Search Results (1,311)

Meaning no longer resides where we assumed it did. At the scale of hundreds of millions of daily human–AI encounters, intelligent systems have ceased to function as external tools and have become the constitutive environment through which thought, interpretation, and knowledge formation occur. Yet dominant frameworks remain anchored to a unit of analysis that does not capture what is actually happening: they measure outputs, govern behaviours, and optimise performance, while the encounter itself remains theoretically unnamed. This paper proposes encounter ontology as the conceptual framework that names it, arguing that the encounter constitutes a distinct ontological site irreducible to either human or machine ontology alone. Human–AI interaction is not only transmissive but generative: the encounter produces interpretations, conceptual formations, and altered cognition irreducible to either the user’s original intent or the model’s specified behaviour. Building on new materialist philosophy, assemblage theory, agential realism, and the philosophy of technics, the paper introduces relational intelligence as the emergent co-production of meaning across situated human–AI interactions sustained over time, situated within Floridi’s concept of hyperhistory. The encounter generates epistemic trajectories that are not merely unknown prior to the interaction but genuinely undetermined, brought into form through the relational event itself rather than retrieved from either participant. The paper examines implications for alignment, explainability, and governance, introducing the specification–emergence gap as a constitutive rather than contingent feature of intelligent interaction. Three design orientations are developed toward operationalisation: design for temporal continuity, design for encounter quality, and design for symbolic legibility. The paper contributes a theoretically grounded vocabulary for analysing human–AI co-emergence and extending intelligent system design toward more relationally aware and responsibly governed AI. Full article

Pathological states associated with metabolic stress, such as traumatic brain injury (TBI), hypoxia, ischemic stroke, and migraine, are considered elevated risk factors for developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, the mechanism underlying the effect of these conditions on the progression of AD remains largely unknown. Here, we determine how metabolic stress associated with spreading depolarization (SD)—a hallmark of stroke, hypoxia, TBI, and migraine—modulates amyloid β (Aβ42) aggregation kinetics through dynamic changes in extracellular space (ECS). To achieve this, we used ThT fluorescence to determine how the formation of different Aβ42 aggregate species depends on Aβ42 concentrations. Based on this input, we build a multiscale computational framework that integrates volume regulation, including its dependence on neuronal ion homeostasis, and Aβ42 aggregation kinetics. Our model predicts that neuronal swelling during SD accelerates aggregation, where the impact of metabolic stress is highly dependent on the timing relative to aggregation progression and the initial monomer concentration. At low monomer concentrations, early SD events promote off-pathway oligomer formation, while at higher concentrations they rapidly drive fibril formation to saturation. In the absence of mature fibrils, recurrent metabolic stress events further amplify oligomer accumulation, whereas pre-existing fibril nuclei suppress oligomer formation at the expense of fibril nucleation and growth. Increasing the intensity of metabolic stress prolongs ECS shrinkage and enhances oligomer formation. These findings reveal a mechanistic link between SD-induced microenvironmental changes and Aβ aggregation dynamics, providing a quantitative framework for understanding how acute brain injury and metabolic stress may contribute to early AD pathogenesis. Full article

The May–September 2021 cryptocurrency-mining prohibition in the People’s Republic of China removed an industry that had become heavily concentrated in Chinese jurisdictions over the years preceding the ban. Using the full population of 97,005 Bitcoin blocks mined between May 2020 and February 2022, retrieved from the mempool.space block API, with pool-operator corporate domicile and China-linkage coded from publicly documented corporate-parent records, we estimate the post-prohibition shift in pool-attributed block share. On the top-13 panel covering approximately ninety-five per cent of attributed blocks, a two-way fixed-effects projection records a differential China-linked share movement of $-5.45$ percentage points per pool after the 24 September 2021 NDRC and PBOC enforcement event (cluster-robust SE 2.55; CRV1 p = 0.054, not significant at five per cent; wild cluster bootstrap p = 0.014 and exact-permutation p = 0.023 reported as small-sample diagnostics, not relied on for significance; under a permutation conditioned on baseline share the latter rises to p = 0.100). This paper’s primary magnitudes are the aggregate compositional movements, which do not depend on the cluster-level test. Aggregate China-linked share falls from 78.47 to 60.01 per cent between the placebo (May–October 2020) and persistence (November 2021–February 2022) windows; non-China-linked share rises from 3.50 to 27.02 per cent, with Foundry USA absorbing approximately 15.7 percentage points (approximately 67 per cent of the non-China-linked share gain). The within-non-China-subset normalised Herfindahl–Hirschman Index falls from 10,000 to 4191, consistent with rising within-subset dispersion among non-Chinese-domiciled operators. Among the identified non-China-linked operators absorbing material share in the analytical panel, the displacement is concentrated at named legal persons, chiefly with documented United States and European corporate domicile; the residual excluded/unknown category is not used to support that claim. Full article

Public discussion in Australia often presents pet cats as a major cause of wildlife decline, and cat management is frequently promoted as a major conservation response. However, this focus may draw attention away from other common and preventable recorded causes of threatened species rescue. Using the NSW Wildlife Rehabilitation Data Dashboard, we present the first statewide analysis of NSW wildlife rehabilitation records to specifically examine threatened species, rather than pooling threatened and non-threatened wildlife together. This dataset represented 52,475 individuals and 158 threatened species rescued from 2013 to 2024 in NSW. Rehabilitation data represent only animals that are found, reported, and brought into care, mostly in human-frequented environments, and should not be interpreted as estimates of total wildlife mortality, predation pressure, or ecological impact beyond the rehabilitation dataset. Outcomes were often poor: 24.1% were released, 58.5% died, and 17.5% had other recorded outcomes. The largest recorded category was Unknown (21.9%), which should not be interpreted as absence of cause, but as cases where a specific cause could not be assigned at the time of reporting to the dashboard. Among identified recorded causes, the most common were Entanglement (11.6%), Weather Event (11.4%), Abandoned/Orphaned (10.1%), Unsuitable Environment (7.3%), and Motor-Vehicle Collision (5.8%). Together, Unknown and these five identified causes accounted for 68.1% of recorded threatened species rescues. By comparison, all animal attacks combined accounted for 4.4%; dog-related rescues were more than three times as frequent as cat-related rescues, with cat-related rescues comprising 0.6%. These findings show that cat attacks formed a small proportion of recorded rescues, although overall ecological impact cannot be determined from these data. Prevention efforts targeting common and preventable recorded causes may help reduce the number of threatened animals entering care. Full article

The DUF538 gene family, harboring unknown functional proteins, has been reported to take active roles in plant development and response to adversities, while few studies of genome-wide identification and functional verification have been performed in cotton. Hence, two ancestral diploid species, G. arboretum and G. raimondii, and two cultivated tetraploid ones, G. hirsutum and G. barbadense, were chosen in this study to investigate the cotton DUF538 gene family, resulting in 37, 37, 70, and 70 members identified, respectively. A phylogenetic tree was constructed on these cotton DUF538 genes, together with 22 A. thaliana ones, which were divided into seven groups unevenly distributed across nearly all chromosomes. High-degree conservatism, while rich in diversity, was separately observed in gene structure and conserved motif analyses between the same groups and different groups, and a great number of gene-replication events were detected from intraspecific and interspecific collinearity analyses, implying this was the driving force for DUF538 family expansion. Multiple cis-acting elements relevant to adversity-stress responses were found in the promoter region, which were consistent with the transcriptome expression analyses in response to low-temperature and drought stress and Verticillium wilt infection. Coincidentally, GhDUF538-7 showed the core position in the protein–protein interaction network and was identified in the overlapping region of the interval of four reported VW resistance-related QTLs. The gene function of GhDUF538-7 was verified via gene cloning, relative expression-pattern detection, and virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) experiment. The TRV:DUF538-7 plants showed more serious VW symptoms, significantly severe disease indices, relatively higher fungal biomass, and increased brown vascular bundles compared with TRV:00 plants. Significantly lower expression levels of marker genes PR4 and MYC2 in jasmonate signaling pathways indicated GhDUF538-7 as a potentially positive regulatory factor in plant defense via hormone signal transduction. This study not only broadened the research perspective of evolution and functional differentiation of the cotton DUF538 gene family, but it also revealed the cooperative relationship between DUF538-7 and the JA pathway for further molecular mechanisms of cotton resistance to VW infection. Full article

Objectives: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) poses a significant threat to kidney transplant recipients (KTRs) due to chronic immunosuppression. While Azvudine has demonstrated antiviral efficacy, its long-term impact on allograft function in KTRs remains unknown. This single-arm retrospective study provides a comprehensive evaluation of the outcomes. Methods: This single-center, retrospective study consecutively enrolled 20 KTRs diagnosed with COVID-19 during the Omicron surge (December 2022–January 2023), all treated with an Azvudine-centered regimen. Clinical data, treatment responses, and serial renal function parameters were analyzed. Long-term follow-up extended to a median of 39 months. Results: The median time to COVID-19 nucleic acid negativity was 13.22 days. Renal function improved significantly during treatment: estimated glomerular filtration rate increased by a mean of 27.29 mL/min/1.73 m², and serum creatinine decreased by 57.72 µmol/L (both p < 0.01). Common complications included electrolyte imbalances and co-infections (50% of patients). Crucially, at a median follow-up of 39 months, 75% (15/20) of patients maintained normal allograft function. No Azvudine-related adverse events or drug interactions with immunosuppressants were observed. Conclusions: While acknowledging the inherent limitations of a non-comparative design, this study provides preliminary evidence suggesting that an Azvudine-centered regimen may be associated with promising efficacy, a favorable safety profile without interference with immunosuppressive therapy, and—most importantly—durable renal allograft survival in KTRs with COVID-19. Our data suggest that this regimen could contribute to mitigating the long-term risk of allograft dysfunction, potentially bringing outcomes closer to the expected baseline for stable recipients. Coupled with its low risk of drug–drug interactions, potential immunomodulatory benefits, and superior cost-effectiveness, Azvudine could be considered a valuable therapeutic option for this high-risk population in the post-pandemic era, although these findings warrant cautious interpretation. Controlled trials are ultimately needed to confirm these observations. Full article

Robotic table tennis perception typically produces a continuous three-dimensional (3D) ball-state stream, whereas rule understanding, score attribution, and training review need discrete, ordered, and auditable events. We cast this gap as hybrid event reasoning and propose a layer that maps continuous state samples, finite rally modes, geometric guard predicates, event-bus updates, and structured event outputs into one auditable framework. Given a 3D state stream and a calibrated table, the layer emits BounceIn, NetCross, RuleBounceOut, LandingValidity, and RuleScore events with dual timestamps, geometric margins, and detection sources. A central design choice decouples observable table contact from the rule-level fact of an out-of-table landing, using a prediction-error radius to separate definite out-of-table, edge-ambiguous, and unknown cases. Under bounded state error, sampling gaps, and Lipschitz guard margins, we derive sufficient conditions for finite-window event observability, finite-delay confirmation, and event-sequence stability. On real rally clips, triggered-event review over 18 clips (787.42 s) yields validity (PPV) values of 99.13% and 99.41% for BounceIn and NetCross; a full-timeline dense audit reports F1 scores of 92.46%, 97.72%, 71.43%, and 85.71% for the four event types; an offline microbenchmark measures 1.062 μs per-frame overhead. Together, these results support the layer as a lightweight and auditable intermediate representation for local rally understanding in real-time robotic table tennis, rather than as a complete competition-level refereeing system. Full article

Background: Diabetic foot osteomyelitis (DFO) poses significant challenges due to its high morbidity and recurring nature. Current treatments involve prolonged antibiotics and often surgical intervention; however, the optimal route of antibiotic administration is unknown. This study evaluated the effect of route of antibiotic administration on treatment failure among patients with diabetic foot osteomyelitis. Methods: The authors conducted a retrospective cohort study among patients with unresected diabetic foot osteomyelitis. A propensity score was used to match the treatment exposure groups. The primary outcome was treatment failure, defined as either (1) treatment with additional antibiotic course or (2) additional surgical debridement/amputation at the original site of infection within 1 year of initial treatment. Secondary outcomes included the impacts of hemoglobin A1c, peripheral arterial disease, obesity, and infection severity on treatment failure. Results: Among 152 patients meeting criteria, 49 matched pairs were analyzed. Treatment failure rates did not significantly differ between oral and intravenous groups (OR 0.98, 95% CI 0.30–3.19, p > 0.9). A time-to-event analysis similarly found no significant outcome disparities between groups (p = 0.3). Conclusions: The study results support the previously published literature that demonstrates comparable treatment outcomes between routes of antibiotic administration when treating diabetic foot osteomyelitis. Full article

The Mangyahedong gold deposit—recently discovered in the Qimantage segment of the East Kunlun orogenic belt—is a high-priority exploration target. Key unknowns include its mineralization age, the sources of sulfur and gold, and the tectonic–magmatic–hydrothermal controls on formation. These gaps have hindered genetic classification and stage-specific research. We addressed them through integrated petrography, TIMA mineral mapping, in situ LA-ICP-MS analysis of pyrite from three mineralization stages, and U-Pb dating of hydrothermal apatite spatially and temporally linked to the main sulfide-precipitation event. The stages are: (I) early sericite–quartz alteration; (II) main ore stage—carbonate–chlorite–sulfide + native gold; and (III) late calcite–pyrite veins. Pyrite zoning shows that early pyrite cores are enriched in As and Au. In contrast, the main-stage pyrite has As-poor cores, with As, Au, and Co progressively enriched toward the rims. This zoning pattern indicates evolving fluid redox conditions and metal complexation during ore deposition. A ²⁰⁷Pb/²⁰⁶Pb age of 406 ± 13 Ma from apatite in gold-bearing quartz–sulfide veins constrains gold deposition to the Late Silurian–Early Devonian transition. Age, texture, and geochemistry collectively support a regional metamorphic–deformational origin, consistent with the orogenic gold model. Isotopic and elemental data point to the Qimantage Group volcanic rocks as the dominant source of ore-forming elements—indicating strong potential for discovery along strike and at depth. Full article

This paper investigates an observer-based secure control method for networked non-Lipschitz nonlinear systems subject to unknown nonlinearities, external disturbances, sensor noises, and intermittent denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. Multi-layer neural networks (MNNs) are adopted to compensate for non-smooth, non-Lipschitz terms, guaranteeing bounded approximation errors. A resilient high-gain observer fused with the MNN is developed to continuously reconstruct system states. When DoS attacks block sensor channels, the observer acts as a virtual dynamic engine to substitute for lost real-time measurements, providing uninterrupted feedback to the controller. Furthermore, to optimize communication efficiency, an observer-based static event-triggered mechanism (SETM) coupled with a hold-input strategy is integrated. Employing the Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional method, sufficient conditions are derived to prove that the closed-loop system remains uniformly ultimately bounded (UUB) under the joint effects of approximation errors, disturbances, and attacks. Simulation results on a two-link manipulator demonstrate that the proposed secure control scheme effectively counters aggressive DoS attacks while achieving a 56.8% reduction in network transmissions compared with conventional periodic sampling paradigms, striking a favorable balance between tracking accuracy and resource efficiency. Full article

Underactuated and strongly coupled Quadrotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (QUAV) systems often face challenges in formation control due to actuator failures, external unknown disturbances, and limited communication resources. To address these issues, this paper proposes a periodic adaptive event-triggered fixed-time fault-tolerant control method based on a disturbance observer. First, a dynamic estimation and compensation scheme for actuator faults is developed by combining boundary layer theory with adaptive control techniques. Next, a fixed-time disturbance observer is designed to accurately estimate and compensate for external unknown disturbances. Furthermore, considering the communication burden imposed by real-time position updates, a Non-Monitoring Periodic Adaptive Event-Triggered Control (NM-PAETC) mechanism is proposed to reduce communication resource consumption, while ensuring that the formation system maintains the desired attitude angles under the influence of actuator faults and external disturbances. The proposed method enables fixed-time formation control under limited communication resources, and the system’s convergence time is independent of the initial state. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Full article

Future climate models indicate an enhanced severity of regional drought and more frequent rewetting events, which may cause cascading impacts on the nitrogen cycle and nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions, and the underlying microbial mechanism remains largely unknown. Here we conducted an incubation study on the impact of different soil moisture statuses on N₂O producers and N₂O reducers following the application of different fertilizer types (urea and manure) on a neutral vegetable soil. The different soil moisture treatments included 100% field capacity, drought, and rewetting (50% to 100% field capacity). Results showed that the N₂O emissions significantly decreased under drought conditions. Only ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and fungal nirK were well adapted to drought stress in the control soil. Different fertilizers modulated the resilience of the functional guilds. Ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB), nirK-type denitrifying bacteria and nosZ clade (both I and II) showed significant resilience in both fertilized and non-fertilized soils in response to soil rewetting. Soil rewetting also changed the underlying microbial mechanisms of N₂O emissions. The results show a more significant negative relationship between N₂O emissions and nosZI clade at 100% field capacity, as well as nosZII clade after soil rewetting. We highlight the significant role of the nosZII clade following soil rewetting events, which might be one factor that led to relatively lower N₂O emissions compared to those at 100% field capacity. Our results provide new insights into developing mitigation strategies by fostering nosZII, which should be studied further in other cropland ecosystems or vegetable systems with frequent irrigation. Full article

Smart-city advanced metering infrastructure enables utility-scale remote analytics, but some forms of under-registration closely resemble lawful changes in demand and are hard to model as anomalies. We study a narrow, physically motivated event family at the single-meter level, namely multiplicative under-registration with unknown onset (a shunt-like attack), in which recorded active energy is approximately scaled by a factor $\alpha <1$ after a change-point while the daily-profile structure and spectral shape remain invariant. We formalize the problem and develop a physics-guided detector family based on weighted daily-profile regression (GLS) and its robust variant (RGLS), with quality-control filters, spectral-consistency checks, and an optional reactive-channel gate, designed to stay selective under confounders such as rooftop photovoltaics, electric-vehicle charging, and heat-pump onsets. On a device-disjoint Low Carbon London benchmark (487 households) the preferred GLS detector attains precision $0.915$, recall $0.978$, and $F_1=0.945$ at $\alpha =0.10$ while keeping the non-theft suspected rate near $1\%$; a cross-dataset check on Open Power System Data with real EV/PV/heat-pump overlays yields zero false alarms on all 72 cases, and Mendeley and WPuQ benchmarks add a second large family and a reactive-channel test. We compare against external baselines (classical change-point detection, Isolation Forest, autoencoder, LSTM, gradient boosting, and a supervised statistical pipeline) on the same protocol: generic anomaly detectors fail on this shape-preserving attack, and supervised models match the detector only in-distribution while, unlike it, failing to transfer to real lawful confounders. All metrics carry bootstrap confidence intervals, and a full reproducibility bundle accompanies the submission. Full article

Small heat shock proteins (Hsp20s) function as essential molecular chaperones in plant stress responses, yet their genome-wide characterization in sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) remains lacking and their functional role in heat response is also unknown. In this study, 65 HaHsp20 genes were identified in sunflower through a comprehensive genome-wide analysis based on the conserved ACD (α-crystallin) domain. The expansion of this family was primarily driven by whole-genome duplication (WGD) or segmental duplication events, with the CI subfamily (20 members) representing the most significantly expanded lineage-specific clade. While all HaHsp20 proteins harbor the conserved α-crystallin domain (ACD), they exhibit diverse molecular weights (11.31–53.35 kDa), isoelectric points (4.71–9.75), and subcellular localization patterns. Promoter cis-regulatory element analysis revealed a predominance of ABA and MeJA-responsive elements but only two canonical heat shock elements. Transcriptome and RT-qPCR analyses revealed that most HaHsp20 genes are responsive to heat stress, with seven HaHsp20 genes exhibiting extremely upregulated expression (more than 1000-fold) after 10 h of 45 °C treatment. Among these, HaHsp21.59 and HaHsp25.91 showed an increase of over 4000-fold in expression. These findings provide a comprehensive foundation for understanding the evolutionary history and expression dynamics of the HaHsp20 family in sunflower, and highlight HaHsp21.59 and HaHsp25.91 as promising candidate genes for future functional validation of their potential roles in heat stress tolerance. Full article

Purpose: Lymphopenia is a common adverse event following radiotherapy, but its prognostic relevance following comprehensive involved-site radiation (ISRT) for oligometastatic disease is unknown. We evaluated lymphocyte kinetics after ISRT for oligometastases and tested whether treatment-related lymphopenia was associated with overall survival (OS) and modified progression-free survival (mPFS). Patients and Methods: We performed a single-institution registry study of consecutive patients with 1 to 5 distant metastases treated with comprehensive ISRT by a single radiation oncologist from 2014 to 2023. Systemic therapy was administered at clinician discretion. Absolute lymphocyte count (ALC) was collected at baseline, during radiation and at 1, 3 and 12 months after radiotherapy. Lymphopenia was graded using CTCAE v5.0 (grade 1, ALC < 1000 cells/µL; grade ≥ 3, ALC < 500 cells/µL). OS and mPFS (defined as death or metastatic progression not salvageable with further local therapy) were estimated by the Kaplan–Meier method. Associations were evaluated using univariable and multivariable Cox proportional hazards models. Results: Among 177 patients, the 5-year OS was 39.6% and the median OS was 42.8 months. Median ALC declined from 1400 cells/µL at baseline to 800 cells/µL during radiotherapy (p < 0.01) and 700 cells/µL at a median of 0.7 months after radiation (p < 0.01). Partial recovery was observed at 1000 cells/µL at 3 months (p < 0.001) and 1000 cells/µL at 1 year (p < 0.01). Baseline ALC <1000 cells/µL was associated with worse OS on univariable analysis (p = 0.04) but not on multivariable analysis. Although 27% developed grade ≥ 3 lymphopenia within 3 months of radiation, the 5-year overall survival was 41.4% without lymphopenia versus 31.9% with lymphopenia (p = 0.60). On multivariable analysis, ECOG performance status (HR 1.9, p < 0.01), age (HR 1.04, p < 0.01), albumin (HR 0.6, p = 0.03), and pre-radiation chemotherapy (HR 3.1, p < 0.01) independently predicted overall survival. Conclusions: Comprehensive ISRT for oligometastatic disease was associated with a sustained decrease in median ALC. Treatment-related lymphopenia was not independently associated with OS in this heterogeneous cohort. The disease control benefit of metastasis-directed therapy may outweigh potential detrimental immunologic effects of radiation-induced lymphopenia. Full article