Search Results (32,376)

Background and Objectives: The main neurodegenerative diseases (NDs)—Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), multiple sclerosis (MS), and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)—represent a growing global health burden with no available disease-modifying therapies. Curcumin, a polyphenol from Curcuma longa, is a promising candidate owing to its pleiotropic antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and neuroprotective profile observed mainly in preclinical models, but the poor oral bioavailability (<1%) and negligible BBB penetration (<0.1%) have substantially limited curcumin’s clinical translation. The objective of this work was to critically examine the therapeutic potential of curcumin in NDs, focusing on advanced drug delivery systems (DDSs) designed to overcome its pharmacokinetic barriers. Methods: This is a narrative, non-systematic review of PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, and Web of Science. The review is organized around five complementary thematic areas selected to span the full translational pipeline of curcumin in neurodegeneration, from mechanistic rationale to clinical applicability: (1) molecular mechanisms, addressing the pleiotropic activities that justify therapeutic interest; (2) pharmacokinetic barriers, the principal obstacle to clinical translation; (3) the evolution of drug delivery systems (DDSs), documenting the technological strategies developed to overcome these barriers; (4) disease-specific applications, evaluating the available evidence across the four main NDs; and (5) translational limitations, identifying the methodological and regulatory gaps that must be closed to enable clinical implementation. Results: Curcumin exhibits neuroprotective activity in preclinical models of the four NDs analysed, acting on six interconnected mechanisms and the gut–brain axis. Four generations of DDSs have been developed, from phytosomes and clinically used lipid dispersions (Meriva^®, BCM-95^®, Longvida^®, and Theracurmin^®) to fourth-generation systems (biomimetic nanoparticles, MOFs, microneedles, 3D scaffolds, hydrogels, and carbon dots) that substantially increase the bioavailability in preclinical studies. Combination strategies, such as curcumin with resveratrol and dutasteride, show preliminary clinical signals in ALS. However, clinical translation remains limited: over 80% of positive animal findings have not been replicated in humans, formulation characterization is frequently incomplete, and most trials lack CNS-exposure biomarkers. Importantly, most of the reported bioavailability claims are based on total curcumin measurements (parent aglycone plus its inactive Phase II conjugates) rather than the active aglycone alone, a methodological limitation that should be considered when interpreting the magnitude of the bioavailability improvements reported for novel formulations. Conclusions: Curcumin exhibits pleiotropic neuroprotective activity in preclinical models of AD, PD, MS, and ALS, mediated by interconnected antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-amyloidogenic, mitochondrial, and gut–brain axis mechanisms. However, its poor systemic bioavailability (<1%), minimal blood–brain barrier penetration, and extensive first-pass metabolism have limited clinical translation. Advanced drug delivery systems (including lipid-based carriers (liposomes, solid lipid nanoparticles, and nanostructured lipid carriers), polymeric nanoparticles (PLGA and chitosan), and bioinspired vesicles (exosomes)) are essential in order to overcome these barriers. Nevertheless, the formulation heterogeneity, limited long-term safety data, and reliance on preclinical models remain major obstacles; a definitive clinical translation will therefore require well-characterized formulations validated in phase II/III trials with cerebrospinal fluid exposure biomarkers, the pharmacokinetic monitoring of active aglycone (rather than total curcumin including inactive conjugates), and adaptive trial designs in neurological populations. Full article

As information technology evolves rapidly, image data is exposed to growing risks of security breaches and privacy leaks during transmission and storage. Therefore, image encryption has attracted significant attention as an effective protection measure. Nevertheless, most chaos-driven image encryption schemes suffer from inferior chaotic randomness, making them prone to cryptanalytic cracking in practice. To solve this problem, a new image encryption scheme is proposed by integrating the fireworks algorithm with a convolution operation. First, the original image is permuted via the Arnold transform and an improved permutation strategy. Then, the classical Logistic map is iterated to generate an initial pseudo-random sequence, which is further optimized by the fireworks algorithm. Finally, a reversible convolution operation is integrated with a bit-level diffusion mechanism to achieve image encryption. Experimental results confirm that the proposed scheme exhibits superior performance in terms of statistical analysis, robustness analysis, and image-quality assessment, and it possesses remarkable security against various cryptanalytic attacks. Full article

Tantalum and niobium are critical strategic rare refractory metals; however, most associated tantalum–niobium resources are characterized by ultra-low grade, finely disseminated grains, and severe argillization, which causes pronounced slime coating of gangue mica on valuable mineral surfaces and impedes efficient recovery via gravity separation. In this study, an innovative beneficiation route combining sodium silicate pre-dispersion conditioning with shaking-table gravity separation was proposed to recover a spodumene-dominant pegmatitic lithium ore containing trace associated Nb–Ta minerals, with mica as the major slime-forming gangue. Process mineralogy analysis revealed that the raw ore has a total (Nb,Ta)₂O₅ grade of only 0.019%, with the main valuable minerals being columbite-(Mn), columbite–tantalite, and tantalite, whereas layered mica minerals constitute the primary argillization gangue that readily generates micro-fine slimes smaller than 5 μm. Single-factor tests demonstrated that the optimal grinding fineness was 84.4% passing 200 mesh, and the optimal feed pulp density for gravity separation was 28.6%. Adjusting pulp concentration alone, without a dispersant, yielded a Nb₂O₅ concentrate grade of merely 0.144%, as severe slime coating greatly limited separation selectivity. Following the introduction of sodium silicate for pre-dispersion, the separation performance improved markedly at the optimal dosage of 300 g/t: the concentrate Nb₂O₅ grade reached 1.28% (8-fold higher than the blank test), and the Ta₂O₅ grade increased to 0.47% (85-fold higher than the blank test). Multi-scale characterization, including zeta potential measurements, ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), was employed to elucidate the dispersion mechanism of sodium silicate. The results confirmed that sodium silicate undergoes selective chemisorption on mica surfaces by forming Si–O–Al bonds with surface Al–OH active sites, which substantially increases electrostatic repulsion between mineral particles and eliminates mica slime coating on tantalum–niobium minerals. In contrast, sodium silicate exhibits only weak physical adsorption on tantalum–niobium mineral surfaces, with no evident chemical bonding. This work provides a low-cost, eco-friendly pretreatment–gravity separation coupling technology for the efficient enrichment of argillized ultra-low-grade tantalum–niobium associated ores and offers theoretical guidance for the green utilization of complex tantalum–niobium tailings and low-grade mineral resources. Full article

Reducing asphalt mixture production temperatures and partially replacing virgin aggregates with industrially derived materials are potential pathways toward more sustainable pavement technologies. This study evaluated the effects of steel slag (SS) aggregate and air-cooled blast furnace slag (ACBFS) aggregate on the properties of asphalt concrete for pavement binder courses produced as warm-mix asphalt (WMA) using water-foamed bitumen. The reference hot-mix asphalt (HMA) and WMA mixtures were compared with WMA variants in which 20% or 40% of the virgin aggregate was replaced by SS or ACBFS. The slag aggregates were characterized by physical and mechanical properties, surface morphology, and local elemental composition. Mixture performance was evaluated based on air voids content, indirect tensile strength, water and freeze–thaw resistance, dynamic modulus, and rutting resistance, followed by statistical analysis. Slag type and replacement level affected the properties differently. Increasing slag content increased air voids content, whereas slag-containing mixtures showed a lower relative loss of tensile strength after conditioning than the reference mixtures. Compared with SS, ACBFS resulted in lower dynamic modulus and poorer rutting resistance. The mixture containing 20% SS satisfied all adopted technical requirements. The results support the use of SS at this replacement level, whereas ACBFS mixtures require further optimization. Full article

Free trade agreements are widely used to promote trade liberalization, yet their implications for export quality in resource-based sectors remain poorly understood. This study examines whether the China–ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA) changed the quality of China’s forest product exports. Using HS6 product-level bilateral trade data for 1995–2023, we estimate export quality through a demand-side residual approach and apply double machine learning (DML) to identify the causal effect while controlling for product, destination, and year heterogeneity. The results show that CAFTA significantly reduces the average quality of China’s forest product exports, a finding robust to outlier treatment, alternative algorithms and sample splits, and alternative substitution elasticities, and that survives dropping potentially endogenous controls, excluding COVID-19 and other crisis periods, clustering standard errors by importing country, and excluding each ASEAN partner. Mechanism tests indicate that the quality-downgrading effect operates mainly through the trade cost effect and the standard harmonization effect; both channels lower entry barriers and weaken incentives for quality differentiation. The negative effect is concentrated in the ASEAN-6, whereas the ASEAN-4 exhibits a small positive effect, and resource-intensive products experience the largest quality decline. Policy should combine CAFTA 3.0 cooperation with stronger quality systems, traceability, and technology-oriented upgrading in Chinese forestry firms. Full article

Irrigation scheduling plays a pivotal role in bridging water resource allocation and farmland production management. For decades, scheduling in irrigation districts has predominantly relied on operators’ experience and relatively rigid water delivery plans, making it difficult to simultaneously meet the demands for timely responsiveness and precise water allocation under the combined influence of meteorological variability, changing crop water requirements, and the dynamic adjustments of water conveyance and distribution systems. The advancement of digital technologies, such as the Internet of Things, machine learning, deep reinforcement learning, and digital twins, has opened new technical pathways for optimizing irrigation scheduling. Focusing on the development of smart irrigation and scheduling optimization in irrigation districts, this paper systematically reviews the relevant literature published from January 2000 to June 2026 and delineates its evolution into three stages. Early-stage research was grounded in physical models, empirical rules, and hydraulic simulations, establishing fundamental methods for evapotranspiration estimation, crop water requirement calculation, and canal water delivery simulation. The middle stage, marked by the introduction of the Internet of Things and machine learning, enabled real-time monitoring of hydrological conditions, soil moisture, and meteorological data and promoted a data-driven transformation of water demand forecasting methods. The recent stage is characterized by the integration of deep reinforcement learning, digital twins, and knowledge graphs, which extends irrigation district scheduling from isolated single-point optimization toward multi-agent coordination and closed-loop management. Existing evidence confirms that digital technologies have yielded water-saving and yield-increasing benefits at the field scale and improved water distribution efficiency in several demonstration irrigation districts; however, their wider deployment at the district scale still faces bottlenecks such as inadequate sensing of physical execution processes, underdeveloped multi-objective trade-off mechanisms, and limited model transferability and long-term operational sustainability. To address these challenges, this paper proposes future research directions oriented toward real-time perception of water delivery and distribution status, multi-objective robust optimization, explainable artificial intelligence, and human–machine collaborative decision-making, thereby providing a reference for the theoretical development, engineering deployment, and operational management of smart irrigation district scheduling systems. Full article

The present study investigates the combined effect of B₄C content and heat treatment on the microstructure, mechanical properties, and tribological behaviour of Alumix 431 matrix composites consolidated by field-assisted sintering technology/spark plasma sintering (FAST/SPS). Composites containing 5 wt.% and 10 wt.% B₄C were examined in the as-sintered, solution-treated, and artificially aged conditions. Microstructural evolution was characterized by SEM/EDS, XRD, and TEM, while hardness, compression, and dry-sliding tests were used to evaluate material performance. Artificial ageing promoted the formation of fine MgZn₂ and (Cu,Zn)Mg precipitates and substantially strengthened the matrix. The highest mechanical performance was obtained for the aged 5 wt.% B₄C composite, reaching 172 HV1 and a maximum compressive stress of 742 ± 12 MPa. Increasing the B₄C content to 10 wt.% did not further improve the mechanical properties because of greater microstructural heterogeneity. In contrast, the higher B₄C content became beneficial under tribological loading after heat treatment, with the aged 10 wt.% B₄C composite exhibiting the lowest wear rate after 500 m. Worn-surface analysis revealed predominantly abrasive wear accompanied by tribo-oxidation. The results demonstrate that composite performance is governed by the interaction between B₄C content and the precipitation-strengthened matrix rather than by reinforcement content alone. Full article

Rolling bearings in modern wind turbines operate under demanding tribological conditions that include high contact stresses, mixed lubrication, transient loads, electrical discharge, corrosion, and hydrogen-assisted damage. These factors contribute to premature failures such as micropitting, scuffing, white etching cracks (WECs), and electrical fluting, which remain major reliability challenges in both onshore and offshore turbines. Surface-engineering technologies have emerged as effective tools to mitigate these failure modes. Carbon-based coatings improve sliding performance and reduce wear under boundary-lubricated conditions; black oxide conversion layers enhance the corrosion resistance, lubricant retention, and early-life running-in behavior; and insulating ceramic coatings protect generator bearings from electrical discharge damage. Additional solutions, including polymer overlays, composite films, and hybrid ceramic architectures, offer further improvements in friction, surface fatigue resistance, and environmental robustness. This manuscript reviews the current state of coated bearing technologies relevant to wind turbine applications, synthesizing findings from tribological research, industrial practice, and emerging material developments. While only a limited number of coating suppliers provide documented evidence of coating use in wind turbine drivetrain bearings, the collective progress in surface engineering demonstrates clear potential for improving reliability and extending service life across the installed turbine base. The analysis highlights the mechanisms by which coatings enhance performance, the conditions under which they are most effective, and the gaps that remain in field validation and large-scale deployment. Coated bearings represent a promising pathway toward higher turbine availability, reduced maintenance costs, and improved drivetrain durability. Continued advances in carbon-based films, multilayer architectures, and insulating coatings, combined with better integration of lubrication strategies and condition-monitoring technologies, will play an increasingly important role in enabling the next generation of high-power wind energy systems. Full article

Many current studies have purely regarded green finance as green credit, ignoring the background of carbon neutrality and energy transition. This paper investigates the relationships among green finance, green technological innovation, and urban ecological welfare performance. Using 279 Chinese cities as examples, this paper reveals the following: there is (1) a direct positive effect, where a 0.1-unit absolute increase in the green finance index (GFI) is associated with an average 0.0605-unit rise in ecological welfare performance (EWP); (2) a partial mediation mechanism through green technological innovation, establishing a “finance → technology → ecology” pathway; (3) temporal persistence of positive effects across pre-2012 and post-2012 policy periods; and (4) regional disparities with significant impacts in Eastern/Western/Northeastern China but insignificant effects in Central China due to lower green credit allocation and weaker R&D intensity. Robustness checks, including Winsorization and subgroup analyses, validate these results. This study advances the integration of environmental finance with sustainable development theory, offering actionable insights for achieving ecological welfare goals. Full article

Carbon-based materials are widely employed in electrocatalytic energy conversion and storage technologies owing to their high electrical conductivity, chemical stability, tunable structure, and low cost. However, the limited intrinsic activity and surface inertness of pristine carbon materials often necessitate surface modification to generate catalytically active sites and improve interactions with reactants and electrolytes. Among the available approaches, plasma functionalization has emerged as a versatile, rapid, solvent-free, and potentially resource-efficient technique that enables systematic tuning of surface chemistry while often limiting modification primarily to the near-surface region. This review discusses the fundamentals of plasma-assisted surface modification of carbon materials, including plasma generation, reactive species, plasma–surface interaction mechanisms, and the influence of key processing parameters such as gas composition, power, pressure, and treatment time. Particular attention is devoted to plasma-induced heteroatom doping, defect engineering, surface functionalization, and the dynamic structural evolution of carbon frameworks during treatment. The impact of these modifications on the physicochemical properties and electrocatalytic performance of carbon materials is critically examined with respect to representative reactions, including the oxygen reduction, oxygen evolution, and hydrogen evolution reactions. The advantages, limitations, and scalability of plasma technologies are also discussed, along with current challenges in process control and reproducibility. Finally, future opportunities involving operando diagnostics, single-atom catalysts, advanced porous carbon architectures, and industrial-scale plasma processing are highlighted. Plasma processing offers a versatile route to carbon surface and catalyst-interface engineering, although standardized reporting and quantitative plasma–structure–performance relationships are still required for rational process design and scale-up. Full article

Emotional intelligence is the capacity to understand, regulate, and manage one’s emotions, and it has significant effects on employees’ psychological adjustment, interpersonal relationships, and job performance. However, the specific psychological mechanisms by which emotional intelligence influences employees’ creative performance, and the conditions under which this relationship is strengthened, remain not fully understood. The aim of this study is to examine the mediating role of psychological well-being and the moderating role of cultural intelligence in the relationship between emotional intelligence and creative performance among individuals working in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector. Research data were obtained from 409 participants working in large-scale information and communication technology companies operating in Turkey, and the research hypotheses were tested using the bootstrap method with the Hayes PROCESS Macro. The findings show that emotional intelligence is positively related to psychological well-being and creative performance. Furthermore, psychological well-being significantly mediates the relationship between emotional intelligence and creative performance. The results show that cultural intelligence strengthens this indirect effect, and the contribution of emotional intelligence to creative performance is more pronounced at higher levels of cultural intelligence. The findings indicate that emotional intelligence is associated with creative performance both directly and indirectly through psychological well-being. However, the strength of this indirect association appears to vary across employees’ levels of cultural intelligence, which is considered an individual capability rather than a characteristic of the work environment. In this respect, the study contributes to the literature by examining psychological well-being as an explanatory pathway and cultural intelligence as an individual-level boundary condition in the association between emotional intelligence and creative performance. Full article

In recycling of plastic packaging, the deinking of post-consumer waste (PCW) is a key technology to achieve high-quality recyclates that can be used in demanding applications. Removing printing inks minimises the contamination in the mechanical recycling process, enabling the production of (semi)-transparent recycled films with low odour and fewer defects. While the deinking of uniformly printed model films is thoroughly researched and the general mechanism well understood, these findings are not readily transferable to industrial implementation on household PCW. This study systematically investigates the deinking of household PCW flakes using industrially available surfactants. Deinking parameters (water temperature, washing time, lye concentration) are varied with no surfactant added as well as for four industrially available surfactant formulations. The deinking efficiency is determined via an image-based statistical analysis. Via a multiple linear regression, median grey values of the experiments allow insights into the deinking mechanism of PCW flakes. Depending on the surfactant and deinking parameters, either the hydrolysis of the binding agent by sodium hydroxide (NaOH) or the surfactant-based decrease of interfacial energy on the printed surface proved dominant for the overall deinking mechanism. Full article

This study investigates the application of 17-4PH/WC/TiC composite coatings doped with varying CeO₂ concentrations in agricultural reversible plows. Coatings with CeO₂ contents of 0 wt.%, 0.5 wt.%, 1.0 wt.%, 1.5 wt.%, and 2.0 wt.% were fabricated using laser cladding technology, and their microstructures, mechanical properties, and wear resistance were systematically characterized. The results demonstrate that appropriate CeO₂ doping significantly enhanced the overall performance of the coatings. The 1.0 wt.% CeO₂-doped sample exhibited the optimal performance profile, achieving a hardness of 628 HV_0.5, a mean friction coefficient of 0.38, and a wear rate of 1.22 × 10⁻⁴ mm³ N⁻¹ m⁻¹, representing a 52.3% reduction in wear rate compared with the undoped coating. Microstructural analysis revealed that CeO₂ refined the grain size and promoted a more uniform distribution of second-phase particles. This study provides a theoretical foundation and technical support for developing high-performance materials for agricultural tool contact components. Full article

Background/Objectives: Contemporary cardiovascular critical care is increasingly shaped by advanced technologies, prognostic uncertainty, and time-sensitive decisions regarding mechanical circulatory support, treatment limitation, device management, family communication, and end-of-life care. Although established ethical principles provide essential normative guidance, their integration into routine bedside workflows remains challenging. This review examines the principal ethical tensions arising in the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit (CICU) and proposes a practical framework for real-time ethical decision-making. Methods: A narrative review of the contemporary literature was performed using major biomedical databases together with international guidelines, scientific statements, consensus documents, and relevant ethics literature to identify the principal ethical challenges encountered in contemporary cardiovascular intensive care and to develop an implementation-oriented framework for integrating ethical reasoning into routine clinical workflows. Results: Ethical challenges in the CICU frequently arise during transitions between therapeutic escalation, reassessment, limitation, withdrawal, and comfort-focused care. These decisions are influenced not only by clinical prognosis but also by organisational culture, multidisciplinary dynamics, patient preferences, communication, and structural inequities. We propose Operational Ethics as an implementation framework that embeds ethical reflection into routine clinical workflows through continuous reassessment of therapeutic goals, proportionality, prognosis, patient values, and multidisciplinary deliberation. Practical strategies include ethical pause points, time-limited trials, structured communication pathways, anticipatory device discussions, regular goals-of-care reassessment, and institutional support for clinicians experiencing moral distress. Conclusions: Operational Ethics complements established bioethical principles by translating them into practical bedside processes adapted to the temporal and organisational realities of cardiovascular critical care. Its integration into routine CICU practice may support more consistent, equitable, and patient-centred decisions while ensuring that technological possibilities remain aligned with meaningful clinical goals. Full article

A decline in CO₂ emissions is often treated as evidence of successful climate policy, although the same outcome may reflect technological modernization, economic contraction, demographic decline, deindustrialization, or external shocks. Accordingly, the objective is to test whether comparable headline reductions reflect different transition mechanisms when historical drivers, prospective indicative gross carbon-cost exposure, and investment capacity are evaluated jointly. We hypothesize that Germany is closest to managed decarbonization, Poland follows carbon-intensive decoupling, and Ukraine’s decline is predominantly structural or shock-driven and that the joint diagnostic indicates greater contraction risk where multiple investment-capacity measures are weakest, without implying a causal prediction of firm response. This study develops a three-stage diagnostic framework combining additive Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) decomposition, indicative gross sectoral carbon-cost exposure, and multiple macroeconomic investment-capacity indicators to distinguish managed decarbonization from carbon-intensive decoupling and structural or shock-driven emissions decline. The framework is applied to Germany, Poland, and Ukraine for 1990–2024, with subperiods reflecting major structural transformations and shocks. Germany reduced emissions by 482.48 Mt CO₂ despite rising population and GDP per capita, as lower energy and carbon intensity more than offset these upward pressures. Poland reduced emissions by 103.48 Mt CO₂ mainly through lower aggregate energy intensity, while carbon-intensity improvements were more limited. Ukraine recorded the largest decline (564.03 Mt CO₂), but substantial contributions came from lower GDP per capita and population, while carbon intensity increased emissions over the period. At a common benchmark of EUR 75.28/tCO₂, Ukraine has the highest indicative gross exposure among the integrated-steel cases, whereas Poland has the highest indicative gross exposure among the electricity cases. The findings show that emissions outcomes should be interpreted jointly with their drivers, sectoral carbon-price transmission, and the capacity to finance technological response. Full article