Research works

Split application of nano urea and conventional urea for optimizing nitrogen management in chrysanthemum under polyhouse conditions

<title>Abstract</title> Synthetic fertilizers have played a pivotal role in enhancing crop productivity and quality; however, excessive dependence on conventional fertilizers, particularly urea, has led to low nutrient-use efficiency, environmental contamination, soil fertility d...

Collective resonance light scattering from thermally relaxing systems in cavities

We study steady-state resonance light scattering from ensembles of noninteracting molecules, both in free space and inside optical cavities, while accounting for local thermal relaxation. The scattering spectra are obtained from steady-state solutions of either the Schrödinger eq...

Acquisition-parameter effects on image utility in near-infrared dorsal hand imaging: linking image signatures to repeatability and separability

Near-infrared dorsal hand imaging is often evaluated through downstream recognition, while acquisition settings are treated as fixed experimental details. This study examined whether controllable acquisition parameters alter objective image-derived signatures and protocol-level u...

Refining the measurement of human reflexivity: building on Archer's Internal Conversation Indicator (ICONI)

This article presents new quantitative measures of the modes of reflexivity identified by Margaret Archer (2003), addressing measurement limitations of Archer’s Internal Conversation Indicator (ICONI). Despite the widespread theoretical and empirical application of Archer's refle...

National Implementation of a Tuberculosis Sample Referral Network to Expand Access to Molecular Diagnosis in the Republic of Congo: Pilot Evaluation and Programmatic Analysis (2023–2025)

Background: Limited access to rapid molecular diagnostics remains a major barrier to timely tuberculosis (TB) detection and drug-resistance surveillance in resource-constrained settings. In the Republic of Congo, GeneXpert MTB/RIF platforms remain concentrated in a few laboratori...

Compositional Neural-Cyber-Physical System Verification in the Interactive Theorem Prover of Your Choice

Formal verification of neuro-symbolic cyber-physical systems, such as drones, medical devices and robots, is complicated. Neural components must be trained to be optimal with respect to the available data as well as the safety specifications, and then verified using specialised s...

Chatbots reduce health-related conspiracy beliefs not because of but despite being perceived as AI

<title>Abstract</title> Beliefs in conspiracy theories and their resistance to correction pose critical challenges to public health. A potential countermeasure to this is the use of Large Language Model (LLM) driven debates about conspiracy theories. Yet while this approach yield...

Integrated single-cell and functional analyses define fatty acid oxidation activation associates with poor prognosis in oral squamous cell carcinoma

<title>Abstract</title> Fatty acid oxidation (FAO) activation was reported to promote tumor progression, yet its role in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) remains incompletely understood. Here, we found that FAO was significantly activated in both OSCC tissue biopsies and OSCC...

Comparison of serum C3, C3a, C4 levels between cataract patients with and without pseudoexfoliation and normal individuals

<title>Abstract</title> <bold>Backgrounds:</bold> We aimed to compare serum complement C3, C3a, and C4 levels between cataract patients with and without pseudoexfoliation syndrome, and to compare these groups with the control group. <bold>Methods:</bold> There were three differen...

Functional Activity of TDP-43: A Direct Biomarker for ALS

TDP-43 dysfunction is a defining feature of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), yet no biofluid biomarker directly measures its functional activity. We developed a serum-based homogeneous time-resolved FRET (hTR-FRET) assay that quantifies TDP-43 RNA binding activity using synth...

Exploring educators' awareness of and preparedness to respond to image-based sexual abuse and exploitation of children: A qualitative study

Background Educators and school administrators can play an important role in intervening in cases of image-based sexual abuse and exploitation of children (IBSAEC). However, these groups report they lack the knowledge and confidence to respond to suspected cases. Objective The ob...

Characterization and molecular dynamics of interfacial adhesion in hydrogenated styrene/polyurethane prepolymer composite-modified asphalt

To address the limitations of conventional polymer modified asphalt, a hydrogenated styrene block polyurethane prepolymer (M-PPU) modified asphalt was developed by incorporating a hydrogenated styrene block into a polyurethane prepolymer (PPU). The preparation process was first o...

Depolarization ratio of smoke and volcanic ash aerosol particles at 1565 nm using a HALO Doppler lidar

Abstract. Particle linear depolarization ratio is a widely used parameter in lidar research to distinguish different aerosol types and the thermodynamic phase of water. It is most frequently measured at ultraviolet and visible wavelengths (355 and 532 nm), yet multi-wavelength ob...

More than just green: the role of vegetation heterogeneity for species richness and multidiversity in urban green spaces

<title>Abstract</title> Urban green spaces (UGS) provide ecological, social, and climatic functions, yet their effectiveness depends not only on area but also on vertical spatial structure. We present a high-resolution urban green space typology (UGST) for four Swiss cities (Base...

Robust design of multi-energy systems accounting for mixed-integer operational problems

Identifying robust designs for multi-energy systems is computationally challenging. As rigorous approaches are often computationally intractable, heuristics are employed to generate candidate designs. Specifically, we consider a heuristic that iteratively identifies and adds extr...

Thermalization regimes in a chaotic Tavis-Cummings model

This work investigates the emergent thermalization regimes in a chaotic Tavis–Cummings (TC) model and their implications in quantum spectroscopy. While the TC model is a cornerstone of cavity quantum electrodynamics, traditional treatments often overlook many-body effects that ar...

Physiological and Molecular Mechanisms of Nano-Hydroxyapatite (nHAP) in Regulating Chilling Tolerance of Cucumber Seedlings

Xishuangbanna (XIS) cucumber (Cucumis sativus L. var. Xishuangbannesis Qi et Yuan) originated from low-altitude southwest China, and shows extremely cold sensitivity. nano-hydroxyapatite (nHAP) is the nanoparticulate form of hydroxyapatite (HAP) and exhibits different physicochem...

Disentangling damage from operational variability: A label-free self-supervised representation learning framework for output-only structural damage identification

Damage identification is a core task in structural health monitoring. In practice, however, its reliability is often compromised by confounding non-damage effects, such as variations in excitation and environmental conditions, which can induce changes comparable to or larger than...

Acquired Resistance to the PRMT5 Inhibitor Confers Collateral Sensitivity to MEK Inhibition in MTAP-Null Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Abstract Protein arginine methyltransferase 5 (PRMT5) is a synthetic lethal target in methylthioadenosine phosphorylase-deleted (MTAP-null) cancers. Second-generation MTA-cooperative PRMT5 inhibitors preferentially target MTAP-null cells while largely sparing MTAP-wildtype (MTAP-...

Plectin promotes an aggressive phenotype and represses cytotoxic T cell activity in pancreatic cancer

Abstract Background Pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is an abysmal disease, with a poor clinical outcome, largely due to limited life-extending treatments for patients. Notoriously, PDAC displays a T cell-suppressive tumor microenvironment where underlying molecular mechanisms th...