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(1) Background: Brazil features one of the largest recycling workforces worldwide, with around 800,000 informal waste pickers, mostly living in urban areas of major cities and dealing with low income and precarious working conditions. This context of vulnerability may lead to a high risk of food insecurity, which may be associated with infectious diseases, particularly toxocariasis, a cosmopolitan neglected parasitic zoonosis with high seroprevalence in tropical countries. (2) Methods: Accordingly, this study assessed Toxocara spp. seropositivity and associated risk factors (including food insecurity) in recycling workers of Curitiba, a major Brazilian (fully urban) city currently ranked 8th in population with 1.83 million habitants, 7th in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and 10th in Human Development Index (HDI) with 0.823 (very high), out of 5569 Brazilian cities. Recycling and non-recycling (used as population control) workers living in the same neighborhood were invited, voluntarily signed consent forms, and had blood serum samples collected and tested by ELISA for detecting anti-Toxocara spp. (IgG) antibodies; in addition, an epidemiological questionnaire (socioeconomic characteristics, owning dog/cat, food and hygiene habits) was applied. (3) Results: Overall, 95/177 (53.7%) recycling and 38/100 (38.0%) non-recycling workers tested positive by ELISA, with recycling workers more likely seropositive than non-recycling population (53.7% vs. 38.0%; OR: 1.89; 95% CI: 1.15–3.12%). Food insecurity (OR = 2.01, 95% CI: 1.04–3.91) and low (<1 minimum wage) monthly household income (OR = 3.03, 95% CI: 1.01–9.71) were associated with Toxocara spp. seropositivity by multivariate analysis. As expected, cohabitation with both dogs and cats was also significantly associated with seropositivity (OR = 3.75, 95% CI: 1.48–9.75). However, other assessed variables (gender, age, ethnicity, hygienic habits, contact with soil, raw meat ingestion) were not associated with seropositivity. (4) Conclusions: The study herein has filled a gap regarding toxocariasis in vulnerable populations and suggests food insecurity as a socioeconomic indicator for Toxocara spp. seropositivity in recycling workers. Furthermore, recycling workers are at higher risk of infection and, as such, need to be prioritized in healthcare programs. Full article

The accurate measurement of individual cognitive abilities in educational settings increasingly relies on personalized assessment systems that adapt to the learner’s current standing on the measured ability. These systems generate and use assessment items continuously and in real-time, bypassing the field-test cycle that traditional calibration requires. Item banks therefore contain a growing share of items whose parameters must be predicted first, and each test form must be assembled in real time to match the learner’s current ability level and content needs for effective personalized instruction. This study proposes an Ising framework that addresses both requirements by predicting item parameters from text with calibrated uncertainty estimates and assembling personalized test forms within the time budget of the assessment loop. This framework is validated through a factorial simulation and an empirical study on state-level English Language Arts items across Grades 3 through 12. In the simulation, the proposed uncertainty-aware method achieves a mean test information function (TIF) gap of 0.226, compared with 1.171 for the conventional baseline that ignores prediction uncertainty. The proposed method also produces feasible forms across the full operational region, whereas the chance-constrained and robust baselines become infeasible at high prediction error combined with a high share of predicted items. In the empirical study, predictive intervals achieve coverage within ten percentage points of the nominal level in the pooled condition, and the uncertainty-aware assembly reduces the TIF gap relative to the baseline, with the largest gains at the extremes of the ability distribution where accurate measurement matters most for instructional placement decisions. By separating prediction uncertainty from true individual differences in ability, this framework preserves the interpretability of cognitive ability estimates and provides a foundation for personalized assessment systems that support differentiated instruction under continuous item bank growth. Full article

Inverter-interfaced distributed generation (DG) can provide voltage support in unbalanced distribution feeders; however, sequential, phase-selective siting and sizing under local interconnection constraints have received limited attention. This study proposes a constructive Volt/VAR planning method that allocates DG according to the apparent demand and voltage-deficient phases at each candidate bus. A descending reactive power feasibility test rejects solutions that cause non-convergence, overvoltage, or deterioration of the minimum system voltage. The method was implemented through automated unbalanced three-phase power-flow simulations and tested on the IEEE 13-node feeder and the real 3849-bus CHIRIPA medium-voltage network in Honduras, using active power allocation factors of 0.7 and 0.9. The selected configurations were evaluated over 24 h profiles for representative sunny and rainy days, annualized, and assessed economically over a 25-year horizon. Annual energy losses decreased by 25.8% and 26.4% in the IEEE feeder, although local capacity constraints prevented all phase voltages from reaching the 0.95–1.05 p.u. range. In CHIRIPA, all medium-voltage bus-phase voltages satisfied this range at maximum demand, although this improvement persisted only during solar hours; annual losses fell by 15.1% and 18.7%. The economic feasibility threshold in CHIRIPA depended primarily on installed capacity (approximately 6.5–6.6 MW), rather than unit count. These results provide a reproducible framework for prioritizing phase-specific DG investments under technical and economic constraints. Full article

Herein, the distributed variational Bayesian-assisted unscented Kalman filter (VB-UKF) is used to enhance the accuracy of pedestrian positioning. For this method, a distributed filter is employed. First, the UKF under colored measurement noise (CMN) is derived. The VB-assisted method is then derived. Subsequently, the Mahalanobis distance is used to determine whether the current noise estimate conformed to the navigation environment; if the Mahalanobis distance is higher than the preset threshold, the VB-assisted method is employed to update the noise, which can improve the UKF accuracy under CMN. The effectiveness of the proposed method was subsequently validated through two practical tests. Experimental results demonstrate that this method plays a notable role in reducing localization errors in the experiments. This observation emphasizes the efficacy of the proposed method. Full article

The shoe last is central to footwear design. Modern footwear CAD operates on parametric digital lasts, yet much last geometry—legacy collections and lasts that skilled last makers still sculpt by hand and copy by pantograph turning—exists only as physical models or as point-cloud scans lacking the structured parametric form that footwear CAD requires. This paper presents a complete template-based method for reconstructing a watertight parametric last from a segmented point cloud without intermediate triangulation. The only manual input is three landmark points—for which the system proposes standard positions—and the interactive confirmation of two boundary lines on the digitized last. From these, the method defines four feature points, a median plane, and a four-curve boundary network; all subsequent stages run without user interaction. A curvature-adaptive quadrilateral grid is constructed on the cloud by geodesic tracing and monitor-weighted area-orthogonality relaxation. A periodic Coons tube interpolates the grid and initializes the parameterization for a periodic tensor-product cubic B-spline surface fitted by penalized least squares with cyclic/open difference penalties, exact boundary interpolation, and toe-aware weighting. Cap surfaces close both collar and sole openings, and the model is exported as a watertight B-rep solid. Tests on sixteen industrial lasts using one fixed parameter set produced a mean one-sided deviation of 0.034 mm (RMS 0.058 mm) from the withheld industrial reference meshes in approximately 12 s per last. With synthetic noise at 50 dB SNR, the mean deviation increased by only 0.011 mm. A sampling-density study indicated near-second-order convergence before the control-net reaches an upper limit. The resulting solids import directly into CAD systems and support re-lasting, footwear design, and customization. Full article

Background: Public health emergencies disrupt daily life and impose a heavy burden on mental health. Middle-aged and older adults are particularly vulnerable to the shocks caused by such emergencies, which may substantially increase their risk of depressive symptoms. Although social ties are closely related to mental health, little is known about how different types of social ties are associated with mental health in emergency contexts. Moreover, these associations have rarely been examined alongside broader contextual shocks. This study explores how different social ties are associated with lower depressive symptoms and examines the role of indirect disaster exposure. Methods: Data were drawn from the 2020 wave of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) and matched with urban cumulative confirmed cases. Using data from 15,897 respondents, we employed linear regression and bootstrap resampling to test whether life satisfaction statistically accounts for some of the associations between social ties, household financial stability, and depressive symptoms. The model also examined whether the association between life satisfaction and depressive symptoms varied with indirect disaster exposure. Results: Broader social participation (b = −0.242, p < 0.01), more positive perceived changes in intergenerational relationships (b = −0.536, p < 0.05), and better household financial stability (b = −1.637, p < 0.01) were associated with fewer depressive symptoms. Life satisfaction statistically contributed to the link between weak ties, financial instability, and depressive symptoms (b = −2.136, p < 0.01). Indirect disaster exposure strengthened the negative association between life satisfaction and depressive symptoms (b = −0.134, p < 0.01). Conclusions: During public health emergencies, depressive symptoms among middle-aged and older adults are associated not only with social ties and household financial stability, but also with the broader context of city-level disaster exposure. Depression prevention strategies need to consider both individual psychological resources and contextual disaster exposure to identify vulnerable populations and reduce mental health risk. Full article

The single-row facility layout problem (SRFLP) orders unequal-length facilities on a line to minimize flow-weighted center distances. We present a time-adaptive multi-start simulated annealing (AMSA) framework that coordinates one spectral start, randomized restarts, incremental insertion and interchange moves, variable-neighborhood descent (VND), and exact fixed-exterior window optimization under a shared deadline. The primary experiment comprised 137 public instances with 8–1000 facilities and ten fixed seeds per instance, giving 1370 successful runs. Among 133 instances with traceable historical reference values, the best of ten runs reached or improved the study reference on 91 instances. The mean run-level relative gap was 0.00470%, and 57 instances produced the same objective for every seed. New controlled experiments compare six variants on 21 representative instances, nine parameter groups on six instances, serial and concurrent execution on nine instances, and four exclusive runtime stages on nine instances. Full AMSA had the best aggregate rank; only removal of adaptive time allocation differed significantly from the full method after Holm correction. All tested non-default parameter levels had paired Wilcoxon $p>0.05$. Profiling showed that annealing consumed 70.29%, 88.52%, and 96.69% of solver time in the small–medium, medium, and large groups, respectively. Two stored layouts below the archived reference snapshot were independently recomputed by two objective identities with zero discrepancy. These results support AMSA as a reproducible deadline-aware baseline; they do not establish superiority over recent methods evaluated on different platforms or budgets. Full article

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing global health threat driven in part by inappropriate and unnecessary antibiotic use resulting from diagnostic uncertainty at the point of care. In outpatient and acute-care settings, clinicians are often unable to rapidly distinguish between viral and bacterial infections, leading to empiric antibiotic prescribing that contributes to the emergence and spread of resistant pathogens. This review examines current and emerging rapid diagnostic technologies for differentiating bacterial and viral infections, including molecular assays, rapid antigen tests, biomarker-based diagnostics, host-response platforms, hematologic methods, and artificial intelligence-based decision-support systems. These technologies are evaluated based on diagnostic accuracy, turnaround time, cost, accessibility, and clinical actionability within real-world healthcare settings. Although several emerging and point-of-care (POC) technologies can provide results within approximately 6–15 min, their ability to consistently align with the timing, workflow, and clinical decision-making requirements of frontline outpatient and emergency-care settings remains variable and incompletely established. Future progress in antimicrobial stewardship will depend on developing rapid, clinically actionable diagnostic systems that integrate seamlessly into patient care and reduce unnecessary antibiotic use. Full article

Background: Influenza remains a significant global public health threat, causing substantial morbidity and mortality worldwide. While vaccination serves as the best preventive strategy, considerable interindividual variability in vaccine-induced immune responses persists. The ZBTB46 rs2281929 polymorphism (c.A31G; p.T11A; ACG>GCG), which corresponds to the evolutionarily conserved mouse mutation Zbtb46^T11A (c.A31G; ACT>GCT), has been associated with enhanced antibody responses to influenza vaccination in humans, though its functional mechanisms remain unknown. This study aimed to investigate how this mutation affects influenza vaccine immunogenicity using a knock-in mouse model. Methods: A Zbtb46^T11A knock-in mouse model was generated using CRISPR/Cas9 technology. Homozygous (HO) and wild-type (WT) mice were immunized with a quadrivalent influenza vaccine in a prime-boost regimen. Humoral immune responses were assessed by Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, hemagglutination inhibition (HI), and microneutralization (MN) assays. Antibody-secreting cells (ASCs) were quantified by Enzyme-linked immunospot assays. Germinal center B cells, plasma cells, plasmablast cells, conventional dendritic cell (cDC) subsets, and T helper (Th) cells were analyzed by flow cytometry. Statistical comparisons were performed using a two-sample t-test. Results: The Zbtb46^T11A mutation did not alter Zbtb46 protein expression or its abundance in cDCs. Following vaccination, HO mice exhibited significantly enhanced humoral responses, including higher HA-specific IgG titers, HI and MN antibody levels, and increased numbers of ASCs. Flow cytometry revealed elevated proportions of germinal center B cells and plasma cells in HO mice. Furthermore, HO mice showed a selective expansion of type 1 cDCs (cDC1s) and a concomitant increase in Th1 cell frequencies and IFN-γ-secreting cells, while cDC2 proportions and Th2 responses remained unchanged. Conclusions: The Zbtb46^T11A mutation is associated with enhanced influenza vaccine immunogenicity, concomitant with increased cDC1 proportions, Th1 polarization, and germinal center-dependent humoral immunity. These observed associations suggest a candidate mechanism whereby Zbtb46 modulation may shape adaptive immunity, though further functional studies are required to establish causality. These findings provide insights into host genetic variation in vaccine responsiveness and may inform personalized vaccination strategies. Full article

Background/Objectives: Exercise intolerance is clinically important but conceptually unstable in cardiovascular care. Its relationship with exercise tolerance, exercise capacity, functional capacity and the nursing concept of activity intolerance remains unclear, and the term entered nursing from other disciplines without corresponding conceptual scrutiny. This protocol will examine how these concepts are used in adults with cardiovascular disease, how use varies across conditions, care settings, pathway phases and time, and which attributes, antecedents, consequences and related concepts are reported, to determine what these concepts can mean for nursing. Methods: The study has two interconnected phases: a scoping review following Joanna Briggs Institute methodology and PRISMA-ScR and PRISMA-S reporting, followed by Rodgers’ evolutionary concept analysis. Searches will cover MEDLINE, CINAHL, Embase, Web of Science and Scopus, complemented by gray literature and standardized nursing terminologies. Expected Results: The review will map how exercise intolerance, activity intolerance and neighboring terms are used and will chart which defining attributes and empirical referents are recognizable through routine nursing assessment, require instrumented testing or both. Whether a stable nursing formulation can be derived is treated as an open question: convergence, divergence, instability and insufficient evidence are all possible, and attributes recognizable only through instrumented testing will be reported as a null result for nursing operationalization. Conclusions: The review will determine how the concept has evolved for the discipline of nursing and whether nursing assessment can operationalize it. It will not establish professional consensus, diagnostic thresholds, measurement validity or device specifications. Registration: This study was registered in the Open Science Framework (OSF) Registries before screening and data charting commenced. Full article

The cilium avoids energy loss due to bending deformation during vibration, thereby efficiently transmitting the acoustic driving force to the cross-beam. Meanwhile, a hollow cylindrical structure is adopted instead of the traditional solid one. While maintaining the same external geometry, this hollow design not only increases the effective acoustic area to enhance the acoustic driving force but also reduces the added mass of the cilium. This material–structure synergistic optimization improves the acoustic-to-mechanical transfer efficiency of the cilium in low-frequency acoustic fields, thus enhancing the device’s acoustic sensitivity in the low-frequency range. Parametric simulations are conducted using the COMSOL Multiphysics 6.3 platform to systematically optimize key geometric parameters such as the outer radius and height of the quartz cilium, and the optimal dimensions are determined. The sensitivity and directivity of the prototype are measured in the 20–1000 Hz frequency range using the standard hydrophone comparison method. Experimental results show that the quartz cilium vector hydrophone achieves a sensitivity of –179.1 dB (1 kHz, 0 dB = 1 V/μPa) at 1000 Hz. The frequency response curve exhibits good flatness in the low-frequency range and agrees well with the theoretical 6 dB per octave increase characteristic of pressure gradient sensors. Directivity tests reveal a typical figure-8 pattern at both 315 Hz and 630 Hz, with null depths exceeding 30 dB, demonstrating excellent vector detection capability. This study provides an effective approach for improving the low-frequency sensitivity of MEMS (Micro-Electromechanical System) vector hydrophones, and the designed device meets the requirements for underwater target detection with promising prospects for engineering applications. Full article

Land subsidence amplifies the impacts of sea-level rise (SLR) in low-lying deltas, yet some Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI) assessments omit this or rely on global estimates, drastically understating deltaic vulnerability. This study presents the first CVI assessment along Ghana’s coast to integrate validated, spatially resolved land subsidence derived from Persistent Scatterer Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PS-InSAR). Nine geological, geomorphological, hydrodynamic, and anthropogenic variables were quantified across 72 contiguous grid cells spanning ~150 km of the Volta Delta’s coastline and ranked on a 1–5 vulnerability scale. Three composite indices were computed using a common quantile distribution: an index excluding subsidence (CVI_-sub), an index with a spatially uniform regional vertical land motion (CVI_+(u-sub)), and an index incorporating spatially resolved local InSAR subsidence (CVI_+(v-sub)). High to very high vulnerability ranks rose from 28% of cells without subsidence, through 44% with the regional estimate, to 75% with the local InSAR; every grid cell recorded a higher CVI once subsidence was incorporated (Wilcoxon signed-rank test, p < 0.001). Vulnerability peaked along the Keta and Songor lagoonal margins. Omitting measured subsidence understates deltaic vulnerability, and this approach offers a transferable method for data-sparse deltas. Full article

Reliable determination of the surge limit of an installed centrifugal compressor cannot rely solely on OEM performance maps, theoretical predictions, or previously configured surge lines. The actual field boundary is influenced by installation-specific characteristics, including piping volumes, recycle-system dynamics, valve response, and instrumentation, all of which affect compressor behavior as surge is approached. At the same time, field surge testing is inherently demanding, because it is a safety-critical procedure that requires careful execution and often depends on the experience of specialist personnel. This paper presents a semi-automated supervisory framework for field surge limit verification intended for use by trained site engineers under operator supervision. The framework guides the testing process through readiness checks, instrumentation verification, recycle-valve assessment, gradual reduction of surge margin, real-time monitoring, surge-event identification, recovery actions, and structured data logging. Because early surge precursors are not consistently visible using standard plant instrumentation, the proposed approach relies on a practical signal-based event-recognition method derived from installed measurements and referenced to a pre-event baseline. The paper also introduces a structured method for tuning staged Recycle Trip^® recovery actions following surge limit verification using a limited number of field tests. The field evaluation included seven industrial compressor records: five independently confirmed surge cases, one shutdown/non-surge transient, and one confirmed no-surge case. Using a record-specific baseline threshold, all five confirmed surge events were recognized, with reported detection delays of 0–0.1 s. The supporting dynamic simulation environment was used for logic development and qualitative assessment of the supervisory and recovery-tuning concepts. Overall, the proposed approach provides a more structured and repeatable basis for supervised field surge limit verification while preserving operator authority. Full article

Background: Periodontitis is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by dysregulated host immune responses that drive connective tissue destruction and alveolar bone loss. Human gingival fibroblasts (HGFs) are central regulators of periodontal inflammation through their production of cytokines, chemokines, matrix-remodeling enzymes, and other inflammatory mediators. Although cannabinoid receptor 2 (CB2) activation has demonstrated anti-inflammatory properties, its coordinated effects on multiple inflammatory pathways in gingival fibroblasts remain poorly understood. This study investigated the transcriptomic effects of the selective CB2 agonist HU-308 on IL-1β-induced inflammatory responses in HGFs. Methods: Primary HGFs were divided into untreated controls, IL-1β-stimulated cells (10 ng/mL), and IL-1β-stimulated cells treated with HU-308 (10 μM). Twenty-four hours after stimulation, transcriptome-wide expression profiling was performed using Affymetrix Human Clariom S microarrays, followed by targeted analysis of selected inflammation-related transcriptional domains. Selected transcripts were evaluated within predefined biological domains including cytokines, chemokines, extracellular matrix-associated genes, NO/cGMP-related genes, transporter-associated genes, and GPCR-related transcripts. Gene expression was analyzed using one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s post hoc test. Results: IL-1β induced a coordinated inflammatory transcriptional program characterized by increased expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines, chemokines, matrix metalloproteinases, glucose transporter genes, and multiple GPCR-related transcripts, while suppressing collagen-associated genes, NOS3, GPR4, and GPR78. HU-308 broadly attenuated these inflammatory responses by reducing the expression of cytokines, chemokines, matrix metalloproteinases, and several GPCR-related genes while restoring collagen-associated transcripts, nitric oxide signaling components, anti-inflammatory mediators, and selected glucose transporters toward basal levels. Schematic multidimensional visualizations were used to illustrate relative expression patterns among selected transcripts within each functional domain; these visualizations do not represent statistically derived gene networks or molecular interactions. Conclusions: Pharmacological modulation of CB2 by HU-308 exerts broad immunomodulatory effects in IL-1β-stimulated human gingival fibroblasts by coordinately regulating multiple transcriptional networks involved in periodontal inflammation. These findings demonstrate that HU-308 treatment is associated with coordinated modulation of inflammatory, extracellular matrix, nitric oxide, metabolic, and GPCR-associated transcriptional pathways in IL-1β-stimulated HGFs. The results support the hypothesis that CB2 signaling may participate in the broader regulation of these interconnected responses; however, receptor-specific studies using CB2 antagonism or CNR2 knockdown are required to establish causality. Full article

The increasing demand for electrified rail transportation has intensified power quality (PQ) challenges, including harmonics, voltage imbalance, and low power factor (PF). These issues have driven the development of advanced traction power supply systems, particularly co-phase configurations, to improve power quality, enhance grid-connected stability, and strengthen the operational resilience of railway power infrastructure. This paper proposes a co-phase power supply system for high-speed railways that facilitates high-speed train operation by integrating power quality compensation technologies while reducing the required number of neutral sections by half, thereby improving the continuity and robustness of traction power delivery. To address PQ issues, a capacitive-coupled hybrid power quality conditioner (HPQC) incorporating renewable energy sources (RESs) into its DC link is introduced. Given the highly dynamic and time-varying nature of railway loads, a sliding mode control (SMC)-based robust control method is developed based on the state space model of the co-phase power supply system and the HPQC to provide a stable and rapid response to load variations and operational disturbances. The effectiveness and real-time implementation capability of the proposed approach are validated through real-time control hardware-in-the-loop (CHIL) simulations. Results from MATLAB/Simulink simulations and real-time CHIL testing demonstrate substantial harmonic reduction, improved power factor, reduced negative-sequence currents, and enhanced overall system efficiency. These outcomes confirm the suitability of the proposed system for modern high-speed railway applications and highlight its contribution to resilient traction power supply systems capable of maintaining reliable operation under highly variable loading conditions. Full article