Search Results (115)

Background: Sustaining long-term lifestyle change remains a major challenge in preventive health. Epigenetic clocks offer a dynamic, modifiable measure of biological ageing that may enhance motivation when returned to individuals. Objectives: This study had two aims: (1) to evaluate whether personalised health reports integrating epigenetic age, polygenic cancer risk scores, and lifestyle metrics could motivate sustained behavioural change; and (2) to examine variability across epigenetic clock generations to inform the selection of a suitable model for participant feedback. Methods: A total of 178 adults were recruited via the Graham Fulford Charitable Trust community testing programme, and 91 completed a one-year follow-up survey assessing behavioural, psychological, and knowledge-related outcomes. DNA methylation data from 140 samples were used to compare 14 epigenetic clocks across four generations. Results: Most participants reported positive lifestyle changes, including feeling healthier (72.5%), increased physical activity (60.4%), and improved diet (47.3%). Gains were also observed in health knowledge (63.7%) and psychological well-being (31.9%). Epigenetic clock comparisons revealed substantial heterogeneity across models. Zhang2019-BLUP was selected as a stable and interpretable measure of biological age that can be readily communicated to participants, supporting empowerment and improved health literacy, rather than serving only as a risk prediction metric. Conclusions: Personalised biomarker feedback including epigenetic age combined with lifestyle and wearable data can support self-reported improvements in health-related behaviours. Community-based delivery through trusted local networks proved effective. The marked variation between epigenetic clocks highlights the importance of selecting models designed for clear communication when used in public-facing health interventions. Full article

The deployment of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) remains challenging and time consuming due to the manual commissioning, configuration, and maintenance of resource-constrained Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Achieving precise network-wide time synchronization in such systems further increases this deployment complexity. This paper presents a novel Real-Time Operating System (RTOS)-integrated time synchronization method that distributes an absolute Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) reference across the network using a single Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-enabled host. The method extends the semantics of the RTOS tick count by directly linking it to a global time reference. Consequently, sensor nodes obtain a notion of UTC time and can execute time-critical tasks at precisely defined moments without requiring a dedicated Real-Time Clock (RTC) or GNSS module on each sensor node. This design reduces both hardware cost and overall system complexity. Experimental results obtained on custom-developed hardware running FreeRTOS demonstrate a task synchronization error below ±30 μs between the GNSS reference and a sensor node operating at a clock frequency of 32 MHz. Such precise network-wide synchronization enables more efficient channel utilization, reduces power consumption, and improves the accuracy of both local and coordinated task execution across multiple devices in WSNs. It therefore serves as a key enabler for self-deployable WSNs. Full article

To overcome the limitations imposed by the intermittent nature of sunlight in photocatalytic applications, this research constructs a round-the-clock purification system. We integrated an optimized S-scheme CoFe₂O₄/BiVO₄ (CFO/BV) heterojunction (synthesized via ultrasonic self-assembly at a 0.5:0.5 ratio) with a thermal energy storage (TES) unit consisting of SiO₂-encapsulated Na₂SO₄·10H₂O phase change materials (PCMs). Comprehensive characterization techniques, including XRD, HRTEM, UV-Vis DRS, EPR, and DSC, confirmed the successful formation of the interface, a broadened visible-light response (λ > 650 nm), efficient radical production, and a high latent heat storage capacity (>200 J/g). Under simulated solar irradiation, the composite exhibited superior performance, degrading 98% of the Rhodamine B within 6 h (k = 0.00994 min⁻¹), significantly surpassing single-component counterparts. More importantly, during the subsequent 12 h dark period, the heat released from the PCM maintained the reaction temperature above 35 °C, driving a 64% degradation efficiency via a thermocatalytic pathway. The system demonstrated robust stability (>90% efficiency after five cycles), excellent magnetic recoverability (98%), and high tolerance to saline textile wastewater (<10% activity loss). Furthermore, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) indicated a 40% reduction in energy consumption compared to conventional UV/TiO₂ processes, highlighting a sustainable strategy for continuous wastewater remediation through synergistic photocatalysis and thermocatalysis. Full article

There is considerable interest in the connection between alcohol-induced oxidative stress, DNA methylation, antioxidants, and accelerated aging across diverse populations. Nevertheless, self-reported alcohol consumption is prone to bias, and objective biomarkers of alcohol intake are needed. Our aims were to investigate the performance of an epigenomic biomarker of alcohol consumption in a Mediterranean population using self-reported data and the biomarker gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT); to examine the effects of alcohol (self-reported and biomarker-assessed) on epigenome-wide methylation; to analyze the association between alcohol (self-reported and biomarker-assessed) and telomere length and other aging biomarkers; and to explore the modulating effect of the Mediterranean diet (MedDiet). We performed blood epigenome-wide methylation studies (EWAS) in a Mediterranean cohort (aged 55–75 years). Self-reported alcohol consumption and MedDiet were assessed by questionnaires. A replication cohort (cohort 2) from the same area was also analyzed. For both cohorts, the DNA methylation-based biomarker (450-CpGs) was computed alongside epigenetic clocks for the following biological age acceleration metrics: DNAm telomere length, GrimAgeAcceleration, PhenoAgeAcceleration, and CausalityAgeYing (cohort 1). The association between the epigenomic biomarker and self-reported alcohol consumption was significant (p < 0.001) in both cohorts, but modest. However, the association was stronger when predicting high alcohol intake (AUC: 0.76; 95%CI: 0.65–0.86; p < 0.0001). In the EWAS, the hit (cg06690548-SLC7A11, in a cystine transporter that enhances glutathione production for antioxidant defense) was shared among the self-reported alcohol consumption, GGT, and the epigenomic biomarker, with alcohol linked to hypomethylation. We detected differential methylation in pre-selected oxidative stress-related genes. Enrichment analysis revealed “Rap1 signaling pathway” as the hit (p < 0.00001). High self-reported alcohol consumption and the epigenomic biomarker were associated with shorter telomere length (p < 0.05) in cohort 1. Additionally, a modulation by Mediterranean diet adherence was hypothesized. No significant associations were found between self-reported alcohol intake and the other aging biomarkers; however, the epigenomic score was directly associated with GrimAge, PhenoAge and CausAgeYing biomarkers in cohort 1 (p < 0.001), and two were replicated in cohort 2. In conclusion, alcohol intake has an impact on DNA methylation at the epigenome-wide level in this Mediterranean population, replicating the main hits from other populations and validating the epigenomic biomarker for intake, although improvement is needed. Moreover, several associations with aging biomarkers were observed. Full article

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals are highly vulnerable to spoofing attacks, which can cause positioning errors and pose serious threats to user receivers. Therefore, the development of efficient and reliable spoofing detection techniques has become an urgent requirement for ensuring GNSS security. In spoofing attacks, attackers introduce additional bias in the Doppler shift. However, detection methods that rely on extracting this deviation from raw measurements suffer from limited practicality, and existing alternative detection schemes based on position, velocity, and time (PVT) information exhibit poor adaptability to diverse scenarios. To address these limitations, this paper proposes a spoofing detection method based on the self-consistency verification of the receiver’s clock state (SCV-RCS). Its core statistic is the cumulative difference between the estimated clock bias and the bias obtained by integrating clock drift. By monitoring this consistency, SCV-RCS identifies anomalies in pseudorange and Doppler observations without complex bias extraction or auxiliary hardware, ensuring easy deployment. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate the method’s effectiveness across diverse spoofing scenarios. It achieves the fastest alarm delay of ≤2 s while providing continuous alerting capability in full-channel and partial-channel spoofing. This study provides a robust and reliable solution for GNSS receivers operating in complex spoofing environments. Full article

The performance of true random number generators (TRNGs) fundamentally depends on the quality of their entropy sources (ESs). However, many FPGA-friendly designs still rely on a single mechanism and struggle to achieve both high throughput and low resource cost. To address this challenge, we propose the exclusive OR (XOR) Self-Feedback Ring Oscillator (XORSFRO), an XORNOT-style TRNG that integrates two cross-connected XOR gates with a short inverter delay chain and clocked sampling. A unified timing model is developed to describe how arrival-time skew and gate inertial delay lead to cancellation, narrow-pulse generation, and inversion events, thereby enabling effective entropy extraction. Experimental results on Xilinx Spartan-6 and Artix-7 FPGAs demonstrate that XORSFRO maintains stable operation across standard process–voltage–temperature (PVT) variations, while achieving higher throughput and lower hardware overhead compared with recent FPGA-based TRNGs. The generated bitstreams pass both the NIST SP 800-22 and NIST SP 800-90B test suites without post-processing. Full article

Content delivery networks (CDNs) face steadily rising, uneven demand, straining heuristic cache replacement. Reinforcement learning (RL) is promising, but most work assumes a fully observable Markov Decision Process (MDP), unrealistic under delayed, partial, and noisy signals. We model cache replacement as a Partially Observable MDP (POMDP) and present the Miss-Triggered Cache Transformer (MTCT), a Transformer-decoder Q-learning agent that encodes recent histories with self-attention. MTCT invokes its policy only on cache misses to align compute with informative events and uses a delayed-hit reward to propagate information from hits. A compact, rank-based action set (12 actions by default) captures popularity–recency trade-offs with complexity independent of cache capacity. We evaluate MTCT on a real trace (MovieLens) and two synthetic workloads (Mandelbrot–Zipf, Pareto) against Adaptive Replacement Cache (ARC), Windowed TinyLFU (W-TinyLFU), classical heuristics, and Double Deep Q-Network (DDQN). MTCT achieves the best or statistically comparable cache-hit rates on most cache sizes; e.g., on MovieLens at $M=600$, it reaches $0.4703$ (DDQN $0.4436$, ARC $0.4513$). Miss-triggered inference also lowers mean wall-clock time per episode; Transformer inference is well suited to modern hardware acceleration. Ablations support $CL=50$ and show that finer action grids improve stability and final accuracy. Full article

The protein SNAIL has been widely studied for its roles in promoting cancer invasion and resistance to apoptosis. There are multiple contributors to its expression, including self- and circadian regulation, and it has been posited that SNAIL oscillates in a circadian manner. Given the multiple factors involved, we sought to determine whether this is indeed the case. We developed a luciferase reporter that was used to demonstrate SNAIL’s rhythmic nature (SNAIL:luc) in the circadian model cell line, U2OS. Considering SNAIL’s relevance in breast cancer, we also assessed its oscillations in cellular models representing different levels of aggression. We incorporated the SNAIL:luc reporter in MCF10A breast epithelial cells, and MCF7 and MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cell lines, which are less and more aggressive, respectively. We found that SNAIL oscillations were present but weak in MCF7 and arrhythmic in MDA-MB-231 cells, correlating with those of core clock genes (BMAL1 and PER2) in these models. Surprisingly, MCF10A cells, whose core clock genes possess robust circadian expression patterns, did not have rhythmic oscillations of SNAIL. Our findings suggest that SNAIL is under circadian control, but this is cell line/tissue dependent, setting the stage for additional studies to better understand the impacts of various factors contributing to its expression. Full article

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers globally. Unfortunately, many patients with breast cancer develop resistance to chemotherapy and tumor recurrence, which is primarily driven by breast cancer stem cells (BCSCs). BCSCs behave like stem cells and can self-renew and differentiate into mature tumor cells, enabling the cancer to regrow and metastasize. Key markers like CD44 and aldehyde dehydrogenase-1 (ALDH1), along with pathways like Wingless-related integration site (Wnt), Notch, and Hedgehog, are critical to regulating this stem-like behavior of BCSCs and, thus, are being investigated as targets for various new therapies. This review summarizes marker-dependent strategies for targeting BCSCs and expands on the challenges for the development of anti-BCSC drugs. We explore cutting-edge approaches like artificial intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery and urge readers to seriously consider biological clocks and chronotherapy as experimental variables in drug discovery. Collectively, the task of cancer researchers is to overcome the many hurdles targeting BCSCs if we hope to tangibly improve breast cancer treatment outcomes and reduce mortality. Full article

With the rapid growth of the Internet of Things, intelligent agriculture is becoming increasingly important. Traditional agricultural monitoring methods, which rely on fossil fuels and complex wiring, hinder progress. This work introduces a hybrid nanogenerator based on a rotational-swinging mechanism (RSM-HNG) that combines triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) and electromagnetic generators (EMGs) for efficient wind energy harvesting and smart agriculture monitoring. The parallelogram mechanism and motion conversion structure enable the stacking and simultaneous contact-separation of multiple TENG layers. Moreover, it allows the TENG and EMG units to operate simultaneously, which improves energy harvesting efficiency and extends the system’s lifespan compared to traditional disc-based friction wind energy harvesting methods. With four stacked layers, the short-circuit current of the TENG increases from 16 μA to 40 μA, while the transferred charge rises from 0.3 μC to 1.5 μC. By optimizing the crank angle, material selection, and substrate structure, the output performance of the RSM-HNG has been significantly enhanced. This technology powers a self-sustaining wireless monitoring system for temperature, humidity, an electronic clock, and road guidance. The RSM-HNG provides continuous energy for smart agriculture, animal husbandry, and environmental monitoring, all driven by wind energy. It holds great potential for regions with abundant wind resources but limited electricity access, offering valuable applications in these areas. Full article

To screen older people and /or those with risk factors for dementia in the community to identify risk factors and possible symptoms of dementia A community-based cross-sectional survey was conducted among older people aged 60 years and older or aged 50 years and older with non-communicable diseases or risk factors for developing dementia. Participants were recruited from Senior Citizen Activity Centres and other areas where older people meet in the community, such as marketplaces. Participants completed a structured, self-administered questionnaire regarding self-reported dementia risk factors, cognitive symptoms, concerns regarding symptoms and a brief cognitive assessment tool (Mini-COG). This approach was piloted in the Senior Citizen Activity Centres. There were 178 participants, median age 67 years with two-thirds being female. Two-thirds had hypertension and over 40% had hypercholesterolaemia. The most commonly reported symptoms were misplacing things (41.6%), visuospatial difficulties (22.7%) and forgetfulness (20.8%). Among those with symptoms, 7.3% reported worsening symptoms, 5.1% had impaired activities of daily living, and 22.5% thought they should get their cognition assessed. For the Mini-COG, 65% recalled all 3 words, while a quarter made at least one error in the clock-drawing test. Community-based dementia screening using a questionnaire on risk factors, cognitive symptoms and the Mini-COG was feasible and acceptable in Brunei. Despite participants being socially active, there was a surprisingly high prevalence of risk factors for dementia and symptoms of possible cognitive impairment. Further roll-out of the community screening is planned in other locations. Full article

The circadian clock is a self-sustaining oscillator with a period of approximately 24 h, enabling organisms to anticipate daily recurring events, such as sunrise and sunset. Since the circadian period is not exactly 24 h and the environmental day length varies throughout the year, the clock must be periodically reset to align an organism’s physiology with the natural light/dark cycle. This synchronization, known as entrainment, is primarily regulated by nocturnal light, which can be replicated in laboratory settings using a 15 min light pulse (LP) and by assessing locomotor activity. An LP during the early part of the dark phase delays the onset of locomotor activity, resulting in a phase delay, whereas an LP in the late dark phase advances activity onset, causing a phase advance. The clock gene Period 2 (Per2) plays a key role in this process. To investigate its contributions, we examined the effects of Per2 deletion in neurons versus astrocytes using glia-specific GPer2 (Per2/GfapCre) knockout (KO) and neuronal-specific NPer2KO (Per2/NesCre) mice. All groups were subjected to Aschoff type II protocol, where an LP was applied at ZT14 or ZT22 and the animals were released into constant darkness. As control, no LP was applied. Phase shift, period, amplitude, total activity count, and rhythm instability were assessed. Our findings revealed that mice lacking Per2 in neurons (NPer2) exhibited smaller phase delays and larger phase advances compared to control animals. In contrast, mice with Per2 deletion specifically in glial cells including astrocytes (GPer2) displayed normal clock resetting. Interestingly, the absence of Per2 in either of the cell types resulted in a shorter circadian period compared to control animals. These results suggest that astrocytic Per2 is important for maintaining the circadian period but is not required for phase adaptation to light stimuli. Full article

Morningness-eveningness is usually assessed as either a trait or a state using either a morning–evening preference scale or sleep timing reported for free days, respectively. These assessments were implemented in numerous studies exploring the associations between morningness-eveningness and health, mood, and sleep problems. Evening types almost always had more problems than morning types. We examined these associations in university students with conflicting results of trait and state assessments of morningness-eveningness and tried to confirm their chronotype using a multidimensional chronotyping approach that recognizes four types other than morning and evening (lethargic, vigilant, napping, and afternoon). The conflicting trait and state assessments of morningness-eveningness were found in 141 of 1582 students. Multidimensional chronotyping supported morningness of morning types with late weekend sleep timing, and the associations with health, mood, and sleep problems resembled the associations of other morning types (i.e., these associations persisted despite late sleep timing). In contrast, evening types with early weekend sleep timing were more likely classified as lethargic or napping types rather than evening types. They did not resemble evening types in their associations with health, mood, and sleep problems (i.e., early sleep timing did not change these associations). Model-based simulations of the sleep–wake cycles of students with conflicting trait and state assessments suggested that their bedtimes cannot be solely determined by their biological clocks. On weekdays or weekends, mind-bedtime procrastination can lead to missing the bedtime signal from their biological clocks (i.e., self-deprivation of sleep or, in other words, voluntary prolongation of the wake phase of the sleep–wake cycle). Full article

With the availability of multi-frequency, multi-constellation global navigation satellite system (GNSS) modules, precise transportation applications have become attainable. For transportation applications, GNSS geodetic-grade receivers can achieve an accuracy of a few centimeters to a few decimeters through differential, precise point positioning (PPP), real-time kinematic (RTK), and PPP-RTK solutions in both post-processing and real-time modes; however, these receivers are costly. Therefore, this research aims to assess the accuracy of a cost-effective multi-GNSS real-time PPP solution for transportation applications. For this purpose, the U-blox ZED-F9P module is utilized to collect dual-frequency multi-GNSS observations through a moving vehicle in a suburban area in New Aswan City, Egypt; thereafter, datasets involving different multi-GNSS combination scenarios are processed, including GPS, GPS/GLONASS, GPS/Galileo, and GPS/GLONASS/Galileo, using both RT-PPP and RTK solutions. For the RT-PPP solution, the satellite clock and orbit correction products from Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie (BKG), Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), and the GNSS research center of Wuhan University (WHU) are applied to account for the real-time mode. Moreover, GNSS datasets from two geodetic-grade Trimble R4s receivers are collected; hence, the datasets are processed using the traditional kinematic differential solution to provide a reference solution. The results indicate that this cost-effective multi-GNSS RT-PPP solution can attain positioning accuracy within 1–3 dm, and is thus suitable for a variety of transportation applications, including intelligent transportation system (ITS), self-driving cars, and automobile navigation applications. Full article

Data accuracy is critical for sensor systems. As essential components of digital circuits within sensor systems, nanoscale CMOS latches are particularly susceptible to single-node upsets (SNUs) and double-node upsets (DNUs), which can lead to data errors. In this paper, a highly robust Double-Node-Upset-Tolerant Latch-Based on Input Splitting C-Elements (DNUISC) is proposed. The DNUISC latch is designed by interconnecting three sets of input-splitting C-elements to form a feedback loop, and it incorporates clock gating and fast-path techniques to minimize power consumption and delay. Simulations are conducted using the 28 nm process in HSPICE. The simulation results show that the DNUISC can self-recover from any single-node upset and is tolerant of any double-node upset. Compared with existing hardened latches, the DNUISC achieves a 55.21% reduction in area-power-delay product (APDP). Furthermore, the proposed DNUIS demonstrates high reliability and low sensitivity under varying process, voltage, and temperature conditions. Full article