Search Results (56,305)

Nowadays, Low-Power Internet of Things (LP-IoT) devices are widely utilized due to their affordability and low energy consumption. However, LP-IoT devices face significant security challenges, including data breaches, unauthorized access, and malicious attacks, due to their constrained hardware resources. These challenges are particularly critical in applications that involve the transmission of sensitive data. To enhance the security of LP-IoT devices, we propose a lightweight mutual authentication mechanism designed explicitly for LP-IoT devices. This mechanism utilizes simplified cryptographic operations to strike a balance between security requirements and resource constraints, thereby ensuring secure and reliable data transmission, as well as mutual authentication, between devices and servers. In addition, we demonstrate the potential of this mechanism in protecting data integrity and device security through a scenario in a financial technology application. Our proposed mechanism adapts to the characteristics of low-power devices while enhancing their security and practicality across different application environments, offering a secure and lightweight solution to the security challenges of LP-IoT devices. Full article

Background/Objectives: As population aging garners attention worldwide, there is great significance in communicating information on such measures to countries outside of Japan, which is considered unique in its position as a “super-aging society.” This study objectives to investigate public health measures linked to daily life by clarifying how the role transitions of local residents in their 60s, such as seeking re-employment, looking after grandchildren, and caring for family, affect their health status. Methods: We conducted focus group interviews with 26 residents and analyzed them qualitatively and inductively. Result: The findings suggested that, in predicted role transitions voluntarily chosen by participants, they tended to experience positive changes in health through the transition, although temporary feelings of fatigue were also described in relation to re-employment and grandchild care. Even in anticipated role changes, some participants expressed reluctance to engage in health-promoting activities within the local community. In cases of unavoidable role transition to family caregiving, participants described difficulties in maintaining self-care and feelings of caregiving fatigue that were challenging to manage through personal effort alone. These findings suggest that health support during role transitions in one’s 60s may benefit from including information about community activities and opportunities to build connections with local residents. In addition, support for those transitioning into caregiving roles could focus on facilitating access to social resources and tailoring assistance to individual needs. Conclusions: This study confirmed to specifically target health support for people in their 60s based on the results of this study, the focus on the transition needs to include not only role transition to re-employment but also unavoidable transition to caregiving. Full article

Background: The rising prevalence of gastric, biliary, and pancreatic surgeries has led to an increasing population of patients with surgically altered anatomy (SAA). In this setting, conventional endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) is often limited by anatomical barriers, resulting in high rates of technical failure and complications. While device-assisted enteroscopy (DAE) has expanded therapeutic possibilities, its efficacy remains modest in complex reconstructions. Methods: This review analyzed recent literature from PubMed, Embase, and Scopus up to April 2025, focusing on diagnostic and therapeutic roles of endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) in SAA. Particular attention was given to cases where standard endoscopic, percutaneous, or surgical techniques failed and to studies comparing EUS-guided approaches with alternative modalities. Results: EUS has transitioned from a primarily diagnostic modality to a versatile therapeutic platform in SAA. Techniques such as EUS-guided rendezvous, antegrade drainage, and hepaticogastrostomy have shown technical and clinical success rates exceeding 80–90%, often comparable or superior to interventional radiology, while reducing the need for external drains. Innovative procedures, including EUS-directed transgastric ERCP (EDGE) and EUS-directed enteroenteric bypass (EDEE), have transformed the management of Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and bilioenteric anastomoses, providing durable and reusable access for repeated interventions. Despite these advances, EUS-guided interventions remain technically demanding, requiring advanced endoscopic and radiologic skills, specialized devices, and are best performed in tertiary referral centers. Conclusions: EUS has redefined the treatment paradigm of biliopancreatic diseases in patients with SAA, increasingly emerging as the preferred minimally invasive approach when conventional techniques fail. Future developments will focus on dedicated devices, standardized guidelines, and structured training programs to optimize outcomes. Multidisciplinary collaboration and centralization in high-volume centers remain essential to ensure safety, efficacy, and reproducibility. Full article

This study systematically evaluates website blocking as both an anti-piracy enforcement mechanism and a cybersecurity control, analyzing its effectiveness in reducing piracy across four Southeast Asian jurisdictions with distinct legal frameworks, assessing blocking speed, procedural barriers, and circumvention tactics, providing new empirical insights for policymakers and cybersecurity practitioners. Using a quasi-experimental design during the COVID-19 pandemic, this research examines the impact of website blocking measures in Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore. For the first time, the findings reveal that swift, systematic website blocking—exemplified by Indonesia—serves as an effective cybersecurity control, significantly reducing access to infringing content while redirecting traffic toward legitimate platforms. Jurisdictions with procedural delays and inconsistent enforcement, however, demonstrate limited efficacy, highlighting the need for dynamic responses to evolving threats such as domain hopping and proxy servers. The findings inform broader cybersecurity applications like network segmentation, access control, and threat intelligence. This work links traditional copyright enforcement to proactive incident detection and response strategies, providing insights into broader applications for cybersecurity, such as network segmentation, access control, and threat intelligence. Full article

Ham radio has long been a foundational area of practice in electrical engineering. Advances in signal processing, particularly the advent of software-defined radio (SDR), have revolutionized the field, offering new possibilities and modes of operation. This paper introduces a system designed for long-term collection of shortwave propagation data, leveraging SDR technology. It also presents the analysis of the collected data, demonstrating the system’s potential for advancing research in radio wave propagation. Full article

Background: Antenatal care (ANC) offers a valuable opportunity to reduce the risk of acute respiratory infections (ARIs) in children under five; however, its impact remains less understood and has not been comprehensively synthesised. This systematic review aimed to assess evidence on the association between ANC utilisation and ARIs in children under five. Methods: A systematic search was conducted in PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar for studies published between 2000 and 2025. PRISMA 2020 guidelines were followed in reporting. A qualitative synthesis was performed for all ARI outcomes, and a meta-analysis was conducted for pneumonia. Results: Eleven observational studies assessed the association between ANC utilisation and ARIs. Three ARI-related outcomes were identified: pneumonia (n = 4), pertussis (n = 2), and general ARIs (n = 5). ANC attendance was generally associated with reduced odds of respiratory infections across studies. The pooled analysis of two case–control studies (n = 2; total n = 956) showed a non-significant association between ANC attendance and pneumonia in children (pooled OR = 1.46; 95% CI: 0.91, 2.35; I² = 0%). Conclusion: Our review suggests a potential protective effect of ANC, though evidence from the pneumonia-focused meta-analysis was inconclusive. Improving access to quality ANC may reduce respiratory infections, but more studies are needed across different populations. Full article

Crossfire attacks disrupt network services by targeting critical links of server groups, causing traffic congestion and server failures that prevent legitimate users from accessing services. To counter this threat, this study proposes a novel topology spoofing defense mechanism based on a sequence-based Graph Neural Network–Moving Target Defense (ENRNN-MTD). During the reconnaissance phase, the method employs a GNN to generate multiple random and diverse virtual topologies, which are mapped to various external hosts. This obscures the real internal network structure and complicates the attacker’s ability to accurately identify it. In the attack phase, an IP random-hopping mechanism using a chaotic sequence is introduced to conceal node information and increase the cost of launching attacks, thereby enhancing the protection of critical services. Experimental results demonstrate that, compared to existing defense mechanisms, the proposed approach exhibits significant advantages in terms of deception topology randomness, defensive effectiveness, and system load management. Full article

Truck congestion around international ports poses persistent challenges for safety, efficiency, environmental performance, and accessibility, particularly during container terminal disruptions when long queues of trucks accumulate. Traditional responses often address isolated components of the problem and fail to capture the interdependencies of sociotechnical systems, where multiple actors pursue partly conflicting goals. This study explores the usefulness of combining Sociotechnical Systems (STS) principles with the Systems-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes (STAMP) to analyze such complexity more holistically. Using the case of truck re-routing procedures during terminal closures at the Port of Rotterdam, structured interviews and document analyses were used to apply parallel STS and System-Theoretic Process Analyses (STPA). The STS analysis identified misalignments among procedures, actor intentions, infrastructure, and communication practices, clarifying why diversion protocols often fail in practice. The STPA complemented this diagnosis by modeling control relationships and feedback loops, identifying 92 unsafe control actions and 407 loss scenarios that informed 16 design recommendations. Together, the two approaches demonstrate how sociotechnical and control-theoretic perspectives can be combined to generate both diagnostic and prescriptive insights. The study highlights the potential of a combined STS–STPA framework as a transferable analytical tool for understanding and redesigning complex transport systems. Full article

Microbiota play a pivotal role in holobionts, influencing nutrient intake, growth, and overall health. In this context, microbial dysbiosis of Penaeus stylirostris larvae seem to be associated with huge larval mortalities in hatcheries in New Caledonia. To understand larval dysbiosis establishment, our purpose was to identify bacterial biomarkers, as bioindicators, related to a given larval stage and health condition. To this end, larvae were sampled daily to access their active microbiota through sequencing of the V4 region of the 16S rRNA molecule, while their stage and their health were also observed. We identified three biomarkers strongly related to healthy zoea, and some may act as probiotics or play key roles in larval ontogeny and nutrition. We also found six biomarkers linked to unhealthy zoea and eight related to healthy mysis. Biomarkers were mostly related to diseased shrimps (Lewinella) or healthy shrimps (Cognitishimia, Thalassolituus) or were known to prey on cells (P30B-42), suggesting that the larvae might be battling against detrimental conditions. No biomarker related to unhealthy mysis was identified. Finally, our data showed that bacterial bioindicators could be used as an effective biosurveillance proxy in hatcheries, to monitor larval development, and as an early warning tool to predict rearing outcomes. Full article

Sideritis scardica Griseb., a Balkan endemic species traditionally used for respiratory conditions and wound-healing, was investigated for its 15-lipoxygenase (15-LOX) inhibitory and cytotoxic activities in relation to its phenolic composition. Aerial parts from the wild-collected and in vitro-cultivated plant were successively extracted with hexane, chloroform, and methanol and the methanol extract was further fractionated into ethyl acetate, butanol, and water fractions. This study presents the first combined evaluation of LOX inhibition and cytotoxicity against prostate cell lines WPMY-1 (normal epithelial fibroblast/myofibroblast), PC-3 (epithelial adenocarcinoma, Grade IV), and LNCaP (epithelial carcinoma) and detailed phytochemical profiles of wild-collected and in vitro-cultivated S. scardica. The phytochemical analysis revealed distinct profiles: increased LOX-inhibition activity was related to a higher phenylethanoid/flavone glycoside ratio, while PC cytotoxicity was rather related to flavone glycoside domination in the plant preparations. The cytotoxic effect of the in vitro-obtained preparations was characterized by a marked selectivity when comparing their effects on WPMY-1, PC-3 and LNCaP cells. To our knowledge, this is the first report linking phenylethanoid/flavone glycoside profiles of in situ and in vitro S. scardica plants with dual LOX-inhibitory and anti-prostate cancer activities, supporting the plant’s potential as a sustainable source of bioactive compounds. Full article

Wearable, rectifiable aerosol photometers (WRAPs), instruments with combined nephelometer and on-board filter-based sampling capabilities, generally show strong correlations with reference instruments across a range of ambient and household PM_2.5 concentrations. However, limited data exist on their performance when challenged by mixed aerosol exposures, such as those found in dusty occupational environments. Understanding how these instruments perform across a spectrum of environments is critical, as they are increasingly used in human health studies, including those in which concurrent PM_2.5 and coarse dust exposures occur simultaneously. The authors collected co-located, ~24 h. breathing zone gravimetric and nephelometer PM_2.5 measures using the MicroPEM v3.2A (RTI International) and the UPAS v2.1 PLUS (Access Sensor Technologies). Samples were collected from adult brick workers (n = 93) in Nepal during work and non-work activities. Median gravimetric/arithmetic mean (AM) PM_2.5 concentrations for the MicroPEM and UPAS were 207.06 (interquartile range [IQR]: 216.24) and 737.74 (IQR: 1399.98) µg/m³, respectively (p < 0.0001), with a concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) of 0.26. The median stabilized inverse probability-weighted nephelometer PM_2.5 concentrations, after gravimetric correction, for the MicroPEM and UPAS were 169.16 (IQR: 204.98) and 594.08 (IQR: 1001.00) µg/m³, respectively (p-value < 0.0001), with a CCC of 0.31. Digital microscope photos and electron micrographs of filters confirmed large particle breakthrough for both instruments. A possible explanation is that the miniaturized pre-separators were overwhelmed by high dust exposures. This study was unique in that it evaluated personal PM_2.5 monitors in a high dust occupational environment using both gravimetric and nephelometer-based measures. Our findings suggest that WRAPs may substantially overestimate personal PM_2.5 exposures in environments with concurrently high PM_2.5 and coarse dust levels, likely due to large particle breakthrough. This overestimation may obscure associations between exposures and health outcomes. For personal PM_2.5 monitoring in dusty environments, the authors recommend traditional pump and cyclone or impaction-based sampling methods in the interim while miniaturized pre-separators for WRAPs are designed and validated for use in high dust environments. Full article

Motility disorders, particularly gastroparesis, are prevalent complications following solid organ transplantation, significantly impacting quality of life, nutritional status, graft survival, and mortality. This comprehensive review synthesises evidence from PubMed, Scopus, and Embase databases on pathophysiology, clinical manifestations, diagnosis, management, and prognostic factors across transplant types. Mechanisms include vagal nerve injury (highest in lung transplants, prevalence 40–91%), immunosuppressive effects (e.g., tacrolimus accelerates motility; mycophenolate impairs it), surgical trauma, microbiome dysbiosis (reduced Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio), and metabolic factors like post-transplant diabetes (OR 5.17 in kidney recipients). Pediatric and thoracic recipients face the highest risks, with lung transplant gastroparesis conferring a 2.7-fold increased mortality/retransplantation hazard (p < 0.05). Diagnosis relies on gastric emptying scintigraphy (gold standard, sensitivity 85–95%) and wireless motility capsules (100% sensitivity for delay), while management encompasses prokinetics (60–80% response), endoscopic G-POEM (85% success), gastric electrical stimulation (100% quality-of-life improvement in series), and nutritional support. Prognostic factors include younger age (better intervention response), aetiology (anatomical worse than metabolic), and early therapy success. Outcomes vary: lung recipients experience severe impacts on chronic allograft dysfunction (83% oesophageal motility abnormalities correlate with 66–67% rejection). Future directions emphasise microbiome therapies, AI predictive models (AUC 0.85), and wearables for continuous monitoring. Multidisciplinary approaches are essential to balance immunosuppression with GI management, addressing ethical dilemmas like drug interactions and access disparities. Ultimately, early screening and personalised interventions can mitigate complications, enhancing long-term transplant success. Full article

New York State’s Regional Economic Development Councils (REDCs) were created to support sustainable, equitable, community-driven growth by distributing state funding across diverse regions. While allocations are geographically widespread, our research suggests that structural features of the REDC model may unintentionally reinforce disparities in local capacity and limit long-term impact, particularly in rural and under-resourced communities. This paper asks: To what extent does the REDC model reinforce or reduce disparities in economic development funding? Using qualitative system dynamics, specifically causal loop diagramming, and drawing on public data of RECD funding, interviews with municipal leaders, and public administration theory we examine systemic patterns that shape which municipalities repeatedly secure funding, and which remain excluded, identifying reinforcing and balancing processes that explain such systemic patterns. Key feedback structures include: the Capacity-Investment Loop, where high-capacity communities grow increasingly competitive over time; the Need-Funding Mismatch Loop, where administrative burdens block access for distressed communities; and the Collaboration Loop, which shows how competition can disincentivize shared regional strategies. These loops highlight how program structure—not just intent—shapes outcomes. Our findings suggest that, while the REDC model is intended to promote fairness and efficiency, it risks reproducing the disparities it seeks to address. Adjustments that strengthen regional collaboration, support capacity-building, and align funding with community need may help advance more inclusive and sustainable economic development. Full article

Reliable water access in remote and desert-like regions remains a challenge, particularly in areas with limited infrastructure. Solar-powered submersible pumps offer a promising solution; however, optimizing their performance under variable environmental conditions remains a challenging task. This research presents an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven digital twin framework for modeling and optimizing the performance of a solar-powered submersible pump system. The proposed system has three core components: (1) an AI model for predicting the inverter motor’s output frequency based on the current generated by the solar panels, (2) a predictive model for estimating the pump’s generated power based on the inverter motor’s output, and (3) a mathematical formulation for determining the volume of water lifted based on the system’s operational parameters. Moreover, a dataset comprising 6 months of environmental and system performance data was collected and utilized to train and evaluate multiple predictive models. Unlike previous works, this research integrates real-world data with a multi-phase AI modeling pipeline for real-time water output estimation. Performance assessments indicate that the Random Forest (RF) model outperformed alternative approaches, achieving the lowest error rates with a Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 1.00 Hz for output frequency prediction and 1.39 kW for pump output power prediction. The framework successfully estimated annual water delivery of 166,132.77 m³, with peak monthly output of 18,276.96 m³ in July and minimum of 9784.20 m³ in January demonstrating practical applicability for agricultural water management planning in arid regions. Full article

Background/Objectives: Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) frequently experience depression and anxiety, adversely affecting their quality of life. Addressing mental health in this population is a key public health priority. This study is aimed at examining the influence of sociodemographic and lifestyle factors on these conditions, which is essential for comprehensive patient care. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at a regional hospital in Riyadh between March and November 2022, involving 213 patients diagnosed with RA. Depression and anxiety levels were assessed using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and sociodemographic and lifestyle information was collected via questionnaires and from patients’ medical records. To identify significant associations, bivariate and regression statistical analyses were performed. Results: The prevalence rates of depression and anxiety were 16.4% and 23%, respectively. Significant associations were found between sociodemographic factors (age, marital status, education level, healthcare facility type) and depression and anxiety levels. Lifestyle factors, specifically sugar-sweetened drink consumption, were significantly associated with anxiety. Conclusions: Sociodemographic and nutritional factors play a crucial role in shaping the psychological well-being of patients with RA. These findings highlight the importance of adopting holistic care strategies that address both the physical and mental health needs of these patients. Enhancing access to preventive medicine and public health services in Saudi Arabia is essential for achieving this goal. Future research should continue to explore these associations to guide the development of targeted interventions. Full article