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Designing optimally slender origami-inspired tubular structures for enhanced energy absorption
Full text link\ua9 2025 The Authors. Origami-inspired thin-walled structures are increasingly applied in energy-absorption systems, particularly in automotive and aerospace engineering, due to their predictable collapse mechanisms and structural efficiency. However, as structural slenderness increases, the risk of buckling and sensitivity to imperfections also rise, potentially undermining performance. This study investigates the influence of slenderness ratio and initial geometric imperfections on the energy absorption and buckling resistance of two tubular origami configurations. The first structure, a cylindrical LS-DDC tube, is based on the least-symmetric crystallographic form of the developable double-corrugation (DDC) surface, while the second is a square bellow with diamond-like corners (SB-WDC), used for comparison. An equivalent moment of inertia is derived using nodal coordinates to define slenderness ratio ranges. Imperfection sensitivity is assessed theoretically through the reduced stiffness method (RSM) and simplified super folding element theory (SSFE). Quasi-static axial crushing simulations are conducted to validate the numerical models and evaluate energy-absorption performance. Results indicate that the LS-DDC structure offers significantly greater energy absorption and specific energy absorption than the SB-WDC counterpart. Finite element analyses further reveal that LS-DDC structures are generally less sensitive to initial geometric imperfections, as indicated by a higher average knockdown factor. These findings provide insights into optimal slenderness ratio ranges that balance energy-absorption capacity with imperfection sensitivity, thereby enhancing the mechanical performance and structural reliability of origami-inspired energy absorbers
Monitoring methods and micro-scale evolution mechanisms of rutting in asphalt mixtures: Smart aggregates and DEM
No full textCopyright \ua9 2025. Published by Elsevier B.V. The smart aggregate (SA) is a novel sensor for multi-source monitoring in pavements, yet the cross-scale contact mechanisms between the SA and asphalt mixture, and their role in rutting evaluation, are not fully understood. This study conducts rutting tests on double-layer asphalt mixtures with embedded SA sensors and introduces a reliability index (RI) to quantify rutting depth evolution from multi-source data. The discrete element method (DEM) is further employed to investigate both the rutting mechanism and microscale contacts between the SA and surrounding particles. Results show that the proposed RI provides an accurate assessment of rutting depth evolution. Moreover, SA sensor responses serve as a cross-scale bridge, linking microscopic contact behaviour with macroscopic rutting progression, thereby revealing that variations in microscale contact fundamentally govern the observed monitoring outcomes
The Importance of Structured Expert Elicitation to Inform Outcomes Following Treatment Discontinuation: Evidence Assessment Group Perspective
No full textDietary patterns and endothelium dysfunction: a literature review
Full text link\ua9 2025 The AuthorsThe integrity of the vascular endothelium is fundamental to regulating cardio-metabolic and neurological functions. Endothelial dysfunction (ED) is a key driver of atherosclerosis and is strongly linked to the pathogenesis of heart disease, peripheral arterial disease, and stroke. This review describes the relationship between dietary patterns and endothelial health, focusing on observational and experimental studies that investigate the protective effects of healthy dietary patterns in the maintenance of endothelial integrity and prevention of ED. Plant-based diets, including Mediterranean and Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) dietary patterns, have been linked to improvement of endothelial function through multiple mechanisms such as increased nitric oxide bioavailability, reduced oxidative stress and inflammation, and fostering a healthy gut microbiome. Traditional Japanese, Nordic, and Palaeolithic dietary patterns also show potential cardiovascular benefits through improved vascular biomarkers and significant anti-inflammatory effects, though evidence on effects on endothelial function remains less established. The consequences of poor endothelial health extend to all systems, and the brain is one of the organs crucially affected by ED. ED has been increasingly recognised as a critical contributor to cognitive decline, dementia, and stroke, largely accounted and explained by mechanisms impairing cerebral blood flow, neuronal metabolism, neuro-vascular coupling and compromised integrity of the blood-brain barrier. This review highlights the importance of maintaining endothelial health as a protective strategy for cognitive function and reduction of dementia risk. Adherence to dietary patterns with protective effects on endothelial integrity may represent an effective strategy to promote lifelong health for both the heart and brain
Amyloid-beta (1–40) peptide is associated with systemic metabolic health
Full text link\ua9 2026 The Author(s). European Journal of Clinical Investigation published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Stichting European Society for Clinical Investigation Journal Foundation.Background: Amyloid-beta 1–40 peptide (Aβ40) has recently emerged as a blood-based biomarker of cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, whether plasma levels of Aβ40 are associated with metabolic traits in humans without established CVD remains poorly understood. Methods: Aβ40 was measured in plasma by ELISA and metabolic traits (waist circumference, fasting triglycerides, fasting HDL cholesterol and fasting glucose) were determined in a general population (n = 449) of individuals who did not have clinically overt CVD. Triglyceride-glucose index (TyG) was used to calculate the risk for insulin resistance. BARD score was used to calculate the risk for metabolic liver disease. Results: Aβ40 levels were associated with the presence of metabolic syndrome (OR: 1.41 95% CI: 1.13–1.76, p =.003), and with higher odds for increasing incidence of metabolic syndrome components, characterized by decreased HDL-C levels (OR: 1.31 95% CI: 1.03–1.58, p =.017) and increased triglyceride levels (OR: 1.30 95% CI: 1.04–1.57, p =.033) after adjustment for traditional cardiovascular risk factors. Further, Aβ40 levels were associated with increased odds for TyG (OR: 1.26 95% CI: 1.03–1.57, p =.042) and increased odds for the presence of diabetes mellitus (OR: 1.35 95% CI: 1.04–1.76, p =.018) after adjustment for age and sex, smoking status, hypertension and dyslipidemia. Increased Aβ40 levels were associated with increased odds for BARD score ≥2 (OR: 1.41 95% CI: 1.04–2.04, p =.045) after adjustment for traditional cardiovascular risk factors. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that Aβ40 peptide is associated with metabolic traits and risk for metabolic disease. Future longitudinal studies are warranted to determine the prognostic value of Aβ40 for the development and progression of metabolic diseases
Two Birds with One Stone: Enzymatic Degumming and Deacidification for Arachidonic Acid-Enriched Algae Oil Using PLA1@MCM-41-C<sub>8</sub>
No full text\ua9 2025 Chinese Academy of EngineeringAlgae oil contains polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) that are beneficial to human health and development. Enzymatic refining is a sustainable approach that can improve the quality and nutritional value of algae oil. However, this approach involves the use of specific enzymes to remove unwanted impurities such as phospholipids (PLs) and free fatty acids (FFAs). This study proposes a novel immobilized phospholipase, immobilized phospholipase A1 (PLA1@MCM-41-C8), which serves a dual purpose: it is effective for both degumming arachidonic acid (ARA)-enriched algal oil and its subsequent deacidification. The use of PLA1@MCM-41-C8 achieved a degumming rate of 95.9% for crude algal oil, with an ARA retention rate of up to 97.3%. The acidity of the degummed oil decreased from 14.5 to 1.1 mg KOH\ub7g−1, while simultaneously producing 29.2% high-value diacylglycerol (DAG). By comparing enzymatically degummed and deacidified ARA-enriched algae oil (EDDO) with crude ARA-enriched algae oil (CO), commercialized refining algae oil (CRO), it was found that enzymatic refining had minimal impact on antioxidant stability, fatty acid composition, and oil content. In particular, the flavor characteristics of algal oil before and after enzymatic refining with PLA1@MCM-41-C8 remained unchanged and were dominated by the main volatile compounds: alcohols and aldehydes. Compared with free phospholipase A1 (PLA1), PLA1@MCM-41-C8 exhibited significantly improved thermostability, pH tolerance, solvent tolerance, and long-term reusability. These characteristics make it a promising candidate for complex oil refining in industrial applications
Learning to transport for open set domain generalization
No full text\ua9 2025 Elsevier LtdTo address the issue of domain shift between training and testing phases, Domain Generalization (DG) has been proposed to enable models to maintain accuracy in unseen domains. However, during the testing phase, not only domain shift but also label space shift occurs. Traditional DG methods fail to classify samples from unknown classes. To solve these problems, Open Set Domain Generalization (OSDG) has been proposed, which aims to overcome domain shift while also providing the model with the ability to recognize unknown samples. Meta-learning based methods are common used in DG, where the source domains are divided into meta-training and meta-testing domains, and joint training is performed to prevent the model from over-fitting to the source domains. Meta-learning in DG often takes cross-entropy loss from supervised learning, which can be understood as enabling the model to learn “how to learn to classify” under domain shift. This paper proposes a meta-learning method based on Optimal Transport (OT), Learning to Learn to Optimal Transport (L2OT), which splits both between domains and classes, allowing the model to simulate how to transport the distribution from source domain to the target domain during the meta-training/testing phase. Unlike other methods, L2OT aims to let the model learn “how to learn to transport”, i.e., how to optimally transport the new class mass distribution in the presence of domain shift. Experimental results show that L2OT achieves leading results on multiple datasets. Code is available at: https://github.com/Ashengl/L2OT
Curative-Intent Multimodality Treatment for NSCLC: Will Global Healthcare Systems Rise to the Challenge? A Perspective From the United Kingdom
Full text linkSelective detection of Cu<sup>2+</sup>in aqueous medium using an acid hydrazide-based chemosensor: experimental and DFT/TDDFT studies
Full text linkThis journal is \ua9 The Royal Society of Chemistry, 2026An acid hydrazide-based Schiff base, N\u27-(4-hydroxybenzylidene)picolinohydrazide (HP), was designed and synthesized in a single-step process for the selective detection of Cu2+ ions. The structure of HP was thoroughly characterized by FTIR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR, HRMS, SCXRD and elemental analysis. The cation-sensing performance of HP was investigated using UV-Vis spectroscopy, revealing a rapid response with high selectivity and sensitivity toward Cu2+ in MeOH/H2O (6 : 4, v/v) with a 10 mM HEPES buffer at pH 7.4, with a detection limit of 8.94 \ub5M. Job\u27s plot analysis confirmed a 1 : 1 binding stoichiometry, with an association constant of 4.26
7 104 M−1. FESEM analysis showed distinct morphological changes upon Cu2+ coordination. The SCXRD result exhibits good agreement with DFT and TD-DFT of the probe HP. The hole–electron analysis clearly reveals locally excited (LE) characteristics for the free ligand and intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) behavior for the HP–Cu2+ complex. Furthermore, the HP probe demonstrated practical applicability for Cu2+ detection in real water samples
Developing a measure of beliefs about items in hoarding disorder (BIHD)
Full text link\ua9 The Author(s), 2026. Background: The beliefs about their items held by those experiencing hoarding disorder (HD) have been conceptualised as motivating and perpetuating factors. Aims: This paper presents a measure named Beliefs about Items in Hoarding Disorder: designed to identify the presence and strength of beliefs about their items in HD to aid routine assessment and formulation. Method: Participants (n=226) who met the clinical threshold for HD completed a battery of questionnaire items based on previous measures of cognition in hoarding and qualitative research into beliefs held by people with HD about their items, which were subsequently analysed using factor analysis to refine the tool for clinical use. Results: The findings of the analysis indicated three factors: items create emotional attachment and safety, items represent parts of me and my life, and items are useful and should not be wasted. Conclusions: This new measure, Beliefs about Items in Hoarding Disorder, provides an alternative to existing HD measures that do not include all the beliefs deemed important by more recent research and the sample in the current study. This tool has the potential to encourage open conversations with people experiencing HD about their beliefs and how these may be maintaining problems with hoarding. Further work is needed to support the reliability and validity of this measure in clinical practice, but presents an updated and novel tool to assist in developing a more comprehensive understanding of HD