential. Critically, we identify a pronounced imbalance wherein laboratory spectroscopy prevails while imaging and satellite-based approaches remain comparatively underutilized, despite their unparalleled potential for scaling point measurements to continental extents. The review consolidates findings on key soil properties, demonstrating consistent successes for primary constituents with direct spectral responses (i.e., organic carbon), while revealing relative uncertainty for properties inferred indirectly via covariance (e.g., available phosphorus, potassium). Despite significant local and regional progress, the absence of a standardized pan-African spectral library and the intractable transferability problem remain formidable barriers. Future research must pivot decisively toward imaging spectroscopy and satellite platforms, mitigating PLSR dominance through systematic adoption of ensemble methods, transfer learning, and model harmonization frameworks to fully operationalize these technologies in support of Africa’s sustainable development goals. Full article

Deep-sea mining operations demand continuous, drift-free positioning over multi-day missions—a requirement that traditional acoustic dead-reckoning systems struggle to meet due to cumulative error accumulation and frequent DVL bottom-lock loss in sediment plume environments. Inspired by Google Cartographer’s 2D grid mapping paradigm, we present a prior map-based visual localization framework that decouples offline mapping from real-time localization, fundamentally eliminating drift through absolute image registration against pre-built seabed mosaics. By integrating adaptive keyframe selection, Multi-Scale Retinex (MSR) enhancement, and the AD-LG deep feature matching architecture, our system constructs globally consistent seabed maps for absolute positioning. The framework leverages deformable convolutions and LightGlue to effectively mitigate challenges such as low texture and non-rigid distortion. Quantitative validation on tank simulation datasets demonstrates significant superiority over IMU-only and standard fusion schemes; qualitative deployment on real Pacific CCZ imagery confirms near-real-time operational feasibility on an embedded Jetson Orin NX platform. This system establishes visual navigation as a viable backup to acoustic systems, addressing a critical gap in deep-sea mining vehicle autonomy. Full article