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Real-Time Transmitter Antenna Optimization in Complex 3D Environments using Digital Shadows: A Step Towards EM Digital Twins
No full textThis paper presents a GPU-accelerated system that
creates a digital shadow of the physical environment to optimize
antenna orientation. The approach integrates 3D environment
modeling, synthetic data generation, neural networks, and
real-time ray tracing to dynamically improve antenna performance by adjusting its orientation. Open-source tools, including
Blender for digital terrain creation and NVIDIA Sionna for
precise ray-tracing simulations, are utilized to generate synthetic
datasets that capture both line-of-sight (LOS) and reflective
propagation paths. The system computes ray path properties
and feeds them into neural networks trained to predict channel
coefficients in real-time. By comparing these coefficients, the
system identifies the propagation path with the best signal
strength and determines the azimuth and zenith angles to
optimize transmitter antenna performance. Leveraging CUDAbased frameworks, the system achieves real-time adaptation and
facilitates rapid antenna alignment in dynamic environments
Advances in coordination engineering of M-N-C single atom catalysts for superior oxygen reduction performance
No full textThe oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is a cornerstone of sustainable energy conversion technologies, such as fuel cells, metal–air batteries, and green synthesis of H2O2. However, the widespread adoption of ORR is hindered by persistent challenges in terms of catalytic activity, selectivity, and durability of the catalysts. A transformative approach to overcome these limitations is the chemical engineering of metal‑nitrogen‑carbon single-atom catalysts (M-N-C SACs), which allows precise tuning of electronic structures and coordination environments to mimic the efficiency of natural metalloenzymes. The electronic structure of M-N-C SACs can be modulated by incorporation of heteroatoms (e.g., S, B), which alter the d-band structure to enhance O2 adsorption and Osingle bondO bond cleavage, consequently reducing the overpotential for ORR. Atomic-scale engineering of bond lengths, coordination numbers, and electronic states in metal‑nitrogen‑carbon single-atom catalysts (M-N-C SACs) significantly improves their ORR performance. Specifically, the engineering of the first and higher coordination spheres through ligand design or hetero-element doping enhances charge transfer dynamics and selectivity of 4e- process, which is a key step in ORR. This review systematically evaluates the influence of coordination engineering in M-N-C SACs on benchmark ORR metrics, while highlighting breakthroughs in operando techniques and advanced electron microscopy that resolve active-site dynamics under working conditions. This study highlights the integration of density functional theory (DFT) predictions with experimental validation to demonstrate the synergy between tailored coordination environments and catalytic activity. Finally, the existing challenges, such as the scalability of defect-engineered SACs and their long-term stability in acidic media, are discussed in the context of emerging catalytic materials. In addition, the opportunities in machine learning-guided design and plasma-enhanced synthesis of hierarchical N-doped carbons for electrode engineering are discussed
‘Zine-ing’ research otherwise: care, joy, and creative co-design with racially marginalised communities
Full text linkThis zine emerges from a participatory research project, focused on co-designing equitable digital services in energy, housing, and health sectors, rooted in the lived experience and insights co-produced with racially minoritised communities in England and Scotland. The zine documents not only the output of our creative workshops, such as the code of practice, but also the processes, values, and critical reflections that shaped our participatory and anti-racism work. By sharing the zine, we highlight the generative potential of creative methods to foster ethical, inclusive, and transformative spaces for collaboration and meaningful participatory research. We argue that the zine format embodies a politics of care, inviting reflections on how research can be done and shared differently. We sought to resist institutionalised and extractivist modes of knowledge (co-)creation and dissemination. Instead, centring reciprocity, joy, and accessibility as significant to participatory practices. Our creative co-design choices in the workshops, including: playful metaphors (‘cooking a dish’), collective storytelling, and graphic recording, facilitated spaces to engage participants in ways that felt meaningful and restorative. Beyond reporting the findings, the zine acts as a creative non-traditional means of dissemination that makes knowledge accessible without gatekeeping and academic jargons. Through the zine, we explored the process of participatory research, challenging dominant conceptions of rigour and impact, which are often tied to metrics that undervalue relational and process-oriented work. Thus, the zine offers both a record of our co-design process and a provocation of how might creative research dissemination contribute to reimagining research not as extraction but as repair
Psychological health in a modified Life’s Crucial 9 score: association with all-cause mortality and comparison with LE8
No full textBackground:
The inclusion of Psychological Health in the Life’s Essential 8 (LE8) may improve its predictive validity and contribute to a more equitable assessment of mortality by better accounting for this crucial component. Therefore, this study aimed i) to assess the longitudinal association between a modified version of Life’s Crucial 9 (LC9) score and all-cause mortality in the Chilean population and ii) to examine whether adding psychological health to the original LE8 framework might enhance its predictive ability
Method:
We included 3,546 participants aged ≥15 from the Chilean National Health Survey 2016–2017. Mortality was ascertained through linkage with the Chilean Civil Registry and Identification. A modified version of the LC9 score was created and divided into quartiles. The modified version was calculated from nine health and behavioral components, incorporating a Psychological Health variable (composite of depression and social integration). The association between LC9 and all-cause mortality was examined using crude Kaplan-Meier survival curves and Cox proportional hazard models adjusted for sociodemographic and lifestyle factors. Non-linear associations were explored using restricted cubic splines. Predictive performance of LC9 was further compared with LE8 using model fit criteria (AIC, BIC) and discrimination measures (C-statistics, ROC-AUC).
Findings:
Over a median follow-up of 5 years, 169 participants (4.8%) died from any cause. Survival curves showed lower survival probabilities among individuals in the lowest LC9 quartile compared to those in higher quartiles (log-rank <0.001). Compared with participants in Q1, those in Q4 had a 49% lower risk of all-cause mortality after full adjustment for confounders (HR: 0.51; 95% CI: 0.31–0.82). When comparing indices, LC9 (C-statistics= 0.854 (0.842-0.866) provided marginally better model fit than LE8 (C-statistics= 0.851 (0.839-0.864), but their overall predictive performance for mortality was similar.
Interpretation:
Higher LC9 scores were associated with lower all-cause mortality. The incorporation of Psychological Health measures may slightly improve the prediction of the models
The seen and unseen facets of Dravet syndrome across the disease trajectory: insights from European ethnographic research
Full text linkBackground:
We investigated the lived experiences of individuals within the ecosystem of Dravet syndrome (DS) (patients, families, healthcare professionals, patient representatives) to gain a holistic understanding of the reality of caring for an individual with DS.
Methods and Results:
Using ethnographic methodology, we interviewed and observed five families (seven parents) of children (aged 2–10 years) with DS, 21 healthcare professionals at five specialized epilepsy units, and 16 personnel working for patient organizations across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK, to explore aspects of daily life with DS. Observations from the study participants demonstrated that families are impacted by multiple factors within the DS ecosystem, in terms of position in society, daily life and environment, and family dynamics. Parents’ informational, logistical, economic, and psychological needs differ over the course of the disease (first seizure, quest for diagnosis, diagnosis, reconfiguration, trial and error, stabilization, adjustments, adolescence, adulthood) in response to practical and emotional challenges. A framework was developed to define how parents cope and manage the information provided to them and the choices they must negotiate as the DS journey evolves. Four key territories of opportunity were identified.
Conclusions:
Families of children with DS have complex and changing challenges related to different phases of their child’s development and disease progression. Our findings may assist those working with families to identify key challenges and provide support specific to individual needs. Our findings could help clinicians adapt their communication, ultimately improving the quality of care provided and the quality of life of the different stakeholders
Implementation of guideline-directed medical therapy in patients with heart failure and obesity: European Journal of Heart Failure expert consensus document
No full textObesity is prevalent among patients with heart failure (HF), especially in those with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), and complicates diagnosis, therapy, and monitoring. It alters haemodynamics, biomarker interpretation, and drug pharmacokinetics, potentially influencing treatment response. Evidence from subgroup analyses of major HF trials suggests that renin–angiotensin system inhibitors (mainly sacubitril-valsartan), mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists, and sodium–glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors provide consistent benefits across body mass index (BMI) categories, with no major obesity-specific safety concerns. In contrast, data on beta-blockers in obese HF patients remains limited, largely reflecting the older design of pivotal trials. Management should include careful assessment of congestion, acknowledging the limitations of physical examination, and integrate natriuretic peptides measurement and imaging evaluation to guide individualised diuretic strategies. This expert consensus provides a comprehensive and pragmatic framework for the use of guideline-directed medical therapy in patients with HF and obesity, exploring the available evidence for each drug class and addressing efficacy, patient selection, safety, and monitoring
A Nitinol Langevin transducer with resonance tuneability for adaptive ultrasonic applications
No full textIn power ultrasonics, the Langevin ultrasonic transducer has been widely utilised across medical and industrial applications, including for bone surgery, food cutting, and cavitation generation. Transducers for these applications are typically tuned to a fundamental operating mode, often the first longitudinal, for optimal interaction with a target material or structure. Currently, there is a growing interest in ultrasonic devices with tuneable dynamic properties, including resonance frequency, for optimising performance in these applications. To overcome limited frequency tuning capabilities of current configurations, this study demonstrates a Langevin transducer which is designed and fabricated incorporating the shape memory alloy Nitinol as its end masses. The rationale is that the change in elastic properties of these end masses with temperature will induce a change in the fundamental resonance frequency of the transducer, thereby demonstrating a viable and novel approach to controlling resonance frequency. Laser Doppler Vibrometry was used to characterise the first and third longitudinal modes at room temperature, correlating closely with finite element analysis results. Harmonic analysis was then conducted at various environmental temperatures to show changes in the resonance frequencies and vibration amplitudes of both modes as functions of temperature. The tuneable resonance of the Nitinol Langevin transducer (NLT) has a dependency on changes in the thermomechanical properties of Nitinol from its martensitic phase transformation, demonstrated through structural design factors. The transducer exhibits maximum resonance frequency increases of above 15 % and 10 % for the L1 and L3 modes respectively, between 30 °C and 100 °C. This research enables a new generation of Langevin ultrasonic transducers fabricated using advanced materials for multifrequency and tuneable resonance applications
Social justice and language education
No full textIn this chapter we explore the intersections of social justice, language and language education. We begin with a conceptualization of the term ‘social justice’ by drawing upon Nancy Fraser’s (2018) transformative framework and the notion of intersectionality, often attributed to the work of Kimberlé Crenshaw (1991). We then discuss critical pedagogy and social justice education in the broader sense to establish the interplay between education and the wider cultural, economic, and political structures and contexts. These structures not only influence and shape educational policies, practices, and outcomes, but education itself also serves a reproductive function to perpetuate existing systems and hierarchical structures. Critical pedagogy and social justice education, however, can alter this reciprocal relationship by transforming educational systems in ways that enable educators to address social inequalities and promote equitable change. Next, we briefly lay out the intersection of language and social justice by drawing upon the previous literature on language rights and identity. We then present social justice language education in more detail, along with strategies, challenges and an outlook for the future of social justice language education
The fettered and the flea: a new poem by Edmund Waller
Full text linkThis contribution explores for the first time a 22-line poem in a British Library manuscript, ‘To a young lady that kept a flea chay'nd in a box’, which can be convincingly ascribed to Edmund Waller. Its most famous relative is Donne's ‘The Flea’, but its ancestry differs. Moreover Waller's is addressed, as a playful compliment, to a child, not a lover. Several traditions combine in it: that deriving from the pseudo-Ovidian Pulex; that of ‘multum in parvo’ in poetry of and beyond the English Renaissance; the French verse of the contemporary précieuses. Its close relationship to Waller's ‘To a very young Lady’/‘To my young Lady Lucy Sidney’ is examined. A coda places into the same tradition a ‘flea poem’ of the later seventeenth century by Joshua Barnes
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