Search Results (25)

Active restoration structures such as microtopographic water-harvesting designs are widely implemented in dryland ecosystems to improve soil moisture, reduce erosion, and promote vegetation recovery. We assessed the combined effects of planted species identity, planting diversity (mono-, bi- and multi-species mixtures), and micro-catchment (half-moon) structures on seedling performance and spontaneous natural regeneration in a hyper-arid restoration pilot site in Sharaan National Park, northwest Saudi Arabia. Thirteen native plant species, of which four—Ochradenus baccatus, Haloxylon persicum, Haloxylon salicornicum, and Acacia gerrardii—formed the dominant planted treatments, were established in 18 half-moons and monitored for survival, growth, and natural recruitment. Seedling survival after 20 months differed significantly among planting treatments, increasing from 58% in mono-plantings to 69% in bi-plantings and 82% in multi-plantings (binomial GLMM, p < 0.001), indicating a positive effect of planting diversity on establishment. Growth traits (height, collar diameter, and crown dimensions) were synthesized into an Overall Growth Index (OGI) and an entropy-weighted OGI (EW-OGI). Mixed-effects models revealed strong species effects on both indices (F_12,369 ≈ 7.2, p < 0.001), with O. baccatus and H. persicum outperforming other taxa and cluster analysis separating “fast expanders”, “moderate growers”, and “decliners”. Trait-based modeling showed that lateral crown expansion was the main driver of overall performance, whereas stem thickening and fruit production contributed little. Between 2022 and 2024, half-moon soils exhibited reduced electrical conductivity and exchangeable Na, higher organic carbon, and doubled available P, consistent with emerging positive soil–plant feedbacks. Spontaneous recruits were dominated by perennials (≈67% of richness), with perennial dominance increasing from mono- to multi-plantings, although Shannon diversity differences among treatments were small and non-significant. The correlation between OGI and spontaneous richness was positive but weak (r = 0.29, p = 0.25), yet plots dominated by O. baccatus hosted nearly two additional spontaneous species relative to other plantings, highlighting its strong facilitative role. Overall, our results show that half-moon micro-catchments, especially when combined with functionally diverse native plantings, can simultaneously improve soil properties and promote biotic facilitation, fostering a transition from active intervention to passive, self-sustaining restoration in hyper-arid environments. Full article

A special class of complex adaptive systems—biological and social—thrive not by passively accumulating patterns, but by engineering coherence, i.e., the deliberate alignment of prior knowledge, real-time updates, and teleonomic purposes. By contrast, today’s AI stacks—Large Language Models (LLMs) wrapped in agentic toolchains—remain rooted in a Turing-paradigm architecture: statistical world models (opaque weights) bolted onto brittle, imperative workflows. They excel at pattern completion, but they externalize governance, memory, and purpose, thereby accumulating coherence debt—a structural fragility manifested as hallucinations, shallow and siloed memory, ad hoc guardrails, and costly human oversight. The shortcoming of current AI relative to human-like intelligence is therefore less about raw performance or scaling, and more about an architectural limitation: knowledge is treated as an after-the-fact annotation on computation, rather than as an organizing substrate that shapes computation. This paper introduces Mindful Machines, a computational paradigm that operationalizes coherence as an architectural property rather than an emergent afterthought. A Mindful Machine is specified by a Digital Genome (encoding purposes, constraints, and knowledge structures) and orchestrated by an Autopoietic and Meta-Cognitive Operating System (AMOS) that runs a continuous Discover–Reflect–Apply–Share (D-R-A-S) loop. Instead of a static model embedded in a one-shot ML pipeline or deep learning neural network, the architecture separates (1) a structural knowledge layer (Digital Genome and knowledge graphs), (2) an autopoietic control plane (health checks, rollback, and self-repair), and (3) meta-cognitive governance (critique-then-commit gates, audit trails, and policy enforcement). We validate this approach on the classic Credit Default Prediction problem by comparing a traditional, static Logistic Regression pipeline (monolithic training, fixed features, external scripting for deployment) with a distributed Mindful Machine implementation whose components can reconfigure logic, update rules, and migrate workloads at runtime. The Mindful Machine not only matches the predictive task, but also achieves autopoiesis (self-healing services and live schema evolution), explainability (causal, event-driven audit trails), and dynamic adaptation (real-time logic and threshold switching driven by knowledge constraints), thereby reducing the coherence debt that characterizes contemporary ML- and LLM-centric AI architectures. The case study demonstrates “a hybrid, runtime-switchable combination of machine learning and rule-based simulation, orchestrated by AMOS under knowledge and policy constraints”. Full article

Airborne magnetic anomaly detection is an important passive remote sensing technique. However, since the magnetic field caused by the aircraft interferes with the detection accuracy, this part of interference should be eliminated by an aeromagnetic compensation method. Most existing compensation methods assume that the ambient magnetic field is uniform when calculating the compensation model parameters. However, as the ambient magnetic field is actually not uniform and varies with the aircraft location, the solved parameters ignore the part of aircraft interference related to the varied ambient magnetic field. Although some of the latest deep learning-based aeromagnetic compensation methods avoid the assumption of uniformity of the ambient magnetic field, the insufficient supervision leads to a poor model generalization. To address these limitations, we propose a self-supervised compensation method. The proposed method utilizes a network to separate the total measured magnetic field into the ambient magnetic field part and the aircraft magnetic field part. By doing so, the method avoids the influence of the uniform ambient magnetic field assumption and enhances the model generalization. In addition, we introduce an improvement ratio loss function to distinguish the aircraft magnetic field from the ambient magnetic field when updating the model parameters. The proposed method is verified using measurement data from real flights. The experimental results indicate that the proposed method significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods in real flights compensation. Full article

Phenomenological research has focused on embodiment. This paper examines how the body is experienced in passive contemplation, understood as a finite province of meaning in Alfred Schutz’s sense. The six features characteristic of any province of meaning (epoché, form of spontaneity, tension of consciousness, sense of self, temporality, and sociality) function distinctively in each province of meaning and alter one’s experience of one’s body. In the foundational province of pragmatic everyday life, one transforms deliberately and bodily the surrounding world, but this experience undergoes modifications in the religious/spiritual contemplative province. To clarify passive contemplation, the paper develops, as a contrast, active contemplation, the active, restless pursuit of chains of appresentational symbols and images. In passive contemplation, one separates from everyday life, orients toward unity rather than dialogue with God, refrains from following appresentative chains, and relaxes one’s tension of the consciousness/body (e.g., through breathing), single-mindedly attending to God’s presence. One can trace passive contemplation genetically to a primordial entwinement with one’s mother’s body, in which subjective/objective boundaries are blurred (as in Merleau-Ponty’s “flesh”). In passive contemplation, one assumes an often-wordless social role (child, lover) toward God and abides tranquilly in the present rather than moving distractedly toward any future. Full article

Laparoscopic surgeons are at high risk of experiencing musculoskeletal discomfort, which is considered the result of long-lasting static and awkward body postures. We primarily aimed to evaluate whether passive and active work breaks can reduce ratings of perceived discomfort among laparoscopic surgeons compared with no work breaks. We secondarily aimed to examine potential differences in performance and workload across work break conditions and requested the surgeons evaluate working with passive or active work breaks. Following a balanced, randomized cross-over design, laparoscopic surgeons performed three 90 min laparoscopic simulations without and with 2.5 min passive or active work breaks after 30 min work blocks on separate days. The simulation included the following tasks: a hot wire, peg transfer, pick-and-place, pick-and-tighten, pick-and-thread, and pull-and-stick tasks. Ratings of perceived discomfort (CR10 Borg Scale), performance per subtask, and perceived workload (NASA-TLX) were recorded, and the break interventions were evaluated (self-developed questionnaire). Statistical analyses were performed on the rating of perceived discomfort and a selection of the performance outcomes. Twenty-one participants (9F) were included, with a mean age of 36.6 years (SD 9.7) and an average experience in laparoscopies of 8.5 years (SD 5.6). Ratings of perceived musculoskeletal discomfort slightly increased over time from a mean level of 0.1 to 0.9 but did not statistically significantly differ between conditions (p = 0.439). Performance outcomes of the hot wire and peg transfer tasks did not statistically significantly differ between conditions. The overall evaluation by the participants was slightly in favor regarding the duration and content of active breaks and showed a 65% likelihood of implementing them on their own initiative in ≥90 min-lasting laparoscopic surgeries, compared with passive breaks. Both passive and active breaks did not statistically significantly influence ratings of perceived discomfort or perceived workload in a 90 min simulation of laparoscopic surgery, with an overall low mean level of perceived discomfort of 0.9 (SD 1.4). As work breaks do not lead to performance losses, rest breaks should be tested in real-life situations across a complete working shift, where perceived discomfort may differ from this laboratory situation. However, in this respect, it is crucial to investigate the acceptance and practicality of intraoperative work breaks in feasibility studies in advance of assessing their effectiveness in follow-up longitudinal trials. Full article

Acoustic focusing of particle flow in microfluidics has been shown to be an efficient tool for particle separation for various chemical and biomedical applications. The mechanism behind the method is the selective effect of the acoustic radiation force on distinct particles. In this way, they can be selectively focused and separated. The technique can also be applied under stationary conditions, i.e., in the absence of fluid flows. In this study, the manipulation of self-propelled particles, such as Janus particles, in an acoustofluidic setup was investigated. In experiments with self-propelled Janus particles and passive beads, we explored the interplay between self-propulsion and the acoustic radiation force. Our results demonstrated unusual and potentially useful effects such as selective trapping, escape, and assisted escape in binary mixtures of active and passive particles. We also analyzed various aspects related to the behavior of Janus particles in acoustic traps in the presence and absence of flows. Full article

This study examined the judgments and emotion attributions in peer exclusion situations among Japanese middle-childhood children (fourth graders and sixth graders) and adolescents (eighth graders). In total, 371 participants were presented with one of three bystander conditions—no bystander, passive bystander, or active bystander—and asked to judge the excluders’ behavior and attribute emotions toward excluders. Here, excluders are children who physically or emotionally separate other children from social groups. All scenarios involved a child wishing to join a peer group but was rejected (that is, excluded from the group), and there were three types of situations: one in which there were no bystanders, one in which the bystanders did not respond, and one in which the bystanders allowed the excluded child into their group. The excluded target was presented as either violent or shy. Furthermore, the participants assessed their own bullying and bystander behaviors in their daily lives. Adolescents judged excluders as less immoral and as having positive emotions more often than did children. Both children and adolescents judged the exclusion of violent targets to be less serious than the exclusion of shy targets. There were no differences in judgments and attributions according to bystander types. There was weak evidence of a relationship between self-reported bullying/bystander behavior, and judgment in fictitious settings was obtained. Full article

Typically, the practical lithium-ion capacitor (LIC) is composed of a capacitive cathode (activated carbon, AC) and a battery-type anode (graphite, soft carbon, hard carbon). There is a risk of the LIC cell overcharging to an unsafe voltage under electrical abuse conditions. Since the anode potential is usually quite low during the charging process and can be controlled by adjusting the amount of anode materials, the overcharge performances of LIC full-cell mainly depend on the AC cathode. Thus, it is necessary to independently investigate the overcharge behaviors of the AC cathode in nonaqueous Li-ion electrolytes without the interference of the anode electrode. In this work, the stable upper potential limits of the AC electrode in three types of lithium-ion electrolytes were determined to be 4.0−4.1 V via the energy efficiency method. Then, the AC//Li half-cells were charged to 5.0 V and 10.0 V, respectively, to investigate the overcharge behaviors. For the half-cells with propylene carbonate (PC)-based electrolytes, the voltage increased sharply to 10.0 V with a vertical straight line at the end of the overcharging process, indicating that the deposits of electrolyte decomposition had separated the AC electrode surface from the electrolytes, forming a self-protective passivation film with a dielectric capacitor behavior. The dense and compact passivation film is significant in separating the AC electrode surface from the electrolytes and preventing LIC cells from volume expansion and explosion risks under electrical abuse and overcharging conditions. Full article

To ensure the country’s sustainable health recovery, viruses like COVID-19 need faster detection and sampling than the rate at which they spread. Blood plasma has proven to be an important and better clinical sample for the detection and diagnosis of various medical conditions as compared to whole blood. For in situ and in vivo health monitoring, plasma can be easily processed through microfluidic Lab-on-Chip (LOC) devices without the clotting that shortens the turnaround time and using minimum amounts of sample and reagents. The present review discusses the key properties of blood plasma as a perfect sample for the microfluidic LOC devices and the importance of passive plasma separators within any kind of LOC device as an embedded unit. The passive LOC plasma separators offer rapid extraction without external forces in the form of a miniaturized automated unit. This article compares various plasma separators on the basis of plasma extraction efficiency, fabrication techniques, and separation science utilized for hemolysis-free extraction. Recent developments in the area of passive bioseparators based on microfiltration and self-driven hydrodynamic and flow-cytometric approaches are discussed in detail. Full article

We reported on the generation of 99.8 fs, 25 kW peak-power, dispersion-managed pulses directly from a passively mode-locked Yb-fiber laser oscillator with a figure-of-9 configuration. The introduction of strongly injected pump power and optical components with a high damage threshold enables high-power operation, while the polarization-maintaining (PM) fiber supports environmentally stable self-started mode-locking. Mode-locking in the soliton-like and negative-dispersion regime is characterized by the dispersion management via tuning the separation distances between a pair of gratings inside the cavity. The oscillator generates stable pulses with up to 40.10 mW average power at a 16.03 MHz repetition rate, corresponding to a pulse energy of 2.5 nJ. To the best of our knowledge, it is the highest peak-power directly obtained by a laser oscillator with a figure-of-9 configuration. Full article

The rechargeable aqueous hybrid battery is a unique system in which the Li-ion mechanism dominates the cathode while the first-order metal reaction of stripping/depositing regulates the anode. This battery inherits the advantages of the low-cost anode while possessing the capability of the Li-ion cathode. One of the major challenges is to design a proper electrolyte to nourish such strengths and alleviate the downsides, because two different mechanisms are functioning separately at the node–electrolyte and the cathode–electrolyte interfaces. In this work, we design a non-Newtonian electrolyte which offers many advantages for a Zn/LiMn₂O₄ battery. The corrosion is kept low while almost non-dendritic zinc deposition is confirmed by chronoamperometry and ex situ microscopy. The gel strength and gelling duration of such non-Newtonian electrolytes can be controlled. The ionic conductivity of such gels can reach 60 mS⋅cm⁻¹. The battery exhibits reduced self-discharge, 6–10% higher specific discharge capacity than the aqueous reference battery, high rate capability, nearly 80% capacity retention after 1000 cycles, and about 100 mAh⋅g⁻¹ of specific discharge capacity at cycle No. 1000th. Negligible amorphization on the cathode surface and no passivation on the anode surface are observed after 1000 cycles, evidenced by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy on the post-run battery electrodes. Full article

Covert feathers are a set of self-actuating, passively deployable feathers located on the upper surfaces of wings that augment lift at post-stall angles of attack. Due to these benefits, the study of covert-inspired passive flow control devices is becoming an increasingly active area of research. In this work, we numerically investigate the aerodynamic benefits of torsionally mounting five covert-inspired flaps on the upper surface of a NACA0012 airfoil. Two-dimensional high-fidelity simulations of the flow past the airfoil–flap system at low $Re=1000$ and a high angle of attack of ${20}^{\circ }$ were performed. A parametric study was conducted by varying the flap moment of inertia and torsional hinge stiffness to characterize the aerodynamic performance of this system. Lift improvements as high as $25\%$ were attained. Two regimes of flap dynamics were identified that provided considerable aerodynamic benefits. A detailed investigation of the flow physics of both these regimes was conducted to understand the physical mechanisms by which the passively deployed flaps augmented the lift of the airfoil. In both regimes, the flap was found to act as a barrier in preventing the upstream propagation of reverse flow due to flow separation and trailing edge vortex. The torsional spring and flap inertia yielded additional flap dynamics that further modulated the surrounding flow and associated performance metrics. We discuss some of these fluid–structure interaction effects in this article. Full article

In order to use polymers at low Earth orbit (LEO) environment, they must be protected against atomic oxygen (AO) erosion. A promising protection strategy is to incorporate polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) molecules into the polymer backbone. In this study, the space durability of epoxy-POSS (EPOSS) nanocomposites was investigated. Two types of POSS molecules were incorporated separately—amine-based and epoxy-based. The outgassing properties of the EPOSS, in terms of total mass loss, collected volatile condensable material, and water vapor regain were measured as a function of POSS type and content. The AO durability was studied using a ground-based AO simulation system. Surface compositions of EPOSS were studied using high-resolution scanning electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. It was found that with respect to the outgassing properties, only some of the EPOSS compositions were suitable for the ultrahigh vacuum space environment, and that the POSS type and content had a strong effect on their outgassing properties. Regardless of the POSS type being used, the AO durability improved significantly. This improvement is attributed to the formation of a self-passivated AO durable SiO₂ layer, and demonstrates the potential use of EPOSS as a qualified nanocomposite for space applications. Full article

Background: The aim of this study was to assess the effects that psychological and physiological stressors have on indoor rock climbers, as well as to identify sex differences. Methods: 14 intermediate rock climbers participated in the study, 10 males and 4 females. Mean age was 31 ± 8 years for males and 21 ± 2 years for females. Day 1 consisted of test familiarization and baseline measurements. Day 2 included two test conditions, startle and fatigue, separated by 20 min. In the startle condition, participants had to lead climb a route, and a loud audio stimulus was presented near the top of the climb. In the fatigue condition, participants were required to climb as fast as they could until muscular failure. The competitive state anxiety inventory second review (CSAI-2R) questionnaire was used to assess somatic anxiety, cognitive anxiety, and self-confidence. The four-square step test (FSST) was used to assess motor control, and cortisol levels were acquired via passive drool (PD). Results: Cortisol concentrations were highest in the pre-startle condition (1.72 μg/dL ± 0.66), and values decreased post-startle (1.67 μg/dL ± 0.74) and post-fatigue (1.42 μg/dL ± 0.72). However, cortisol concentrations increased post-startle in females (1.57 μg/dL ± 0.96). Somatic anxiety in males was significantly higher post-startle (16.36 ± 5.54) than pre-startle (14.23 ± 5.09). Females had significantly higher somatic anxiety post-startle (18.00 ± 8.76), and they had lower self-confidence levels (30.00 ± 5.89) than males. Conclusions: There are differences in the way that males and females prepare and respond to stressful situations. Furthermore, time of day may have had a significant impact on cortisol concentrations. Full article

Multiphase flow with self-driven particles is ubiquitous and complex. Exploring the flow properties has both important academic meaning and engineering value. This review emphasizes some recent studies on multiphase flow with self-driven particles: the hydrodynamic interactions between self-propelled/self-rotary particles and passive particles; the aggregation, phase separation and sedimentation of squirmers; the influence of rheological properties on its motion; and the kinematic characteristics of axisymmetric squirmers. Finally, some open problems, challenges, and future directions are highlighted. Full article