Search Results (238)

Previous research has shown that both victim intoxication and narrative framing can influence the levels of victim blame. However, far less attention has been paid to how coercive strategy and narrative framing may interact to shape victim-blaming judgements and perceptions of sexual assault. The present study addresses this gap by examining how combinations of coercive strategies (physical force versus alcohol facilitated), narrative framing (active versus passive), and rape myth acceptance (RMA) influence victim blame and the recognition of sexual assault. Participant gender and age were also assessed in relation to RMA and victim-blaming attitudes. A total of 202 participants aged 18–63 (78.7% of women, 21.3% of men, M_Age = 28.93, SD = 14.36) completed an online survey evaluating vignettes depicting a male perpetrator sexually assaulting a female victim. Age significantly predicted victim blaming, with older participants assigning greater blame to the victim. Gender predicted both RMA and victim blame, with men reporting higher RMA and greater victim blame than women. Active framing in both the physical force and alcohol-use conditions reduced participants’ recognition of the incident as sexual assault. Participants with lower RMA consistently reported lower victim blame across conditions, and were more likely to identify the incident as sexual assault in the physical force condition. These findings highlight the influence of coercive strategies and the importance of victim-centred language in policing, legal, and media contexts, where narrative framing can meaningfully shape the recognition of sexual assault. Full article

Background/Objectives: Immune checkpoints are critical regulatory pathways that maintain peripheral tolerance and prevent autoimmunity. Among these, the programmed death-1/programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-1/PD-L1) axis serves as a major inhibitory pathway that terminates T cell responses. While protein-based checkpoint blockade (ICB) targeting this axis has revolutionized clinical cancer therapy, its clinical efficacy is frequently limited by low response rates, immune-related adverse events (irAEs), and the emergence of adaptive resistance. To break through these bottlenecks, genetic interruption has emerged as a high-precision alternative to modulate the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway at the nucleotide level. Methods: A comprehensive systematic review of literature was performed across major databases (PubMed, Web of Science), with a focus on high quality studies published up to 2026. Results: Direct genomic disruption via CRISPR/Cas9 and post-transcriptional silencing through RNA interference can effectively neutralize inhibitory signaling at its source. Recent advances demonstrate that targeting upstream regulatory nodes—including metabolic checkpoints (e.g., lactate metabolism) and biophysical mechanisms (e.g., liquid–liquid phase separation)—provides superior transcriptional control over PD-L1. Furthermore, engineering CAR-T cells with multiplex gene editing (e.g., TCR/B2M/PD-1 knockout) or localized scFv secretion significantly enhances antitumor potency while reducing systemic toxicity. Innovations in organ-targeted lipid nanoparticles and stimuli-responsive biomimetic carriers further address the delivery barriers in solid tumors. Conclusions: Gene therapy provides a high-precision platform for PD-1/PD-L1 modulation, offering a viable strategy to overcome adaptive resistance. Future clinical application depends on the refinement of safer editing tools, such as base editing, and the standardization of intelligent delivery systems to ensure controllable and scalable cancer immunotherapy. Full article

Dynamin-related protein 1 (Drp1) is essential for mitochondrial dynamics in skeletal muscle, particularly in regulating fission, mitophagy, and maintaining mitochondrial function. Exercise is crucial for sustaining muscle function, promoting mitochondrial adaptations that enhance energy metabolism and oxidative capacity in skeletal muscle. In this Review, we discuss the role of Drp1 in exercise-induced mitochondrial adaptations and its potential implications for skeletal muscle health. We first address the evidence that Drp1 activity must be maintained within a narrow physiological range. Both Drp1 deficiency and overabundance provoke muscle atrophy and dysfunction, establishing a Goldilocks principle for mitochondrial fission. We then examine the multi-layered post-translational modification code that governs Drp1 activity, including canonical phosphorylation, redox-sensing modifications, and the receptor selectivity model that may specify distinct fission programs. A three-stage model of exercise-induced mitochondrial adaptation is presented, describing how Drp1 activity is temporally orchestrated from acute fragmentation through short-term remodeling to long-term network optimization, and how these morphological transitions govern substrate metabolism and determine exercise performance. The pathological consequences of Drp1 dysregulation are examined in metabolic disease, where Drp1 is chronically hyperactivated, and in aging, where Drp1 activity is deficient. Finally, we analyze the ROS-Drp1 signaling axis as the mechanistic basis for the bidirectional regulation of Drp1 by exercise. Moderate exercise-induced ROS production activates Nrf2 and AMPK signaling, which suppress excessive fission in metabolic disease while restoring insufficient fission in aging, thereby moving Drp1 activity toward the physiological Goldilocks zone in both contexts. This context-dependent, bidirectional regulation distinguishes exercise from pharmacological inhibitors and identifies the ROS-Drp1 axis as a therapeutic target for conditions at opposite ends of the Drp1 activity continuum, such as sarcopenia and type 2 diabetes. Full article

Lithium-containing ceramics were significant tritium breeders for the fusion blanket concept, for which tritium release performance and mechanical properties serve as the core indicators for evaluating their performance as tritium breeders. The Li₄Si_0.8Ti_0.2O₄ material was designed as an advanced tritium breeder and fabricated into ceramic pebbles via the freeze-drying method. The tritium release properties of the Li₄Si_0.8Ti_0.2O₄ sample pebbles were investigated via temperature-programmed desorption (TPD). The mechanical properties of the same batch of tritium breeder pebbles were analyzed comparatively, specifically examining the change in their compressive strength before and after irradiation. The sample pebbles irradiated with different neutron doses show different tritium release characteristics, and the tritium release temperature was about 293–553 °C. This was due to the H₂-tritium isotope exchange reaction, and radiation with different neutron doses will lead to different release temperatures of tritium. The mechanical properties of the Li₄Si_0.8Ti_0.2O₄ ceramic pebbles decreased significantly after irradiation. The main reason was that the accumulation of lattice defects and helium bubbles produced by high-energy neutron irradiation leads to internal cracks and helium embrittlement in the material. These results indicate that Li₄Si_0.8Ti_0.2O₄ solid solution may be considered a potential candidate for tritium breeder materials. Full article

The surging need for public security risk mitigation has placed stricter demands on the modernization of emergency response capacities. Unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) offer a promising solution for liquid anti-riot agent dispersion, yet the complex interaction between rotor-induced downwash and droplet trajectories makes nozzle layout optimization a significant challenge. To address the prohibitive computational costs of traditional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and the limitations of single-objective optimization, this study proposes an integrated “simulation–modeling–optimization–decision” framework. First, a linear nozzle layout was identified as superior to the traditional circular arrangement, achieving a 44.8% increase in deposition rate. Subsequently, Optimal Latin Hypercube Sampling (OLHS) and CFD simulations were combined to construct high-precision Kriging surrogate models for three key indicators: deposition rate, uniformity, and coverage rate. The NSGA-II algorithm was then employed to solve the multi-objective trade-off, followed by the entropy-weighted TOPSIS method to identify the optimal engineering solution. Results indicate that nozzle count is the dominant system-level variable under the constant per-nozzle flow-rate condition, showing strong positive correlations with all performance indicators. The identified optimal configuration (6 nozzles with a 1.88 m boom length) achieved a 66.1% increase in deposition rate and an 18.7% increase in coverage rate compared to the original circular layout. Furthermore, the surrogate-based framework improved optimization efficiency to 296% compared to full factorial methods. This study provides a scientific theoretical basis and a highly efficient technical pathway for the structural design of high-performance UAV spray systems. Full article

In air-to-air counter-UAV scenarios, vision–language tracking for tiny drones still lacks a dedicated benchmark. Unlike traditional UAV tracking or ground-based Anti-UAV settings, air-to-air counter-UAV tracking involves simultaneous motion of both the tracking platform and the target platform. In addition, the target typically appears as a tiny object and is subject to rapid viewpoint changes, fast background transitions, and interference from similar drones, making it difficult to systematically assess the capability boundaries of existing methods. To address this gap, we present the ATA dataset. To the best of our knowledge, ATA is the first vision–language tracking dataset specifically designed for real air-to-air tiny-object UAV countermeasure scenarios. ATA contains 50 real-flight video sequences with 38,094 frames in total, and provides frame-wise bounding box annotations together with video-level English language descriptions. It supports two unified task settings, namely BBox-only and Language-assisted tracking. The dataset covers diverse real-world low-altitude scenarios with complex backgrounds. Notably, the average target area accounts for only $0.03\%$ of the full image, exhibiting pronounced tiny-object characteristics. ATA also captures several key challenges in this setting, including dual-dynamic disturbances, complex background changes, and multi-drone interference. Based on ATA, we establish a benchmark covering both vision-only and vision–language tracking methods, and conduct a systematic evaluation of eight representative recent trackers. Experimental results show that current mainstream methods still perform unsatisfactorily in this scenario, with evident limitations in tiny-object representation, cross-frame association, robustness to complex backgrounds, and interference suppression. Furthermore, we validate a lightweight temporal enhancement module, AFTE, and show that explicitly leveraging adjacent-frame information consistently improves the performance of multiple baseline models. Overall, ATA provides a unified benchmark for vision–language tracking in air-to-air counter-UAV scenarios of tiny drones and highlights temporal modeling as a promising direction for improving tracking performance in this challenging setting. Full article

Nicolás Guillén Landrián (1938–2003) is often described as one of the most formally daring documentary filmmakers to emerge from Cuba’s Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC), yet decades of institutional censorship, including imprisonment, forced psychiatric treatment, and the quiet burial of his films in archives, pushed him into a kind of official nonexistence. His work resurfaced unexpectedly during a 2003 screening in Havana, an event that seemed to reveal just how much had been missing from the historical record. This article examines the systematic relationship between the revolutionary Cuban censorship apparatus and the aesthetic strategies Guillén Landrián developed, from his early ICAIC shorts to his final exile film, Inside Downtown (2001). Drawing on archival materials, published interviews, critical theory (Foucault, Agamben, Bourdieu, Scott, de Certeau), and close readings of key films such as Coffea Arábiga (1968), Desde La Habana ¡1969! Recordar (1969–1971), and Taller de Línea y 18 (1971), we argue that censorship did not simply constrain his filmmaking but shaped it in ways that opened unexpected formal paths. We describe these strategies as a “poetics of obliqueness”—a mode of working that embeds critique within intermedial collage, uneasy juxtapositions, ellipsis, allegory, and double coding. These tactics exploited the gap between the apparatus’s strict monitoring of explicit ideological statements and its difficulty policing ambiguous or formally inventive gestures. Although grounded in the Cuban case, this framework speaks to broader questions about how artists under authoritarian conditions convert pressure into a generative constraint, revealing how creativity can survive, and sometimes mutate, under sustained surveillance. Full article

Auditory neurofeedback training (NFT) based on brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) has recently entered the precision motor domain as a task-embedded neural state regulation paradigm. Compared to traditional standalone NFT approaches (e.g., relaxation or attention training designed to enhance general cognitive abilities), task-embedded paradigms integrate feedback directly into the motor task execution process. However, this design inevitably creates a dual-task scenario, and the effects of such a scenario on neural activity and behavioral performance have received limited systematic investigation in the existing literature. This study designed and implemented a closed-loop BCI system employing five-level heartbeat sound feedback and used this system as a research platform to examine the immediate neural mechanism changes and potential dual-task interference effects induced by single-session auditory NFT in moderately skilled shooters. The system maps real-time EEG features onto graded auditory signals varying in playback rate and volume intensity, incorporating a dynamic threshold adjustment mechanism. Twenty-two moderately skilled shooters completed three within-subject conditions (no-sound baseline, SMR enhancement, and theta suppression) in a single session with 32-channel EEG and behavioral data recorded simultaneously. Analyses employed whole-brain cluster-based permutation tests, cross-frequency coupling analysis, and functional connectivity analysis. Cluster-based permutation tests revealed that theta feedback induced a significant frontal 4–7 Hz suppression cluster (cluster p = 0.004), whereas SMR feedback did not produce significant 12–15 Hz enhancement at the group level. Theta feedback elicited cross-frequency spillover as follows: sensorimotor SMR power decreased significantly in theta responders (d = −0.69), with frontal theta and sensorimotor SMR changes positively correlated (r = 0.67, p < 0.001). Functional connectivity analysis using debiased weighted phase lag index (dwPLI) further demonstrated significant theta-band network reorganization (cluster p = 0.034). At the neural level, clear modulation effects were observed, but shooting ring values did not improve significantly under feedback conditions, and aiming time was significantly prolonged—a behavioral pattern consistent with potential dual-task interference from task-embedded auditory feedback. Single-session auditory NFT can act on the prefrontal cognitive control network and induce cross-frequency network reorganization, but the feedback channel itself constitutes a parallel task that may limit the short-term transfer of induced neural states to behavioral performance. This study examined the neural mechanisms of task-embedded auditory NFT and reported the dual-task costs that have been less characterized in prior “task + feedback” research, providing design considerations and preliminary mechanistic evidence for future development of auditory NFT in precision motor skill training. Full article

The smart environment hides numerous security challenges that need to be addressed promptly. Smart cities have emerged as a novel concept, integrating emerging technologies and data-driven solutions to improve urban living conditions. Traffic surveillance cameras at intersections enable continuous traffic monitoring and rapid incident detection, optimizing signal timing to improve road safety and reduce traffic congestion and travel delay. These cities present new challenges for the police force, forcing them to blend into the environment. The paper proposes novel hierarchical Police Internet of Things (PIoT) concepts that should enable and secure timely, high-priority policing forecasting and decision-making processes in smart cities. Hierarchical edge, fog, and cloud computing were presented according to the police decision-making process. This concept is carefully developed to improve the timeliness of predictive policing, planning, management, and decision-making using artificial intelligence and fuzzy logic. The proposed vertical PIoT concept is supported by vertical data processing. In hierarchical computing, machine learning models for time series prediction and fuzzy-logic-based decision-making are applied to enable comprehensive analysis in a smart environment. Two case studies dealing with crime and traffic issues are presented in detail. Full article

Tor is an anonymization network that enables access to hidden services and protects user identity through layered encryption. While its core technology offers strong privacy, users can still be exposed through indirect attack methods or configuration mistakes. This research not only explores de-anonymization techniques but also provides a practical guide for constructing a fully functional experimental Tor environment using virtual machines. The custom-built testbed allows for safe simulation of attacks without impacting the public Tor network. Within this environment, three key information-gathering approaches were evaluated: (1) malware-based reverse shells that establish external communication, (2) malicious PDF and Office files used to trigger outbound connections, and (3) analysis of service misconfigurations that may reveal the IP address of hidden services. The results confirm that although the Tor network itself is resilient, user behavior, improper configurations, and insecure content handling can lead to significant privacy risks. By combining practical environment setup with real-world attack scenarios, this paper serves both as a reference for building experimental Tor networks and as a security-oriented analysis of known de-anonymization vectors. The findings emphasize the critical need for user awareness and precise configuration in privacy-focused technologies. Full article

In police culture, the danger imperative is the idea that the most important part of policing is to “come home at the end of the night.” Neurodivergence brings uncertainty to police encounters; because of the danger imperative, police officers may respond to that uncertainly with increased use of force. We examine the likelihood of being handcuffed and detained (low levels of use of force) for individuals with intellectual/developmental disabilities (I/DDs) (i.e., neurodiverse diagnoses) during discretionary stops using data from police stops in California (n = 3,300,671) and doubly-robust inverse-propensity weighted regression. Results show that the average effect of being I/DD on the likelihood of being handcuffed is nearly 6.5% percentage points higher than people without I/DD; similarly, the average effect of being I/DD on the likelihood of being detained is also nearly 7.5% percentage points higher than people without I/DD. Our findings point to officers’ perceptions of danger and safety (i.e., the danger imperative) during encounters with individuals with I/DD, creating disparate experiences with low levels of use for force for this population. Full article

Anna Burns’ No Bones has extensively documented its depiction of trauma during the Troubles; less attention has been paid to the systematic mechanisms through which pervasive psychosocial harm is quietly administered and normalised. This article moves beyond readings of individual suffering to diagnose a collective condition, arguing that Burns constructs a veritable architecture of harm: a meticulously designed system operating not through overt aggression alone, but through the mundane, yet powerfully insidious, interplay of social forces governing everyday life. This synthesis reveals how these forces converge to produce what Achille Mbembe terms a death-world: a state of being where populations are subjected to conditions that confer upon them the status of the living dead. Within this necropolitical landscape, the protagonist Amelia’s routines are dictated by shrinking spatial affordances, while incessant rumour functions as a policing mechanism that enforces social death long before physical death is a threat. This analysis demonstrates that harm is not an atmospheric byproduct of conflict, but the very logic of this architecture, which compels the community to participate in its own subjugation. Ultimately, by mapping this architecture, this article reframes Burns’ novel from a historical text of the Troubles into a trenchant meditation on the governance of populations under duress. It offers a vital framework for understanding how quiet harm is spatially engineered, a dynamic with profound relevance for contemporary studies of carceral geographies, algorithm-driven social control, and the politics of atmospheric violence. It posits Burns’ work as a crucial resource for theorising the invisible structures that shape and constrain modern life. Full article

To address high uncertainty, dynamic evolution, and limited information in emergency decision-making for major sudden disasters, this paper proposes a sliding-window game-theoretic method with four reference points for emergency response selection. Firstly, interval-valued T-spherical fuzzy sets are adopted to capture decision-makers’ uncertain and hesitant evaluations in interval form. Subsequently, a four-reference-point framework, including the external, internal, average development speed, and ideal proximity reference points, is established to reflect stage-dependent psychological baselines. Furthermore, criterion weights are updated by a sliding-window game-theoretic combination weighting scheme that integrates entropy, anti-entropy, criteria importance through intercriteria correlation, and the coefficient of variation, and performs rolling updates across stages. Prospect values are then computed relative to the four reference points and aggregated to rank alternatives at each stage. Finally, a case study of the 2024 Huludao extreme rainfall event applies the proposed method to evaluate four candidate schemes across six criteria over three decision stages. Results show that rescue cost has the highest weight in all stages, while the importance of rescue speed decreases and social impact increases as the response progresses. The proposed method identifies a comprehensive flood relief scheme led by the People’s Liberation Army and the People’s Armed Police Force as the best option in all stages, because it achieves the highest comprehensive prospect values among all alternatives. Comparative analyses indicate more consistent identification of the optimal scheme than existing approaches, supporting sustainable and resource-efficient disaster management. Full article

This study aims to investigate how an organization’s purpose (raison d’être) dictates first responder resilience-building. While existing studies often treat first responders as a homogeneous group, this research argues that significant interprofessional differences exist. Using a socioecological framework, the study employs a qualitative, comparative design to analyze three first responder systems: the Slovenian Armed Forces, the Slovenian Police, and Slovenia’s public healthcare system. The analysis is grounded in 31 semi-structured interviews, supplemented by analysis of official documents. The findings reveal three pillars of resilience—training, planning, and experience—and three distinct institutional paradigms. The military fosters a culture of proactive, institutionalized resilience-building oriented toward macro-level crises. The police exhibit a more reactive approach, where resilience-building is often undermined by chronic organizational stressors. In the healthcare system, resilience-building is fragmented and localized, with the burden falling on smaller organizational units to manage micro-level crises of capacity overload. The study concludes that an organization’s raison d’être is a vital socioecological factor that shapes its approach to resilience. Full article

A waterspout was sighted in the offshore waters of Hong Kong in mid-October 2025, the second-latest occurrence of this weather phenomenon in a single year since 1959. Due to the close proximity of the phenomenon to Lamma Island in Hong Kong, detailed sighting information and photographs of the waterspout are available for analysis. This paper investigates the meteorological background of the event, the stability of the atmosphere, and weather radar images from two dual-polarization weather radar stations within the territory to determine the type and intensity of the observed waterspout and its formation mechanism. At that time, the atmosphere was rather unstable, with high values for CAPE and bulk Richardson number, along with an upper-level divergence area that provided updraft momentum for convective development. Detailed observations from these weather radar images showed that the waterspout was a rather weak system with relatively low radar reflectivity and generally weak Doppler velocities, although the velocity signatures, such as Doppler velocity couplets, and azimuthal shear were quite clear. The potential for an operational 2-kilometer ensemble prediction system (EPS) from the Hong Kong Observatory to indicate a favorable environment for waterspout development was also investigated. While the EPS cannot be expected to resolve the waterspout problem or reproduce its exact location and timing, it can capture weak low-level cyclonic anomalies and convergences near Lamma Island that would provide favorable conditions for the formation of waterspouts and are broadly consistent with the observed mesoscale environment. Full article