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Powder-Gas Jet Stream Characterisation Techniques in Laser Directed Energy Deposition: A Systematic Review
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No new data were created or analysed in this study.This work presents a systematic literature review of powder-gas jet stream (PGJS) characterisation techniques for coaxial nozzles in the laser directed energy deposition process (L-DEDp). The analysis includes thirty-four camera-based and four weight-based techniques. In weight-based techniques, the mapping of powder concentration is made by measuring the powder flow rate in certain areas within the PGJS. Despite being cost-effective, these methods are time-consuming, invasive, and less suitable for real-time monitoring. Camera-based techniques use laser light and a camera to capture particle intensities, allowing for the non-intrusive measurement of powder distribution. Despite its advantage, limitations are reported in the literature regarding the techniques. Detecting dense or fine powder flows accurately is challenging. Two-dimensional images cannot fully represent the jet’s three-dimensional structure, relying on image processing algorithms for the results. However, the non-existence of a common standard metric for evaluating and comparing results across various setups is a significant gap, as each characterisation often needs to be performed on a case-by-case basis. To address these challenges, a basic reporting structure is suggested to enable a standardised assessment of PGJS measurements, thereby supporting process control and quality assurance in L-DEDp applications.This research was funded by TWI: NSIRC, under the Core Research Programme
Breaking new ground in sustainability (SD): a novel integrated framework for eco/green-innovation (EI) and green supply chain management (GSCM) implementation in emerging economies – evidence from Jordan’s industrial transformation
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No data was used for the research described in the article.The Emerging economies face a Sustainability (SD) paradox is the need to adopt green logistics and supply chain practices while constrained by limited resources and inadequate institutional frameworks. This study tackles three core challenges: (1) the absence of context-specific theories explaining Eco/Green-Innovation (EI) integration within Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM), (2) lack of empirical insights into SD implementation in Middle Eastern industries, and (3) the missing link between organizational practices and progress toward UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).The research introduces four innovations: (1) a mixed-methods design combining PRISMA-based literature review with a case study for both breadth and depth, (2) the first validated measurement framework for EI–GSCM integration in the Middle East, (3) a theoretical model combining Resource-Based View, Institutional Theory, and Diffusion of Innovation Theory to explain implementation under constraints, and (4) an SDG-mapping method directly linking SD practices to specific SDG targets. Key insights include: green procurement as the most effective starting point (78 % adoption); Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) as a vital mediator (r = 0.399); the need for integrated, not sequential, implementation; Total Quality Environmental Management as a strong secondary approach (65 %); and practical pathways linking practices to SDG 12.This is integrated empirical and theoretical study on EI and GSCM tailored to emerging economies, offering practical frameworks and advancing sustainable supply chain transformation. Building on these findings, future research should explore emerging eco-technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and smart irrigation systems to enhance SD performance.This research received no external funding
Targeting de novo purine biosynthesis for tuberculosis treatment
Get PDFFor the purpose of open access, the authors have applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.Data availability:
All data supporting the findings of this study are available in this published article (and its Supplementary Information). Should any raw data files be needed in another format, they are available from the corresponding authors on reasonable request. The synthesis and chemical verification of all compounds described are provided in the Supplementary Methods. Source data are provided with this paper.Code availability:
No custom codes or mathematical algorithms were used in the article. Data from the dose–response curves were measured with Perkin Elmer EnVision and modelled using Genedata. Microscopy data were processed using LAS-X and FIJI software. Mass spectroscopy data were obtained using Thermo Q-Exactive and Waters TargetLynx, then further analysed using either the Skyline software (24.1.1.339) or the Agilent MassHunter software suite. The ACD/Spectrus software (2023 v1.1) and Bruker TOPSPIN programme (v4.1) were used to support medicinal chemistry efforts. Schrödinger software was used for the computational modelling (release 2024-2). Final analysis and figure preparation were performed using Microsoft Excel and GraphPad Prism 10.Extended data figures and tables are available online at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09177-7#Sec44 .Supplementary Information is available online at: .https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09177-7#Sec45Source data are available online at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09177-7#Sec46 .Tuberculosis remains the leading cause of death from an infectious disease1,2. Here we report the discovery of a first-in-class small-molecule inhibitor targeting PurF, the first enzyme in the mycobacterial de novo purine biosynthesis pathway. The lead candidate, JNJ-6640, exhibited nanomolar bactericidal activity in vitro. Comprehensive genetic and biochemical approaches confirmed that JNJ-6640 was highly selective for mycobacterial PurF. Single-cell-level microscopy demonstrated a downstream effect on DNA replication. We determined the physiologically relevant concentrations of nucleobases in human and mouse lung tissue, showing that these levels were insufficient to salvage PurF inhibition. Indeed, proof-of-concept studies using a long-acting injectable formulation demonstrated the in vivo efficacy of the compound. Finally, we show that inclusion of JNJ-6640 could have a crucial role in improving current treatment regimens for drug-resistant tuberculosis. Together, we demonstrate that JNJ-6640 is a promising chemical lead and that targeting de novo purine biosynthesis represents a novel strategy for tuberculosis drug development.N.D. acknowledges support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (185715) and funding from Janssen Pharmaceutica. The Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization receives operational funding from the Government of Saskatchewan through Innovation Saskatchewan and the Ministry of Agriculture and from the Canada Foundation for Innovation through the Major Science Initiatives Fund. The work at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine was supported by funding from Janssen Pharmaceutica (to A.K. and R.J.W.). Work at the Center for Discovery and Innovation was funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant INV-040485 (to J.P.S.). Work at Tufts University was funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant INV-027276 (to B.B.A.). This work was funded in part by NIH R61/R33AI138280 (to A.J.C.S.). We are grateful to the Global Research Resource for Human Tuberculosis supported by NIH R24AI186591 (to A.J.C.S.) for providing human TB tissue specimens. This research was funded in part by the Wellcome Trust (Africa Health Research Institute strategic core award 227167/A/23/Z)
A Novel Fault Diagnosis Method for Multistage Conversion Circuits Based on Data Fusion
Get PDFThis article addresses the research gap on fault diagnosis of multistage conversion circuits within analog circuit fault diagnosis. A diagnostic system is introduced, in which multipoint data fusion is combined with deep feature analysis, leading to the integrated dual-axis vision transformer system. Initially, signals from multiple monitoring points are fused through the integrated wavelet transform algorithm. Following this, deeper secondary data fusion is achieved by the dual-axis vision transformer algorithm, which utilizes a dual-axis observation encoder and an axial data decoder to interact between time-domain and frequency-domain features. This approach effectively analyzes signal characteristics, improving the accuracy of fault diagnosis. In experiments with the LLC series resonant converter, both soft and hard faults were reliably diagnosed by the system, showing excellent accuracy, recall, and F1 score metrics.This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 62103205,
Grant 62473215, and Grant 62473216 and in part by the Natural Science Foundation of the Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions of China under Grant 23KJA120002
Cascaded Frequency-Encoded Multi-Scale Neural Fields for Sparse-View CT Reconstruction
Get PDFSparse-view computed tomography aims to reduce radiation exposure but often suffers from degraded image quality due to insufficient projection data. Traditional methods struggle to balance data fidelity and detail preservation, particularly in high-frequency regions. In this paper, we propose a Cascaded Frequency-Encoded Multi-Scale Neural Field (Ca-FMNF) framework. We reformulate the reconstruction task as refining high-frequency residuals upon a high-quality low-frequency foundation. It integrates a pre-trained iterative unfolding network for initial low-frequency estimation with a FMNF to represent high-frequency residuals. The FMNF parameters are optimized by minimizing the discrepancy between the measured projections and those estimated through the imaging forward model, thereby refining the residuals based on the initial estimation. This dual-stage strategy enhances data consistency and preserves fine structures. The extensive experiments on simulated and clinical datasets demonstrate that our method achieves the optimal results in both quantitative metrics and visual quality, effectively reducing artifacts and preserving structural details.10.13039/501100001809-National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number: U21A20447, 62471077 and 62171073);
Project of the Central Government in Guidance of Local Science and Technology Development (Grant Number: 2024ZYD0270);
10.13039/501100005230-Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing Municipality (Grant Number: CSTB2023NSCQ-LZX0064 and CSTB2022NSCQ-LZX0069);
Chunhui Plan of the China Education Ministry (Grant Number: HZKY20220209);
Southwest Medical University Natural Science Foundation (Grant Number: 2023ZD004);
Sichuan Science and Technology Program (Grant Number: 2022YFS0616 and 2025ZNSFSC0649)
Positive Luxury: A Consumer-Centric Approach to Bridging Luxury and Sustainability
Get PDFThis study explores the concept of luxury through the lens of sustainability, questioning conventional interpretations and promoting a broader comprehension of luxury’s compatibility with sustainability. It also explores the potential positive effects of luxury consumption and production at various scales—individual (micro), industry (meso), and environment (macro). This research, adopting a positive theory approach and aligning with the transformative luxury research (TLR) stream, proposes a novel framework termed “positive luxury.” This framework, informed by consumer insights, introduces additional pillars of sustainable practices in the luxury sector that yield positive impacts. These pillars encompass ecological, social, and economic aspects, as well as ethical governance, supply chain integrity, philanthropy, well-being, and diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI). The findings underscore the significance of a consumer-centered perspective and reveal the nuanced positive impacts that consumers perceive from each of these pillars. Furthermore, the study advances existing works by classifying sustainable pillars into either “core” or “incipient” qualities, while responding to the TLR stream’s call for a focus on well-being outcomes. The findings have implications for policymakers and luxury businesses alike, offering potential directions for future research.The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article
Five‐year Trajectory of Mild Behavioral Impairment in People with Subjective Cognitive Complaints
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Mild Behavioral Impairment (MBI) describes a spectrum of late-life onset, sustained neuropsychiatric symptoms grouped in five domains: mood/anxiety, apathy, impulse dyscontrol, social inappropriateness and psychosis. MBI is a well-established correlated of incident dementia and is associated with PET amyloid and blood biomarker profiles consistent with early AD however little is known about the trajectory of MBI. This study set out to determine the course of MBI symptoms in a cohort of older adults with and without subjective cognitive complaints (SCC).
Method:
Data from 3,428 adults aged over 50 were analysed. All had five years of annual follow up assessments. SCC was determined by self-completed IQCODE scale at baseline(mean score 3.3: SCC). MBI was assessed using the MBI Checklist (MBI-C) (higher scores indicating more severe symptoms). Change in MBI-C score by SCC status was conducted using zero-inflated negative binomial models. A random intercept was included to allow for correlations between repeated measurements on the same individual. Trajectories of mood/anxiety and apathy were also analysed. The other three domains were not due to low counts of non-zero scores.
Result:
The mean age at baseline was 64 and 78% of the sample were women. Fifteen percent (n = 514) had SCC. The SCC group had higher MBI scores than NC. For the SCC group, there was a statistically significant exponential increase in MBI-C score over 5-years. At baseline, total MBI-C score was 3.5[3.1-4], rising to 4.6[4.1-5.2] in year 4 and 6[5.2-7] in year 5 (Figure 1). For NC, the increase over 5 years was more modest, rising from 1 at baseline to 2.2 by year 5.
Conclusion:
To our knowledge this is largest study of trajectories of MBI symptoms. We show that symptoms are not stable but show an exponential increase over time in those with SCC, while in those with normal cognition the overall trend was flat. These are population averaged estimates and there will be a degree of variability in the data which may warrant more individual-level prediction modelling in future. As well as being a marker of cognitive risk, SCC may also represent a risk state for worsening neuropsychiatric symptoms
Increases in skin perfusion and blood oxygen in the non-exercising human limbs during exercise in the heat: implications for control of circulation
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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the authors upon reasonable request.Blood flow in the inactive limb tissues and skin is widely thought to decline during incremental exercise to exhaustion due to augmented sympathoadrenal vasoconstrictor activity, but direct evidence to support this view is lacking. Here, we investigated the inactive-forearm haemodynamic (Q̇ forearm) and oxygenation responses to a range of two-leg exercise intensities and durations in the heat. Blood oxygen and flow were measured in the forearm tissue and skin of endurance-trained males during three incremental cycling exercise tests, with tests 1 and 2 separated by a 2 h bout of moderate constant load cycling exercise, all performed in the heat (35°C, 50% relative humidity, with fan cooling). In incremental exercise tests 1 and 3, Q̇ forearm was stable from rest to ∼40% Wpeak, before increasing by ∼118% at 80% Wpeak (P <0.001). Correspondingly, forearm skin arterio-venous oxygen difference (a-vO2 diff) decreased by ∼62% at 80% Wpeak (P = 0.043), remaining reduced through to Wpeak. Concomitantly, forearm skin blood flow more than doubled, while forearm deep tissue O2 saturation decreased. When incremental exercise started shortly after constant load exercise (test 2), Q̇ forearm was 2- to 3-fold higher than during tests 1 and 3, whereas skin a-vO2 diff was suppressed to a low level. Similar changes were observed during constant load exercise. In conclusion, skin perfusion increases during incremental exercise in the heat, concomitant to proportional reductions in oxygen extraction from the cutaneous circulation. Hence, contrary to the generally held view, skin perfusion remains elevated during maximal exercise and heat stress despite profound increases in sympathoadrenal activity.The Swedish Olympic Committee. Grant Number: SOC22-JGA 12587100
Human land use and non-native fish species erode ecosystem services by changing community size structure
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The raw data that support the findings of this study are publicly available via figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.27252201 (ref. 75). Source data are provided with this paper.Code availability:
The code that supports the findings of this study is publicly available via figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.27252201 (ref. 75).Supplementary information is available online at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-025-02696-6#Sec13 .Source data are available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-025-02696-6#Sec14 .Organism body size influences ecosystem services, and human pressures alter the size structure of ecological communities. However, our understanding of how different human-induced pressures (such as land use and biotic invasion) interact to drive community size structure and ecosystem services remains limited. Combining 21 years of fish size spectrum data and fishery potential (fishery monetary value in the Upper Paraná River Floodplain, Brazil), we demonstrate that the size spectrum exponent of native species has become more negative over time, indicating a relative decrease in the biomass of large versus small individuals. Conversely, the size spectrum exponent of non-native species has become less negative over time owing to the increased abundance of large species. Overall, fishery potential declined by more than 50% over time. Human land use replaced the coverage of natural environments, indirectly reducing native richness. This scenario decreased the exponent of the native size spectrum, indirectly reducing fishery potential. Our study illustrates how intensification of human land use alters the size structure of communities, favouring non-native individuals and suppressing ecosystem services.This study was funded by the Brazilian Long-Term Ecological Research Program (PELD-PIAP/CNPq). D.A.M. received a postdoctoral grant from FAPESP (Process Number 2022/13301-8). V.S. and D.M.P. were supported by Royal Society Newton Mobility Grant NMG\R1\201121. V.S. was supported by FAPESP (Process Number 2022/01452-1) during the writing of this study. G.Q.R. was supported by FAPESP (grants 2019/08474-8, 2022/10765-3 and 2023/01589-0) and by a CNPq-Brazil productivity grant and, together with P.K., was funded by the Royal Society, Newton Advanced Fellowship (grant NAF/R2/180791). P.K. was supported by an NERC Pushing the Frontiers grant (NE/Y001184/1). F.T.M. and M.B.G. are supported by SNI-ANII (Sistema Nacional de investigadores), and F.T.M. received financial support from Geosciencias and Biología (Programa de Desarrollo de las Ciencias Básicas). A.A.A., C.C.B., B.R.S.F. and R.P.M. are productivity researchers receiving grants from CNPq
Persistence in US real personal consumption expenditure: durable versus non-durable goods
Get PDFJEL: E2 - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment: General (includes Measurement and Data)
C2 - Single Equation Models; Single Variables: GeneralA working paper version of this article is available online at: https://www.brunel.ac.uk/economics-and-finance/research/pdf/2513-GMC-Persistence-in-US-Real-Personal-Consumption-Expenditure.pdf .This note examines persistence in US real personal consumption expenditure, distinguishing between durable and non-durable goods. For this purpose, fractional integration methods are applied to analyse data over the period from 1965q3 to 2024q4. The results suggest that seasonality is not an important feature of the two series. Further, while durables are characterised by short memory, non-durables exhibit long memory with a statistically significant and positive fractional integration parameter. This indicates that the effects of shocks last longer in the case of non-durables compared to durables.Prof. Luis A. Gil-Alana gratefully acknowledges financial support from the project from ‘Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades`Agencia Estatal de Investigación' (AEI) Spain and `Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional' (FEDER), Grant D2023-149516NB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033. He also acknowledges support from an internal Project of the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria
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