Search Results (1,094,029)

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

Facility agriculture is essential for modernizing the production of horticultural plants, while long-standing over-fertilization and improper tillage in some vegetable facilities in northern China have resulted in reduced soil quality, increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and diminished vegetable yields and quality. This study systematically analyzed the deteriorating health of typical cucumber facility soils in Hebei Province, China, induced by long-term over-fertilization. Based on field surveys, we explored dynamic changes in soil physicochemical properties across different durations of over-fertilization. Subsequently, a series of field trials were conducted to assess whether reducing nitrogen application, either alone or when combined with microbial agents, could ameliorate soil properties, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and enhance cucumber productivity. The initial field assessment revealed severe topsoil salt and nutrient accumulation, with water-soluble salt content in 5-year-old greenhouses from Yongqing soaring to 3.82 g·kg⁻¹, nearly eight times the level found in 1-year-old plots. Field experiments demonstrated that a 20% reduction in nitrogen application from the conventional rate of 900 kg·hm⁻² effectively mitigated salt accumulation, improved the structure of the microbial community, and maintained cucumber yield at 66,914 kg·hm⁻², an output comparable to conventional practices. More notably, integrating this 20% nitrogen reduction with an inoculation of Bacillus megaterium reduced the overall global warming potential by 26.7% and simultaneously increased cucumber yield to 72,747 kg·hm⁻². The most comprehensive strategy combined deep tillage, soybean straw incorporation, and B. megaterium application under reduced nitrogen, which boosted nitrogen use efficiency by 13.7% and achieved the highest yield among all treatments. In conclusion, our findings demonstrate that a combined approach of nitrogen reduction, microbial amendment, and straw application offers an effective strategy to restore soil health, enhance crop productivity, and mitigate environmental impacts in protective vegetable production systems. Full article

The state of charge (SOC) serves as a critical indicator for evaluating the remaining driving range of electric vehicles (EVs), and its prediction is of significance for alleviating range anxiety and promoting the development of the EVs industry. This study addresses two key challenges in current SOC prediction technologies: (1) the scarcity of multi-step prediction research based on real driving conditions and (2) the poor performance in multi-scale temporal feature extraction. We innovatively propose the Wavelet-Guided Temporal Feature Enhanced Informer (WG-TFE-Informer) prediction model with two core innovations: a wavelet-guided convolutional embedding layer that significantly enhances anti-interference capability through joint time-frequency analysis and a temporal edge enhancement (TEE) module that achieves the collaborative modeling of local microscopic features and macroscopic temporal evolution patterns based on sparse attention mechanisms. Building upon this model, we establish a multidimensional SOC energy consumption prediction system incorporating battery characteristics, driving behavior, and environmental terrain factors. Experimental validation with real-world operating data demonstrates outstanding performance: 1-min SOC prediction accuracy achieves a mean relative error (MRE) of 0.21% and 20-min SOC prediction exhibits merely 0.62% error fluctuation. Ablation experiments confirm model effectiveness with a 72.1% performance improvement over baseline (MRE of 3.06%) at 20-min SOC prediction, achieving a final MRE of 0.89%. Full article

With the rapid development of coastal and nearshore engineering projects in China, geotextile pipe and bag (GPB) structures have been increasingly applied in marine land reclamation and coastal protection works. To better understand the mechanical behavior of GPB structures on soft soil foundations, this study conducts a systematic investigation into the mechanical properties of both soft soils and GPBs using a physical model test system. By integrating numerical simulations, the stress–deformation characteristics of GPB structures on soft soils and the evolution of pore pressure are further analyzed. The results indicate that the compression curve of soft soil exhibits significant nonlinearity, with silt showing higher apparent compressibility than silty clay. Experimental data yielded the compression coefficient λ and rebound coefficient μ for both soil types. As consolidation pressure increases, deviatoric stress in the soft soil rises notably, demonstrating typical strain-hardening behavior. Based on these findings, the critical state effective stress ratio M was determined for both soil types. The study also establishes the development laws of cohesion c and friction angle φ during soil consolidation, as well as the variation of pore water pressure under different confining pressures. Interface tests clarify the relationships between cohesion and friction angle at the interfaces between geotextile pipe bags and sand, and between adjacent pipe bag layers. Numerical simulations reveal that the reclamation construction process significantly influences structural horizontal displacement. Significant stress concentration occurs at the toe of the slope, while the central portion of the pipe-bag structure experiences maximum tensile stress—still within the material’s allowable stress limit. The installation of drainage boards effectively accelerates pore pressure dissipation, achieving nearly complete consolidation within one year after construction. This research provides a scientific foundation and practical engineering guidance for assessing the overall stability and safety of (GPB) structures on soft soil foundations in coastal regions. Full article

The aerodynamic performance of nacelle inlets under crosswind conditions is crucial for engine stability and efficiency. Current parametric investigations are predominantly focused on cruise operations, with minimal consideration given to crosswind conditions. This study employs an iCST-based parametric modeling approach to construct geometric models. A systematic examination of key geometric parameters—including the throat axial location, fan face radius, and leading-edge radii of the inner and outer contours is conducted. The reliability of the numerical methodology was established through a two-step validation process using both the iCST-generated non-axisymmetric model and the DLR-F6 benchmark model, followed by a geometric sensitivity analysis based on parametrically generated axisymmetric models. The results demonstrate that the inner contour leading-edge radius (ROC_I/R_hi) has the most substantial influence on flow separation. When ROC_I/R_hi decreases from 7.84% to 3.46%, the peak maximum circumferential total pressure distortion index (IDCmax) is increased by 86.78% with a 53.85% rearward shift in the complete reattachment mass flow rate. Correspondingly, a similar reduction in the outer contour leading-edge radius (ROC_O/R_hi) from 9.38% to 4.69% results in a 55.50% increase in peak IDCmax and a 33.33% rearward shift. Comparatively, the fan face radius shows minimal impact on flow distortion (increases by 9.72%), but more pronounced effects on total pressure recovery, while rearward movement of the throat axial location (35.00% to 69.00%) causes a 30.03% rise in IDCmax and 43.75% complete flow reattachment delay. It is concluded that the leading-edge optimization is crucial for crosswind resilience, with the inner contour geometry being particularly influential, providing parametric foundations for robust inlet design across a wide range of operating regimes. In addition, it is also found that the effects of Reynolds number (Re) lie in two folds: (1) For a fixed model scale, the aerodynamic performance of the inlet suffers a remarkable degradation with rapidly rising IDCmax as the crosswind velocity-based Re is increased to cause significant flow separations. (2) For a fixed crosswind velocity, the peak IDCmax progressively decreases with the increasing scale based Re, while σ exhibits an overall enhancement as Re rises. Full article

Excessive social media use (ESMU) may negatively impact college students. Less is known about whether cannabis use may influence ESMU. This study assessed the association between current cannabis use and ESMU in addition to cannabis use risk and ESMU among U.S. college students. An analysis of the 2022–2023 American College Health Association’s National College Health Assessment dataset including 65,052 college students aged 18–24-years old was performed. Unadjusted and adjusted logistic regression models were analyzed. In total, 23.2% of college students reported current cannabis use within the past 30 days. The unadjusted and adjusted logistic model results indicated that college students reporting current cannabis use were at increased odds of reporting ESMU compared to college students not reporting current cannabis use (OR = 1.22, 95% CI = 1.16–1.28; AOR = 1.27, 95% CI = 1.20–1.34, respectively). Furthermore, unadjusted and adjusted logistic regression results demonstrated that college students with moderate cannabis use risk (OR = 1.21, 95% CI = 1.12–1.30; AOR = 1.21, 95% CI = 1.12–1.30) or high cannabis use risk (OR = 1.78, 95% CI = 1.50–2.11; AOR = 1.82, 95% CI = 1.53–2.16) were at increased odds of reporting ESMU compared to college students with low cannabis use risk. U.S. college students who currently use cannabis, especially those exhibiting a moderate or high cannabis use risk, are at an increased odds of excessively using social media sites. Full article

Background. How individuals develop and form perspectives of those around them differs from person to person. Factors such as childhood parental bonding styles can affect how prejudice forms. Social dominance in adulthood may also be affected by childhood experiences through the bonding received. Not many studies examine how an individual’s Social Dominance Orientationcan be influenced by parental bonding styles in childhood. Furthermore, few studies that investigated neural correlates are associated with these two variables. As such, this study aims to establish how parental bonding in childhood affects brain regions that are also implicated in adult SDO. Methods. Ninety-one participants were recruited and underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) and Parental Bonding Index (PBI) were collected. We used DARTEL package in SPM12 to conduct a whole-brain analysis. The ROI analyses were focused on amygdala grey matter volume (GMV). Results. This study identified a strong correlation between PBI and SDO. Interestingly, PBI_Care and PBI_Protection scores significantly predicted SDO scores. SDO was positively associated with amygdala GMV, PBI_Care was negatively associated with amygdala GMV, and PBI_Protection was positively associated with amygdala GMV. Conclusions. Our results show that PBI and SDO are highly correlated as well as their association with the amygdala and other key regions of the brain. Full article

MDM hydantoin (MDMH), a formaldehyde-releasing preservative widely used in cosmetics, poses potential health risks due to its conversion to formaldehyde and systemically absorbed metabolites. Current safety assessments lack quantitative exposure data due to rapid degradation of MDMH in biological matrices. In the present study, we developed a validated LC-MS/MS assay for simultaneous determination of MDMH and its stable metabolite DMH in rat plasma, and characterized their toxicokinetics using population modeling following intravenous and transdermal administration. MDMH exhibited extremely rapid elimination (t_1/2 = 0.4 ± 0.1 min) with near-complete conversion to DMH (97.6 ± 9.6%), while DMH demonstrated prolonged retention (t_1/2 = 174.2 ± 12.2 min) and complete bioavailability (100.9 ± 18.0%) after transdermal application. Population modeling estimated that 84% (relative standard error: 42.8%) of applied MDMH undergoes cutaneous absorption and metabolism to DMH and formaldehyde within skin tissues. This study demonstrates that stable metabolite monitoring combined with population modeling enables toxicokinetic characterization of rapidly degrading compounds following dermal exposure. Full article

Driven by the rapid promotion of new energy technologies, lithium-ion batteries have found broad applications. Accurate prediction of their state of health (SOH) plays a critical role in ensuring safe and reliable battery management. This study presents a hybrid SOH prediction method for lithium-ion batteries by combining improved complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise (ICEEMDAN) and a fully connected bidirectional long short-term memory network (FC-BiLSTM). ICEEMDAN is applied to extract multi-scale features and suppress noise, while the FC-BiLSTM integrates feature mapping with temporal modeling for accurate prediction. Using end-of-discharge time, charging capacity, and historical capacity averages as inputs, the method is validated on the NASA dataset and laboratory aging data. Results show RMSE values below 0.012 and over 15% improvement compared with BiLSTM-based benchmarks, highlighting the proposed method’s accuracy, robustness, and potential for online SOH prediction in electric vehicle battery management systems. Full article

Cryptorchidism in piglets, characterized by undescended testicles, causes economic losses and reduces consumer acceptance. Hyperprolific sows (HPS) have been hypothesized to produce a higher incidence of cryptorchid offspring. This study investigated the incidence of cryptorchidism in piglets born to HPS and its association with piglet birth weight and litter size in an observational study. Data from 276 litters (144 Landrace × Yorkshire sows; 4003 piglets) were analyzed. Sows were classified by genetic line (conventional: 68 litters; HPS: 208 litters) and parity (primiparous: 144; second parity: 132). At first parity, all gilts were inseminated with semen from a phenotypically unilateral cryptorchid Duroc boar, whereas at second parity, semen from three normal Duroc boars, which were full siblings, was used. The Landrace × Yorkshire HPS line produced more piglets per litter than the conventional Landrace × Yorkshire line (16.5 ± 0.3 vs. 12.4 ± 0.6; p < 0.001). Cryptorchidism occurred in 25.7% (37/144) of litters inseminated with semen from the cryptorchid boar, compared with 3.8% (5/132) of litters inseminated with semen from normal boars (p < 0.001). In total, 42 sows produced at least one cryptorchid piglet across both parities. Among affected sows (n = 42), the average number of cryptorchid piglets per litter was 1.3 ± 0.6 (range: 1–3). In the HPS line, cryptorchidism was detected in 24.1% (26/108) of litters, compared with 30.6% (11/36) in the conventional line (p = 0.441). HPS piglets had lower birth weights than conventional piglets (1.14 ± 0.01 vs. 1.30 ± 0.02 kg; p < 0.001). In the HPS line, litters with cryptorchid piglets had lower birth weights than those without (1.11 ± 0.02 vs. 1.18 ± 0.01 kg; p = 0.012), whereas no difference was observed in the conventional line (1.31 ± 0.04 vs. 1.28 ± 0.02 kg; p = 0.917). Litter size did not differ between litters with and without cryptorchid piglets in either genetic line. In conclusion, the lower average birth weight in cryptorchid litters of the HPS line, but not in conventional lines, suggests that HPS breeds may influence cryptorchidism incidence. These findings highlight the need to optimize fetal growth especially in the HPS to reduce this risk. Full article

Cheese manufacturing generates large volumes of whey with high biochemical and chemical oxygen demand, historically treated as waste. Yet, whey is rich in lactose, proteins, and minerals that can be fractionated and upgraded into foods and bio-based products. During cheese production, 80% to 90% of the total volume is discarded as whey, which can cause severe pollution. However, milk by-products can be a natural source of high-value-added compounds and a cost-effective substrate for microbial growth and metabolites production. The current review focuses on cheese whey as a key milk by-product, highlighting its generation and composition, the challenges associated with its production, methods for fractionating whey to recover bioactive compounds, its applications in functional food development, the barriers to its broader use in the food sector, and its potential as a substrate for producing value-added compounds. Particularly, the focus was on the recent solutions to use cheese whey as a primary material for microbial fermentation and enzymatic processes, producing a diverse range of chemicals and products for applications in the pharmaceutical, food, and biotechnology industries. This review contributes to defining a framework for reducing the environmental impacts of whey through its application in designing foods and generating biomaterials. Full article

In cold regions, solar radiation triggers the spring ablation of river ice layers, thereby changing their physical traits and mechanical behavior. This study uses the Heilongjiang River section near Mohe Arctic Village as the research prototype area. It analyzes the impact of solar radiation on ice density and uniaxial compressive strength through indoor simulation tests and multiple regression analysis, aiming to reveal the influence mechanism on uniaxial compressive strength. The results show that after applying a cumulative amount of simulated solar radiation of 84 MJ/m², the ice density decreases by 3.88%, and the loss rate of uniaxial compressive strength can exceed 50%. Solar radiation promotes the transformation of the uniaxial compressive failure mode from ductile to brittle. The established multiple regression model attains a coefficient of determination of 0.891. In the spring ice-melting period in cold regions, the impact of solar radiation on ice strength should be fully considered in the design of ice condition early warnings and water conservancy projects for ice flood prevention. Full article

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) have attracted global attention due to their persistence and biological toxicity, becoming critical emerging contaminants in river and lake environments worldwide. Building upon existing studies, this work aims to comprehensively understand the pollution patterns, environmental behaviors, and potential risks of PFASs in freshwater systems, thereby providing scientific evidence and technical support for precise pollution control, risk prevention, and the protection of aquatic ecosystems and human health. Based on publications from 2002 to 2025 indexed in the Web of Science (WoS), bibliometric analysis was used to explore the temporal evolution and research hotspots of PFASs, and to systematically review their input pathways, pollution characteristics, environmental behaviors, influencing factors, and ecological and health risks in river and lake environments. Results show that PFAS inputs originate from both direct and indirect pathways. Direct emissions mainly stem from industrial production, consumer product use, and waste disposal, while indirect emissions arise from precursor transformation, secondary releases from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), and long-range atmospheric transport (LRAT). Affected by source distribution, physicochemical properties, and environmental conditions, PFASs display pronounced spatial variability among environmental media. Their partitioning, degradation, and migration are jointly controlled by molecular properties, aquatic physicochemical conditions, and interactions with dissolved organic matter (DOM). Current risk assessments indicate that PFASs generally pose low risks in non-industrial areas, yet elevated ecological and health risks persist in industrial clusters and regions with intensive aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) use. Quantitative evaluation of mixture toxicity and chronic low-dose exposure risks remains insufficient and warrants further investigation. This study reveals the complex, dynamic environmental behaviors of PFASs in river and lake systems. Considering the interactions between PFASs and coexisting components, future research should emphasize mechanisms, key influencing factors, and synergistic control strategies under multi-media co-pollution. Developing quantitative risk assessment frameworks capable of characterizing integrated mixture toxicity will provide a scientific basis for the precise identification and effective management of PFAS pollution in aquatic environments. Full article

Background. DM frequently causes ESRD, a situation in which survival is impossible without chronic dialysis. This research aimed to study the tissue-regenerative capacity of ESRD patients with/without DM. For this purpose, two growth factors were studied: NT-3 and VEGFβ. To our knowledge, this is the first study on the serum behavior of NT-3 in patients with ESRD + DM and, very likely, in patients with ESRD alone. VEGFβ is also very little studied in these patient categories. Since the quasi-permanent inflammation was already clearly proven, this study focused on the anti-inflammatory capacity, taking IL-10 as a prototype, and also the interrelationships between these three factors. Method. All the aforementioned compounds were determined from serum samples, utilizing ELISA kits. Results. The results were surprising, proving a marked polarization of their serum behavior. Although the mean serum levels of NT-3 and VEGFβ were significantly increased in patients with ESRD + DM compared to those with ESRD alone, most patients in both groups had serum levels below the detection limits of the kits used. Conclusions. Although this research is in its early stages, it generates important conclusions and directions for further research, as the functional connections between the studied parameters are not fully understood. Full article

In recent years, the fusion of camera data with LiDAR measurements has emerged as a powerful approach to enhance spatial understanding. This study introduces a novel, hardware-agnostic methodology that generates colourised point clouds from mechanical LiDAR using multiple camera inputs, providing complete 360-degree coverage. The primary innovation lies in its robustness under low-light conditions, achieved through the integration of a low-light image enhancement module within the fusion pipeline. The system requires initial calibration to determine intrinsic camera parameters, followed by automatic computation of the geometric transformation between the LiDAR and cameras—removing the need for specialised calibration targets and streamlining the setup. The data processing framework uses colour correction to ensure uniformity across camera feeds before fusion. The algorithm was tested using a Velodyne Puck Hi-Res LiDAR and a four-camera configuration. The optimised software achieved real-time performance and reliable colourisation even under very low illumination, successfully recovering scene details that would otherwise remain undetectable. Full article