Search Results (6,056)

Water is fundamental to structural integrity, stability, and functional properties of food systems, biomaterials, and biobased industries. The dynamics of hydration, including hydrogen bonding, hydration shell formation, plasticization, and phase transitions, dictate molecular behavior and exert broad influence on energy consumption, shelf life, biodegradability, and resource efficiency. However, the nonlinear and multiscale characteristics of hydration have constrained the predictive capabilities of conventional empirical methods. This study introduces a comprehensive framework that integrates foundational hydration science with advanced computational intelligence to model, predict, and optimize hydration-driven phenomena across diverse biopolymer classes. Leveraging classical insights into carbohydrate stereochemistry, protein hydrophobic hydration, and phospholipid-bound water, we demonstrate how computational approaches can reduce resource use in bioprocessing by 30–50% and optimize drying curves to lower energy consumption by 25%. By establishing hydration as a strategic design parameter, this work charts a pathway toward a resilient and sustainable economy where predictive error rates for hydration dynamics are significantly minimized through data-driven calibration. Full article

Photonic crystal waveguides (PhCWs) have emerged as a leading platform for integrated optical sensing due to their ability to engineer dispersion, enhance light–matter interaction, and exploit slow-light effects. This review provides a comprehensive analysis of the fundamental physics, performance metrics, device architectures, and application domains that define the current state of PhCW-based sensing. Key mechanisms governing sensitivity, figure of merit, detection limit, and dynamic range are examined, with emphasis on the intrinsic trade-offs introduced by slow-light operation, including disorder-induced scattering, linewidth broadening, and thermal susceptibility. Advances in dispersion engineering, such as hole shifting, gentle confinement, and width modulation, are highlighted alongside novel architectures including slot PhCWs, hybrid material platforms, and plasmonic–photonic configurations. Their respective capabilities in enhancing analyte overlap, improving spectral stability, and expanding functional integration are critically assessed. Emerging applications in biochemical detection, environmental monitoring, and nanoscale particle sensing further illustrate the versatility of PhCWs within modern optofluidic and lab-on-chip systems. The review concludes by outlining key challenges and future directions, including disorder-resilient slow-light design, inverse-engineered structures, and platform-level integration, which collectively chart a path toward next-generation high-performance photonic crystal sensing technologies. Full article

Rapid urbanization and increasing traffic volumes necessitate effective road safety measures, particularly in metropolitan areas. Enhancing road safety is a fundamental pillar of social sustainability as it directly reduces the socio-economic burden of traffic accidents and promotes resilient urban environments. This article analyzes the impact of infrastructural traffic-calming devices on road safety parameters using a GIS-based method. This study provides a quantitative tool for monitoring and measuring the effectiveness of sustainable transport infrastructure. The study examines six different types of devices across 44 locations within the GZM Metropolis, Poland, utilizing official police data (Accident and Collision Records System—SEWIK) from a period of two years before and two years after implementation. The primary parameters analyzed include the frequency of incidents, the severity of injuries, and the structure of accident types. The results demonstrate a substantial positive association following the interventions, with an average 41.33% reduction in road incidents across all tested devices. Specifically, speed bumps proved most effective, reducing incidents by over 66%. However, the analysis revealed a critical anomaly: While pedestrian refuge islands decreased the overall number of minor injuries, they correlated with an increase in the number of severe injuries, suggesting a need for careful consideration. Furthermore, the study confirms a positive shift in the structure of incidents, notably a substantial decrease in rear-end and side-impact collisions. The findings offer practical evidence for evidence-based urban policies, contributing to the development of safe, inclusive, and sustainable transport systems in line with global sustainability goals. Full article

In collaboration with various stakeholders, including learners, parents, teachers, district administrators, and community organizations, school social workers (SSWs) can positively influence the school ethos, reduce risks and barriers to learning, and increase learners’ resilience. This collaboration is particularly crucial in low- and middle-income countries, where psychosocial well-being support structures are lacking, significantly affecting learners’ well-being. This exploratory qualitative study aimed to explore the nature of collaboration in the practice of school social work in South African public schools in Gauteng province. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 SSWs who provided informed consent. Reflexive thematic analysis confirms that SSWs actively promote and participate in interdisciplinary and inter-organizational collaboration to support learners. These collaborations were crucial for addressing complex issues such as child protection, substance abuse, mental health, and poverty. However, the identified challenges include limited participation by experts, key stakeholders, and parents, as well as poor coordination between the social development and education departments. These challenges hinder SSWs’ ability to address learners’ diverse needs effectively. Therefore, the study argues for a shift toward more formalized, uniform partnerships and proposes operational strategies to strengthen collaboration and the practice of school social work within the broader school system. Full article

Cities are complex land systems where spatial form mediates welfare, connectivity, and community-based adaptation. This study compares two Haredi neighbourhoods in Jerusalem, Ezrat Torah (an organically evolved semilattice) and Ramat Shlomo (a planned tree-type enclave), to examine how urban morphology interacts with planning logics to shape sustainability trade-offs. We integrated graph-based meshedness (α-index), aggregate isovist cascade analysis, and a geodesign-supported negotiation to evaluate the land-use mix, visibility structure, and network redundancy and to co-design 2045 scenarios across housing, transport, green, and social infrastructure. Findings showed that semilattice fabrics support richer overlaps among social and spatial subsystems, enabling incremental, lower-conflict adjustments towards sustainability objectives, whereas tree-like structures lock units into hierarchical compartments, constraining adaptation. Methodologically, the paper operationalises Alexander’s structure–life hypothesis with reproducible indicators and demonstrates how geodesign can align community preferences with broader sustainability goals. The contribution is twofold: (i) empirical evidence on how neighbourhood morphology conditions welfare–connectivity–resilience outcomes; and (ii) a transferable, negotiation-centred workflow for planning in culturally cohesive urban enclaves. Full article

Bacteria-based self-healing concrete is extensively shown to improve strength and durability; yet, the mechanistic relationship among microbial activity, damage progression, and transport resistance is still ambiguous. This study examines the interrelated mechanical and transport properties of concrete that incorporates Bacillus subtilis by directly substituting mixing water. Concrete mixtures with 0%, 5%, and 10% bacterial solution were assessed for compressive strength, complete stress–strain response, split tensile strength, flexural toughness, fast chloride ion penetration, and capillary sorptivity. X-ray diffraction was employed for microstructural validation. Results indicate a dose-dependent shift from brittle to quasi-ductile behavior, marked by augmented strain capacity, postponed crack localization, and improved post-cracking energy absorption. The mechanical alterations resulted in substantial decreases in chloride ion penetrability (up to 57%) and capillary sorptivity (up to 60%), signifying a drop in crack-assisted transport. X-ray diffraction verified the production of calcite resulting from microbial-induced calcium carbonate precipitation. The results indicate that the improvement in durability of bacterial concrete is attributable not only to pore filling but also to altered damage mechanisms that diminish the connectedness of transport channels, underscoring the potential of Bacillus subtilis as a bio-admixture for resilient structural concrete. Full article

Sustainability can be broadly understood as the capacity of human societies to operate within ecological limits while maintaining long-term social and economic stability. Within global policy frameworks, it has evolved from a normative ideal to a structured and measurable paradigm of governance. This article outlines the institutional and political evolution of sustainability, tracing how international agreements—from the 1972 Stockholm Conference to Agenda 2030 and the Paris Agreement—have transformed environmental concerns into quantifiable commitments. The modern concept of sustainability emphasises integration across sectors and scales, linking environmental protection with development, equity, and resilience. Understanding this trajectory is essential for interpreting current global governance mechanisms and for promoting coherent, data-driven approaches to sustainable development. Full article

Background: Australia’s increasingly multicultural landscape has seen a rise in culturally and linguistically diverse populations, many of whom face subtle and systemic forms of discrimination known as “new racism”. Objective: Underpinned by a person-centred and holistic framework, which recognises individuals as experts in their own lived experiences and emphasises strength-based, culturally situated understandings of well-being, this paper reports on a study that explores how culturally and racially marginalised diverse people in Australia cope with the mental health impacts of new racism. Design: A qualitative descriptive approach was employed in this study. Participants: Thirty participants from ten culturally and linguistically diverse communities participated in eight focus groups, providing rich insights into their lived experiences. Methods: Data were collected through semi-structured focus-group interviews conducted between March and June 2025. Data were analysed using Braun and Clarke’ method of thematic analysis. Results: Thematic analysis revealed four key coping strategies: (1) acceptance of immutable identity traits to foster resilience, (2) emotional ventilation within culturally safe spaces, (3) self-growth and empowerment through reflection and adaptive practices, and (4) assertive responses to racism when necessary. While some participants reported psychological distress, many demonstrated resilience and resourcefulness, challenging deficit-based assumptions often found in the existing literature. Findings underscore the importance of culturally responsive mental healthcare, including peer support, emotional safe spaces, and strength-based interventions. Conclusions: This study offers a holistic understanding of how culturally and racially marginalised people cope with new racism and its mental health impacts. The findings highlight the critical need for person-centred, culturally responsive, and equity-focused mental health support, providing actionable guidance for nursing practice and policy development. Full article

This study examines the intercultural competence of Greek primary school teachers and early childhood educators enrolled in the Joint Master’s Program Intercultural Education & Mediation at the University of Patras. Using the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), the study assessed both perceived and developmental orientations of intercultural competence. The results reveal a significant gap between teachers’ self-assessed and actual competence, with most participants positioned in a minimization orientation—emphasizing commonalities while overlooking the educational value of cultural differences. Such an orientation limits teachers’ ability to fully engage with diversity, often resulting in superficial approaches to multicultural classrooms. The findings underscore the urgent need for systematic professional development in intercultural competence, diversity education, and critical self-reflection. Within this framework, the practicum of the Master’s program emerges as a key mechanism for transformation: through immersive experiences in schools, NGOs, and community organizations, coupled with structured reflective practices, teachers confront real intercultural challenges and develop adaptability, empathy, and resilience. By bridging theory with practice, the practicum fosters meaningful growth in intercultural mindset, enabling educators to acknowledge their biases, embrace cultural diversity as an asset, and design inclusive learning environments. Overall, the study contributes to the literature on intercultural competence and teacher education, offering insights into the challenges Greek educators face and the role of practicum-based learning in fostering culturally responsive teaching. Full article

This research addresses a structural cybernetic anomaly within strategic management precipitated by the integration of artificial intelligence into the organizational core. Traditional paradigms, specifically the resource-based view and the dynamic capabilities framework, operate under closed-system, first-order cybernetic assumptions that fail to capture the dissipative nature of algorithmic agents. By conceptualizing the enterprise as a complex adaptive system operating far from thermodynamic equilibrium, this study introduces the theory of dynamic cognitive advantage. Grounded in second-order cybernetics, the framework posits that competitive differentiation emerges from the historical, recursive, structural coupling of human semantic intent and machine syntactic processing. This research formalizes this co-evolutionary dynamic utilizing coupled non-linear differential equations and time decay integrals. Furthermore, it operationalizes the central mechanism of this capability—the cognitive flywheel—and proposes a fractal governance architecture to mitigate systemic vulnerabilities such as automation bias. To transition these propositions into management science, a proposed mixed-methods empirical research agenda is presented. It outlines a future partial least squares–structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach to test the mediating role of the cognitive flywheel and the moderating effect of fractal governance on organizational resilience. This research provides a mathematically formalized, empirically testable architecture for navigating the artificial intelligence economy. Full article

Protein crystals are intrinsically hydrated systems, and their structural integrity is strongly influenced by environmental humidity. Understanding the effects of relative humidity (RH) variation on crystal stability is therefore essential for both fundamental research and applied studies. In this work, the structural response of tetragonal hen egg-white lysozyme (HEWL) to controlled RH variation was investigated using in situ X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD). Polycrystalline HEWL samples were subjected to systematic gradual dehydration and rehydration cycles, as well as to non-gradual RH variation protocols. Pawley analysis of the XRPD data enabled monitoring of the evolution of unit cell parameters and unit cell volume as a function of RH. Under all experimental conditions, the tetragonal polymorph (space group P4₃2₁2; a = 79.105 (4) Å, c = 38.231 (2) Å) was preserved. RH variation induced smooth, continuous and anisotropic lattice changes, characterized by a decrease in the a (=b)-axis and a concomitant increase in the c-axis upon dehydration, while rehydration resulted in the opposite behavior. The overall magnitude of lattice variation remained limited (within ±2%), indicating a high degree of structural stability. Partial degradation of crystallinity was observed only after prolonged exposure to low RH levels. These findings demonstrate the remarkable structural resilience of tetragonal HEWL and highlight the effectiveness of in situ XRPD as a powerful tool for probing hydration-driven lattice responses in protein crystals under realistic environmental conditions. Full article

Assessing and optimizing regional ecological networks is critical for mitigating fragmentation-driven ecological risks and informing evidence-based territorial spatial planning in China. In this study, we developed a comprehensive evaluation framework integrating ecosystem services, ecological sensitivity, and landscape connectivity to identify ecological sources in Anyang City, China. We then extracted ecological corridors and nodes using circuit theory and constructed the city’s ecological network. Notably, we applied complex network theory combined with topological robustness analysis for optimization to enhance network stability. The analysis identified 43 ecological sources (820.72 km²; 11.16% of the region), predominantly distributed in western Anyang. A total of 82 corridors (460.35 km), 62 pinch points, and 120 barrier points were mapped—primarily in the west, revealing critical connectivity deficits. Network optimization through the addition of 10 strategic corridors significantly enhanced structural balance and functionality, with average degree, closeness centrality, clustering coefficient, eigenvector centrality, and graph density increasing by 5.55–12.19%, and their standard deviations decreasing by an average of 19.32%. Global efficiency (+8.74%), the largest connected component ratio (+0.73%), and node/edge recovery robustness (+17.44%/+18.08%) also improved markedly, confirming greater connectivity and resilience. Our methodology comprehensively integrates ecosystem functional services, disturbance resistance, and spatial structural stability, providing a practical reference for the construction and optimization of regional ecological networks in mountainous–plain transition zones of China. Full article

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) has become a core component of modern healthcare infrastructures, enabling continuous patient monitoring, remote diagnostics, and data-driven clinical decision-making. Despite these advances, authentication in IoMT environments remains a critical security challenge, intensified by strict resource constraints of medical devices and the emerging threat posed by quantum computing to classical cryptographic techniques. This systematic review investigates authentication mechanisms in IoMT from both post-quantum and system-level perspectives. A structured literature review was conducted using a PRISMA-informed methodology across major scientific databases, including IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, SpringerLink, ScienceDirect, and MDPI. From an initial set of 95 records, 63 studies were selected for qualitative synthesis following screening and eligibility assessment. To organise existing research, this study introduces a multi-dimensional classification framework that categorises authentication solutions according to cryptographic paradigm (classical, hybrid, and post-quantum), deployment architecture, system objectives, and clinical operational constraints. The comparative synthesis demonstrates important trade-offs between security strength, latency, computational overhead, and energy consumption that are frequently underexplored in the existing literature. Furthermore, the analysis identifies key research gaps related to scalability in heterogeneous medical environments, trust establishment across administrative and clinical domains, usability under strict timing constraints, and resilience against quantum-capable adversaries. Based on these findings, future research directions are outlined toward adaptive, lightweight, and context-aware post-quantum authentication frameworks designed for real-world IoMT deployments. Limitations of this review include restriction to English-language publications and selected databases. This study received no external funding, and the review protocol was not formally registered. Full article

Power system control rooms are undergoing a profound transformation as renewable integration, distributed energy resources, sector coupling, and increasing operational uncertainty reshape the technical, organisational, and cognitive demands of grid operation. At the same time, Digital Twins and Agentic Artificial Intelligence offer new possibilities for monitoring, forecasting, reasoning, and decision support. However, existing control room architectures remain fragmented and insufficiently structured to support the coherent integration of digital models, intelligent reasoning systems, human operators, and regulatory accountability mechanisms in safety-critical power system environments. This article addresses that gap through a PRISMA ScR-informed scoping review combined with a structured architectural synthesis process. The study develops Infostructure as a reference architectural framework for situation awareness in future power system control rooms. The framework is derived from a synthesis of operational challenges, regulatory constraints, and human AI collaboration requirements identified across the scientific and regulatory literature. Infostructure formalises four interrelated architectural layers, Physical, Semantic, Orchestration, and Cognitive, constrained by cross cutting governance and compliance principles. The architectural coverage and internal coherence of the framework are illustrated through representative transmission and distribution system use cases, including wide area disturbance anticipation, distribution level congestion management, and cross organisational coordination during extreme events. A structured research and validation agenda is further outlined to support empirical evaluation and phased implementation. By transforming review-based synthesis into a coherent architectural formalisation, Infostructure contributes a rigorous foundation for the evolution of transparent, accountable, and resilient power system control rooms. Full article

Long-term stability of multienzyme protein systems is governed by preservation of conformational integrity and resistance to thermally induced structural destabilization. This study evaluated bovine pancreatin (BP) obtained by conventional extraction (CM) and ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAM) during 0–930 days of storage at 10–40 °C. Amylolytic (AA), proteolytic (PA), and lipolytic activities (LA), representing the functional enzymatic activity (EA) of the multienzyme protein system, were monitored to characterize degradation kinetics and activity loss associated with conformational destabilization. After 930 days at 20 ± 1 °C, UAM retained 76% of initial AA compared with 58% for CM, corresponding to a 31% higher residual activity in UAM. LA demonstrated comparatively high stability in both preparations (~84% retention), whereas PA exhibited delayed degradation and significantly higher residual values in UAM samples. Two-way ANOVA confirmed significant effects of extraction method, storage duration, and their interaction (p < 0.001), indicating method-dependent kinetic behavior. Elevated temperatures (35–40 °C) accelerated inactivation, consistent with increased molecular mobility and reduced conformational stability. The smoother degradation trajectories and lower apparent inactivation rates observed in UAM preparations suggest kinetic stabilization, potentially associated with improved conformational preservation and reduced extraction-induced structural stress. Both preparations complied with pharmacopoeial microbiological limits. These findings support the hypothesis that UAM enhances long-term functional stability of complex multienzyme systems through mechanisms related to conformational resilience. Full article