Search Results (7,965)

Background: Seasonal influenza remains a major public health challenge worldwide, causing significant morbidity each year and imposing substantial burdens on individuals, healthcare systems, and national economies. Vaccination is considered the most effective available strategy for prevention; however, uptake rates vary considerably across countries, with many failing to achieve the recommended coverage levels. The aim of this umbrella review is to systematically synthesize and critically appraise the existing evidence on healthcare professionals’ beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors regarding seasonal influenza vaccination. Methods: This umbrella review was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA 2020 statement. A literature search was conducted in PubMed, the Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar. The following search terms were used: beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, influenza vaccination, flu vaccine, healthcare professionals and primary healthcare. The inclusion criteria were as follows: (1) Reviews, (2) Published after 1 January 2000, (3) English language, (4) Healthcare professionals as the target-population. Results: Twenty-five studies met the selection criteria and were included in this review. Twelve out of 25 studies were systematic reviews. Globally, vaccination uptake remains below recommended levels, with reported coverage ranging from approximately 2% to 44% in several settings, while rates can exceed 90% in countries with mandatory vaccination policies. North America demonstrates the highest vaccination coverage, while the lowest coverage is reported in Africa and South America. Overall, low- and middle-income countries show significantly lower vaccination behavior compared with high-income countries. Attitudes and beliefs appear to shape vaccination behavior in high-income countries. The main driver of acceptance is perceived protection of oneself and family, whereas hesitancy is mainly driven by concerns about side effects and vaccine safety. Across studies, non-physician healthcare professionals consistently demonstrated lower influenza vaccine acceptance compared with physicians, while pediatricians and general practitioners were found to receive the influenza vaccine more frequently. In addition, younger physicians and those with fewer years of professional experience showed higher vaccination coverage and a greater likelihood of recommending influenza vaccination to patients. Conclusions: Vaccination coverage, worldwide, is lower than what is recommended by the World Health Organization. Healthcare professionals working in hospital settings tend to be vaccinated at a higher rate compared with those working in primary care or community-based healthcare settings. The recommendations that healthcare professionals give are influenced by whether they accept influenza vaccines themselves. Beliefs and attitudes seem to influence behavior in countries where structural barriers, such as limited access to primary healthcare and socio-economic status are absent. Full article

Purpose: Obesity is a chronic multifactorial disease whose increasing prevalence cannot be fully explained by excessive caloric intake and sedentary behaviour alone. This review aimed to synthesize current evidence on the role of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), particularly obesogenic EDCs, as potential environmental contributors to obesity-related phenotypes, with emphasis on their main classes, etiopathogenetic mechanisms and clinical implications. Methods: A structured literature analysis was conducted using PubMed, Web of Science and additional relevant scientific reports and governmental publications. Eligible sources included original research articles, systematic reviews, meta-analyses and authoritative reports addressing endocrine disruption, obesogens, obesity, metabolic dysfunction and related molecular mechanisms. Results: The review identified several major classes of obesogenic EDCs, including organotins, bisphenols, phthalates and persistent organic pollutants. These compounds have been linked to obesity-related phenotypes through overlapping mechanisms, including disruption of adipogenesis via estrogen receptor-dependent and independent pathways, PPARγ/RXR activation, altered adipokine signalling, neuroendocrine dysregulation across developmental stages, oxidative stress and pro-inflammatory activation, genetic and epigenetic alterations, gut microbiota-mediated effects and impaired thermoregulation through brown and beige adipose tissue dysfunction. EDC-associated obesity may contribute to metabolic, endocrine, cardiovascular, hepatic and reproductive complications. Conclusion: Obesogenic EDCs should be regarded as environmental contributors to obesity that act through interconnected molecular, cellular and systemic pathways. Their biological effects support the need for further mechanistic and epidemiological research, preventive strategies, public education and regulatory measures aimed at reducing exposure. Full article

Aspartame is a widely used artificial sweetener, but its possible relationship with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) remains insufficiently understood. This study aimed to explore, rather than prove, potential molecular links between aspartame-related targets and RA-associated gene networks. Three public RA transcriptomic datasets (GSE55235, GSE55457, and GSE77298) from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database were integrated as discovery/training data. Because these datasets included different tissue origins, batch correction was used to reduce dataset-level technical variation, whereas tissue-origin-related biological variation was not assumed to be fully removable. After differential expression analysis, RA-associated differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified. The single-cell dataset GSE200815 was used for cell annotation and cellular expression visualization; because its comparator group consists of psoriatic arthritis (PsA) samples rather than healthy controls, single-cell results were interpreted as RA-vs-PsA observations and were not treated as disease-versus-healthy-control evidence. Potential targets of aspartame were retrieved from ChEMBL, SwissTargetPrediction, and the Similarity Ensemble Approach (SEA), and were intersected with RA-related DEGs to construct an aspartame-gene-RA regulatory network. Diagnostic models were developed using 113 machine-learning algorithm combinations to determine an optimal multigene model and its core genes. HLA-DRB1 was selected for exploratory scTenifoldKnk-based virtual knockout mainly because it was included in the optimal model and has a well-established role in RA immunogenetics; the single-cell analysis was used only to describe cellular distribution in the RA/PsA dataset. Molecular docking was then used to evaluate the possible interaction between aspartame and HLA-DRB1. Forty-four intersected genes linked the predicted aspartame targets with RA DEGs. The random forest plus partial least-squares generalized linear model (RF + plsRglm) identified 16 core genes. Network-level interpretation indicated that these genes were distributed across immune/antigen-processing, inflammatory-signaling, protease/extracellular-matrix-remodeling, adhesion, metabolic, and proliferation-related modules; therefore, HLA-DRB1 was treated as a prioritized immune-module candidate rather than as the sole driver of the network. Following virtual knockout of HLA-DRB1, affected genes were enriched in extracellular matrix organization, extracellular structure organization, extracellular matrix, collagen trimer, extracellular matrix structural constituent, and collagen binding. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways included integrin signaling, focal adhesion, proteoglycans in cancer, cytoskeleton in muscle, and phosphoinositide 3-kinase/protein kinase B (PI3K/AKT) signaling. Molecular docking showed a minimum binding energy of −6.7 kcal/mol, which was more negative than the preset stability criterion of −5.0 kcal/mol, and the docking pose suggested contacts around ARG-146. This integrative analysis suggests a hypothesis-generating association between aspartame-related predicted targets and RA-relevant molecular networks involving HLA-DRB1 and other core genes. The findings do not establish causality and require experimental, epidemiological, biophysical, and tissue-stratified validation before any causal or clinical inference can be made. Full article

The construction industry is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Different strategies have been implemented to reduce the environmental impact of construction sites and create better city environments for construction workers and citizens. Electrification of construction machinery is one such measure and is rapidly evolving. However, existing literature has largely concentrated on either electrification of road vehicles or emission reduction via the electrification of a building’s operational energy use. This paper presents a systematic literature review on available publications focusing on the electrification of construction sites, identifying and analyzing the key drivers and barriers influencing this. In addition, it provides recommendations for better and effective electrification of construction sites. A total of 55 publications were analyzed to extract insights and organize findings into eight key themes: requirements, technology and market, economic, process and operations, infrastructure, knowledge and experience, environmental, and attitude. The findings indicate strong interconnections between the barriers and drivers to electrification of construction sites. Clear policy frameworks, strategic public procurement, knowledge sharing initiatives, and robust data systems emerged as critical enablers for scaling emission-free construction sites. The lessons learnt are largely drawn from Norwegian experiences but are highly transferable to other cities and regions and offer practical insights into policy design, procurement strategies, and collaborative models for actors interested in reducing GHG emissions and transition into electrification of construction sites. Full article

Urban sustainability is tied to transport sustainability. Limitations of tools for internalization of externalities and distortions of incentives for environmentally friendly behavior of vehicle owners hinder the transition to sustainable urban development. The complexity of accurately assessing pollutants emissions by motor vehicles makes it difficult to internalize the economic damage caused by actual emissions. The purpose of the study is to develop a system for organizing the internalization of damage caused by actual emissions of pollutants by motor vehicles in the territory. For motor vehicles, the power consumption depends on operating conditions and driving style. Effective power affects the volume of exhaust gases, and the quality of the power unit and the efficiency of its management affect the content of pollutants in the exhaust gases. A system of interaction of environmental policy instruments is proposed, which allows for the internalization of economic damage from actual emissions of pollutants from vehicles. The basis of the system is dependencies of the masses of pollutant emissions with vehicle exhaust gases on the actual engine power used. The system assumes the internalization of damage from emissions, joint use of the mechanism of buying and selling rights to pollute the environment (for public and freight transport), and emission payments (for other types of vehicles). The system for accounting for actual emissions will improve the adequacy of comparing alternatives for the movement of passengers and goods, including with electric transport and unmanned systems. The system for ensuring the internalization of damage from actual emissions will reduce distortions and create adequate incentives to reduce damage from emissions. Full article

On 11 March 1899, a group of young Jewish artists organized a commemorative evening in memory of the late Maurycy Gottlieb, an event accompanied by the publication of the festive Jednodniówka, which included contributions by Jewish and Polish modernist artists and writers. Artur Markowicz was among them. This article examines the fin-de-siècle renaissance of Jewish modernist visual culture and its exploration of traditional Eastern European Jewish life, focusing on Markowicz’s depictions of the Kazimierz ghetto. In contrast to the more critical attitude of Samuel Hirszenberg, the leader of Kraków’s short-lived circle of Jewish artists and art lovers in the early twentieth century, Markowicz’s Impressionist and Symbolist pastels reflected a more idealized approach within Jewish modernism. Nonetheless, his works, largely unchanged by subsequent upheavals, later evoked nostalgia for a lost world. Full article

The German physician Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843) established the basic principles of homeopathy as a medical specialty 200 years ago. Nowadays homeopathy is generally categorized as a method of complementary medicine, because its principles seem difficult to relate to modern western biomedicine and due to a different philosophical background. One important aspect is that Hahnemann ascribed the mode of action of homeopathic remedies—highly diluted potentized preparations (HDPPs)—to a non-physical force, called geistartig (literally translated as spirit-like). However, the term geistartig is nowadays difficult to understand and to translate, and it is open to misunderstanding. To build a bridge to today’s science, we aimed to clarify the meaning of geistartig. We therefore analyzed the complete body of Hahnemann’s publications and found that Hahnemann provided a consistent conceptualization of geistartig. The term geistartig encompasses the dynamic (force-like) effects of HDPPs and includes substance-specific gestalt-organizing effects, which differ from the known physical forces. A detailed analysis reveals that the hypothesis of such non-physical gestalt-organizing forces agrees with the concepts of modern biology and can also be tested empirically. We thus conclude that Hahnemann’s concept of the active principle of HDPPs can be related to contemporary research. Full article

The increasing complexity and sophistication of cyberattacks have made machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) central to modern cyber defense. However, existing surveys typically examine attacks, ML methods, or datasets separately, limiting understanding of how methodological choices align with adversarial behaviours and benchmark availability. This paper presents a systematic literature review (SLR) of AI- and ML-based cyber defense studies published between 2019 and 2025, framed as an ATT&CK-aligned tri-axis synthesis of cyberattacks, machine learning methods, and datasets. Across 99 primary studies, the review maps 312 attack labels to MITRE ATT&CK tactics and techniques, categorises the ML methods applied, and organizes 96 datasets into a refined taxonomy spanning NIDD, IoT-NIDD, malware, Spam and Phishing, ICS, Insider Threat, custom-collected, and other datasets. Rather than treating attacks, ML methods, and datasets as separate descriptive dimensions, the review analyses them jointly through a tri-axis cross-reference framework, enabling the identification of benchmark dependence, methodological concentration, and underexplored attack–method–dataset intersections that are not visible in single-axis or model-centred surveys. The synthesis shows that the literature is strongly concentrated on externally visible attacks associated with Impact, Initial Access, and Execution, that ensemble and deep learning models dominate high-frequency detection settings, and that dataset usage remains heavily skewed toward a small set of public benchmarks, particularly CSE-CIC-IDS2017, UNSW-NB15, and NSL-KDD. This review further identifies persistent blind spots, including limited coverage of post-compromise ATT&CK behaviours, sparse use of ICS and insider-threat datasets, and weak support for multi-stage or multi-dataset evaluation. These findings provide a more focused and actionable evidence base for future ML-based cyber defense research. Full article

Agricultural reconversion has become a key strategy for the continuity and competitiveness of primary-sector productive units, confronting scenarios such as low profitability, environmental pressures, and changes in agri-food markets. The objective of this study was to identify the economic, social, and environmental factors that influenced the agricultural reconversion to lemon cultivation (Citrus limon) in production units in the municipality of Calvillo, Aguascalientes, Mexico. During 2023 and 2024, a total of 32 semi-structured interviews were conducted with producers who had undertaken restructuring processes, from which perception variables were constructed across three dimensions: economic, social, and crop management. Through cluster analysis, three distinct profiles were identified based on their perceptions, resource use, and organizational characteristics (p < 0.05). Results indicate that economic factors are the main driver of productive change (low crop profitability p = 0.0035); however, environmental dimension and efficient resource management, particularly water, are crucial to consolidating the conversion. Furthermore, government support, production experience, and membership in organizations influence perceptions of viability and the prospects of the new crop. The findings suggest that agricultural production restructuring does not follow a uniform pattern, but is shaped by structural, perceptual, and contextual factors, highlighting the importance of targeted public policies and integrated strategies for technical and organizational support. Full article

Cold-region community outdoor spaces are not only everyday activity settings for older adults in winter, but also public-space types that need to be translated into design evidence for architecture and healthy human-settlement research. Existing restorative-environment studies usually treat improved mood, perceived restoration, and environmental appraisal as evidence of health benefits. The key finding of this study is that subjective restoration and physiological recovery are not always synchronized after outdoor exposure in cold-region communities. This discordance reveals a design risk and an innovative value that can be overlooked when restoration is evaluated only through perception-based indicators. Based on a winter field exposure experiment with 345 older adults in a community in Shenyang, China, this study compared staged changes in systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), pulse pressure (PP), POMS, ROS, and ENPQ across an activity plaza, a greenway walkway, and a street corridor. It further developed a psychophysiological concordance classification and a residual cardiovascular risk indicator for the recovery period. The greenway walkway showed the most stable concordant recovery, with 86.84% of women and 79.35% of men showing concordant recovery. The activity plaza showed a clear pattern of emotional recovery: the proportions of women and men whose psychological state improved without a synchronized SBP decrease were 61.58% and 50.32%, respectively. The street corridor had the highest recovery-failure rates, at 92.63% for women and 91.61% for men. Among women, 90.53% reached SBP values of 140 mmHg or higher during the walking phase in the street corridor, and 59.47% remained above this risk threshold during recovery. These results show that health evaluation of cold-region community outdoor spaces should not rely only on subjective restoration indicators, but should also include psychophysiological concordance and residual risk after exposure. The study translates site health effects into three architectural design judgments: concordant-restoration spaces, emotional-restoration spaces, and recovery-failure spaces, providing a testable evidence framework for age-friendly community renewal, path organization, green buffering, and winter wind-protection design. Full article

Decades of cultivation and the often exclusive use of mineral fertilisers as a substitute for organic inputs have reduced the soil organic carbon (SOC) content of agricultural soils, meaning they now represent a potential sink for carbon sequestration to mitigate climate change and improve soil function. As well as being a legacy of management, SOC will also be dependent on local scale climate, topography, and soil properties; accounting for this local context is important when benchmarking fields and quantifying the potential for additional carbon sequestration. We developed a landscape-scale methodology, using a handheld infrared device, for baselining SOC stocks in the top 30 cm across a 45,000 ha farm cluster in the UK. The cluster is exploring opportunities for landscape-scale environmental improvement with a focus on natural flood protection and water pollution reduction through conversion of arable land to permanent grassland. We used the baseline data to estimate additional benefits of arable reversion for soil carbon sequestration. Because all the farms in the cluster share the same pedoclimatic conditions, variance in SOC at the field scale could be confidently attributed to differences in soil type and land use. Average SOC stocks in arable and permanent pasture fields were 103.9 and 140.3 Mg C ha⁻¹, respectively. Variance in %SOC was modelled using soil series, sample depth, land use, and clay content, and fields were benchmarked based on deviation from the expected value. The fields with the largest SOC stocks were identified and used as references to predict future potential sequestration. The conversion of arable land to permanent pasture resulted in a predicted average uplift in SOC of 55.0 Mg C ha⁻¹. Our landscape-scale methodology provides robust evidence on current and future carbon stocks for public subsidy schemes and natural capital markets that account for local constraints and opportunities. Full article

Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) is recognized as a major public health concern due to its profound and lasting effects on the central nervous system (CNS) and its ability to induce fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), which encompass a wide range of cognitive, behavioural, and neuropsychiatric disorders that persist throughout life. Experimental and clinical studies have identified several mechanisms underlying ethanol impairing brain development, including apoptosis, oxidative stress, disruption of morphogen and growth factor signalling pathways, impaired neuronal proliferation and migration, neurotransmitter systems’ dysfunction, glial cells damage associated with deficient myelination, vascular and blood–brain barrier (BBB) alterations, and lasting epigenetic reprogramming. However, to date no widely accepted integrative framework explaining how these impairments underline the heterogeneous phenotype observed in FASD is available. The present brings together developmental neurobiology and computational neuroscience to conceptualize PAE as a disorder of emerging neural and functional architecture. Here, we summarize the pharmacokinetics of ethanol in pregnancy, critical windows of vulnerability, and the classical pathways of alcohol teratogenesis affecting neuronal survival, migration, synaptogenesis, myelination, and gene regulation. We have also reviewed MRI, diffusion imaging, and EEG/MEG evidence showing altered brain volumes, white matter microstructure, functional connectivity, and network organization in individuals with PAE. Finally, we propose a systems-level model that conceptualizes PAE as a disorder of emerging neuro-computational architecture, in which ethanol-induced cellular and molecular perturbations collectively alter the building blocks and self-organization rules of brain network assembly. Full article

Hookah smoking has become a persistent social phenomenon among young adults in the United States, despite decades of tobacco control efforts. Moreover, hookah smoking presents unique public health challenges due to its strong social appeal, cultural relevance, and widespread use in urban centers and college communities. This paper provides a broad review of recent trends, health implications, regulatory responses, and sociocultural factors influencing hookah smoking. A narrative literature review was conducted using peer-reviewed articles and grey literature sources published between 2019–2025. Electronic databases included PubMed, CINAHL, and Google Scholar, along with reports from professional organizations and government agencies including CDC, FDA, WHO, and health department agencies, to review current public health recommendations and practice guidelines. Review materials were selected that focus on prevalence, health implications, and regulations of hookah smoking. Findings were synthesized to identify key applications, challenges and concerns, and future directions. This review provided a rapid and broad review of the current trends, health implications, regulatory responses, and sociocultural factors of hookah smoking among young adults in the United States. Interdisciplinary research and policy innovation are necessary to address the ongoing public health burden of hookah smoking among young adults in the United States. Full article

Education systems face increasing pressure to adopt evidence-informed innovations that respond to learner diversity. In early childhood, understanding neuroplasticity is foundational for developing inclusive pedagogies, yet translating basic neuroscience into teacher professional development remains complex. This study presents a descriptive and exploratory bibliometric analysis characterizing the intersection of neuroplasticity, neuropedagogy, and early childhood to map how research evidence is organized. A corpus of 2937 documents spanning from 1975 to early 2026 was analyzed to identify publication trends, global collaboration networks, and thematic structures. Results indicate exponential growth in the field, with the United States leading in volume but European and South American nations demonstrating higher international collaboration rates. Thematic mapping reveals a structural separation between applied human studies and mechanistic basic science. This translational distance, combined with the documented prevalence of neuromyths among educators, presents a significant barrier to evidence-informed inclusive education. These findings provide researchers and policymakers with a diagnostic map of the field, outlining specific implications for the content, design, implementation, and evaluation of future teacher professional development to responsibly advance educational equity and inclusion. Full article

Following the PRISMA-ScR framework for scoping reviews, we systematically searched five databases (Scopus, IEEE Xplore, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, Web of Science) using a Boolean query combining real-time processing, 3D reconstruction, and deformation modelling terms. From 86 records identified, 56 peer-reviewed publications (2009–2025) were retained after two-stage screening and organized into a unified taxonomy covering sensing modalities (RGB-D, LiDAR, tactile), reconstruction pipelines (volumetric fusion, NRSfM, neural radiance fields), and deformation models (FEM, PBD, mass-spring, GNN-based surrogates, differentiable simulators). Of the 56 included works, 60% were published between 2022 and 2025, confirming the field’s rapid growth. Neural and implicit representations account for 20% of contributions, FEM-based methods for 16%, and hybrid or application-specific pipelines for 21%. Four systemic gaps emerge: the absence of a unified physics-aware benchmark; unresolved speed–accuracy trade-offs (PBD achieves >30 FPS on desktop GPUs for 10³–10⁴ vertex meshes but lacks mapping to physical material constants (Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio), limiting material fidelity; full-order FEM ensures physically consistent stress–strain behavior but runs at only 1–10 FPS without order reduction; reduced-order FEM recovers interactive rates for low-frequency deformation modes); fragile handling of occlusions and multi-object contact; and limited end-to-end integration of sensing and simulation. The findings support the presentation of a research roadmap centered on model order reduction, differentiable physics, multimodal sensing fusion, and standardized evaluation protocols, with implications for robust digital twins of deformable environments. Full article