Search Results (5,463)

Reliable cropland, forestland, and grassland maps support resource assessment and ecological management in arid and semi-arid Central Asia. Existing land-cover products often delineate these classes differently, vary in reliability across classes and locations, and may share the same errors even when they agree. This study formulates multi-product fusion as a pixel- and class-specific reliability decision problem. To address this problem, we propose a reliability-adaptive fusion framework, the Discrepancy-Aware Reliability-Adaptive Fusion Network (DRAFNet), using 2020 maps from three global 30 m land-cover products—FROM-GLC Plus, GLC-FCS30D, and GlobeLand30—and variables representing aridity, temperature, precipitation, elevation, and slope. Unlike fixed-weight fusion methods and segmentation models that use the source products only as input channels, DRAFNet retains the categorical source decisions and adjusts each contribution according to its estimated reliability for the assigned class and location. Weight removed from an unreliable source is transferred to a residual expert, which provides an alternative prediction when the source products are unreliable or share the same error. Voting entropy and geo-environmental variables provide contextual information for this decision. On independent test samples from the five Central Asian countries, DRAFNet achieved an overall accuracy (OA) of 0.8275, a Kappa coefficient of 0.7698, a mean intersection over union (mIoU) of 0.7046, and a macro-averaged F1 score (Macro F1) of 0.8241. These values were 0.95–1.38 percentage points higher than those of U-Net++, the strongest benchmark. Local comparisons indicated more coherent spatial patterns and clearer boundaries in areas of pronounced disagreement. The mean and median absolute log-ratio deviations from area statistics reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) were 0.618 and 0.450, respectively, both lower than those of the source products. These results support land-resource assessment and ecological management in Central Asia. Full article

Organophosphate esters (OPEs) are commonly used flame retardants and plasticizers, which can easily be released into the soil environment and have potential hazards such as neurotoxicity and developmental toxicity. Establishing an efficient and sensitive detection method plays a crucial role in soil pollution assessment. Currently, there have been numerous studies on the detection of OPEs in soil using ultrasonic extraction and solid-phase extraction, while relatively few studies have focused on the analysis of multiple OPEs in soil by accelerated solvent extraction combined with d-SPE clean-up and ultra-high performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry. The d-SPE purification method eliminates the need for column passage, shortens sample preparation time, and avoids the risk of background contamination from OPEs that may be introduced by SPE. This study developed a liquid chromatography–tandem quadrupole mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for the determination of 25 OPEs in soil, and systematically optimized the pretreatment and instrumental analysis conditions. Accelerated solvent extraction was used for pretreatment, and dichloromethane–methanol (1:1, V/V) was determined as the optimal extraction solvent. A mixed adsorbent of N-propyl ethylenediamine (PSA) and C18 was selected for dispersive purification, effectively removing matrix interference and improving recovery rates. The mass spectrometry parameters such as collision energy and declustering voltage were optimized, significantly enhancing ion response intensity and detection sensitivity. The method showed good linearity within the concentration range of 1–100 ng/mL, with correlation coefficients all greater than 0.994. The spiked recovery rates ranged from 70.6% to 111% with a relative standard deviation (RSD) of 1.2–11.8%. The precision and accuracy met the requirements for environmental sample analysis. The method was applied to the detection of actual soil samples, and the results were stable and reliable. This method is simple to operate, highly sensitive, and widely applicable, providing reliable technical support for the pollution monitoring, source tracing, and ecological risk assessment of OPEs in soil. Full article

Proteolysis-Targeting Chimeras (PROTACs) are heterobifunctional molecules that induce the selective degradation of a protein of interest by recruiting an E3 ubiquitin ligase, thereby triggering ubiquitination and proteasomal clearance. As part of the broader targeted protein degradation (TPD) paradigm, PROTACs offer a powerful strategy to eliminate pathogenic proteins that are difficult to modulate with traditional occupancy-based inhibitors. However, their clinical translation is often limited by poor aqueous solubility, suboptimal cellular permeability, and off-target effects. Notably, some PROTACs retain potent biological activity despite limited membrane permeability, owing to their catalytic mechanism of action, which allows even a small number of molecules reaching the target site to drive substantial protein degradation and produce important pharmacological effects. Growing evidence supports the application of PROTAC-based approaches in neurodegenerative diseases, where the selective removal of toxic or misfolded proteins is particularly attractive. This review summarizes recent advances in chemical protein degradation strategies for neurodegenerative disorders and highlights potential future perspectives of multifunctional PROTACs for therapeutic development. Full article

Street cries are vocal expressions used by hawkers to advertise products or services in public spaces. Although they may reflect adaptation to noisy urban environments, their acoustic characteristics remain poorly understood. This study evaluated whether street cries (SC) differ acoustically from the hawkers’ normal speaking voices (NV) and whether these differences can be captured using compact feature subsets. Sixteen acoustic features related to fundamental frequency, formant structure, spectral properties, and voice quality were extracted. Redundant features were removed based on Kendall’s $\tau$ correlations, after which four classifiers were evaluated: support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), k-nearest neighbors (KNN), and Gaussian naive Bayes (GNB). Binary particle swarm optimization (BPSO) was then used for feature selection, with $\alpha$ controlling the trade-off between cross-validated balanced accuracy and subset size. In repeated participant-grouped cross-validation, SVM achieved the highest mean balanced accuracy with the 13-feature vector (0.887 ± 0.056). On the held-out test set, BPSO-selected subsets yielded balanced accuracies of 0.783–0.900. The best SVM and GNB configurations both achieved 0.900 using six and four features, respectively. The features $f_0$ and $F_4$ appeared in all selected subsets. These results indicate that SC and NV can be differentiated using parsimonious, interpretable acoustic feature sets. Full article

Polyethylene wax (PEW) often carries a broad carbon-number distribution (CND) that limits its use in grades with controlled melting point, viscosity, and hardness. This study examines how multistage molecular distillation reshapes PEW composition and how the resulting compositional change is transmitted to fraction properties. An industrial PEW was processed through a wiped-film light-removal step and three short-path distillation stages, yielding five fractions whose normalized yields were 4.03% (PEW-40), 12.16% (PEW-70), 22.26% (PEW-80), 30.33% (PEW-90) and 30.71% (PEW-105). The peak carbon number migrated stepwise from C42 in the feedstock to C21, C37, C42, C50 and C68 in the fractions, and basic wax properties, DSC transition temperatures and TGA mass-loss temperatures moved consistently with the compositional shift. Weighted mean carbon number correlated with drop melting point (R² = 0.938), kinematic viscosity at 100 °C (R² = 0.951), penetration (R² = 0.780) and oil content (R² = 0.798), and the second-heating melting peak correlated with the 50% mass-loss temperature (R² = 0.992). These results support a three-level correspondence connecting distillation operation, CND reshaping and fraction properties, and position molecular distillation as a grade-oriented physical process for by-product PEW. Full article

Background/Objectives: Expanded inverted repeats (IRs) occur in Rhododendron plastomes, but their extent and evolutionary context remain incompletely resolved because repeat-rich genomes can be difficult to assemble from short reads. Methods: We assembled and curated the plastome of Rhododendron spinuliferum using publicly available PacBio HiFi reads and evaluated whether the same junction architecture was present using Illumina PE400 reads from a different individual. Results: Bandage-guided graph resolution and junction-spanning reads supported a 209,482 bp quadripartite plastome comprising a 108,321 bp large single-copy (LSC) region, a 2629 bp small single-copy (SSC) region, and two 49,266 bp IRs. All four inferred junctions were supported by HiFi reads and were also detected in the independent Illumina dataset, and short-read mapping covered every reference position without zero-depth sites. In a broad within-genus survey of 26 structurally resolved Rhododendron plastomes, R. spinuliferum had the longest validated conventional IR in the curated dataset. Twenty-four plastomes shared a 19-gene expanded-IR core and retained ndhF in the SSC, whereas R. vialii and R. datiandingense represented extreme SSC contraction and short-IR architecture, respectively. Ancestral-state reconstruction identified the expanded-IR core as the most likely crown state. After one IR copy was removed, repeat density was not correlated with IR length, and comparison with R. delavayi showed that the additional IR sequence in R. spinuliferum was distributed predominantly across intergenic regions. Conclusions: These results provide a validated plastome resource and clarify the structural evolution of expanded IRs in the sampled Rhododendron plastomes. Full article

Objectives: Critical-sized bone defects continue to represent a substantial challenge in orthopedic clinical practice. Decellularized bone matrix (DBM) possesses favorable osteoconductive properties due to its retention of native extracellular matrix architecture and collagen components. However, its limited osteogenic bioactivity restricts its application in complex bone defect repair. This study aimed to construct a dendritic mesoporous silica (DMSN)-modified DBM composite scaffold loaded with teriparatide (DBM-DMSN@TPTD) and to systematically evaluate its physicochemical properties, drug release behavior, biocompatibility, and osteogenic differentiation-promoting capacity. Methods: A DBM scaffold was prepared from bovine femoral cancellous bone via a combined freeze–thaw and chemical detergent decellularization method. DMSNs were synthesized through a sol–gel method, amine-functionalized with APTES, and covalently grafted onto the DBM surface via EDC/NHS crosslinking. Teriparatide was loaded onto the composite scaffolds at three concentrations (1, 10, and 100 nmol/L). The scaffolds were characterized via SEM, TEM, BET, EDS and XPS. Decellularization efficacy was assessed by DAPI staining and nucleic acid quantification. Drug release behavior was evaluated through in vitro release studies, while biocompatibility and osteogenic differentiation of rat BMSCs were examined using Live/Dead staining, phalloidin/DAPI cytoskeletal staining, CCK-8 assays, ALP staining, and RUNX2/OCN immunofluorescence. Results: DMSNs demonstrated a dendritic mesoporous architecture, featuring a specific surface area of 390.44 ± 1.78 m²/g and pore diameters within the range of 15–20 nm. DBM showed effective removal of immunogenicity, with well-preserved collagen architecture. Drug release displayed a biphasic pattern, with 56.03% released within the first 72 h and 83.23% by day 16. None of the tested scaffolds showed obvious cytotoxicity under the experimental conditions. The DBM-DMSN@TPTD-M group (10 nmol/L) produced the strongest effects on BMSC proliferation and osteogenic differentiation, as indicated by the highest ALP activity and elevated RUNX2 and OCN expression (p < 0.05). Conclusions: The DBM-DMSN@TPTD scaffold offers a native bone microenvironment, sustained drug release, and osteogenic activity in vitro. These features may support BMSC proliferation and osteogenic differentiation. Accordingly, this scaffold warrants further investigation as a potential strategy for bone defect repair. Full article

Confronted with severe global challenges, including water scarcity, excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and heavy metal contamination in soils, conventional agricultural technologies exhibit marked limitations in integrated water–fertilizer management and non-point source pollution control. Leveraging their excellent water retention capacity, intelligent sustained-release properties, and environmental responsiveness, hydrogels offer innovative solutions to advance sustainable agricultural development. This review comprehensively outlines the fundamental types, crosslinking mechanisms, and key functional properties of hydrogels, with a focused discussion on their agricultural deployment as high-efficiency soil conditioners, fertilizer vectors, and pesticide carriers; it deciphers the microscopic water-holding mechanisms under the tristate water model, delineates the divergent water-uptake and retention behaviors between ionic and non-ionic hydrogels, and clarifies the cyclic water-holding and release mechanisms of hydrogels during soil amelioration. Thise paper further synthesizes hydrogel-enabled environmental remediation applications, in which heavy metals and pesticide residues in soils and aquatic systems are removed via functional-group coordination adsorption or photocatalytic degradation; concurrently, hydrogels have been shown to activate plant systemic immunity through calcium-signaling pathways, thereby inducing broad-spectrum antiviral defense responses. Moreover, hydrogels can be integrated into precision agriculture frameworks to enable real-time monitoring of crop physiological status and to support targeted irrigation and fertilization management. This work also evaluates the role of hydrogels in promoting seed germination, root system development, crop metabolic regulation, and stress resilience, while introducing tailored application strategies across distinct plant growth stages. Their documented economic advantages include water conservation, enhanced crop yields, reduced dependence on synthetic fertilizers, and lower labor costs. Nevertheless, the large-scale implementation of hydrogels continues to face multifaceted challenges—particularly poor degradability and latent ecological risks, as conventional polyacrylamide (PAM)-based gels resist soil mineralization and retain potentially neurotoxic monomers, leaving a critical gap in multi-annual field data concerning their non-target interference with native soil aggregate evolution, pore distribution, and rhizospheric carbon–nitrogen footprints. Mechanistically, many hydrogels with tensile strengths below 1 MPa are highly susceptible to three-dimensional network collapse under high-salinity osmotic shock and tillage mechanical stress, exhibiting a precipitous drop in water retention after more than three wet–dry cycles due to deficient long-term structural stability. Compounding these technical gaps are elevated production costs and low farmer adoption, driven by the absence of texture-specific performance thresholds—such as an available water increment ≥ 40% for sandy soils—and the lack of established life-cycle cost models and farmer incentive mechanisms for bio-based hydrogels. Moving forward, hydrogel technology should pivot toward materials innovation and cost-reduction engineering to broaden its applicability, employ ≥3-year, multi-habitat regional trials to delineate ecological benefit–risk boundaries, and ultimately position hydrogels as pivotal enablers of sustainable, green agricultural paradigms. Full article

Stable discrimination can coexist with unreliable probabilities, abstention policies, and uncertainty sets under distribution shift. We evaluate this mismatch with CRIT-AID, an executable multi-domain reliability-audit framework that separates model fitting, probability calibration, operating-rule calibration, and testing and then transports source-derived rules unchanged to target domains. Across four public tabular domains, stable discrimination did not imply stable probability quality, selective operating points, or conformal uncertainty. On identical ACS 2024 records, changing the income target definition left AUROC nearly unchanged, while ECE differed by 0.083; prevalence-intercept alignment reduced this difference to −0.004, showing that target semantics can alter probability reliability without materially changing ranking. Across 27 primary 90% conformal conditions, label-conditional calibration improved worst-class coverage in 18 but worsened it in 9 and usually increased prediction-set size. LightGBM sensitivity changed absolute discrimination without removing the mismatch among reliability dimensions. These findings show that discrimination alone is insufficient evidence for reliable AI decision support: audits should test the transportability of probability mappings, operating rules, class-specific validity, and uncertainty informativeness when deployment conditions or target meanings change. Full article

The growing deterioration of water resources and the energy requirements of conventional wastewater treatment technologies have increased interest in systems that combine organic matter removal with bioelectrochemical conversion. This study evaluated a laboratory-scale dual-chamber microbial fuel cell (MFC) operated with real wastewater using Scenedesmus acutus (S. acutus) and a native microbial consortium as anodic biocatalysts at 25 and 30 °C. The system was assessed through continuous monitoring of voltage, pH, temperature, and CH₄, H₂, and CO₂ signals in the anodic headspace, together with physicochemical characterization and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal. COD removal efficiencies of 33.7 and 30.3% were obtained for S. acutus at 25 and 30 °C, respectively, whereas the native microbial consortium achieved 29.8 and 43.4% removal under the same conditions. The consortium at 30 °C showed the most favorable combination of COD removal and electrical response, whereas S. acutus at 30 °C reached the highest maximum voltage and stored energy, although with greater signal variability. The CH₄, H₂, and CO₂ signals differed among conditions and were consistent with the possible participation of fermentative and methanogenic processes alongside electrogenic activity, although gas production rates and the contribution of individual pathways were not quantified. Overall, the results demonstrate the operational feasibility of the proposed MFC for coupling wastewater treatment with a measurable electrical response and support further evaluation of native microbial consortia as anodic biocatalysts. Full article

To address the challenges of low efficiency, high labour intensity, severe fish damage, and insufficient intelligence in adult fish harvesting within industrialised aquaculture systems, this study developed an integrated harvesting and sorting system incorporating bottom-drain fish collection, automatic herding, a modified screw-lifting mechanism, and digital grading. The system employs a bottom-discharge port on the culture tank—controlled by an electric ball valve—to replace manual net-herding, enabling simultaneous fish-and-water drainage. An automatic herding cart with a retractable net (equipped with surface floats and bottom weights) achieves bottom-hugging herding to prevent fish escape. A multi-column convolutional neural network (MCNN) fish-density recognition model was deployed above the collection tank to adaptively adjust the push-board position, thereby avoiding compression injury. The screw blade head was modified by removing the inlet-edge portions to eliminate the fish-cutting zone, reducing the mean damage rate from 1.8% to 1.32% (N = 12; 66.7% of trials recorded zero damage). Twelve repeated full-scale harvesting trials were conducted using largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides; body length 20–30 cm, body mass 300–500 g) in a 2.5 m diameter PP circular tank. Results showed a mean collection efficiency of 95.94 ± 3.33% (p < 0.001), a mean damage rate of 1.32 ± 1.96%, and a mean sorting accuracy of 96.83 ± 2.50% (p = 0.014). The MCNN model attained a recognition accuracy of 78–85%. The proposed system realises automated, intelligent, and low-damage fish harvesting, providing technical support for fully automated production-line aquaculture. Full article

Beaver dams can substantially modify flow conditions and increase local water retention, particularly in small urban and peri-urban streams exposed to hydrological alterations and increasing water deficits. This study evaluates the influence of beaver dams on hydraulic conditions, retention capacity, and water resources in the Junikowski Stream in Poznań, Poland. Field surveys, geodetic measurements, and spatial data were used to develop a one-dimensional hydraulic model in HEC-RAS. Three management scenarios were analysed: a channel without impoundment structures, the 2022 configuration including beaver dams and two artificial weirs, and the 2025 configuration representing a more developed beaver-dam cascade together with the functioning weirs. Simulations were conducted for a range of characteristic and probability flows to assess changes in water levels, inundation extent, and retained water volume. The results show that beaver dams exert the strongest effect under low-flow conditions, when they significantly increase water levels and improve local retention. Their hydraulic influence decreases with increasing discharge, although they continue to affect the spatial distribution of water in the valley. The proposed artificial structure may partly maintain retention benefits in the event of beaver dam degradation or removal. The findings demonstrate that beaver dams may function as effective nature-based solutions supporting water retention and potentially contributing to drought resilience and sustainable management of urban stream valleys. Full article

Adeno-associated virus (AAV)-based massively parallel reporter assays (MPRA) have become an important platform for large-scale functional characterization of regulatory DNA elements. However, plasmids carrying AAV inverted terminal repeats (ITRs) are intrinsically unstable during propagation in Escherichia coli, potentially compromising library integrity before viral packaging. Although ITR-associated recombination has been recognized, the influence of cloning-site position relative to the ITR on plasmid stability has not been systematically investigated. Here, we examined the relationship between cloning-junction proximity to AAV2 ITRs and plasmid recombination using an AAV-MPRA reporter plasmid. We compared four restriction-ligation cloning strategies utilizing restriction sites at defined distances (4–543 bp) from the nearest ITR while preserving ITR integrity, and one strategy in which the ITR itself was disrupted. We observe that plasmid recombination exhibited a pronounced distance dependence. Constructs with ligation junctions located 4, 41, and 182 bp from an intact ITR showed recombination frequencies of 82.5%, 60%, and 20%, respectively, whereas a 0% recombination frequency was detected when the nearest ITR was positioned 543 bp from the cloning junction. In contrast, cleavage within ITR reduced recombination to 15%, demonstrating that preservation of the intact ITR secondary structure is required for efficient recombination. Whole-plasmid sequencing confirmed recurrent large-scale deletions in which the expression cassette and the downstream R-ITR were removed while the L-ITR and plasmid backbone were retained, consistent with preferential processing of the intact L-ITR region. These findings identify cloning-site proximity to an intact AAV ITR as a major determinant of plasmid stability during bacterial propagation and demonstrate that substantial loss of correctly assembled constructs can occur before AAV production. The results have direct implications for the design of AAV-based MPRA libraries and support positioning cloning sites as far as practical from the nearest ITR, together with routine validation of plasmid integrity prior to viral packaging. Full article

The development of simulated-solar-light photocatalysts for methyl orange (MO) removal is limited by insufficient light utilization, rapid photogenerated charge recombination, and restricted interfacial reaction sites. Here, vertically aligned ZnO nanorods on a conductive nanoporous Cu (NPCu) scaffold were modified with low-abundance RE-containing surface species (RE = Ce, Sm, Er, Tm, and Yb). The notation RE(OH)₃@ZnO/NPCu is retained solely as an operational sample identifier and does not constitute a crystallographic or stoichiometric phase assignment. XRD resolves the ZnO/NPCu framework, EDS confirms the local presence of RE, and XPS identifies RE-dependent oxidation state and surface oxygen environments; collectively, these measurements do not uniquely establish RE(OH)₃ or distinguish hydroxide from oxide, oxyhydroxide, and other hydroxylated/adsorbed surface configurations. The distinguishing feature is a controlled five-RE comparison on one common ZnO/NPCu architecture, together with separate evaluation of NPCu under H₂O₂-free and H₂O₂-assisted conditions. Across three independent H₂O₂-free runs, the Er-modified sample achieved 96.61 ± 0.30% MO degradation within 9 min with k_obs = 0.3930 ± 0.0071 min⁻¹. Dosage screening identified 20 μL of 40 wt% H₂O₂ in 20 mL MO solution (approximately 13.5 mM) as a practical plateau dosage. Photolysis, dark, NPCu/H₂O₂, and catalyst-removal controls support an additional solid-catalyst-dependent Cu-associated peroxide contribution while not excluding trace homogeneous reactions. Three independent cycling experiments and post-cycle SEM/XRD/EDS support operational durability, although quantitative metal leaching was not measured. Tauc, Mott–Schottky, EIS, temperature-dependent kinetic, and scavenger results are interpreted as comparative descriptors or indirect evidence rather than direct proof of intrinsic band gaps, atom-specific carrier densities, or a unique microscopic mechanism. The AI-assisted component is restricted to exploratory contextualization because reference-grouped validation shows poor out-of-reference generalization. The conclusions are confined to the tested MO system. Full article

Background/Objectives: Congenital chylous ascites is a rare neonatal condition characterized by the accumulation of lymphatic fluid within the peritoneal cavity. The disorder can be difficult to manage, as many infants show limited response to standard conservative strategies such as dietary modification and supportive care. Currently, no universally accepted therapeutic guidelines exist. We report the successful use of propranolol in the management of refractory congenital chylous ascites. Methods: Clinical data were collected from a 35-week preterm male infant who had prenatal ultrasound evidence of fetal ascites from the 28th week of gestation. Postnatal management initially included fasting, total parenteral nutrition, and from day 9 of life, continuous infusion of octreotide. Due to the persistent ascites, oral propranolol was added to the therapy on the 31st day of life. Current literature was reviewed to compare our findings with those available. Results: Following the addition of propranolol to ongoing octreotide therapy, the infant demonstrated gradual clinical improvement with decreased abdominal distension and reduction of ascitic fluid; as propranolol and octreotide were administered concurrently for approximately 30 days, a causal effect could not be isolated to propranolol alone. Oral propranolol was administered at 0.5 mg/kg every 6 h (2 mg/kg/day total), with heart rate, blood pressure, and glucose monitored throughout treatment; no propranolol-related adverse events (bradycardia, hypotension, bronchospasm, hypoglycemia, or feeding intolerance) occurred. Ultrasonographic resolution of ascites was achieved by day 48, the peritoneal drainage catheter having already been removed on day 34; propranolol was subsequently tapered and discontinued by day 68, and the patient was discharged in stable condition on day 93, with no recurrence on serial ultrasound over the 45 days from resolution to discharge. A narrative review of the literature identified nine infants with lymphatic disorders successfully treated with propranolol. Conclusions: This case suggests a possible temporal association between propranolol administration and clinical improvement in a neonate with congenital chylous ascites refractory to conventional management; no propranolol-related adverse events were observed during treatment. Given the rarity of this condition and the absence of standardized treatment guidelines, further studies—potentially through multicenter registries or prospective case series—are warranted to establish optimal dosing strategies, evaluate long-term outcomes, and clarify the role of propranolol in this setting. Full article