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Prediction error is out of context: the dominance of contextual stability in structuring episodic memories
No full textOur everyday experiences unfold continuously, yet we segment them into distinct memory units—a phenomenon known as event segmentation. Although extensively studied, the underlying mechanisms of event segmentation remain controversial. This study addresses this by comparing the two contrasting theories: prediction error and contextual stability. Across four experiments, we manipulated these factors separately to examine their distinct impacts on event segmentation, measured by temporal order and distance tasks. Experiments 1–3 demonstrate that contextual stability leads to more pronounced event segmentation than prediction errors in unstable contexts, underscoring its critical role. Experiment 4 further supported this by providing strong evidence for equally robust event segmentation for predicted and unpredicted transitions across stable contexts. We conclude that contextual stability plays a pivotal role in driving event segmentation, outweighing the effect of prediction errors. This study sheds new light on how our minds encode continuous experiences into coherent and meaningful memory units
Surface plasmon resonance aptasensors: emerging design and deployment landscape
No full textSPR biosensors operate on the principle of evanescent wave propagation at metal–dielectric interfaces in total internal reflection conditions, with consequent photonic energy attenuation. This plasmonic excitation occurs in specific conditions of incident light wavelength, angle, and the dielectric refractive index. This principle has been the basis for SPR-based biosensor setups wherein mass/concentration-induced changes in the refractive indices of dielectric media reflect as plasmonic resonance condition changes quantitatively reported as arbitrary response units. SPR biosensors operating on this conceptual framework have been designed to study biomolecular interactions with real-time readout and in label-free setups, providing key kinetic characterization that has been valuable in various applications. SPR biosensors often feature antibodies as target affinity probes. Notably, the operational challenges encountered with antibodies have led to the development of aptamers—oligonucleotide biomolecules rationally designed to adopt tertiary structures, enabling high affinity and specific binding to a wide range of targets. Aptamers have been extensively adopted in SPR biosensor setups with promising clinical and industrial prospects. In this paper, we explore the growing literature on SPR setups featuring aptamers, specifically providing expert commentary on the current state and future implications of these SPR aptasensors for drug discovery as well as disease diagnosis and monitoring
Synergistic approach to colloidal stability and thermophysical optimisation of multi-walled carbon nanotubes, aluminium nitride, and silver-based hybrid nanofluids
Get PDFEfficient thermal management is essential for high-performance applications such as electronics cooling, electric vehicles, and energy systems, where conventional coolants often fail to meet performance demands. This study aims to address the limitations of conventional coolants by formulating and evaluating advanced hybrid and tri-hybrid nanofluids composed of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), silver (Ag), and aluminium nitride (AlN). A two-step preparation method was employed to formulate various nanofluid formulations and investigate the effects of nanoparticle volumetric ratios and different surfactants, including sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), gum arabic (GA), and sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (SDBS) on colloidal stability, heat transfer characteristics, and cost-effectiveness. Nanofluid formulations were prepared using volumetric ratios of 80:20, 60:40, 40:60, and 20:80 for hybrid combinations, and 20/20/60, 20/40/40, and 20/60/20 for tri-hybrid mixtures, and analysed over a temperature range of 20 to 45 °C. Experimental results revealed that SDBS consistently outperformed the others, by maintaining a stable suspension and thus preserving the enhanced thermal properties over extended periods. Among all tested nanofluids, MWCNTs exhibited the highest thermal conductivity enhancement of 8.57 %. The tri-hybrid formulation with a 20/60/20 MWCNTs/Ag/AlN ratio achieved a comparable enhancement of 8.14 %, demonstrating that optimised combinations of nanoparticles can simultaneously deliver high thermal performance, good stability, and reasonable cost-efficiency. However, this tri-hybrid formulation also showed the highest viscosity increase noted to be 5.55 %, compared to a 4.43 % increase for simple Ag nanofluids. Additionally, the highest density increase was 0.25 % for Ag, while the highest among hybrid combinations was 0.22 % for the 80/20 Ag/AlN mixture. Finally, among tri-hybrid formulations, the 20/60/20 ratio showed the highest increase of 0.19 %, whereas the 20/40/40 ratio exhibited a more moderate increase. Cost analysis indicated that the tri-hybrid nanofluid with a 20/40/40 ratio is the most cost-effective option when cost considerations are as important as thermal performance. However, for applications where maximising thermal performance is crucial, the tri-hybrid with a 20/60/20 ratio is the preferred choice. This work contributes new insights into the development of multifunctional nanofluids and presents comprehensive investigations into MWCNTs, Ag, and AlN-based tri-hybrid formulations
Phytoestrogen signal pathways and estrogen signaling in ovarian cancer: a narrative review
Get PDFOvarian cancer (OC) is the second most common gynecological cancer and the leading cause of death from gynecological malignancies. Ovarian cancer mortality rate ranks fifth among cancer-related deaths in Western societies. Hence, novel preventive and therapeutic ways are still in great demand to reduce the incidence and mortality rate of ovarian cancer. Phytoestrogens, referred to as dietary estrogens, provide benefits to all mammals, including humans. Research indicates that phytoestrogens may be possible hormonal treatment options for ovarian cancer patients. They are non-steroidal plant compounds that undergo metabolism to produce compounds structurally and functionally related to ovarian and placental estrogens. Some studies suggest that estrogen receptors (ER-α and ER-β) and G protein-coupled estrogen receptor (GPER) are potential targets for ovarian cancer prevention and treatment. Current studies indicate multiple signal pathways of phytoestrogens in the management of ovarian cancer. Even so, literature suggests that the signaling mechanisms in ovarian cancer and the signaling mechanisms of phytoestrogens are still not exactly understood. With this, phytoestrogens may act on multiple signaling pathways such as ER (endoplasmic reticulum)-dependent signaling, GnRH receptor, FSH or LH receptors and hormones, and GFR, which help to regulate the expression of AKT, RAS, RAF, Caspase-3, NF-kB, and Bcl-2. In summary, this narrative review discusses the possible targets of phytoestrogens in ovarian cancer and sheds a light on improving novel phytoestrogens-based dietary supplements against ovarian cancers
Study of the effect of process parameters and heat treatment on the formation and evolution of directed energy deposition of IN718-CuCrZr interface
Get PDFJoining dissimilar materials as coatings or multimaterial compounds remains challenging due to mismatches in atomic orientation, microstructure, and thermal properties. The laser powder directed energy deposition (LP-DED) process is an additive manufacturing (AM) technique capable of producing bimetallic or functionally graded materials for coatings or heavy-duty applications. However, understanding interface characteristics in response to process parameters and heat treatment is critical for evaluating structural integrity. This study investigates the Inconel 718/CuCrZr interface and examines the effects of process parameters and heat treatment on microstructural evolution. The optimized bimetallic sample is free of cracks and excessive porosity, indicating a successful deposition. The results show that Inconel 718 acts as a thermal barrier during CuCrZr deposition due to its low thermal conductivity, significantly influencing grain structure and hardness. To achieve a homogeneous interface, four heat treatment strategies are used, and their effects on microstructure and hardness are analyzed. These strategies induce major changes in joint properties, demonstrating that an appropriate heat treatment improves hardness, interface characteristics, and microstructural uniformity. The findings confirm that achieving the desired interface properties for coatings or multimaterial production is possible through optimized process parameters and heat treatment
How people estimate the prevalence of aphantasia and hyperphantasia in the population
No full textThis study examined how people estimate the prevalence of aphantasia (extreme lack of visual imagery) and hyperphantasia (extreme abundance of visual imagery) in the population and how their own imagery and verbal skills’ evaluations predict these estimations. Participants read the descriptions of extreme imagery and evaluated the percentage of individuals within a population to whom they apply. They also completed questionnaires assessing their cognitive skills and experiences related to imagery. We also assessed evaluations of sensory sensitivity as a related individual difference domain. The findings revealed significantly higher prevalence estimates for hyperphantasia than aphantasia in both population-level and self-rated measures. Consistently, these evaluations showed a shift toward positive values for object imagery skills, while no such pattern was observed for spatial imagery or verbal skills. Participants estimated the prevalence of hyperphantasia in the population at 37–53 % and aphantasia at 27–32 %, far exceeding the rates in the literature (approximately 3 % for hyperphantasia and 1 % for aphantasia) and their own vividness ratings. A similar trend was observed for sensitivity. Higher self-rated object imagery skills, but not spatial imagery or verbal skills, predicted higher population hyperphantasia estimates. Additionally, population-level measures from both the imagery and sensitivity domains predicted the estimated rates of both hyperphantasia and aphantasia in the population. Our work contributes to the understanding of public perceptions of visual-spatial cognitive diversity and suggests that self-observed traits may shape beliefs about the prevalence of these traits in the general population
Enhancing odor reduction and properties in polypropylene-based wood plastic composites with halloysite nanotubes and beta-cyclodextrin
Get PDFUndesirable odor emissions that originate from polypropylene (PP)-based wood plastic composites (WPCs) caused by volatile organic compounds (VOCs) restrict their indoor applications. This research investigates the effectiveness of halloysite nanotubes (HNT) and beta-cyclodextrin (β-CD) in reducing VOC emissions while simultaneously improving the mechanical and thermal properties of WPCs. Composites are produced by incorporating 2 wt.% and 5 wt.% of HNT, β-CD and are compared to commercial odor-control additives. Odor intensity is tested using sensory (jar) odor and headspace gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (HS GC–MS) methods. Mechanical, thermal, morphological, and structural properties are characterized through tensile testing, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) analysis. The odor results show the addition of 5 wt.% HNT and 2 wt.% β-CD causes a reduction of VOC peaks by 14% and 35%, respectively. HNT results in a 36.6% reduction of 4-methyl-octane and improves tensile strength and modulus by 6.3 (±0.3) % and 12 (±0.8) %, whereas β-CD advances in toughness. The BET and FTIR analyses confirm distinct adsorption behaviors and interactions within the polypropylene matrix. These results suggest the potential of HNT and β-CD as sustainable additives to improve the indoor applicability of PP-based WPCs
Role of parenting on self-regulation from a cross-cultural perspective: major empirical findings from the first quarter of the 21st century
Get PDFThis paper focuses on the extant evidence about the ways children around the globe master self-regulation (SR). Our goal was to summarize emerging evidence on cross-cultural comparison of SR in young children, and evaluate culturally common as well as distinct caregiver-child interaction patterns in relation to SR. Studies retrieved from major databases spanning from 2000 to 2025 were selected if they entailed samples of caregiver-infant/toddler dyads and compared at least two cultural groups. Ethnographic field studies and in-depth interview studies on emotion-related socialization for SR were also included. Findings were presented in three sections. First, the definition of SR and its milestones in early childhood are presented. Second, taking the cultural pathways as a conceptual framework, key findings from cross-cultural research with samples of infants and toddlers are synthesized that included studies on Face-to-Face Still-Face paradigm, moment-to-moment co-regulation, compliance, emotion regulation, and temperamental effortful control. Evidence supports both cultural universals and distinct socialization processes for the development of SR. In the third section, key conclusions are discussed in light of the cultural pathways hypothesis. The final section entails recommendations to advance future research, both theoretically and methodologically
Domain generalized remote sensing scene captioning via country-level geographic information
No full textIn this study, we explored the performance impact of incorporating country-level text-based geographical information into a large-scale vision language model, fine-tuned for the captioning of optical remote sensing images. We hypothesized that a model trained with country-level textual geographical context along with visual scenes would enhance its captioning capabilities when confronted with images from previously unseen countries or even continents, coupled with their respective geographical context. A large language and vision assistant (LLaVA) was fine-tuned using optical images from European countries and tested on images from other continents to evaluate its generalization capabilities. Here we report results of experiments conducted across 175 countries via the newly published Skyscript dataset, demonstrating that even superficial geographical information obtained from Wikipedia articles can mitigate the cross-country domain shift by several points in terms of accuracy score. This multimodal approach, combining textual geographical context with visual data, shows significant potential for improving the generalization capabilities of vision language models in tasks involving diverse and previously unseen geographical regions
A comparative domain generalization study for SAR image-based flood segmentation
No full textFloods are among the most devastating natural disasters, causing severe human and economic losses. Their occurrence frequency has been increasing progressively. Hence, effective and reliable flood analysis is essential for mitigating catastrophic losses. In this regard, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites are invaluable tools for providing large-scale images aimed at flood mapping under all weather conditions. Methods specifically designed for SAR image-based flood mapping are commonly developed under the assumption that the training (source) and test (target) data are sampled from the same distribution. However, in many real-world scenarios, these distributions often differ due to factors such as geographic location and incident angle depending on the satellite, leading to distribution shifts (a.k.a. domain shift), which ultimately degrades model performance. In this study, we investigate domain generalization approaches in combination with segmentation networks for the purpose of SAR based flood mapping. During the model's training, each flood event is treated as a distinct source domain, with the objective of minimizing the domain shift among them to obtain a more robust model for unseen flooding events. Experiments conducted on the Sen1Floods11 dataset demonstrates an improvement in segmentation performance, with domain generalization approaches 3% in terms of IoU and F1 scores