Browse Articles

Research on Benggang identification and deformation monitoring based on optical and Radar data

Benggang erosion, a severe soil erosion landform in southern China, threatens ecological security and regional development. Conventional methods can delineate surface morphology but lack capability to characterize vertical dynamics. To address it, this study presents an integrated method of deep learning and multi-temporal InSAR based on optical and radar data, and conducts benggang identification and surface deformation monitoring in typical benggang regions of Wuhua County, Guangdong, China. The results show that a U-Net model trained on Gaofen-2 high-resolution imagery achieved accurate automated Benggang delineation with a mean IoU of 86%. Subsequently, 90 Sentinel-1 SAR scenes acquired between 2022 and 2024 were processed using SBAS-InSAR and D-InSAR techniques, with Kriging interpolation employed to generate a spatially continuous deformation field. The framework successfully resolved millimeter-scale interannual vertical surface deformation, with internal cross-validation metrics (R 2  = 0.978, RMSE = 0.544 mm, MAE = 0.313 mm) confirming high spatial consistency of the fused deformation field. The proposed framework offers a reliable and scalable technical pathway for stereoscopic Benggang monitoring and demonstrates strong potential for geohazard early-warning and ecological risk management.

Reflux ratio modulates algal and bacterial metabolic balance to enhance refractory pollutant removal

Incidence of tuberculosis in patients with immune-mediated diseases undergone biological therapy: A 10-year observational study in a high-burden region of northeastern Brazil

Biological therapies are critical in the management of Immune-Mediated Diseases (IMDs), yet their use is linked to adverse effects, including an elevated risk of Tuberculosis (TB), a significant health issue in endemic regions like Brazil. This study aimed to assess the incidence of TB among patients with IMDs in rheumatology, gastroenterology, and dermatology who received biological therapy in Pernambuco between 2013 and 2023. A total of 8,623 patients were analyzed, with 90.7% diagnosed with rheumatologic diseases, 5.6% with gastroenterological diseases, and 3.7% with psoriasis. In the descriptive analysis, frequency distributions and medians with interquartile ranges were reported, and Relative Risk (RR) was calculated to compare tuberculosis occurrence across IMD groups. The overall TB incidence was 2.1%, highest in gastroenterological patients (4.7%) compared to rheumatologic (2.0%) and psoriasis patients (1.3%) with a risk ratio (RR) of 2.4 for the group of gastroenterological diseases (p < 0.001). No significant differences in TB frequency were detected before (1.16%) or during (0.97%) the use of biological therapy, nor among drug classes, except for a slightly higher incidence with infliximab (2.6%). The absence of differences between the other anti-Tumor Necrosis Factor (anti-TNF) drugs and other cytokine inhibitors suggests that TB incidence might be influenced by environmental exposure in endemic regions. Pulmonary TB was the predominant form (80.8%), and pleural TB emerged as the most frequent extrapulmonary manifestation. The results underscore the need for extensive regional studies to elucidate TB risks in IMD patients and refine treatment guidelines for immunobiological therapies.

Infrared thermal imaging to determine temperature parameters of dengue vector habitats across ecological regions of Nepal: a pilot feasibility study

Abstract Dengue is a major vector-borne disease in Nepal, driven by container-breeding Aedes mosquitoes that thrive in domestic, urban settings. Its risk is increasing from the lowland Terai to the Hill and Mountain regions due to urbanisation and global warming. Practical and innovative approaches are needed to better understand the impact on Aedes mosquito habitats that are the main targets for vector control. We conducted a pilot feasibility study to characterise Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus breeding sites, examine physicochemical parameters (total dissolved solids, pH, salinity, dissolved oxygen), and explore the utility of infrared thermal imaging as a novel tool for measuring temperature parameters of habitats across distinct ecological regions. We found that plastic containers, tin/metal items, and rubber tyres were common breeding sites. The dengue vectors Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus were identified in a variety of container types across most locations. Overall, there was reasonable agreement between the thermal camera and standard thermometer, although the camera recorded approximately 1 °C lower and showed divergence at higher temperatures. Most aquatic habitat temperatures were within an optimal mosquito breeding range (mid-20s to low 30s °C) and lower than non-breeding site temperatures. The breeding site water temperatures in the Terai region were ~ 4 °C higher than the Mid-Hill and Mountain regions. Aquatic habitat temperatures were also found to be significantly correlated with dissolved oxygen. Thermal imaging case studies provided key visual insights into varying temperatures in complex Aedes microclimates. Notably, inner rubber tyre temperatures remained relatively stable despite significant external temperature fluctuations and external tyre temperatures exceeding 50 °C. Thermal imaging shows promise for the field characterisation of mosquito breeding sites, but it is not interchangeable with standard thermometry without qualification, including calibration and uncertainty analysis.

Evaluating the cultural alignment of multilingual LLMs in typical Japanese workplace scenarios

While current evaluations of LLM cultural alignment predominantly rely on static benchmarks in Western contexts, their ability to navigate generative, high-context socio-pragmatic demands in non-Western environments remains critically underexplored. This study investigates how multilingual LLMs adapt to the Japanese workplace—a stringent stress-test environment characterized by strong high-context communication norms and rigid honorific conventions—using Hofstede’s six cultural dimensions as a heuristic framework. We evaluated five state-of-the-art LLMs (LLM-jp, Phi, Llama, Qwen, and GLM) through a large-scale crowdsourced human evaluation. Based on 1,718 valid evaluator sessions, native Japanese raters assessed model outputs to generate a holistic Japanese Workplace Cultural Alignment Score (JWCAS). To dissect the underlying communicative strategies, we paired this with a three-layer diagnostic sub-score analysis (Linguistic Form, Socio-Cultural Values, and Social Action). Our results reveal that leading multilingual models (Phi and GLM) achieved overall JWCAS scores comparable to, or significantly higher than, the native Japanese model (LLM-jp). Crucially, our sub-score analysis demonstrates that holistic evaluation metrics can obscure deep pragmatic deficits: while LLM-jp overfits to surface-level linguistic politeness (Layer 1), it shows critical weaknesses in socio-cultural values (Layer 2) and context-aware social strategies (Layer 3). In contrast, leading multilingual models demonstrate balanced competence across all layers. These findings suggest that true cultural competence requires moving beyond native linguistic mastery, highlighting the necessity of multi-dimensional diagnostic frameworks for cross-cultural AI alignment.

Milk yield and immune protein profiles in colostrum and milk of indigenous syrian Golani and Golani × Friesian crossbred cows

PAP_NER: A large-scale vietnamese administrative named entity recognition corpus and hybrid deep learning architecture

Named Entity Recognition (NER) is fundamental for automating administrative document processing in digital government systems. However, Vietnamese NLP research faces a critical infrastructure gap: existing datasets focus on generic information extraction (news, medical) rather than domain-specific administrative text. We present PAP_NER, the first large-scale, gold-standard Vietnamese administrative NER corpus comprising 162,801 sentences with 205,807 entity annotations across five entity types critical for e-Government workflows: Agency (CQ), Legal Document (VBPL), Object (ĐT), Datetime (NG), and Quantity (SL). The dataset was constructed through a rigorous human-in-the-loop annotation pipeline, achieving an inter-annotator agreement of κ = 0.85. We demonstrate PAP_NER’s value through comprehensive benchmarking of an established hybrid deep learning architecture, PhoBERT-CRF, which couples monolingual Transformer embeddings (PhoBERT) with Conditional Random Fields for structured prediction. PhoBERT-CRF achieves 97.95% Micro F1-score on the PAP_NER test set, significantly outperforming established baselines: BiLSTM+CRF (+2.01%), multilingual XLM-RoBERTa (+2.52%), and pure Transformer approaches (+0.44%). Ablation analysis reveals that the CRF layer provides statistically significant improvements for structurally complex entities (VBPL: + 0.96%, p  < 0.05, McNemar’s test). We release PAP_NER publicly (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18044019 ) under Creative Commons BY 4.0 license to support reproducibility and enable further research in Vietnamese administrative NLP. This work establishes a foundational dataset and methodology for addressing the Vietnamese government NER gap, with implications for low-resource language NLP research.

Importance of overlapping network nodes in influence spreading

Cyclodextrin inclusion complexes enhance the solubility and anti-virulence activity of metronidazole against uropathogenic Proteus mirabilis

Proteus mirabilis is a major uropathogen implicated in catheter-associated urinary tract infections and infection-induced urolithiasis, often exhibiting multidrug resistance. Improving the solubility and bioactivity of existing drugs represents a promising pharmaceutical strategy to overcome these challenges. In this study, inclusion complexes of metronidazole with α-cyclodextrin (α-CD), β-cyclodextrin (β-CD), and hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HP-β-CD) were prepared using physical mixing and kneading methods. Complexes were characterized using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). In vitro release behaviour, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), and effects at sub-MIC levels on motility, urease-associated phenotype, and biofilm formation were evaluated. β-CD and HP-β-CD systems demonstrated improved release profiles compared to metronidazole alone. While MIC values remained within the mg/mL range, HP-β-CD complexes showed reduced MIC relative to aqueous metronidazole, achieving a four-fold reduction in MIC. At sub-MIC concentrations, β-CD and HP-β-CD formulations were associated with significant suppression of motility, reduced urease-associated phenotypes, and inhibition of biofilm formation. Molecular docking suggested spatial compatibility between metronidazole and cyclodextrins, though mechanistic conclusions remain predictive. These findings indicate that cyclodextrin-based complexation enhances physicochemical performance of metronidazole and may support adjunctive anti-virulence modulation in P. mirabilis. Further mechanistic and in-vivo studies are required to validate translational relevance.

Factors associated with psychological resilience, COVID-19-related anxiety, and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among academic professionals

Helminth-derived stefin-1 selectively reduces leukemic cell viability and promotes apoptosis in U937 cells

Leukemia remains a challenging hematological malignancy, particularly due to treatment resistance and the limited availability of therapies that selectively target cancer cells. Helminth-derived cysteine protease inhibitors (stefins) are mainly known for their roles in host–parasite interactions, but their effects on cancer cells have not been well explored. In this study, we investigated the biological activity of recombinant Fasciola gigantica Stefin-1 (rFgStefin-1) in the human U937 leukemic cell line. Treatment with rFgStefin-1 reduced cell viability in a dose- and time-dependent manner, with an IC₅₀ of approximately 11 µM at 48 h. In contrast, normal peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) showed minimal changes under the same conditions. Flow cytometry analysis demonstrated increased apoptotic cell populations together with mitochondrial membrane depolarization following rFgStefin-1 treatment. At the molecular level, rFgStefin-1 treatment was associated with an increased BAX/BCL-2 ratio, increased cleaved caspase-3 expression, reduced AKT-associated signaling, and enhanced PARP cleavage. These findings were supported by both qRT-PCR and Western blot analyses. Overall, these results suggest that rFgStefin-1 promotes apoptosis in leukemic cells while exerting limited effects on normal cells under the tested conditions. Further studies are required to clarify the underlying molecular mechanisms and to evaluate the effects of rFgStefin-1 in additional leukemia models and in vivo systems.

Astrocyte activation and gliosis contribute to brain-wide neuroinflammation following experimental subarachnoid hemorrhage

Outcomes of proximal humeral chondroblastoma treated with intralesional curettage, electrocauterization of the cavity and bone grafting: A retrospective study

Objectives This study aimed to evaluate the 7-year outcomes of proximal humeral chondroblastoma treated with intralesional curettage, electrocauterization of the cavity and bone grafting in pediatric patients. Methods A total of 17 patients diagnosed with proximal humeral chondroblastoma who underwent surgical treatment consisting of intralesional curettage, cavity electrocauterization, and bone grafting at our center between January 1, 2008, and January 1, 2018, were retrospectively enrolled. All patients received postoperative splint immobilization for four weeks and were followed up for a minimum of seven years. Tumor recurrence was evaluated based on clinical manifestations and radiographic X-ray examination. Clinical outcomes included functional performance assessed using the Musculoskeletal Tumor Society (MSTS) score and the Quick Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (Quick DASH) scale, as well as postoperative complications. Results In total, 17 patients with proximal humeral chondroblastoma were enrolled in our study, including 10 males and 7 females, with a mean age of 10.9 ± 1.8 years old (range from 8 to 14 years). Among these 17 cases, there were 6 cases with lesions extending through the epiphyseal plate, and 11 cases with lesions located inside the epiphysis. During follow-up, 1 patient suffered reoperation due to tumor recurrence. Shortening of the affected upper limb occurred in 9 patients (52.9%), which was significantly associated with a young age(P = 0.012). The mean shortening was 1.2 ± 0.9 cm compared with the contralateral limb. The overall mean postoperative MSTS was 27.5 ± 1.4 points, with no significant difference between observed the limb shortening group (27.3 ± 1.4) and the non-shortening group (27.8 ± 1.4,P = 0.550). The overall Quick DASH score averaged 4.8 ± 3.9 (0–15.9), and no statistically significant difference was detected between the shortening group (5.3 ± 4.5) and the non-shortening group (4.3 ± 2.8; P = 0.452). Conclusions Intralesional curettage, cavity electrocauterization and bone grafting is an optional treatment for children with proximal humeral chondroblastoma but still has a risk of recurrence. Shortening of the affected upper limb is a common complication, which is possibly associated with young age but has no impact on the final functional outcomes. Level of Evidence Level IV, retrospective case series.

A comprehensive benchmark of deep learning architectures for appearance-based gaze estimation

SPP1 promotes cisplatin resistance in cervical cancer by regulating KRAS expression

Background Chemotherapy resistance is a major treatment issue for cervical cancer (CC), contributing to high morbidity and mortality. This study identifies key molecular drivers of CC progression and cisplatin (DDP) resistance, focusing on secreted phosphoprotein 1 (SPP1). Methods Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified from TCGA-CC and GSE46857 datasets. Protein-protein interaction network analysis and topological ranking determined candidate genes. SPP1 expression was evaluated in CC cell lines using qPCR and Western blotting. Cisplatin-resistant CC cells were used to examine SPP1’s role in drug resistance. Functional assays assessed cell proliferation, apoptosis, migration, and invasion. Results Bioinformatics analysis identified SPP1 as a hub gene upregulated in CC. SPP1 expression was higher in CC and DDP-resistant cells. Silencing SPP1 inhibited cell growth and enhanced apoptosis, while overexpression had the opposite effects. Silencing SPP1 enhanced DDP sensitivity, while overexpression reduced DDP cytotoxicity. Mechanistically, SPP1 positively correlated with KRAS expression, and KRAS modulation partially reversed SPP1’s effects on DDP resistance. Conclusion SPP1 is upregulated in CC and DDP-resistant cells, promoting tumor progression and chemoresistance via KRAS. Targeting the SPP1-KRAS axis may help overcome chemotherapy resistance in CC.

Texture analysis on muscle T2 maps can reveal changes in upper trapezius muscles related to primary headache disorders

Abstract Migraine and tension-type headache (TTH) are highly prevalent primary headache disorders. Neck pain is common among patients with migraine or TTH, but objective biomarkers for the neck’s myofascial involvement within the trigemino-cervical complex (TCC) are lacking. This study aimed (1) to apply texture analysis (TA) to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) covering the upper trapezius muscles with T2 maps, which are particularly sensitive to subtle edematous changes such as those following inflammation; and (2) to associate demographics, characteristics of sleep and sports, headache, and neck pain with muscle T2 values and derived texture features. Seventy-one participants (mean age 24.0 ± 3.0 years, 59 females; 22 healthy controls [HC], 21 migraine, 16 TTH, 12 migraine with TTH) underwent MRI of the upper trapezius muscles, followed by bilateral muscle segmentations and extraction of muscle T2 and first- and second-order texture features. Comparisons between HC and participants with primary headache disorders were performed following removal of outliers with the robust regression followed by outlier identification (ROUT) method (Mann-Whitney U tests, adjustment for multiple comparisons). Principal component analysis (PCA), linear, and logistic regression analyses (using bootstrapping with 5,000 permutations) were conducted based on image-derived parameters and headache and neck pain characteristics. Significant group differences were found between HC and participants with primary headache disorders for muscle T2 (30.14 ± 1.05 vs. 31.10 ± 0.92 ms, p  < 0.001), sumaverage (0.007163 ± 0.0011 vs. 0.006366 ± 0.0012, p  = 0.017), kurtosisglobal (1.15 ± 0.32 vs. 1.63 ± 0.81, p  = 0.024), and energy (0.003514 ± 0.0006 vs. 0.004176 ± 0.0012, p  = 0.043). According to PCA, a cluster including age, days with headache over the last three months, neck pain, muscle T2, kurtosisglobal, and skewnessglobal was identified, with a cluster close to the opposite direction including average hours of sports per week, average hours of sleep per week, sex, and varianceglobal. Muscle T2 ( p  = 0.015) and sumaverage ( p  = 0.022) were significantly associated with days with headache over the last three months. Furthermore, sumaverage was significantly associated with the presence of neck pain ( p  = 0.024). T2 mapping with TA may provide objective and quantitative parameters for myofascial involvement and peripheral sensitization within the TCC, partially associated with clinical parameters such as the number of days with headache.

Socioeconomic disparities in children’s neurodevelopment before and during primary education: Evidence from Bagamoyo, Tanzania

Background Socioeconomic disparities in children’s neurodevelopment constitute a critical yet understudied developmental challenge in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), yet longitudinal evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remains limited. This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between household wealth and neurocognitive trajectories in a cohort of Tanzanian children aged 6 months to 10 years. Methods We randomly selected 590 children aged 6 months to 10 years in Bagamoyo district, a low to moderate-malaria-endemic area in Tanzania. Participants completed comprehensive, age-appropriate neurodevelopmental assessments. The family’s socioeconomic status was derived from their household assets. Standardized, age-adjusted neurodevelopmental scores were regressed on socioeconomic status tertiles and by developmental periods: early childhood (6 months-3 years), preschool (4–5 years), and school age (6–10 years). Results While children from high- and low-Socioeconomic status (SES) families start with similar neurodevelopmental scores, a significant and sustained gap begins to emerge around age 2 years. This divergence results in a substantial disadvantage for children from the poorest households, with scores showing a difference of −0.36 Standard Deviation (SD) (95% CI: −0.64 to −0.08) during the preschool years and −0.41 SD (95% CI: −0.73 to −0.09) at school age. Conclusion Our results suggest that programs targeting the preschool period may be most effective in mitigating disparities in neurodevelopment.

Targeting NLRP3 with GDC-2394 ameliorates airway inflammation and smooth muscle hyperplasia in experimental asthma by suppressing the IL-6/JAK2/STAT3 axis

Police emergency dispatch model based on emergency level analysis and traffic planning

Emergency dispatching and rescue during emergencies have become a hot research topic in the field of transportation planning. Therefore, to address the low efficiency of cross-regional police emergency dispatch, the study carries out relevant exploration on the basis of emergency event level analysis and transportation planning. The emergency rescue demand evaluation system is constructed using the superior and inferior solution distance method to carry out the emergency hierarchy analysis. The police emergency dispatch model is constructed and solved using the improved particle swarm algorithm. The validation revealed that the improved solution algorithm improved the iteration efficiency by 54.33% on average and reduced the iteration time overhead by 56.10% on average over the particle swarm algorithm and the beetle antennae search algorithm. In the scheduling of emergency 1, the material demand satisfaction rate of all demand points was above 80%, among which the vegetable material demand satisfaction rate was 100%. In the scheduling of emergency 2, the demand for supplies at all demand points was above 91.3%, with the demand satisfaction rate for tent supplies as high as 100%. The above results indicate that the police emergency dispatch method can leverage the full advantages of transportation networks. By integrating intelligent optimization algorithms with artificial intelligence technology, the method achieves material dispatch for cross-regional emergency rescue incidents. This method is both feasible and practical.

Immature anophelines and their habitat characteristics in an urban setting of central Ethiopia