PLoS ONE

Vol. 21, Issue 2 Issue 2 2026
1524
Articles

Articles in this Issue

Hand grip strength and cognitive dysfunction amongst older Africans in Nigeria

Rufus O. Akinyemi, Oladotun Victor Olalusi, Gabriel Ogunde et al. Feb 27, 2026 pp. e0342598 10.1371/journal.pone.0342598

Background The relationship between physical and cognitive health among Africans, known for a rising incidence of frailty, cardiometabolic, and cognitive disorders, is unclear. We...

Evaluation of the mechanism underlying melatonin action in cholestatic liver disease treatment via network pharmacology, molecular docking, and in vivo experiments

Tao Li, Jiang ZhenYu, Wang Jing Feb 27, 2026 pp. e0342978 10.1371/journal.pone.0342978

The aim of this study was to investigate the mechanism underlying the action of melatonin (MT) in treating cholestatic liver disease. Melatonin and therapeutic targets for cholestatic liver disease we...

The problem is escalating: Barriers faced by medical students in conducting research; A scoping literature review

L. Winter Mokhwelepa, G. Olivia Sumbane, Shisana Baloyi et al. Feb 27, 2026 pp. e0343232 10.1371/journal.pone.0343232

Background Research is a cornerstone of medical education, equipping future healthcare professionals with critical thinking skills and the ability to apply evidence-based practices...

Prevalence and factors associated with comorbidities in Iranian patients with type 2 diabetes: A national study

Koushan Hajiuni, Sarmad Salehi, Zahra Rajabli et al. Feb 27, 2026 pp. e0343690 10.1371/journal.pone.0343690

Introduction Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) is often accompanied by comorbidities such as hypertension (HTN), cardiovascular disease (CVD), and chronic kidney disease (CKD), which increase...

Critical node identification and resilience analysis against cascading failures

Anqi Liu, Wenfu Zhao Feb 27, 2026 pp. e0344005 10.1371/journal.pone.0344005

Ensuring the robustness and resilience of critical infrastructure networks such as transportation and energy systems is a core security challenge for modern societies. Vulnerabilities in these network...

Validating the effectiveness of an AI algorithm for pulmonary tuberculosis screening using chest X-ray: Retrospective study and test accuracy with localizer images of the chest CT

Yixiao Wei, Xiaojing Cui, Lingtao Chong et al. Feb 27, 2026 pp. e0338810 10.1371/journal.pone.0338810

Introduction China accounted for 6.8% of global TB cases, and most patients are first diagnosed in general hospitals where chest X-rays (CXR) are widely used for early TB detection...

Determinants of dairy products purchase decisions among polish doctors: A gender-based analysis

Anna Nowak, Aneta Jarosz-Angowska, Artur Krukowski et al. Feb 27, 2026 pp. e0339849 10.1371/journal.pone.0339849

The study aimed to address a research gap by identifying the factors that influence the purchasing decisions of individual Polish doctors in the dairy products market, with gender as a demographic var...

Smoking among adolescents in Jordan: Prevalence, associated factors, and its relation to mental health outcomes

Sara Abu Khudair, Yousef Khader, Mohannad Al Nsour et al. Feb 26, 2026 pp. e0342653 10.1371/journal.pone.0342653

Purpose This study aimed to explore the prevalence of various forms of smoking among adolescents in Jordan, identify associated factors, and examine their relationships with mental...

Hepatitis B immunity and vaccine completion among adults at increased risk for hepatitis B infection in Zambia

Enock Syabbalo, Sydney Mpisa, Michael J. Vinikoor et al. Feb 26, 2026 pp. e0339690 10.1371/journal.pone.0339690

Background Because of its low cost and lasting effects, hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccination of adults in Africa could significantly contribute to viral elimination. Among at-risk a...

Effect of formic acid treatment on Apis mellifera foraging behavior using nanopore metabarcoding technologies

Claudia L. Wiese, Rodolfo S. Probst, Heather M. Briggs et al. Feb 26, 2026 pp. e0343810 10.1371/journal.pone.0343810

The Western honeybee ( Apis mellifera ) is a crucial contributor to worldwide agriculture and ecological health but is experiencing wide population declines lin...

A comparative analysis of vibrational spectra for odorant classification

Andrés Álvarez-García, Georgina Rodríguez-Contreras, Penélope Rodríguez-Zamora et al. Feb 26, 2026 pp. e0342845 10.1371/journal.pone.0342845

The olfactory characteristics of flowers have diverse biological and industrial applications. The physicochemical properties of odorants can reveal information about the molecules responsible for a fl...

Bangla MedER: Multi-BERT ensemble approach for the recognition of Bangla medical entity

Tanjim Taharat Aurpa, Farzana Akter, Md. Mehedi Hasan et al. Feb 26, 2026 pp. e0342558 10.1371/journal.pone.0342558

Medical Entity Recognition (MedER) is an essential NLP task for extracting meaningful entities from the medical corpus. Nowadays, MedER-based research outcomes can remarkably contribute to the develop...

An improved crayfish optimization algorithm for solving engineering optimization problems

Shuai Zhang, Jinhuang You, Heming Jia et al. Feb 26, 2026 pp. e0340464 10.1371/journal.pone.0340464

By emulating crayfish behaviors such as social foraging, rapid retreat from threats, and adaptive sensing, the Crayfish Optimization Algorithm (COA) achieves a dynamic balance between global search an...

Effect of taxonomy and feeding guilds on waterbirds of the Southern Caspian Sea, Iran

Mohammad Hosein Sinkakarimi, Mehdi Hassanpour Feb 26, 2026 pp. e0334915 10.1371/journal.pone.0334915

This study measured the concentrations of arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), and zinc (Zn) in the secondary flight feathers of waterbirds win...

Exploring the drivers of price variation in orthopaedic radical bone tumor resection: A nationwide database study

Devika A. Shenoy, William C. Cruz, Shamik Bhat et al. Feb 26, 2026 pp. e0343676 10.1371/journal.pone.0343676

Background Radical resection of bone tumors is a clinically effective but costly procedure. Despite the implementation of federal price transparency mandates, little is known about...

Temporal dynamics and functional annotation of transcriptome rhythmicity in HEK293T cells

Yuling Sun, Huiyu Dong, Fei Ge et al. Feb 26, 2026 pp. e0343991 10.1371/journal.pone.0343991

The endogenous circadian clock drives rhythmic processes in nearly all human cells; however, the temporal organization of the transcriptome in HEK293T cells, a widely used cell line, remains incomplet...

Study protocol for a randomized clinical pilot trial investigating feasibility and efficacy of augmenting a virtual reality-assisted intervention targeting auditory verbal hallucinations with biofeedback: The Neuro-VR study

Amalie Fabricius Habla, Sara Breivik Soleim, Anne Sofie Due et al. Feb 26, 2026 pp. e0333716 10.1371/journal.pone.0333716

Introduction Auditory Verbal Hallucinations (AVH) are among the most frequent and severe symptoms in schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders. Virtual Reality (VR)-assisted in...

Urban–rural transportation accessibility: A novel geographical indicator for characterizing urban–rural integration

Luming Liu, Zhenghong Liang, Lexuan Liu et al. Feb 26, 2026 pp. e0343242 10.1371/journal.pone.0343242

The literature on urban–rural integration lacks not only a geographic indicator that incorporates geographical characteristics (e.g., location, topography, and road infrastructure) to characterize urb...

The association between epicardial adipose tissue thickness and diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia, hepatosteatosis, pancreatic steatosis and pancreatitis

Ece Zengin, Aybuke Ucgun, Mehmet Emir Çevik et al. Feb 26, 2026 pp. e0343831 10.1371/journal.pone.0343831

Background Epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) is associated with cardiometabolic disorders such as diabetes mellitus (DM), hyperlipidemia, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Howeve...

Second-dose measles vaccination coverage and associated factors among children aged 19 to 35 months in Debre Birhan city, Ethiopia, 2024: A community-based cross-sectional study

Tebabere Moltot, Zenebe Abebe Gebreegziabher, Agmasie Damtew Walle et al. Feb 26, 2026 pp. e0342501 10.1371/journal.pone.0342501

Background Achieving high coverage of both measles vaccine doses is essential for herd immunity. Despite high first-dose coverage, measles outbreaks persist in Debre Birhan City, E...

Predictive modeling of sugar beet bolting via vernalization-intensity model and resilience assessment in diverse autumn cultivation environments

Saeed Sadeghzadeh Hemayati, Ali Saremirad, Ahmad Nooshkam et al. Feb 26, 2026 pp. e0339856 10.1371/journal.pone.0339856

Climate change and increasing pressure on water resources have renewed interest in autumn cultivation of sugar beet, a practice that benefits from seasonal precipitation and reduces dependence on irri...

Two decades of skeletal density decline in Pocillopora spp. corals in the Mexican Pacific Ocean: Insight into a tropical eastern Pacific acidification scenario?

Andrés López-Pérez, Omar Jiménez-Gutiérrez, Héctor Reyes-Bonilla et al. Feb 26, 2026 pp. e0342741 10.1371/journal.pone.0342741

Corals demonstrate vulnerability to environmental changes, exhibiting the capacity to substantially modify coral calcification. In this study, we estimated declines in the density of...

Genotypic variability and trait associations for cold stress tolerance in cultivated chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) during the reproductive stage

Deeksha Padhiar, Sarbjeet Kaur, Swarup K. Parida et al. Feb 26, 2026 pp. e0343120 10.1371/journal.pone.0343120

Chickpea ( Cicer arietinum L.), a major winter legume in northern South Asia and Australia, frequently encounters low temperatures (0–15 °C) during reproduction...

Assessing the biopotency of the rAAV9 vector In Vitro

Pratikshya Adhikari, Peter G. Nichols, Stephen M. Vorobiov et al. Feb 26, 2026 pp. e0341451 10.1371/journal.pone.0341451

The potency assay is critical to ensure the effectiveness and consistency of recombinant Adeno-associated Virus (AAV) gene therapy vectors, especially clinical-grade products. AAV serotype 9 (AAV9), k...

Multilevel determinants of illness since birth among infants aged 5–9 weeks in Ethiopia: Evidence from the 6-week follow-up of the PMA-ethiopia longitudinal survey (2021–2023)

Amare Mebrat Delie, Mickiale Hailu, Molla Getie Mehari et al. Feb 26, 2026 pp. e0342776 10.1371/journal.pone.0342776

Background Infant illness in the early weeks of life remains a major public health concern in Ethiopia, contributing to neonatal and infant morbidity and mortality. Identifying ind...

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Journal Info

Publisher Public Library of Science
ISSN 1932-6203
Subject Health Sciences
Language English
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