Search Results (11,193)

Regional public transport is an essential social infrastructure, and securing its sustainability is a pressing policy concern. Automated services are attracting attention as a response to driver shortages; however, their economic performance must be evaluated, even for public services. This study develops an evaluation framework that links demand changes induced by introducing an automated bus (AB) service with the resulting changes in expenditures, including labor-cost savings from remote supervision. The expected trip frequencies before and after introduction are estimated using a stated-preference survey (n = 2602) and a zero-inflated bivariate negative binomial model. Holding current subsidies constant, the framework derives the break-even acquisition cost—the introduction cost per vehicle at which the operator can maintain its current financial balance—for each supervision ratio (vehicles per remote operator). Applied to five prefectures in central Japan, the break-even cost increases nonlinearly with the supervision ratio. In Aichi Prefecture, supervising approximately four vehicles per operator reaches current price levels even at unchanged fares, whereas prefectures with lower revenue per vehicle cannot achieve comparable levels through higher supervision ratios alone. This framework provides a quantitative basis for price setting and supervision design when automated buses are procured as social infrastructure. Full article

The valorization of agro-food by-products represents a potential strategy to address both environmental sustainability and the growing demand for innovative health-promoting products. Traditionally considered waste materials, agro-food residues are now recognized as valuable sources of bioactive compounds, including polyphenols, flavonoids, carotenoids, terpenoids, peptides, and other phytochemicals with potential nutraceutical applications. This review aims to provide a critical synthesis of the transition from agro-food by-product recovery to the development of evidence-based precision nutraceuticals. Particular attention is given to the chemical diversity of bioactive compounds obtained from representative agro-food sources, including citrus, olive, grape, tomato, and pomegranate residues, highlighting their biological activities and therapeutic potential. The molecular mechanisms underlying their health-promoting effects are discussed, focusing on key pathways involved in oxidative stress (Nrf2), inflammation (NF-κB), metabolic regulation (AMPK/SIRT1), mitochondrial homeostasis, autophagy/mitophagy, and apoptosis. Beyond the description of biological activities, this review critically addresses the main challenges limiting the translation of agro-food-derived bioactives into effective nutraceutical products, including bioavailability, bioaccessibility, intestinal metabolism, standardization of extracts, variability of raw materials, dose optimization, and the gap between preclinical findings and clinical evidence. The translational bottleneck is examined in detail, emphasizing the need for robust clinical validation and regulatory compliance. Finally, future perspectives are discussed, highlighting the potential of emerging technologies, including precision extraction, omics approaches, artificial intelligence, and personalized nutrition, to overcome current limitations and to enable the development of sustainable, safe, and effective nutraceutical interventions. By integrating advances in food science, molecular pharmacology, and human health research, this review provides a comprehensive perspective on how agro-food by-products can be transformed into scientifically validated nutraceutical platforms, supporting the development of sustainable and personalized strategies for disease prevention and health promotion. Despite promising preclinical evidence, clinical validation remains limited: most human studies are small, of short duration, and none have evaluated hard clinical endpoints. Full article

Green energy vehicles (GEVs) are increasingly central to low-carbon energy transitions, but research remains fragmented across vehicle technologies, battery systems, critical materials, circularity, and sustainable supply chains. This bibliometric and thematic review maps the intellectual structure and evolution of GEV research using 904 English-language Scopus articles and reviews published during 2015–2025. Performance analysis, reference co-citation, author–keyword co-occurrence, longitudinal thematic analysis, and cluster-guided content synthesis were combined. The corpus accumulated 34,955 citations, and annual output rose from 13 publications in 2015 to 287 in 2025 (CAGR ≈ 36.3%). The intellectual base is strongly battery-centered, linking critical-material bottlenecks, recycling, second-life use, closed-loop systems, and circular business models. Six research streams were identified, spanning supply-chain and policy optimization, circular economy, critical-mineral security, battery life-cycle assessment, low-carbon mobility, and closed-loop recovery. Circular-economy and sustainable-supply-chain themes became markedly more prominent after 2019, while critical-mineral security regained attention in 2022–2025. The international dimension is framed primarily through material sourcing, battery value chains, resilience, and cross-border circularity. The study proposes a technology–resources–energy systems–governance–sustainability framework and priorities for integrating bibliometrics with energy-system, material-flow, trade, and geopolitical-risk data. Full article

Plant diseases and phytopathogenic threats pose significant challenges to agricultural productivity and food security in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. This study aimed to characterize research development, scientific productivity, collaboration patterns, intellectual structure, and emerging trends in plant disease and phytopathogen research. A bibliometric analysis was conducted using 505 Scopus-indexed publications from 1994 to 2026, covering 253 sources and 2485 authors. Bibliometrix/Biblioshiny and VOSviewer were used for performance analysis and science mapping, including citation, co-authorship, collaboration, co-citation, bibliographic coupling, historiograph, and keyword co-occurrence analyses. Research output showed an annual growth rate of 11.65%, with an average of 13.94 citations per publication. Kazakhstan (143 publications) and Uzbekistan (82 publications) were the leading contributors, while international co-authorship accounted for 33.66% of publications. Three major research directions were identified: wheat disease resistance and molecular breeding, plant pathogens and fungal biodiversity, and plant-associated microorganisms, microbiology, and phylogenetic characterization. Recent trends indicate increasing attention to molecular and genomic approaches, microbiome research, and deep learning. Overall, research in Central Asia is becoming increasingly multidisciplinary, highlighting the need to integrate genomic diagnostics, pathogen surveillance, molecular breeding, biological control, and data-driven approaches for sustainable plant disease management. Full article

Scholarship on Chinese popular religion has demonstrated the complex interactions between local cults and Confucian ritual norms and explored multiple historical pathways toward cult standardization or orthodoxification. Less attention, however, has been paid to how cults that remained outside the state sacrificial canon formed and sustained legitimacy through continuing historical interactions. Focusing on controversies surrounding the cult of Bixia Yuanjun 碧霞元君 in Ming Shandong, this article examines how different historical actors responded to debates over “illicit sacrifices.” It argues that, within the interpretive space provided by Confucian ritual norms, the cult could not acquire canon legitimacy because it remained outside the state sacrificial canon. Nevertheless, through the sustained religious practices and Confucian discursive reinterpretations of different historical actors, the cult continually established connections with certain normative principles and values shared within society, thereby forming and sustaining sociocultural legitimacy outside the state sacrificial canon. Full article

Objectives: The aim of this study was to analyse cognitive functioning and temperamental traits among young adults differing in their level of engagement in video gaming. Methods: The analysis included 67 male students from the Józef Piłsudski University of Physical Education in Warsaw, Branch Campus in Biała Podlaska. Based on average daily gaming time, participants were classified as frequent players (n = 22; mean age 22.45 ± 2.40 years; 6.29 ± 6.07 h/day) or casual players (n = 45; mean age 21.60 ± 1.96 years; 0.94 ± 0.95 h/day). Cognitive functioning was assessed using the Reaction Test (RT), Signal Test (ST), and Determination Test (DT) from the Vienna Test System. Temperament was measured with the Formal Characteristics of Behaviour–Temperament Inventory. Results: Frequent players showed a trend toward shorter reaction time in RT/S3 (U = 356; p = 0.064). In the Signal Test, they demonstrated significantly fewer omitted reactions, more correct responses, higher focused attention, and better total results (all p < 0.01). Regarding temperament, frequent players scored significantly lower on briskness (p = 0.034) and rhythmicity (p = 0.021) than casual players. Conclusions: The present exploratory study suggests a nuanced relationship between media engagement, specific cognitive performance, and temperamental traits. Frequent players demonstrated a robust advantage in parameters of sustained attention, alongside a marginal descriptive trend toward faster psychomotor responses compared to casual players. Regarding temperament, frequent players were characterised by significantly lower self-reported briskness and rhythmicity, while no statistically significant between-group differences were detected for endurance, activity, or emotional reactivity. Crucially, because our data are cross-sectional and the frequent players group comprised exclusively esports students, these differences cannot be interpreted as definitive causal effects or direct consequences of gaming intensity alone. Full article

Precision sports such as archery require sustained attention, fine motor control, and technical consistency, all of which may be influenced by sleep quality. This cross-sectional study aimed to examine the association between sleep quality and shooting accuracy in female archers and to determine whether this association persisted after adjustment for age and sport experience. Twenty-six female archers (mean age: 21.23 ± 2.35 years) participated in the study. Sleep quality was assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and shooting accuracy (%) was calculated by normalizing the total score according to the number of shots performed. Associations between PSQI total score and shooting accuracy were examined using Pearson and Spearman correlation analyses and linear regression models. The mean PSQI total score was 6.15 ± 1.95, and the mean shooting accuracy was 77.69 ± 13.26%. Neither Pearson (r = 0.168, p = 0.413, BCa 95% CI [−0.222, 0.505]) nor Spearman correlation (ρ = 0.043, p = 0.835, BCa 95% CI [−0.343, 0.426]) showed a statistically significant association between PSQI total score and shooting accuracy. The adjusted regression model including age and sport experience was also not statistically significant (R² = 0.032, F(3, 22) = 0.24, p = 0.866), and PSQI total score was not significantly associated with shooting accuracy after adjustment (B = 1.11, β = 0.163, p = 0.447, 95% CI [−1.86, 4.07]). In this sample of female archers, no statistically significant association was detected between habitual sleep quality assessed by the PSQI and shooting accuracy. Given the small sample size and the wide confidence intervals, larger prospective studies incorporating objective and session-specific sleep measures are needed to clarify the relationship between sleep quality and precision performance in archery. Full article

Soil salinity estimation across arid agricultural regions is challenging due to pronounced environmental heterogeneity and complex dependencies among multi-source variables. This study proposes a Long-Range Dependency-Enhanced Network (LRD-Net) for regional-scale soil salinity estimation in multiple agricultural oasis regions using multi-source remote sensing and environmental covariates. A dataset comprising 180 field samples from three agricultural oasis regions in Xinjiang, China, was constructed with 25 covariates derived from spectral, topographic, climatic, and soil property data. LRD-Net consists of three stages: a multi-scale feature fusion backbone based on depthwise separable convolutions and cross-scale interaction; a Long-Range Dependency Enhancement Module (LDEM) with an asymmetric dual-branch architecture that captures forward and reverse-aware dependencies through reverse alignment and cross-directional fusion; and multi-scale attention refinement with a regression head for continuous salinity estimation. Under the region-stratified random-split evaluation, LRD-Net achieved an R² of 0.905, an RMSE of 1.207 g·kg⁻¹, and an MAE of 0.868 g·kg⁻¹. Performance decreased under more spatially independent validation, with an R² of 0.874 under spatial cross-validation and LORO test R² values ranging from 0.739 to 0.801, indicating that prediction across spatially and geographically independent samples is more challenging than region-stratified random-split evaluation. The proposed framework effectively integrates multi-source information and captures complementary long-range dependencies, providing a potential approach for regional-scale soil salinity estimation within the studied arid agricultural oasis environments and supporting soil salinization monitoring and sustainable land management in the study region. Full article

The presence of antibiotic residues in aquatic environments poses a significant risk to water quality and public health, creating a need for effective and sustainable treatment technologies. In this study, a chitosan-based nanocomposite containing silver, cobalt, and iron (CS-HNC) was synthesized under mild conditions without a calcination step and evaluated for the removal of tetracycline (TC) from aqueous solutions. Attention was given to TC removal at an initial concentration of 10 mg L⁻¹. Although this concentration exceeds those typically reported for natural surface waters, it is lower than the concentrations frequently employed in adsorption studies and therefore provides a useful basis for evaluating the performance of the developed adsorbent under controlled laboratory conditions. The material was characterized by field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The characterization results confirmed the successful formation of the nanocomposite and the incorporation of metal-containing phases within the chitosan matrix. The effects of key sorption parameters were investigated, showing that TC removal was only weakly influenced by pH and ionic strength. The maximum sorption capacity reached 45.7 mg g⁻¹, while removal efficiencies of 94.3% and 98.4% were achieved after 30 and 120 min, respectively, at an initial TC concentration of 10 mg L⁻¹. Sorption kinetics were best described by the pseudo-second-order model, whereas equilibrium data were better fitted by the Freundlich isotherm model. No detectable leaching of Ag, Co, or Fe was observed after soaking the material in deionized water and in a solution adjusted to pH 2 for 24 h, indicating good stability of the synthesized material under the investigated conditions. These findings suggest that the developed CS-HNC nanocomposite is a promising sorbent for the removal of TC. Full article

The 44th National Congress of the Italian Society of Nephrology Nurses (SIAN), held in Bologna, Italy, from 4 to 6 May 2026, provided a national forum for discussion on the evolving role of nursing in nephrology. The Congress was preceded by a dedicated pre-congress session focused on education, research, and clinical practice, with particular attention to the involvement of nursing students and early-career professionals in scientific activities. Across plenary sessions, round tables, workshops, oral communications, and digital poster presentations, the scientific programme addressed major areas of contemporary nephrology nursing, including professional development, patient-centred care, vascular access management, dialysis technologies, kidney transplantation, symptom management, home and community care, digital health, artificial intelligence, sustainability, and nutritional care. Particular attention was given to the integration of evidence-based practice, clinical expertise, technological innovation, interprofessional collaboration, and patient education. This Conference Proceedings provides an overview of the scientific and educational activities of the meeting and brings together the accepted contributions presented during both the pre-congress session and the main Congress. Collectively, these contributions illustrate the diversity and continued development of nephrology nursing practice and research in Italy and highlight the importance of scientific societies in promoting professional competence, knowledge exchange, and innovation in kidney care. Full article

Health-literacy challenges are associated with greater risk and adverse outcomes of long-term conditions such as diabetes mellitus AND contribute to persistent health inequalities. In response, increasing attention has been given to Organisational Health Literacy (OHL), which addresses how healthcare organisations can make health information and services more accessible and easier to navigate for users (def: people receiving care, treatment, education or health-related support from the organisation) with diverse health-literacy needs. Despite the increased focus on the organisational perspective, most previous interventions have focused on individual health literacy. Thus, there is limited systematic evidence on organisational interventions designed to improve OHL and which mechanisms and contextual factors support and facilitate change. The aim of this paper is to describe the protocol for the implementation and evaluation of an OHL intervention (OHL-Act) across primary care and hospital settings caring for individuals with long-term conditions. The primary objective for the future project will be to evaluate whether the implementation of OHL-Act is associated with improvements in OHL across diverse healthcare organisations providing care and support for people living with long-term conditions. The OHL-Act comprises three workshops designed to strengthen OHL through facilitated reflections among staff and managers, a structured self-assessment of the organisation and identification and prioritisation of improvement ideas in a local action plan. The OHL-Act will be implemented in 8–10 Danish outpatient clinics and municipal units providing care and preventive services for people living with long-term conditions such as diabetes. A mixed-methods evaluation (2026–2029) will use the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework combined with the Practical, Robust Implementation and Sustainability Model (PRISM) to examine implementation processes, mechanisms of change and contextual factors. Data will be collected from surveys, organisational self-assessments, and implementation logs, as well as qualitative interview data. The study will generate insights into the implementation and effectiveness of the OHL-Act across healthcare settings and thereby give a deeper understanding of how OHL can be embedded in routine care and provide evidence of the development of more health-literacy-responsive and equitable healthcare systems. Full article

Computational scalability enables process mining to deliver useful results as event data grow in volume, complexity, and rate of change. This review organizes scalability approaches to help researchers and practitioners match methods to their analytical needs. It combines a systematic search map of the literature with a purposive full-text synthesis of selected studies. The map documents publication coverage, while the synthesis develops a framework around reduction, parallelization, relocation, and reuse of computation. The framework connects these mechanisms to process mining tasks, workload structure, and the results they preserve. It makes preparation, execution, and maintenance costs explicit, helping readers assess when a faster operation improves the intended analysis. Within the selected studies, resource reporting emphasizes runtime, with more limited attention to memory, communication, and energy. These findings support comparisons under stated conditions and identify opportunities for broader evaluation. This review provides a structured basis for selecting compatible methods and designing experiments on reuse, diverse workloads, and sustained operation. Full article

Polymeric materials have largely replaced mineral glass in ophthalmic lenses owing to their low density, impact resistance, optical performance, and manufacturing versatility. Despite their widespread use, the available literature remains fragmented, with individual studies primarily addressing specific polymer families, optical performance, manufacturing technologies, or surface coatings rather than providing an integrated overview of ophthalmic lens materials. This systematic review critically examines the relationships between chemical structure and molecular architecture of ophthalmic lens polymers and their optical, mechanical, thermal, and processing properties. The literature published between 2000 and 2026 was searched in Web of Science, Scopus, ScienceDirect, and PubMed, following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, and 91 documents were included. Properties of poly(diethylene glycol bis(allyl carbonate)) (CR-39^®), polycarbonate, poly(methyl methacrylate), poly(urethane-urea) (Trivex^®), and high-refractive-index poly(thiourethane) systems are reported, with particular attention to refractive index, chromatic dispersion, impact resistance, durability, processability, and coating compatibility. Surface-engineering approaches, digital manufacturing, market developments, and environmental challenges associated with production waste and end-of-life management are also evaluated. The analysis identifies persistent trade-offs between optical performance, mechanical durability, manufacturing requirements, and recyclability, highlighting the need for high-index, low-dispersion polymers, durable or repairable coating systems, and viable recovery routes for crosslinked ophthalmic materials and lens-processing waste. Emerging opportunities for material recycling, recovery, and circular economy implementation are also critically evaluated. By integrating polymer chemistry, surface engineering, manufacturing, and sustainability within a single review, this work provides a comprehensive reference for researchers and industry professionals involved in the development of next-generation ophthalmic materials. Full article

In recent years, within the attention economy centered on social media, the proliferation of sensational fake news and noise aimed at capturing attention (economic and social gains) has emerged as a severe social pathology. Focusing on the defining characteristic of the modern information environment—that the cost of information transmission is virtually zero—this paper adopts the “Dynamic Cheap Talk Model” originating from Crawford and Sobel (1982) as its theoretical foundation, rather than classical signaling theory (Spence, 1973), which separates high- and low-quality information through cost differentials. In a cheap-talk environment with zero transmission costs, the self-interested pursuit of senders boundlessly increases noise on the platform. This study computationally illustrates the mechanism by which this excessive noise irreversibly accumulates “Information Fatigue” among receivers, depleting the cognitive resources (a commons) required to infer the veracity of information, and ultimately leading to the collapse of the entire platform into a “Market for Lemons.” To demonstrate the validity of this approach, we constructed a large-scale multi-agent simulation where high-quality senders and low-quality senders (noise-makers) coexist, and conducted computational experiments. The analysis computationally illustrates that when the proliferation of noise variance exceeds a certain critical point, a finite-horizon collapse of total payoff occurs due to the simultaneous opt-out of receivers, resulting in a phenomenon where even high-quality senders are collaterally driven out (the failure of unraveling). Furthermore, we conducted extended computational experiments incorporating three advanced dynamics: (1) algorithmic amplification of noise (preferential attachment), (2) evolutionary game dynamics of sender strategy adaptation (the chain of degradation), and (3) the delay limits of ex post crowdsourced fact-checking (e.g., Community Notes). The results reveal that algorithmic intervention dramatically accelerates the platform’s self-destruction limit, and the senders’ adaptation process causes the system to experience catastrophic failure before the degradation of all agents is complete. Additionally, we quantitatively identified that to avert collapse through institutional intervention, corrections must be implemented within a strict “Maximum Tolerable Delay.” This research elucidates Gresham’s dynamics of information in the attention economy through complex system simulation, providing simulation evidence for maintaining the hygiene of information spaces and designing sustainable platforms. Full article

The water–energy–food (WEF) nexus is central to regional sustainable development, particularly in resource-based regions (RBRs) facing resource depletion and ecological strain. While existing studies have examined internal WEF linkages and extended the framework to include external dimensions such as ecology and land, the stage-based succession of limiting factors across developmental stages has received limited attention, and resource-based cities in which energy and grain production functions coexist remain underexamined. Taking Daqing, a typical resource-based city in China, as a case study, this paper constructs a comprehensive evaluation index system covering water, energy, food, and regional development subsystems. The CRITIC method is adopted to calculate indicator weights, and the coupling coordination degree model is applied to analyze the evolutionary characteristics of the WEF system’s coordinated development over the period 2005–2023. The obstacle degree model is further employed to identify obstacle factors across different stages. The results indicate that the comprehensive evaluation index experienced three evolutionary stages: rapid growth, structural adjustment, and recovery and improvement. The coupling degree remained at a high level, increasing from 0.915 to 0.999, while the coupling coordination degree rose from 0.508 to 0.789, evolving from borderline coordination to moderate coordination. The dominant obstacle factors exhibit notable succession characteristics, shifting from energy and water constraints to food subsystem pressures, and finally to water supply–demand imbalances. The coordinated development of Daqing’s WEF system is driven by three core forces: the oil and gas industry cycle, water resource regulation policies, and grain planting structure adjustments. These findings provide theoretical references and practical implications for optimizing resource management and advancing sustainable development in RBRs. Full article