Search Results (1,141)

Accurate estimation of pasture biomass components from imagery is essential for sustainable grazing management and precision agriculture. Conventional methods such as destructive harvesting, rising plate meters, and remote sensing are limited by scalability, reliability, or the ability to disaggregate biomass by species. We propose a parameter-efficient multi-output regression framework predicting five biomass components (dry green, dry dead, dry clover, green dry matter, and total dry biomass) from high-resolution top-view pasture images. It employs a pretrained DINOv3 Vision Transformer backbone adapted via a dynamic, depth-aware Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA) strategy, in which the adaptation rank and scaling factor increase exponentially with layer depth: early layers encoding generic visual primitives are minimally perturbed, while deeper layers receive stronger task-specific adaptation. This schedule is effective in low-data regimes, where uniform adaptation or full fine-tuning overfits. To handle rectangular image geometry, each image is split into two square halves processed as a dual-view stream with a contrastive alignment loss. The system ensembles ViT-Large and ViT-Huge backbones with test-time augmentation across five-fold cross-validation. On the CSIRO Image2Biomass benchmark, the full pipeline attains a cross-validated weighted R-squared of 0.81, indicating that depth-aware, parameter-efficient adaptation of large vision models is effective for non-invasive biomass estimation under data scarcity. Full article

Brush seals using compliant bristle packs can reduce turbomachinery leakage more effectively than conventional labyrinth seals, but their coupled structural and flow behavior makes design difficult. Under large pressure loading, bristles can deflect, lose contact with the rotor, and generate clearance, causing the sharp leakage increase known as blow-out. This study develops a model linking nonlinear bristle deflection, rotor–bristle contact loss, and leakage response. The bristle is treated as an inextensible nonlinear elastic member subjected to distributed pressure loading, backing-plate support, and frictional rotor contact. Contact and separated states are solved iteratively using boundary-value and initial-value solvers. Leakage through the bristle pack is calculated using a random bristle-bed formulation, and leakage through generated clearance is evaluated with an orifice-flow model. The model agrees well with published bristle-deflection predictions. Increasing pressure load reduces normal contact force until lift-off occurs, producing clearance and a sharp rise in leakage. Increasing front-plate free height shifted lift-off from pressure ratio ≈4 to ≈2, while clearance flow contributed up to 36.5% after lift-off. Brush-seal blowout is therefore governed by the transition from rotor–bristle contact to separation. Lower back-plate height can delay blow-out, but hysteresis and durability tradeoffs must be considered. Full article

A unified modeling framework is presented in this work to predict the free vibration and loss factor characteristics of damping sandwich rotational plates. The formulation starts from the first-order shear deformation theory, where the zigzag hypothesis and interlayer displacement continuity are combined to couple the displacement fields of the individual plies. An artificial spring scheme is adopted to enforce the layer–layer compatibility and the external boundary restraints, which leads to a Lagrangian functional composed of the kinetic energy, the strain energy, and the potential energies contributed by the boundary and coupling springs. The displacement unknowns are discretized with Chebyshev polynomials of the first kind, and the natural frequencies and damping loss factors are extracted by solving the resulting eigenvalue problem with the Rayleigh–Ritz method. Convergence tests are conducted, and the reliability of the model is validated against finite element results. Finally, a series of numerical examples is presented to systematically investigate the effects of key model parameters on the vibration characteristics of the structure. The results indicate that increasing the thicknesses of the inner and outer layers of the damping sandwich rotational plate structure can significantly raise the natural frequencies. Increasing the inner diameter helps to reduce the area of the low-frequency region, where the difference between the two sides exceeds 40 Hz, caused by the close thicknesses of the inner and outer layers. When only the outer boundary is clamped, the natural frequencies of the annular plate are more than twice those of the solid rotational plate, although the solid rotational plate yields a larger loss factor. When only the outer circular edge is fixed, increasing the total thickness of the structure can effectively raise the natural frequencies, with a maximum increase exceeding 110 Hz, while the loss factor decreases significantly. Full article

The performance of a Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) stack is largely determined during assembly, where component materials, sealant selection, and clamping force jointly influence both sealing effectiveness and interfacial losses. These factors interact through coupled mechanical, thermal, and electrical phenomena. Although detailed multiphysics models can accurately capture these effects, their high computational cost limits their application in parametric analyses and optimisation studies. The Equivalent Stiffness Model (ESM) provides an efficient alternative, representing each stack component as a simplified stiffness formulation. Starting from an earlier ESM that reproduces the nonlinear compression of the Membrane Electrode Assembly (MEA) and sealants, this work adds the calculation of the electrical contact resistance at the Gas Diffusion Layer (GDL)–Bipolar Plate (BPP) interface and the resulting GDL porosity. Given the large number of input parameters, a Design of Experiments (DoE) approach systematically explores a wide range of stack configurations and operating conditions. The analysis shows that GDL type, sealant properties, and clamping force are the main drivers of assembly-related performance, whereas BPP material and thermo-hygrometric conditions become more influential during operation. These results provide quantitative guidance on which design and operating choices most strongly affect stack behaviour and under which conditions. Full article

Brucellosis is a zoonotic disease causing significant economic losses, and necessitating standardized diagnostic kits for effective surveillance. The objectives of this study are to investigate brucellosis serosurveillance in ruminants, and to evaluate three serological tests—Rose Bengal Plate Tests (RBPTs), Serum Tube Agglutination Tests (STATs), and Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assays (ELISAs)—each from three manufacturers. A total of 5797 serum samples (5260 sheep, 83 bovines, and 454 spotted deer) were initially screened with the RBPT, and 54 RBPT-positive selected samples were subsequently analyzed by the STAT and ELISA. RBPT screening showed significant variability: kit A (0.86%) showed significantly lower positivity than kits B and C (1.45% and 1.43%, p < 0.05). Among 54 RBPT-positive samples, STAT positivity from manufacturers A, B, and C was 61.11%, 70.37%, and 66.67%, respectively, with no significant differences (p > 0.017 in pairwise comparisons). All ELISAs consistently outperformed STATs. Kit B (competitive ELISA, 90.74%) had significantly higher positivity than kits A (indirect ELISA, 77.78%) and C (competitive ELISA, 74.07%) (p < 0.017 in pairwise comparisons). Key implications: Results from different manufacturers are not directly comparable, and concurrent use of different techniques on the same sample can yield discrepant outcomes. This underscores the urgent need for diagnostic kit standardization in brucellosis prevalence studies. Full article

Background: Autologous dentin has emerged as a potential grafting material in regenerative oral surgery because of its structural and biological similarities to bone. This technical report describes a modified tooth-shell technique used for horizontal ridge reconstruction with simultaneous implant placement in two clinical cases involving the aesthetic zone. Case Presentation: The first case involved a 29-year-old female patient requiring extraction of a partially impacted, buccally positioned maxillary third molar (tooth 28). The extracted tooth was processed intraoperatively to obtain a dentin shell, which was fixed as a buccal plate during simultaneous implant placement. The remaining defect was filled with sticky bone prepared from biphasic calcium phosphate combined with platelet-rich fibrin. Radiographic evaluations performed at 4 and 6 months demonstrated stable ridge contours, while clinical follow-up continued for 2 years with maintenance of implant function and peri-implant tissue stability. The second case involved a 58-year-old female patient with a previous failure of immediate implantation in the anterior maxilla associated with implant overload, loss of implant stability, and buccal bone deficiency. After soft- and hard-tissue healing, ridge reconstruction was performed using a dentin shell prepared from tooth 18 together with simultaneous implant placement and immediate provisional restoration. Follow-up after 6 months revealed stable peri-implant tissues, a satisfactory aesthetic outcome, and successful prosthetic rehabilitation. Conclusions: The modified tooth-shell technique using autologous dentin provided satisfactory preliminary clinical and radiographic outcomes in both cases. These findings should be considered hypothesis-generating and require confirmation in larger prospective studies with longer follow-up periods. Full article

With the rapid development of recycling and secondary utilization of end-of-life battery materials, it is crucial to clarify the impact of full-lifecycle degradation on the thermal safety limits of lithium-ion batteries. This study focuses on a 16 Ah NCM613|graphite pouch battery. First, it analyzes the evolution of capacity decay, thickness expansion, and internal resistance during cycling at room temperature (25 °C) and high temperature (45 °C). Furthermore, an adiabatic accelerated calorimeter (ARC) is employed to investigate the influence of different states of health (SOH) levels (95% and 85%) on the battery’s thermal runaway characteristics. The findings indicate that, macroscopically, batteries in all states follow similar voltage–temperature failure pathways, with mass loss rates confined to a narrow range of approximately 16%, emphasizing the low catastrophic potential of mid-nickel chemistry. However, the microscopic kinetic mechanisms exhibit significant anisotropy: although thickness and internal resistance display no apparent abrupt increase during the late stage of room temperature aging, the capacity exhibits a highly nonlinear plunge behavior. The severe internal lithium plating side reaction triggered by this phenomenon causes the self-heating onset temperature to drop rapidly from 130.0 °C in the fresh state to 79.7 °C. Concurrently, the activation energy of the exothermic side reaction, fitted using a simplified Arrhenius equation, exhibits a non-monotonic variation with aging progress. In the early stages of aging at 95% SOH, due to high temperatures promoting more significant growth of the interfacial film or moderate film formation at room temperature enhancing interfacial thermal stability, the activation energies for both aged batteries increase, and the energy barrier at high temperatures is slightly higher than at room temperature; however, during the deep aging stage at 85% SOH, due to the degradation of active material components and the emergence of lithium plating characteristics, the energy barrier significantly decreases, with high-temperature-aged batteries exhibiting a greater reduction, highlighting the cumulative negative impact of prolonged high-temperature exposure on thermal safety. The research provides a core scientific basis for establishing a battery safety early warning and dynamic health management system covering the entire lifecycle. Full article

Owing to its efficient energy recovery capability, the pump as turbine (PAT) has attracted considerable attention and has been widely applied in micro hydropower systems. However, under off-design conditions, large-scale helical vortex ropes are readily induced in the draft tube, causing severe hydraulic losses and flow instability. Because existing theoretical models do not account for the slip effect at the impeller outlet, this study combines vortex dynamics theory with numerical simulation and introduces a correction coefficient to develop a Burgers vortex-based analytical wake vortex model for a PAT with splitter blades. The model is verified by its ability to predict the peak tangential velocity and radial decay trend of the vortex core. In addition, the influence of draft tube configuration on vortex rope evolution is revealed using the Liutex vortex identification method and enstrophy analysis. The results show that the geometric curvature of the elbow draft tube induces vortex rope breakup and high energy dissipation. Finally, entropy production theory is used to quantitatively evaluate the vortex suppression benefit and hydraulic loss caused by deflector plates. The results indicate that the transverse deflector plate (TDP) provides a significantly better suppression effect than the longitudinal deflector plate (LDP) by disrupting the circumferential continuity of the vortex rope. Although increasing the insertion depth of the deflector plate improves vortex suppression, it induces non-negligible local high-entropy production on the upstream-facing surface (US). This study clarifies the physical mechanism of wake vortices in a PAT with splitter blades and provides theoretical guidance for efficient PAT operation and wake vortex control. Full article

Background: Columellar strut grafting is a widely adopted technique for nasal tip support in rhinoplasty; however, autologous cartilage grafts are associated with well-recognized limitations, including resorption, warping, and donor-site morbidity. Absorbable plates composed of poly-L-lactic acid (PLA) or poly-lactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA), which have an established role in craniofacial fracture fixation, were investigated as a structural adjunct to auricular cartilage columellar strut grafts. The present study evaluates the safety and clinical outcomes of this technique in a large patient cohort. Methods: A retrospective review was conducted of 1710 consecutive patients who underwent primary rhinoplasty with absorbable plate-assisted columellar strut grafting between November 2012 and June 2022. A PLA plate (n = 792) or PLGA plate (n = 918) was used in combination with auricular conchal cartilage. Nasal tip projection was assessed using standardized clinical photographs and Ricketts’ E-line analysis at a minimum follow-up of 1 month (range, 1 month to 6 years). Results: Satisfactory nasal tip projection was achieved and sustained throughout the follow-up period in the majority of patients. Transient mild overprojection, attributable to intentional overcorrection, resolved consistently by 6 months postoperatively. Among patients with recorded follow-up, the overall complication rate was 0.35% (6 of 1710 patients): 1 case of minor skin exposure and 1 case requiring revision for the aesthetic desire of further tip elevation (rather than structural projection loss) in the PLA group and 4 cases of mucosal penetration in the PLGA group, all of which occurred during the initial learning phase and resolved without sequelae. No delayed infections were recorded. Conclusions: Absorbable plate-assisted columellar strut grafting using auricular conchal cartilage is a safe, reproducible, and effective technique for achieving stable nasal tip projection. By providing temporary structural support during the critical early healing phase and subsequently undergoing biologic resorption, this approach mitigates the long-term risks associated with permanent implants while avoiding the morbidity of costal cartilage harvest. Despite the limitations of a retrospective design lacking a cartilage-only control group and objective three-dimensional volumetric assessments, it represents a viable and practical alternative for nasal tip support, particularly in East Asian patients with thick skin envelopes and weak cartilaginous frameworks. Full article

Three-dimensional (3D) S-wave velocity field modeling is a critical task in seismic exploration, but balancing modeling accuracy and geological rationality remains challenging due to sparse observation data and inherent limitations of existing methods. To address this issue, we propose an Ordinary Kriging-Thin Plate Spline-Graph Convolutional Network (OTG) fusion model. It dynamically integrates the global trend capture capability of Ordinary Kriging, the local smooth processing ability of Thin Plate Spline, and the nonlinear feature fitting performance of Graph Convolutional Network (GCN) via an adaptive gating fusion mechanism. A multi-dimensional physical constraint loss function is further designed to ensure the geophysical plausibility of interpolation results. Validated on a dataset from 105 seismic stations in Southwest China using spatial cross-validation and random repeated experiments, the full OTG model achieves a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.1148 km/s, a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 1.9614%, and a Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) of 0.9801. Compared with the optimal traditional method (OK) and the state-of-the-art hybrid method (DeepKriging), the proposed model reduces the root mean square error (RMSE) by 42.8% and 8.2%, respectively. This study demonstrates that the OTG model realizes the complementary advantages of traditional geoscientific methods and deep learning, providing a reliable engineering solution for high-precision 3D S-wave velocity structure interpolation in seismic exploration. Full article

Scientific interest in probiotics continues to grow as accumulating evidence links microbiome modulation to improvements in host health. Probiotics are usually described as live microorganisms that, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit to the host. However, products are exposed to multiple stresses during manufacturing, storage, and gastrointestinal transit. Among these, drying, often employed to stabilize powders and extend shelf life, can impose high viability loss. This review synthesizes recent advances in drying process engineering, formulation design, and viability assessment aimed at improving survival during drying. Freeze drying remains the most widely used technology, while alternative approaches, including conventional spray drying, vacuum drying, spray freeze drying, and electrostatic spray drying, are increasingly evaluated. Protective strategies are discussed, encompassing sublethal conditioning (stress adaptation), optimization of operating parameters, incorporation of excipients, and encapsulation. Lastly, methods for viability assessment are also compared, contrasting culture-dependent assays (e.g., plate enumeration) with culture-independent techniques such as flow cytometry and PCR-based approaches. However, across studies, performance is highly strain-specific, and optimization often entails trade-offs among immediate survival, cycle time, powder stability, and downstream functionality. Full article

We demonstrate optomechanical spatial projection of azimuthally structured optical beams. The system is based on an ultra-low loss circular membrane integrated into an interferometric setup, which exploits the spatial analogies between the mechanical modes and the structured optical fields. A slight geometric asymmetry, originating from a tiny ellipticity introduced during microfabrication, lifts the degeneracy of the membrane modes, producing a spectrally resolved mechanical doublet composed of two orthogonal eigenmodes. Crucially, this doublet provides a phase-sensitive mechanical reference where the spatial orientation of the optical mode is mapped to a distinct resonance frequency, effectively acting as an optical-spatial-to-mechanical spectral projector. Petal-shaped optical intensity distributions, formed by coherent superpositions of orbital-angular-momentum eigenstates with opposite topological charges and generated via a q-plate, are used to probe the membrane in a readout-only regime, where the motion is thermally excited. By rotating the azimuthal orientation of the optical pattern, we observe a controlled redistribution of spectral weight between the two members of the mechanical doublet. The split doublet, therefore, acts as a two-channel mechanical spatial analyzer for azimuthal quadratures. This mechanism yields maximum sensitivity for a topological charge of $\mathsf{\ell }=1$, as its two-lobed intensity distribution matches well the fundamental azimuthal mechanical modes. Overall, the system provides a wavelength-independent platform for the projection and processing of structured optical fields. Since the analyzer relies on spatial mode matching rather than optical spectral properties, the system can interface with a wide range of optical sources and channels, making it a potentially relevant platform for future structured-light communication architectures. Full article

Despite decades of intervention efforts, mercury amalgamation remains widespread in artisanal gold mining (AGM), yet no prior study has presented an integrated metallurgical balance quantifying gold (Au), silver (Ag), and mercury (Hg) simultaneously across both the amalgamation and cyanidation stages of a single processing circuit. This study addresses this gap by evaluating an artisanal amalgamation–cyanidation operation in Pernambuco, Brazil, through systematic sampling, fire assay and ICP-OES analyses, grain size distribution, and SEM-EDS mineralogical characterization. The whole-ore amalgamation (WOA) stage recovered 44.7% ± 11.7% of Au and 11.5% ± 15.4% of Ag from a feed grading 2.96 ± 1.53 ppm Au and 8.09 ± 1.65 ppm Ag. Subsequent vat cyanidation of the Hg-contaminated tailings recovered 75.8% ± 4.32% of the remaining Au and 32.9% ± 9.24% of Ag, raising overall recoveries to 86.6% ± 2.89% for Au and 40.6% ± 4.58% for Ag. Although both stages contribute meaningfully to gold recovery, under the operating conditions evaluated, cyanidation contributed more substantially to overall Au recovery than whole-ore amalgamation. SEM-EDS identified free amalgamated electrum particles in the tailings, attributed to excessive pulp density (≈43% solids) impairing particle settling on the amalgamation plates. These inefficiencies led to estimated mercury losses of 262 g/day, yielding a Hg_(lost):Au+Ag_(produced) ratio of 5.5. Based on this diagnostic evidence, replacing whole-ore amalgamation with optimized comminution followed by gravity concentration is identified as a technically promising mercury-free pathway requiring pilot-scale validation. Full article

Acoustically levitated thin reflective plates provide a promising approach for contactless optical beam steering by eliminating mechanical hinges, sliding interfaces, and the associated wear and friction losses. However, unlike conventional spherical particles or droplets, thin planar reflectors exhibit highly geometry-dependent acoustic force distributions and are highly susceptible to lateral drift and angular destabilization when the acoustic field is dynamically reconfigured for beam steering. Here, we present a theoretical and simulation-based stability analysis of an acoustically levitated thin reflective plate driven by a phase-controlled dual-array acoustic field. A reduced-order model based on the Gor’kov potential is developed to characterize the acoustic potential landscape, escape-barrier depth, and local restoring stiffness during phase-gradient-induced mirror tilting. The simulations reveal that increasing the phase gradient progressively distorts the trapping potential and reduces the available trapping stability margin. Among the translational degrees of freedom, the lateral restoring stiffness deteriorates much more rapidly than the axial stiffness, indicating that lateral slippage is the primary instability pathway during continuous steering. Parametric analysis further shows that thinner mirrors with larger radii can improve trapping stability by increasing the effective acoustic interaction area while reducing gravitational and inertial penalties. The influence of non-ideal acoustic driving conditions is also evaluated to determine practical operating limits for stable operation. These results clarify the stability mechanisms governing acoustically suspended planar reflectors and provide theoretical design guidelines for robust contactless optical beam-steering systems. Full article

Bacterial chondronecrosis with osteomyelitis (BCO) is a major cause of lameness in modern broiler chickens. It remains a persistent challenge in the broiler industry, resulting in substantial economic losses and serious animal health concerns. The pathogenesis of BCO involves rapid muscle growth, resulting in disproportionate body weight relative to skeletal maturity, thereby increasing mechanical stress and leading to microfractures and osteochondrotic clefts in the proximal growth plates of the femora and tibiae. Infection progresses via hematogenous dissemination and colonization of the leg bones by opportunistic pathogens, primarily Staphylococcus spp., Enterococcus spp., and Escherichia coli, originating from the gastrointestinal or respiratory tract, leading to chronic inflammation, ischemia, biofilm formation, and progressive bone necrosis. Control strategies, including selective breeding, enhanced management and production practices, nutritional interventions, and the administration of antimicrobial agents, offer partial mitigation but have failed to provide a permanent solution to BCO incidence. Vaccination is one of the most promising and targeted immunological approaches to enhance the host immune responses against bacterial pathogens. Electron beam (eBeam) inactivated vaccines represent a significant advancement among available vaccination strategies. This review leverages current knowledge of the etiology, pathophysiology, control measures, and the use of eBeam technology (EBT) in vaccine development to provide a scientifically grounded and innovative approach to controlling BCO-associated lameness in broiler chickens. This article also provides insights into future directions for integrated, antibiotic-free strategies to mitigate BCO and revenue losses, enhance broiler welfare, ensure consumer safety, and support the long-term sustainability of the global poultry industry. Full article