30793 research outputs found
Sort by
Emerging Trends in Optical Fiber Biosensing for Non-Invasive Biomedical Analysis
Get PDFData Availability Statement:
No new data were created or analyzed in this study.Optical fiber biosensors have evolved into powerful tools for non-invasive biomedical analysis. While foundational principles are well-established, recent years have marked a paradigm shift, driven by advancements in nanomaterials, fabrication techniques, and data processing. This review provides a focused overview of these emerging trends, critically analyzing the innovations that distinguish the current generation of optical fiber biosensors from their predecessors. We begin with a concise summary of fundamental sensing principles, including Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) and Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs), before delving into the latest breakthroughs. Key areas of focus include integrating novel 2D materials and nanostructures to dramatically enhance sensitivity and advancing synergy with Lab-on-a-Chip (LOC) platforms. A significant portion of this review is dedicated to the rapid expansion of clinical applications, particularly in early cancer detection, infectious disease diagnostics, and continuous glucose monitoring. We highlight the pivotal trend towards wearable and in vivo sensors and explore the transformative role of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in processing complex sensor data to improve diagnostic accuracy. Finally, we address the persistent challenges—biocompatibility, long-term stability, and scalable manufacturing—that must be overcome for widespread clinical adoption and commercialization, offering a forward-looking perspective on the future of this dynamic field.This research received no external funding
Edge priors guided deep unrolling network for single image super-resolution
No full textHighlights:
• We propose an interpretable EPGDUN for single image super-resolution.
• We design a non-local block to gather a broader range of prior information.
• We develop a cross-fusion module to selectively fuse edge and image features.
• Our model demonstrates outstanding qualitative and quantitative performance.Data availability:
Data will be made available on request.The field of single image super-resolution (SISR) has garnered significant consideration over the past few decades. The primary challenge of SISR lies in restoring the high-frequency details in low-resolution (LR) images, which are crucial for human perception. Current deep learning-based SISR methods either increase the depth of the network or indiscriminately incorporate emerging technologies, such as attention mechanisms, to address this challenge. However, these methods treat the deep networks as a black-box, achieving performance at the cost of efficiency and network redundancy, without carefully considering how internal components interact to enhance the reconstruction quality. To address this limitation, we incorporate edge priors into a classical image restoration model to design network framework and propose an edge priors guided deep unrolling network (EPGDUN), which consists of three components: Edge Feature Extraction Module (EFEM), Intermediate Variable Updating Module (IVUM), and Variable-Guided Reconstruction Module (VGRM). Specifically, we unroll the image restoration model with edge priors via a half-quadratic splitting and proximal gradient descent method to gain three subproblems, whose solving process corresponds to the iterative stages of the three submodules of EPGDUN. The combination of edge priors constrains the network output, strengthening the image boundaries, enhancing interpretability, and improving the network’s understanding of image structure. Extensive experiments illustrate that EPGDUN achieves performance on par with or exceeding that of the state-of-the-arts, uninterpretable black-box neural models and interpretable deep unrolling networks. These findings underscore EPGDUN’s potential to advance low-level vision applications and other domains requiring mathematical interpretability. The source code for EPGDUN will be available at https://github.com/songhp/EPGDUN.This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 62472201, 62376108 and 62172193
Understanding the Social and Cultural Significance of Science-Fiction and Fantasy Posters
Get PDFData Availability Statement:
The data presented in this study are available upon reasonable re-quest from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy and ethical reasons.Supplementary Materials: The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/socsci14070443/s1, Supplementary Material S1 (structure of online survey); Supplementary Material S2 (structure of semi-structured interviews).This research was designed to explore science-fiction and fantasy (SFF) posters, specifically those related to films and television shows, from the perspective of their owners, examining their potential as sources of social and cultural significance and meaning. The research explored these in terms of the content of the poster, placement, media texts they reference, morals, behavior, identity, sense of self, well-being and self-expression. Data collection took place between 2020 and 2022 via an online survey (N = 273) and follow-up semi-structured interviews (N = 28) with adult science-fiction and fantasy film and television show poster owners. The significance and meaning of SFF posters were framed by two conceptual models: ‘The Three Significances’—esthetics, functionality, and significance (both spatial and personal)—and ‘The Big Three’—content, design, and color. Among these, content held the greatest significance for owners. Posters served as tools for self-expression, reflecting their owners’ identities, affinities, and convictions, while also reinforcing their connection to the media they reference. Posters helped to reinforce a sense of self and fan identity and evoke emotional responses, and the space in which they were displayed helped shape their meaning and significance. The paper sets out some suggestions for future research in this important topic.This research received no external funding
Outcomes in Early Adulthood for Individuals Born Very Preterm and/or with Very Low Birth Weight: Evidence from Multinational Cohorts
Get PDFData Statement:
Data sharing statement available at www.jpeds.com.Supplementary data are available online at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2950541025000584?via%3Dihub#appsec1 .Background:
Advances in neonatal care have improved survival rates for infants born very preterm (VP) and/or with very low birth weight (VLBW), yet their long-term outcomes into adulthood remain understudied.
Objectives:
To assess the impact of VP/VLBW status on mortality, educational attainment, and labor market outcomes in early adulthood using data from the RECAP Preterm Project.
Methods:
We used harmonized data from 5 nationally representative cohort studies in high-income countries (Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Norway) participating in the RECAP Preterm Project. Our sample included 2493 individuals born VP/VLBW and 496 control patients born at term. We used coarsened exact matching to compare adult outcomes between infants who were VP/VLBW and those born at term and an instrumental variable approach—using maternal nulliparity—to estimate the marginal effect of gestational age within the VP/VLBW group.
Results:
Mortality before adulthood was 16.7 percentage points greater among individuals who were VP/VLBW compared with control infants born at term (95% CI 13.2-20.2). Among survivors, the likelihood of attaining less than secondary education was 4.3 percentage points greater (95% CI −0.8 to 9.4). Differences in economic activity and working hours were small and uncertain. Within the VP/VLBW group, each additional week of gestational age was associated with a 6.8 percentage point reduction in mortality (95% CI −12.7 to −1.0), with weaker associations for educational and labor market outcomes.
Conclusions:
VP/VLBW birth is associated with elevated mortality and educational disadvantage in early adulthood. These findings highlight the importance of long-term support for this population beyond neonatal survival, particularly in education and development policy.This project is funded by Leverhulme Trust project grant (RPG-2022-319)
Collaborative Innovation in Early-stage Startups: Insights from Nova Scotia's Innovation Ecosystem
Get PDFEarly-stage startups face significant innovation challenges from resource constraints, limited network access, and restricted external knowledge. While critical, how startups integrate external expertise, funding, and technology in product development is largely underexplored in current literature. This study, therefore, aims to investigate collaborative innovation in Nova Scotian early-stage software startups, focusing on design decision factors and product development challenges. Grounded in Dynamic Capability and Absorptive Capacity theories, this study analyzed 26 semi-structured interviews with startup founders and developers. The findings show that iterative feedback, user-centered design, and ecosystem engagement are key to overcoming funding instability, staff turnover, and technical hurdles. Thematic analysis shows that external collaboration improves access to resources, reduces time-tomarket, and improves innovation performance. The study's results extend dynamic capability and absorptive capacity theories to early-stage startups and offer practical guidance to improve innovation performance in dynamic environments.This paper is based on work funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada under Grant No. RGPIN-2022-05008
Search for flavor-changing neutral current interactions of the top quark mediated by a Higgs boson in proton-proton collisions at √ = 13 TeV
Get PDFA version of the article is available at arXiv:2407.15172v2 [hep-ex] (https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.15172). Comments: Replaced with the published version. Added the journal reference and the DOI. All the figures and tables can be found at https://cms-results.web.cern.ch/cms-results/public-results/publications/TOP-22-002 (CMS Public Pages). Report number: CMS-TOP-22-002, CERN-EP-2024-174. Journal reference: Phys. Rev. D 112 (2025) 032008. Submission history: From: The CMS Collaboration: [v1] Sun, 21 Jul 2024 14:06:28 UTC (1,743 KB); [v2] Thu, 21 Aug 2025 17:23:51 UTC (1,731 KB).Data Availability:
Release and preservation of data used by the CMS Collaboration as the basis for publications is guided by the CMS data preservation, reuse, and open access policy [90]. CMS data availability statement, 10.7483/OPENDATA.CMS.1BNU.8V1W.A search for flavor-changing neutral current interactions of the top quark () and the Higgs boson () is presented. The search is based on proton-proton collision data collected in 2016–2018 at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC, and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb⁻¹. Events containing a pair of leptons with the same-sign electric charge and at least one jet are considered. The results are used to constrain the branching fraction (ℬ) of the top quark decaying to a Higgs boson and an up () or charm () quark. No significant excess above the estimated background was found. The observed (expected) upper limits at a 95% confidence level are found to be 0.072% (0.059%) for ℬ(→) and 0.043% (0.062%) for ℬ( →). These results are combined with two other searches performed by the CMS Collaboration for flavor-changing neutral current interactions of top quarks and Higgs bosons in final states where the Higgs boson decays to either a pair of photons or a pair of bottom quarks. The resulting observed (expected) upper limits at the 95% confidence level are 0.019% (0.027%) for ℬ( →) and 0.037% (0.035%) for ℬ( →).SCOAP³
A Double-Covertness Design for Integrated Sensing and Communication Systems
Get PDFIn this work, a novel double-covertness framework is developed for integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) systems, where both the radar and communication signals are protected from being maliciously detected by adversaries. Specifically, a new measurement named joint intercept probability (JIP) is proposed for characterizing the double-covertness performance. Next, an optimal power allocation strategy is designed to minimize the JIP, subject to certain quality-of-service (QoS) requirements for communication and sensing. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of our proposed solution and demonstrate the intrinsic relationship among power allocation, JIP and different QoS requirements.10.13039/501100001809-National Natural Science Foundation of China;
10.13039/501100018542-Natural Science Foundation of Sichuan Province;
10.13039/501100002858-China Postdoctoral Science Foundation;
10.13039/100000001-National Science Foundation
Search for dark matter produced in association with a Higgs boson decaying to a τ lepton pair in proton-proton collisions at √ = 13 TeV
Get PDFData Availability Statement: Release and preservation of data used by the CMS Collaboration as the basis for publications is guided by the CMS data preservation, re-use, and open access policy.Code Availability Statement: The CMS core software is publicly available on GitHub.A version of the article is available at arXiv:2506.04431v2 [hep-ex], https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.04431 . Comments: Replaced with the published version. Added the journal reference and the DOI. All the figures and tables can be found at https://cms-results.web.cern.ch/cms-results/public-results/publications/SUS-23-012 (CMS Public Pages). Report number: CMS-SUS-23-012, CERN-EP-2025-100. Journal reference: JHEP 10 (2025) 170. Submission history: From: The CMS Collaboration: [v1] Wed, 4 Jun 2025 20:32:39 UTC (1,585 KB); [v2] Mon, 3 Nov 2025 13:46:51 UTC (1,635 KB)A search for dark matter particles produced in association with a Higgs boson decaying into a pair of \tau leptons is performed using data collected in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV with the CMS detector. The analysis is based on a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 101 fb^{-1} collected in 2017-2018. No significant excess over the expected standard model background is observed. This result is interpreted within the frameworks of the 2HDM+a and baryonic Z' benchmark simplified models. The 2HDM+a model is a type-II two-Higgs-doublet model featuring a heavy pseudoscalar with an additional light pseudoscalar. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set on the product of the production cross section and the branching fraction for each of these two simplified models. Heavy pseudoscalar boson masses between 400 and 700 GeV are excluded for a light pseudoscalar mass of 100 GeV. For the baryonic Z' model, a statistical combination is made with an earlier search based on a data set of 36 fb^{-1} collected in 2016. In this model, Z' boson masses up to 1050 GeV are excluded for a dark matter particle mass of 1 GeV.SCOAP3
Determination of the spin and parity of all-charm tetraquarks
Get PDFData availability:
Release and preservation of data used by the CMS Collaboration as the basis for publications is guided by the CMS data preservation, re-use and open access policy (https://opendata.cern.ch/record/415).Code availability:
The CMS core software is publicly available at GitHub (https://github.com/cms-sw/cmssw).Extended data figures and tables are available online at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09711-7#Sec15 .A version of the article is available at arXiv:2506.07944v2 [hep-ex], https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.07944 . Comments: Replaced with the published version. Added the journal reference and the DOI. All the figures and tables can be found at this https://cms-results.web.cern.ch/cms-results/public-results/publications/BPH-24-002 (CMS Public Pages). Report number: CMS-BPH-24-002, CERN-EP-2025-118. Journal reference: Nature 648 (2025) 58. Submission history: From: The CMS Collaboration:
[v1] Mon, 9 Jun 2025 17:06:06 UTC (620 KB); [v2] Thu, 11 Dec 2025 15:34:24 UTC (786 KB).The traditional quark model [references (refs 1,2) accounts for the existence of baryons, such as protons and neutrons, which consist of three quarks, as well as mesons, composed of a quark–antiquark pair. Only recently has substantial evidence started to accumulate for exotic states composed of four or five quarks and antiquarks [reference 3]. The exact nature of their internal structure remains uncertain (refs 4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29). Here we report the first measurement of quantum numbers of the recently discovered family of three all-charm tetraquarks (refs 30,31,32), using data collected by the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider from 2016 to 2018 (refs. 33,34). The angular analysis techniques developed for the discovery and characterization of the Higgs boson (refs 35,36,37) have been applied to the new exotic states. Here we show that the quantum numbers for parity P and charge conjugation C symmetries are found to be +1. The spin J of these exotic states is determined to be consistent with 2ħ, while 0ħ and 1ħ are excluded at 95% and 99% confidence levels, respectively. The JPC = 2++ assignment implies particular configurations of constituent spins and orbital angular momenta, which constrain the possible internal structure of these tetraquarks.SCOAP3
Airport infrastructure risk to liquefaction by deploying multi-modal data and remote sensing
Get PDFData availability:
Data will be made available on request.Airports are critical components of transport infrastructure, contributing to regional socioeconomic vitality and serving as key hubs for emergency response during natural disasters. However, their operations are highly vulnerable to geohazards such as earthquake-induced soil liquefaction and associated ground failures. Despite this vulnerability, there is currently a lack of rapid, regionally scalable tools for assessing liquefaction-related risks specific to airport infrastructure. This paper for the first time in the literature addresses this gap by introducing a practical, geomorphology-informed methodology for the preliminary identification of liquefaction-prone areas and the rapid assessment of risk to airport infrastructure. The proposed approach leverages multimodal data, including surface geological mapping, tailored remote sensing inputs, and established seismic risk models, to develop liquefaction susceptibility maps and estimate potential damage. The methodology is applied to a real-world airport case study under a representative seismic scenario, revealing that large sections of the runway and taxiways are situated on highly susceptible soils. The HAZUS methodology is employed to assess potential losses and is validated using data from three international airports that have experienced documented liquefaction-related damage. This study provides a novel, scalable, and cost-effective framework that can be applied globally to support airport operators, risk engineers, and insurers in rapidly identifying vulnerable zones, prioritizing inspections, and developing targeted mitigation strategies. It contributes to advancing geotechnical risk assessment by bridging regional-scale mapping with infrastructure-specific vulnerability analysis. The methodology has the potential to be extended and applied to other critical infrastructure—such as ports, highways, railways, and industrial facilities—located in areas susceptible to liquefaction.The first three authors acknowledge support of this work by the project “Risk and Resilience Assessment Center–Prefecture of East Macedonia and Thrace-Greece.” (MIS 5047293) which is implemented under the Action “Reinforcement of the Research and Innovation Infrastructure”, funded by the Operational Programme “Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation” (NSRF 2014-2020) and co-financed by Greece and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund). The last two authors received funding by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK' Government's Horizon Europe funding guarantee (EP/Y003586/1, EP/X037665/1). This is the funding guarantee for the European Union HORIZON-MSCA-2021-SE-01 Recharged-Climate-aware Resilience for Sustainable Critical and Interdependent Infrastructure Systems enhanced by Emerging Digital Technologies
Data sources:
Access Repository Dashboard
Do you manage Open Research Online? Become a CORE Member to access insider analytics, issue reports and manage access to outputs from your repository in the CORE Repository Dashboard! 👇