Search Results (92)

The paper presents a comparison of two methods for determining the burning time of an electric arc in a vacuum chamber: the classic oscilloscope method and the author’s own photographic analysis using an ultra-high-speed camera. A specially designed laboratory station enabled precise recording of electrical and optical parameters during switching operations conducted at different pressures in the discharge chamber. The photographic method consisted of a time-lapse analysis of the ignition and extinction of the arc using dedicated software to precisely determine its duration based on the recorded images. In total, five repeated measurements were performed for each pressure value. All the results were subjected to a detailed statistical analysis, including the determination of standard deviations and confidence intervals. The reported mean relative error for the new photographic method did not exceed 1.12%. The developed photographic method proved to be a reliable tool for assessing the duration of the arc, while also enabling a detailed analysis of the dynamics of arc channel development. Possible applications include laboratory testing and diagnostics of switching devices, especially where traditional measurement methods are difficult to apply. Full article

Post-traumatic lymphedema (PTL) is a chronic and often under-recognized sequela of soft tissue trauma, leading to persistent swelling, functional impairment, and increased risk of infection. While lymphedema is traditionally associated with oncologic interventions, growing evidence highlights the significant burden of PTL in trauma patients. This review provides a comprehensive analysis of the current understanding of PTL, including epidemiology, risk factors, pathophysiology, diagnostic modalities, and treatment strategies. PTL often occurs after high-impact musculoskeletal injuries (such as open fractures with significant soft tissue loss) or burns (especially if deep or circumferential). This risk is increased if injury occurs at critical areas of increased lymphatic density (such as anteromedial leg, medial knee, medial thigh, medial elbow, or medial arm). Advances in imaging techniques, including indocyanine green lymphography and magnetic resonance lymphangiography, have improved early detection and classification of PTL. Management approaches range from conservative therapies, such as complete decongestive therapy (CDT), to surgical interventions, including lymphaticovenous anastomosis (LVA), vascularized lymph node transfer (VLNT), and vascularized lymph vessel transfer (VLVT)/lymph-interpositional-flap transfer (LIFT). We report on our experience with two patients. At our center, we diagnose and stage PTL with ICG lymphography and trial CDT for 6 months. If there is no significant improvement, we recommend LVA. If there is insufficient improvement after 12 months, we recommend LIFT/repeat LVA/VLNT. We also treat open fractures with significant soft tissue defects with LIFT, as prophylaxis against PTL. PTL remains an underdiagnosed condition, necessitating increased awareness and intervention to prevent long-term disability. Full article

Forest management practices such as clearcutting, thinning, and prescribed burning are widely implemented to achieve various ecological and silvicultural objectives, yet their effects on soil carbon dynamics and belowground processes remain uncertain. We conducted a global meta-analysis of 414 observations from 110 studies to quantify the impacts of these practices on total soil respiration (SR), its autotrophic (Ra) and heterotrophic (Rh) components, and associated biophysical and soil variables. Clearcutting and prescribed burning both reduced SR by an average of 11%, driven largely by Ra declines following reductions in live biomass, forest floor inputs, and microbial biomass. Thinning caused no significant change in SR, likely due to the limited belowground disturbance and residual vegetation compensatory growth, although impacts intensified when combined with post-treatments (e.g., residue removal or site-preparation burns), resembling those of clearcutting or repeated burns. In contrast, post-burn treatments following clearcutting did not substantially alter biological factors or SR components. Across practices, soil temperature increased due to the opening of the canopy, middle- and understory vegetation, and forest floor disturbance, but this warming showed no consistent relationship with Rh or SR. Instead, responses were primarily governed by substrate availability, highlighting its central role in soil carbon fluxes under management disturbances. Full article

Burned area (BA) mapping and fire severity assessment are essential for understanding fire occurrence patterns, formulating post-fire restoration strategies and evaluating vegetation recovery processes. However, existing BA datasets are primarily derived from coarse-resolution satellite imagery and often lack sufficient consideration of fire severity. To address these limitations, this study utilized dense time-series Landsat imagery available on the Google Earth Engine, applying the qualityMosaic method to generate annual composites of minimum normalized burn ratio values. These composites imagery enabled the rapid identification of fire sample points, which were subsequently used to train a random forest classifier for estimating per-pixel burn probability. Pixels with a burned probability greater than 0.9 were selected as the core of the BA, and used as candidate seeds for region growing to further expand the core and extract complete BA. This two-stage extraction method effectively balances omission and commission errors. To avoid the repeated detection of unrecovered BA, this study developed distinct correction rules based on the differing post-fire recovery characteristics of forests and grasslands. The extracted BA were further categorized into four fire severity levels using the delta normalized burn ratio. In addition, we conducted a quantitative validation of the BA mapping accuracy based on Sentinel-2 data between 2015 and 2023. The results indicated that the BA mapping achieved an overall accuracy of 93.90%, with a Dice coefficient of 82.04%, and omission and commission error rates of 26.32% and 5.25%, respectively. The BA dataset generated in this study exhibited good spatiotemporal consistency with existing products, including MCD64A1, FireCCI51, and GABAM. The BA fluctuated significantly between 1985 and 2010, with the highest value recorded in 1987 (13,315 km²). The overall trend of BA showed a decline, with annual burned areas remaining below 2000 km² after 2010 and reaching a minimum of 92.8 km² in 2020. There was no significant temporal variation across different fire severity levels. The area of high-severity burns showed a positive correlation with the annual total BA. High-severity fire-prone zones were primarily concentrated in the northeastern, southeastern, and western parts of the study area, predominantly within grasslands and forest–grassland ecotone regions. Full article

In 1982 a conservation project was initiated to restore glade communities in the Missouri Ozarks with a special emphasis on collared lizards (Crotophytus collaris), a state threatened species at the time. Starting in 1984, collared lizards were translocated onto restored glade habitats on Stegall Mountain in the Ozarks. The populations persisted but did not colonize other glades on Stegall until 1994, when prescribed fires included not only the glades, but also the surrounding woodland. Starting in 1999, landscape-level burns connected Stegall to three nearby mountains. The goal of this study was to test the hypothesis that expanding prescribed burns to the forested woodlands between Stegall Mountain and nearby mountains would create dispersal corridors for the colonization of glades on new mountains. Indeed, all three mountains were colonized and direct dispersal of marked lizards from Stegall was observed following the prescribed fires. Inter-mountain colonization dynamics and patterns varied: one was absorbed into the Stegall meta-population, another experienced a founder event followed by rapid colonization, and the third underwent repeated failed colonization attempts before successful establishment years later. These diverse patterns were consistent with differences in landscape resistance in the inter-mountain corridors rather than in geographical distance. Intra-mountain colonization patterns indicated that lizards assessed glade quality based on multiple factors. High landscape resistance resulted in a young age structure in the initial colonizing population. This young age structure interacted with the territorial behavior of collared lizards, age of reproduction, and probability of dispersal. This strong interaction between landscape resistance in the dispersal corridor and social behavior in the colonizing population is a novel factor in predicting colonization dynamics. Moreover, these results highlight the importance of social behavior on dispersal decisions versus habitat quality alone. Full article

Climate models have predicted changes in woody plant growth, vitality, and species distribution. Those changes are expected mainly within the boundaries of species ranges. We studied the influence of changing hydrothermal and burning-rate regimes on relict pine stands at the southern edge of the Pinus sylvestris range in Siberia. We hypothesize that (1) warming has stimulated pine growth under conditions of sufficient moisture supply, and (2) increased burning rate has threatened forest viability. We found that the increase in air temperature, combined with the decrease in soil and air drought, stimulated tree growth. Since the “warming restart” around 2000, the growth index (GI) of pines has exceeded its historical value by 1.4 times. The GI strongly correlates with the GPP and NPP of pine stands (r = 0.82). Despite the increased fire rate, the GPP/NPP and EVI index of both pine stands and surrounding bush–steppes are increasing, i.e., the pine habitat is “greening” since the warming restart. These results support the prediction (by climatic scenarios SSP4.5, SSP7.0, and SSP8.5) of improvement in tree habitat in the Siberian South. Meanwhile, warming has led to a reduction in the fire-return interval (up to 3–5 y). Although the post-fire density of seedlings on burns (ca. 10,000 per ha) is potentially sufficient for pine forest recovery, repeated surface fires have eliminated the majority of the undergrowth and afforestation. In a changing climate, the preservation of relict pine forests depends on a combination of moisture supply, burning rate, and fire suppression. Full article

Wildfires serve a paradoxical role in landscapes—supporting biodiversity and nutrient cycling while also threatening ecosystems and economies, especially as climate change intensifies their frequency and severity. This study investigates the impact of wildfires and vegetation recovery in the Bosco Difesa Grande forest in southern Italy, focusing on the 2017 and 2021 fire events. Using Google Earth Engine (GEE) accessed in January 2025, we applied remote sensing techniques to assess burn severity and post-fire regrowth. Sentinel-2 imagery was used to compute the Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI); burn severity was derived from differenced NBR (dNBR), and vegetation recovery was monitored via differenced NDVI (dNDVI) and multi-year NDVI time series. We uniquely compare recovery across four zones with different fire histories—unburned, single-burn (2017 or 2021), and repeated-burn (2017 and 2021)—providing a novel perspective on post-fire dynamics in Mediterranean ecosystems. Results show that low-severity zones recovered more quickly than high-severity areas. Repeated-burn zones experienced the slowest and least complete recovery, while unburned areas remained stable. These findings suggest that repeated fires may shift vegetation from forest to shrubland. This study highlights the importance of remote sensing for post-fire assessment and supports adaptive land management to enhance long-term ecological resilience. Full article

Background: Scald burns are common thermal injuries in clinical settings, yet existing animal models lack standardization in burn size, exposure time, and severity control. Traditional burn induction methods, such as manual immersion or heated metal contact, suffer from high variability, limited reproducibility, and are operator-dependent, reducing their translational relevance. This study presents RAPID-3D (rat printed induction device—3D), a novel 3D-printed system designed to induce uniform and reproducible scald burns in a rat model, ensuring precise exposure control and minimal variability. Methods: RAPID-3D features four burn exposure windows (10 × 20 mm each, 10 mm spacing), allowing for controlled boiling water (100 °C, 8 s) exposure while immobilizing the anesthetized rat’s dorsum. N = 10 female Wistar rats were subjected to eight controlled burns per animal. Internal unburned control areas were used in each rat for intra-animal comparison. Burn evolution was assessed using digital planimetry, histological evaluation, and real-time microvascular perfusion analysis via laser Doppler line scanning (LDLS) at 1 h, which was repeated on day 4, 9 and 21 post-burn. Results: RAPID-3D generated highly consistent burn sizes (198 ± 3.54 mm²) across all rats, with low inter-animal variability. Histological analysis confirmed full-thickness epidermal necrosis and deep partial-thickness dermal damage (600–900 µm depth). Microvascular Trends: Perfusion dropped immediately post-burn, remained low at day 4, and gradually increased from day 9 onward, suggesting progressive neovascularization and vascular remodeling. RAPID-3D provides a standardized, reproducible, and clinically relevant scald burn model, eliminates operator-induced variability, enhances experimental consistency, and offers strong translational relevance for burn treatment development and wound healing research. Full article

Background/Objectives: Enzymatic debridement with bromelain is a treatment option for deep partial thickness and full thickness burns. This procedure is associated with significant pain, necessitating the use of anesthesia techniques. However, there is limited evidence on the optimal strategy to achieve effective pain control. To detail the anesthetic approach in patients undergoing bromelain-based enzymatic debridement for burn injuries. Methods: A retrospective observational study was conducted by analysing the medical records of burn patients treated with enzymatic debridement using bromelain. The study included patients admitted to the Burn Unit of Vall d’Hebron University Hospital between January 2015 and December 2019. Results: A total of 112 patients met the inclusion criteria. The average burned total body surface area (TBSA) was 10.7% ± 11.4, and the median Abbreviated Burn Severity Index (ABSI) was 5 (range: 2–12). The most commonly burned and treated regions were the upper limbs (73%), followed by the lower limbs (30%) and the abdomen (8%). Regional anesthesia was the predominant technique, utilised in 96% of cases. Among these, axillary nerve block was performed in 47% of patients, with continuous catheter placement in 31%. Pain control was achieved in 61% of patients during the first 48 h following enzymatic debridement. Opioids were required for post-procedure pain relief in 12.5% of cases, and repeat anesthesia was necessary in 2.7%. There was no significant difference in pain management outcomes between single nerve blocks and catheter-based approaches (p = 0.809). Complications were reported in nine patients and included hypotension, nausea, and urinary retention. Conclusions: Bromelain-based enzymatic debridement is a painful intervention requiring specialised anesthetic management. Regional anesthesia techniques offer a safe and effective strategy for pain control, though achieving optimal analgesia during the initial 48 h remains a clinical challenge. Full article

Measuring exercise intensity for safety and to inform prescription in acute burn survivors, is challenging. This study aimed to assess the validity of adult patient end-of-workout rating of session perceived exertion (sRPE); and calculated training load (TL) (sRPE × session duration) as measures of exercise intensity. Secondly, the study aimed to compare clinician and patient perception of exercise effort during physiotherapist-led sessions. Repeated RPE data were collected every 5-min during two resistance exercise sessions completed by 25 burns patients. Physiological (heart rate [HR], blood lactate [BLa]) and perceptual measures (sRPE, ratings of pain, fatigue, delayed onset muscle soreness, sleep quality and stress) were also captured. Adjusted, multivariable linear regression models were used to determine the associations between sRPE and TL and significant predictor variables. Paired t-tests were performed to compare clinician and participant sRPE. Results: Average RPE calculated from 5-min repeats, after adjustment for age and %TBSA, was significantly associated with sRPE, F(1, 45) = 100.82, (p < 0.001, adjusted R² = 0.64) and TL, F(1, 45) = 33.66, (p < 0.001, adjusted R² = 0.39). No significant differences between patient and clinician sRPE were apparent (p = 0.948). Thus, one-off reporting of sRPE and calculated TL may be appropriate markers to monitor exercise intensity and aid prescription in individuals with burn injuries, regardless of patient and burn characteristics or time since burn. There was also no difference between patient and clinician’s perceptions of exercise effort. Full article

The formation of forest fire burned area, influenced by a variety of factors such as meteorology, topography, vegetation, and human intervention, is a dynamic process of fire line burning that develops from the point of ignition to the boundary of the burned area. Accurately simulating and predicting this dynamic process can provide a scientific basis for forest fire control and suppression decisions. In this study, five typical forest fires located in different regions of China were used as the study object. The straight path distances from the ignition point grid to each grid on fire line in Sentinel-2 imageries for each forest fire were used as the target variables. We obtained the values of 11 independent variables for each pathway, including wind speed component, Temperature, Relative Humidity, Elevation, Slope, Aspect, Degree of Relief, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Vegetation Type, Fire Duration, and Gross Domestic Product reflecting human intervention capacity for fires. The value of each target variable and that of its corresponding independent variable constituted a sample. Four machine learning models, such as Random Forest (RF), Gradient Boosting Decision Trees (GBDT), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), were trained using 80% effective samples from four forest fires, and 20% used to verify the above models. The hyper-parameters of each model were optimized using grid search method. After analyzing the validation results of models which showed temperature as a non-significant variable, the training and validation process of models above was repeated after excluding temperature. The results show that RF is the optimal model with 49.55 m for root mean square error (RMSE), 29.19 m for mean absolute error (MAE) and 0.9823 for coefficient of determination (R²). This study used the RF model to construct the shape of burned areas by predicting lengths of all straight path distances from the ignition point to the fire line. The study can dynamically capture the development of forest fire scenes. Full article

Lake Winona is a 129-hectare urban lake which occupies part of an old side channel of the Mississippi River and has been modified significantly over the past 125 years. The entire shoreline (>8 km) is publicly owned, with current shorelines created mostly during two periods of lake dredging and filling of fringe wetlands 70 and 110 years ago, respectively. Since then, some sections were allowed to revegetate naturally with trees and shrubs, some were armored with riprap, and others have been maintained mostly as turfgrass parklands. Shoreline vegetation assessments and tree stand surveys were completed prior to beginning targeted shoreline rehabilitation in 2017. These rehabilitation activities (encompassing the majority of shoreline) include the following: (1) repeated removal and chemical treatment of woody invasive shrubs/trees (primarily common buckthorn Rhamnus cathartica and nonnative bush honeysuckles Lonicera spp.) by contractors and volunteers; (2) chemical spraying and hand pulling of nonnative invasive ornamental grasses (Miscanthus spp.) and forbs (Japanese hops Humulus japonica; leafy spurge Euphorbia esula) annually or as needed; (3) killing of turfgrass and overseeding with native prairie species; (4) shrub and sapling plantings and overseeding with native species in both wooded and turfgrass sections; (5) installation of wave barriers (using cut woody invasives) and planting of emergent aquatic macrophytes; (6) prescribed burns of prairie plantings; (7) establishment of fixed photo reference points to document changes; and (8) altered park mowing practices to maintain a shoreline buffer of vegetation. These ongoing management activities aim to replace more turfgrass with native prairie, plant more shrubs and trees on shorelines, suppress nonnative invasives, and encourage the development of aquatic macrophyte beds to reduce, or eliminate shoreline erosion. Future management activities will continue to emphasize invasive species control, turfgrass conversion to native vegetation, and shoreline erosion reduction. Full article

Background: Autologous fat grafting, enriched with platelet-rich plasma (PRP), has been established as an effective and affordable treatment for various types of wound healing. However, its efficacy in managing wounds with tendon exposure has not been thoroughly investigated. Methods: We report the case of a 40-year-old male who sustained a severe friction burn on his hand and forearm from a car accident, resulting in significant tissue loss and exposed extensor tendons. Results: Traditional wound treatment strategies were not implemented due to specific patient circumstances. After initial surgical management failed to prevent necrosis and maintain coverage of the exposed tendons, the patient underwent a novel treatment involving autologous fat grafting combined with PRP and growth factors. The procedure was repeated twice within a month to promote granular tissue formation over that area and facilitate subsequent coverage with an epidermoreticular graft. By day 21 post-initial graft, the exposed tendons were 98% covered with granular tissue. Complete wound coverage was achieved by day 60, and by day 130 the patient had regained 90% functionality of the affected limbs. Conclusions: This case illustrates the potential of autologous fat grafting combined with PRP and growth factors as a viable, flap-free alternative for covering tendon exposures. This approach not only enhances wound healing but also supports functional recovery, underscoring the need for further research into its broader applicative potentials. Full article

Atrial fibrillation (AF) in the setting of heart failure (HF) with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) is a prevalent comorbidity and is enabled by adverse left atrial (LA) remodeling, dilation, and scar tissue formation. These changes are facilitated by poor left ventricular compliance. A growing body of clinical evidence and medical guidelines suggest that managing atrial tachyrhythms with catheter ablation (CA) is paramount to treating concomitant HF. This recommendation is complicated in that thermal CA modalities, namely radiofrequency ablation and cryoablation, are both therapeutic via inducing additional scar tissue. AF treatment with thermal CA may compound the atrial scar burden for patients who already have extensive scars secondary to HFpEF. Therefore, thermal CA could act as “gasoline” to the slowly burning “fire” within the LA, increasing the rate of AF recurrence. Pulsed-field ablation (PFA), which utilizes high-voltage irreversible electroporation, is a non-thermal CA technique that is capable of disrupting reentrant microcircuits and arrhythmogenic foci without inducing significant scar burden. PFA has the potential to mitigate the strong fibrosis response to thermal CA that predisposes to AF by serving as “water” rather than “gasoline”. Thus, PFA may increase the efficacy and durability of CA for AF in HFpEF, and subsequently, may decrease the risk of procedural complications from repeat CAs. In this article, we provide a summary of the clinical concepts underlying HFpEF and AF and then summarize the data to date on the potential of PFA being a superior CA technique for AF in the setting of comorbid HFpEF. Full article

Lateral cephalometric radiographs are crucial in dentistry and orthodontics for diagnosis and treatment planning. However, their use in forensic identification, especially with burned bodies or in mass disasters, is challenging. AM (antemortem) and PM (postmortem) radiographs can be compared for identification. This study introduces and evaluates a novel algorithm for extracting cranial patterns from digital lateral cephalometric radiographs for identification purposes. Due to the unavailability of AM cephalograms from deceased individuals, the algorithm was tested using pre- and post-treatment cephalograms of living individuals from an orthodontic archive, considered as AM and PM data. The proposed algorithm encodes cranial patterns into a database for future identification. It matches PM cephalograms with AM records, accurately identifying individuals by comparing cranial features. The algorithm achieved an accuracy of 97.5%, a sensitivity of 97.7%, and a specificity of 95.2%, correctly identifying 350 out of 358 cases. The mean similarity score improved from 91.02% to 98.10% after applying the Automatic Error Reduction (AER) function. Intra-observer error analysis showed an average Euclidean distance of 3.07 pixels (SD = 0.73) for repeated landmark selections. The proposed algorithm shows promise for identity recognition based on cranial patterns and could be enhanced with artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms in future studies. Full article