Search Results (41,489)

Polysaccharide-based organic−inorganic hybrid carriers combine renewable polymer matrices with inorganic phases that can modify mechanical integrity, swelling, barrier performance, payload retention, and release behavior. This review critically evaluates alginate as a reference matrix together with chitosan, cellulose/nanocellulose, starch/maltodextrin, pectin, carrageenan, and related polysaccharides, focusing on how matrix chemistry, inorganic-phase properties, interfacial interactions, and fabrication route govern encapsulation efficiency, loading, structural stability, swelling, mechanical and barrier properties, storage retention, and release kinetics. Silica and mesoporous silica, clays and halloysite, layered double hydroxides (LDHs), metal oxides, hydroxyapatite, magnetic particles, and metal−organic frameworks are compared according to their reservoir, reinforcing, diffusion-controlling, responsive, and safety-related functions. Representative quantitative findings illustrate the importance of hybrid architecture; for example, incorporation of LDHs into an alginate matrix reduced erythropoietin release after 108 h from 86% to 24% while increasing mechanical performance by approximately 5–30-fold. In this review, particular attention is given to volatile and bioactive compounds, for which storage retention, oxidation stability, headspace behavior, and application-relevant release are as important as initial encapsulation efficiency. Key challenges, such as long-term stability, standardization of release studies, scalability, safety assessment, and performance in real formulations, are also discussed, together with future directions for sustainable, application-specific hybrid carrier systems. Overall, the review provides a structure−property-application framework for selecting matrix−filler-processing combinations for controlled-release systems. Full article

Larval fish assemblages provide critical insights into reproductive dynamics, biodiversity baselines, and ecosystem resilience, yet remain poorly documented in the Colombian Pacific. This study analyzed ichthyoplankton diversity and spatial turnover across six neritic localities sampled between 2008 and 2022. Standardized plankton tows yielded 43,277 larvae representing 291 morphospecies, 150 genera, 66 families, and 38 orders. The richness observed accounts for ~34% of fish species listed for the Eastern Tropical Pacific and 15% of adult bony fishes reported for the Colombian Pacific, exceeding previous records. Diversity patterns revealed pronounced spatial heterogeneity: Cupica emerged as a biodiversity hotspot, Pizarro and Tortugas were dominated by few taxa, and Sanquianga exhibited high evenness despite moderate richness. Beta diversity analyses indicated turnover exceeding 60% and dissimilarity surpassing 70%, underscoring strong locality identity shaped by oceanographic gradients, geomorphology, and estuarine dynamics. Dominance patterns highlighted contrasting ecological strategies, with cosmopolitan taxa such as Cetengraulis mysticetus coexisting alongside habitat-restricted species of Labrisomus. These findings establish the Colombian Pacific neritic zone as a reservoir of genetic and functional diversity, with high richness and turnover reinforcing its role in sustaining ecosystem functioning and fisheries productivity. Methodological handicaps—including reliance on morphology-based identification, formalin preservation limiting molecular analyses, and uneven temporal coverage—constrain taxonomic resolution, yet the ecological patterns observed provide a robust foundation for conservation planning. Future research integrating molecular tools, trait-based approaches, and long-term monitoring will be essential to refine diversity estimates and strengthen adaptive management under scenarios of climate variability and increasing anthropogenic pressures in the Eastern Tropical Pacific. Full article

Corrosion of steel reinforcement is a major cause of deterioration in reinforced concrete (RC) structures exposed to aggressive environments. Although fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) reinforcement provides excellent corrosion resistance, its confinement effectiveness in RC columns has not been fully understood. This study experimentally investigated the axial compressive behavior of rectangular RC short columns reinforced with steel, carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP), and glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars. Ten specimens with different reinforcement types and stirrup configurations were tested under monotonic axial compression to evaluate compressive strength, axial strain response, deformation behavior, failure mechanisms, and confinement performance. The results indicated that the contribution of FRP reinforcement depended on the reinforcement configuration and confinement mechanism. Specimens reinforced with CFRP longitudinal bars exhibited higher axial capacity than the steel-reinforced control specimen within the tested configurations; however, the influence of the longitudinal reinforcement ratio should also be considered. GFRP stirrups exhibited confinement behavior comparable to CFRP stirrups, whereas CFRP stirrups experienced premature fracture at bent corner regions, which reduced their confinement effectiveness and deformation capacity. Reducing stirrup spacing from 150 mm to 75 mm provided limited improvement in compressive strength because of premature stirrup failure and insufficient development of confinement effects. Existing confinement models tended to overestimate the post-peak response of FRP-reinforced columns. These preliminary findings provide experimental insights into the confinement behavior of FRP-reinforced concrete columns and contribute to the development of improved analytical models. Full article

In rock reinforcement systems, bond stress at the joint between rock bolts and grout exerts a crucial influence on determining the bonding capacity of rock bolts. However, much less research has been conducted to study the joint bond stress (JBS) distribution with analytical deduction. Therefore, this paper adopted an analytical model to evaluate JBS distribution. The novelty of this paper is that the JBS distribution under different grouting conditions can be quantitatively studied. Based on variable controlling techniques, the influence of different parameters on JBS distribution state was studied. These studied parameters included joint strength, joint remaining strength and relative slide at joint remaining strength. Results showed that after rock bolts were loaded, the loading process can be basically divided into five different stages. Joint strength exerts a crucial influence on determining the JBS distribution state before the joint fully disconnected. After the joint started disconnecting, larger joint strength led to a slower propagation speed of the maximum JBS. When the remaining strength of the joint increased, after the whole joint deformed plastically, the disconnected length became longer, and frictional resistance in the disconnected section became larger. This led to an increase in the bonding capacity of rock bolts. Compared with joint strength and joint remaining strength, relative slide at joint remaining strength had a slightly smaller influence on JBS distribution. Before the joint disconnected, increasing relative slide at joint remaining strength was likely to improve the propagation speed of the maximum JBS. This study is valuable for further understanding the stress-transferring mechanism in rock reinforcement systems. Full article

Background: Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) lacks effective targeted therapies, and its dependence on glycolysis represents a potential metabolic vulnerability. EIF3H, the largest subunit of the eukaryotic translation initiation factor 3 complex and a putative deubiquitinase, has been implicated in tumor progression, but its role in TNBC metabolism remains unclear. Methods: EIF3H expression and prognostic value were evaluated in public datasets, clinical TNBC specimens, and cell lines. Functional roles were examined using proliferation, colony formation, migration, and xenograft assays. Mechanisms were investigated by mass spectrometry, co-immunoprecipitation, ubiquitination and glycolytic rate assays, macrophage co-culture, and single-cell transcriptomic analysis. Results: EIF3H was significantly upregulated in TNBC and associated with poor survival. Transcriptionally activated by TRPS1, EIF3H bound to lactate dehydrogenase A (LDHA), reduced its ubiquitination, and prevented its proteasomal degradation. LDHA stabilization enhanced glycolysis and lactate production, thereby promoting TNBC cell proliferation and migration in vitro and tumor growth in vivo; these effects were abolished by LDHA knockdown and restored by LDHA re-expression. In addition, tumor-derived lactate induced M2 macrophage polarization via GPR65, which in turn reinforced malignant progression. Conclusions: Our findings define a TRPS1–EIF3H–LDHA axis that drives glycolysis-dependent TNBC progression and reveal lactate–GPR65 signaling as a mediator of tumor–macrophage crosstalk, supporting EIF3H as a potential prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target in TNBC. Full article

Promoting morality among youth is an important educational priority in Thailand’s Southern Border Provinces. However, few culturally grounded learning interventions based on the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy have been systematically developed and evaluated. This study aimed to develop and preliminarily evaluate the Digital Learning Innovation for Strengthening Society (DLISS), a culturally grounded learning intervention designed to promote self-reported morality among youth. A four-phase research and development design was employed, including needs assessment, intervention and instrument development, preliminary field implementation, and post-implementation expert appraisal. Self-reported morality was assessed using the Sufficiency Economy Moral Scale (SEMS), which underwent psychometric evaluation with 1640 youth. Preliminary implementation involved 22 youth leaders assessed at pretest, immediate posttest, and post-reinforcement assessment. The SEMS demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties. Participants showed statistically significant within-participant changes in the five measured dimensions of self-reported morality across the three assessment occasions. Experts rated the DLISS model favorably for its appropriateness, feasibility, utility, and contextual relevance. The DLISS model represents a promising culturally grounded learning intervention for promoting self-reported morality among youth. The findings provide preliminary evidence supporting further evaluation using larger samples and controlled research designs. Full article

Road networks providing access to forest stands, including integral parts such as timber yards, are subjected to significant loads from timber-transporting vehicles. These loads act on the road surfaces, causing them to deform. This study measured and compared the extent of deformation at two timber yards in the mountain forests of southern Poland in the Western Carpathians. These surfaces were constructed as: crushed stone (timber yard in the Ustroń Forest District) and earth (Forest Experimental Station of the University of Agriculture in Kraków). The measurements were carried out using photogrammetric techniques based on aerial surveys by an unmanned aerial vehicle. The measurements were based on networks of reference points with coordinates in local coordinate systems. During the period between the flights, timber was being stored, handled and transported at both sites. The forest administration provided data on the volume of timber delivered to and removed from the storage yard, as well as basic information on the transport vehicles. Soil samples were taken from the surface of both storage yards for laboratory analysis to illustrate working conditions—the soil type, current moisture content, organic matter content and filtration coefficient (from the soil particle size distribution curve) were determined. Digital terrestrial model (DTM) rasters obtained from both aerial surveys at each storage yard were used to calculate differential rasters, which were analysed by plotting cross-sections at selected locations and directions and by calculating the volume of changes in surface geometry between the survey dates. The observed depths of ruts reach 0.4 m at the Ustroń storage yard and 0.5 m at the LZD storage yard, whilst changes involving the displacement of soil from the ruts above the previous surface level are 0.3 m at the Ustroń storage yard and 0.4 m at the LZD storage yard. Greater deformation was observed on the earth surface (with a high organic content and poorer drainage) than on the crushed stone surface, even though the latter was covered by an uncleared layer of mud and waste left over from timber handling. Given the two-site, single-cycle design of this study, this pattern is consistent with—but cannot on its own confirm—a stabilising effect of surface reinforcement; differences in soil moisture, organic content and observation period between the two sites may also have contributed and could not be separated from the effect of surface type alone. Full article

Improving sample efficiency and achieving balanced multi-task performance across different tasks remain important research challenges in reinforcement learning. Yie Ar Kung-Fu is formulated as a multi-task reinforcement learning environment. A task-specific neural network architecture, simplified state and action encoding schemes, a reward mechanism, and a dynamic learning-rate schedule are designed for the game environment. Based on Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO), a parallel training method is further proposed. The method aggregates episode samples generated from different opponent environments into a unified sample queue in the order of episode completion and dynamically adjusts the weights of samples from different opponents in the loss function based on their win rates. Experiments were conducted on the AutoDL platform using an NVIDIA RTX 4090 GPU. The proposed method enables joint training across multiple opponent environments. After approximately 15,000 training episodes, the trained agent achieved win rates exceeding 90% against all opponents and attained a level-clear rate of 79%, demonstrating strong game-playing performance and balanced performance across multiple opponent tasks. Furthermore, interdisciplinary analogies are used to interpret how parallel training improves sample efficiency and balanced performance across tasks. The proposed method is simple to implement, stable during training, and readily applicable to other complex multi-task environments. Full article

The piezocatalytic activity of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) is generally hampered by an insufficient intrinsic piezoelectric response, which largely restricts their application in energy catalytic conversion. Herein, MIL-125-NH₂(Ti) (denoted NM) was chosen as a prototypical model to demonstrate that defect engineering serves as an efficient strategy to simultaneously reinforce the piezoelectric characteristics and piezocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance of MOFs. Multiple comprehensive characterizations verify that thermally treated NM-250 (NM thermally treated at 250 °C under flowing N₂ atmosphere) contains abundant in situ-generated oxygen vacancies. These defects disrupt the high intrinsic structural symmetry of pristine NM and promote the establishment of polarized electric fields upon mechanical excitation. Electrochemical measurements further reveal that the introduced oxygen vacancies effectively suppress charge carrier recombination and accelerate interfacial charge transfer, thereby facilitating the piezocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction. Benefiting from the optimized piezoelectric polarization and improved charge separation efficiency, NM-250 delivers a piezocatalytic H₂ production rate of 413.5 μmol g⁻¹ h⁻¹, exceeding the value of pristine NM (180.9 μmol g⁻¹ h⁻¹) by 2.28 times. This work elucidates the underlying mechanism by which oxygen vacancy defects modulate piezoelectric polarization and catalytic kinetics and validates defect engineering as a promising route to construct high-performance MOFs-based piezocatalysts. Full article

To address the deployment bottleneck of high-capacity detectors on edge hardware, this study proposes MAC-Lite, an optimized architecture that integrates the Multi-Scale Pyramid Pooling (MSPP) and Asymmetric Padding Convolution (APC) modules to capture fine-grained lesion edges, reinforced by a CDSA spatial-position attention mechanism to suppress complex canopy noise. Instead of aggressive backbone pruning, the framework adopts GSConv-Neck fusion and CDSA-guided distillation to transfer these multi-module priors into a compact student model. Evaluated on an 11-class self-built maize disease dataset, MAC-Lite compresses parameters by 53.1% and FLOPs by 40.9% while retaining 92.7% Precision, 93.4% mAP50, 89.1% Recall and 82.0% mAP50:95. Deployed on a Jetson Nano, the FP16 engine achieves sub-23 ms inference under intense foliar occlusion and the GPU temperature stabilizes at approximately 68 °C during a 30 min full-load stress test, effectively reconciling high-fidelity attention-driven detection with battery-constrained edge deployment. Full article

Damage identification in instrumented structures is often framed through modal-parameter changes, finite element updating, or supervised classifiers. These approaches are powerful, but they require an explicit structural model, identified modes, labeled damage cases, or expert choices about reference sensors. This paper introduces a new data-driven and training-free approach with limited physical priors, defining a sensor network where each sensor is a node and the edges are defined from the spatial correlation of sensor responses. The idea is to use each sensor time history as the measured structural dynamics feature while damage is localized from the edges, whose correlations change relative to a baseline. The method is demonstrated on a full-scale seven-story reinforced-concrete shear-wall building tested at UC San Diego, considering four progressive earthquake-induced damage states and one brace-modification state. The results are compared with those obtained from a previously published finite element model. The results reveal that this network-based approach localizes the damage states in agreement with previous studies with limited prior requirements and low computational cost. Beyond damage localization, this network representation provides sensor centrality, allowing informative sensors to be selected from data rather than chosen randomly or only from experimental intuitions. For the case study, using this sensor network, we find the most central sensors, those carrying the most information with reduced trial-and-error and reduced expert intervention, and use them to recover the first three natural frequencies as a secondary dynamic check. The results show that spatial correlation networks can screen for damage, localize affected regions, and guide modal parameter extraction without building an FE model. This study opens a research avenue in which network representations of multi-sensor structural dynamics complement traditional modal analysis for structural health monitoring, with dense or heterogeneous sensing systems. Full article

Absorbent pads are important materials for regulating exudate and local microenvironments in the packaging of high-moisture perishable foods. However, conventional absorbent pads often suffer from limited functionality, insufficient liquid retention, and a lack of active responsiveness. Hydrogels and aerogels, with tunable three-dimensional polymer networks, provide an important material basis for the design of new functional absorbent pads. This review focuses on the relationships among structure, function, and application, and compares hydrogels and aerogels in terms of network composition, crosslinking strategies, water absorption and retention mechanisms, and active compound loading and release behaviors. Structural design strategies, including multilayer structures, Janus structures, gradient pore structures, and micro/nano-reinforcement, are also summarized. On this basis, recent applications of hydrogel- and aerogel-based absorbent pads in the packaging of meat, aquatic products, fruits, vegetables, and edible fungi are discussed. Finally, the key challenges facing gel-based absorbent pads are analyzed, including adaptation to real food systems, release regulation, food-contact safety, and industrial-scale production. This review establishes a structure–function–application framework for gel-based absorbent pads and offers insights for designing sustainable active and intelligent food packaging. Full article

To overcome the limitations of conventional biopolymer films and reduce reliance on petroleum-based plastics, a nacre-inspired film was developed via 3D printing. During printing process, shear-induced alignment of mica flakes was achieved within a sodium alginate/xanthan gum matrix. Additionally, zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) were incorporated to achieve a synergistic reinforcement effect. Structural analysis revealed that the mica flakes within the film exhibited an oriented distribution, with ZnO NPs uniformly embedded in the interlayer voids, and hydrogen bonding assisted in forming a dense network of the components. Performance testing showed that the tensile strength rose from 13.8 MPa to 62.9 MPa. Improvements in water resistance and thermal stability were also observed. Furthermore, the material exhibited outstanding comprehensive protective properties, including a low water vapor permeability value of 7.587 × 10⁻¹¹ g·m/m²·Pa·s, an ultraviolet blocking rate of 99.37% at a wavelength of 280 nm, and the ability to completely inhibit target bacterial strains, while also possessing good biodegradability and recyclability. Shelf-life tests indicated that the film fabricated in this work could notably prolong the shelf life of strawberries. Biocompatibility test results indicated that the film was safe and non-toxic, and showed no significant cytotoxicity. Full article