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Purpose: The aim of this study was to develop a concept for adjustment planning of intraocular lens orientation axes after cataract surgery with implantation of toric intraocular lenses (tIOLs) and to predict the spectacle refraction after tIOL re-alignment. Methods: This calculation concept based on paraxial spherocylindrical vergence transformations uses the actual spherocylindrical refraction at the spectacle plane, corneal power, and the labelled power and measured axis of the implanted tIOL to minimise the refractive cylinder by simulating the rotation of the tIOL in the eye. The axial lens position is derived from simple prediction models using anterior chamber depth and lens thickness or axial length from preoperative biometry or the equivalent tIOL power. The new target axis is predicted together with the spherocylindrical refraction after re-alignment of the tIOL. Results: To show the applicability of this calculation model, we provide four clinical working examples: example 1 deals with keratometric power values; example 2 deals with keratometric curvature values, including surgically induced astigmatism and a statistical posterior astigmatism correction for the cornea (both examples with a thin cornea model); example 3 deals with corneal curvature data for the front and back surface; and example 4 deals with keratometric power data and corneal back surface power data, including surgically induced astigmatism (both examples with a thick cornea model). Conclusions: The effect of tIOL axis adjustment after cataract surgery can be predicted based on actual refraction, corneal power, tIOL power and the measured axis, and a simulation of the tIOL axis rotation enables the best orientation with the lowest refractive cylinder at the spectacle plane to be found.

Private equity (PE) investment in US hospitals has attracted substantial policy and research attention, but empirical work has been limited by fragmented and inconsistent transaction data. We aimed to construct a more comprehensive and validated dataset of PE ownership of US hospitals and to provide a practical guide for using these data in research. We integrated 6 major commercial deal databases to identify PE investments in US hospitals from 2000 to 2024. We filtered transactions to PE-related hospital deals, matched targets to American Hospital Association (AHA) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) hospital identifiers, manually verified uncertain matches, reconciled duplicate transactions across sources, expanded system-level deals to constituent hospitals, and verified deal and exit dates. We identified 141 unique PE deals involving 555 unique short-term acute care hospitals, corresponding to 721 hospital-deal observations. The 6 databases differed substantially in deal coverage, deal type, and whether transactions were reported at the hospital or system level. Reliance on a single source would therefore omit many valid deals and could produce biased or incomplete analytic samples. We also found that linking transactions to stable hospital identifiers required substantial manual verification due to system-level transactions, inconsistent reporting, and identifier changes over time. Accurate study of PE ownership in hospitals requires multisource data construction, transparent validation, and careful linkage to stable hospital identifiers. This harmonized dataset and workflow provide infrastructure for more accurate, transparent, and replicable research on PE ownership in the US hospital sector.

This study introduces NOCT-A-VIS, which stands for Nocturnal Adaptive Vision System, symbolizing a bio-inspired framework that mimics owl-like visual adaptations for detecting underwater objects in low-light environments. From the methodological point of view, the physical characteristics of owls' vision from the NOCT-A-VIS framework are incorporated as dedicated computational modules. The proposed shrimp detection transformer analyzes light reflection to emulate the function of the Tapetum Lucidum (TL), which is a deep reflect part of retina exists in owls, improves the visual capability to view the scene and identify the various object under the poor lighting by retinal light trajectory. The TL mechanism focus on the light reflection from retina to the scene or object. The Sensory Enhancement deals with Rod-Inspired Analogous to the high sensitivity of rod cells, the algorithm incorporates a pre-processing step to enhance weak signal detection from underwater sensors must use noise filtering techniques to amplify subtle signals, mimicking the owl's ability to capture minimal light. The visual pigment of the rod cells detects the variations of the object color segments under the water and the captured information transferred to the outer segment of the rod cells. To improve the detection rate of the object a pre-processing step called Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) is used to filter the signal noise and adopting the owl visionary technique to identify the objects in the dark mode or in the dim light conditions. The Sequential Process includes Spatial Awareness aspects deals with Large Eye Size-Inspired depends on the biological features of the owl eye and it size is larger than its head so that the perception is good in receiving light to retina for identifying the objects. The complete process working under the curated dataset which is underwater scenes. The proposed pipeline is biologically grounded in three owl-inspired mechanisms. In particular, the sensitivity of rod cells provides insights for weak signal denoising, while a retroreflective role of the tapetum lucidum breeds temporal attention mechanisms in the interest of robustifying low light feature extraction, and finally, binocular visual processing in owls informs the architecture of stereo-depth estimation modules and increases the system's ability for wide-angle spatial awareness.

The pharmaceutical industry is experiencing significant transformations driven by mergers and acquisitions (M&A), leading to complex debates regarding their impact on innovation. This study examines the intricate relationship between M&A activities and innovation within the sector, analysing whether the traded firms have received public funding and revealing diverse scholarly perspectives on the balance of benefits and drawbacks. We conducted a targeted literature search for a narrative review using a combination of various terms in academic databases (PubMed), complemented by grey literature to find studies that analysed the impact of M&A on R&D. For the case study on the European pharmaceutical M&A landscape of 2023, we used the proprietary database Orbis to find such deals. We then combined information from company websites, investor news, governmental funding agencies, academic news, and academic publications to find public spending for the companies that were acquired in 2023 and used a category system we developed for public contributions. Existing literature suggests that M&A in pharmaceuticals is primarily motivated by technological and geopolitical shifts. However, concerns about market concentration during the drug discovery-to-development pathway highlight potential regulatory challenges. Our analysis of 2023 M&A deals shows that four out of 29 firms traded originated from academic spin-outs, with almost all small and medium enterprises (SMEs) involved having received public funding at some point (18 out of 21). The lack of a comprehensive, publicly accessible register for such contributions complicates analysis. We advocate for mandatory reporting of all publicly funded projects to a single agency, enhancing transparency. The study concludes that while M&A activities can foster innovation, they also pose risks that must be carefully managed through informed policy and regulatory frameworks, particularly concerning publicly funded biotech firms and academic spin-outs.

This paper deals with the approximation of a magnetic Schrödinger operator with a singular δ -potential that is formally given by ( i ∇ + A ) 2 + Q + α δ Σ by Schrödinger operators with regular potentials in the norm resolvent sense. This is done for Σ being the finite union of C 2 -hypersurfaces, for coefficients A, Q, and α under almost minimal assumptions such that the associated quadratic forms are closed and sectorial, and Q and α are allowed to be complex-valued functions. In particular, Σ can be a graph in R 2 or the boundary of a piecewise C 2 -domain. Moreover, spectral implications of the mentioned convergence result are discussed.

Nutrition is significantly related to the quality of life in the elderly. Functional capacity, which deals with the ability of the elderly to perform activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), is considered an important health indicator. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the nutritional status and functional capacity in the elderly population of Amirkola City. This cross-sectional study was part of the second phase of the Amirkola Elderly Health Cohort (AHAP), which was conducted on 800 randomly selected over 60 years of age. Nutritional status was assessed using the Semi-Quantitative Food Frequency Questionnaire (SQFFQ), and functional capacity was evaluated using the Katz Index and Lawton Scale, including ADLs and IADLs. Data analysis was performed using SPSS software, and a P value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. There were 437 (54.6%) males and 363 (45.4%) females among 800 elderly respondents. The mean nutritional and energy intake was greater in the able group than in the disabled group. According to multiple logistic regression analysis, the most significant factors affecting ADLs were age (OR = 4.93, 95% CI: 1.15-21.10, P = 0.028) and the number of chronic diseases (OR = 3.21, 95% CI: 1.10-9.36, P = 0.03). There was a significant relationship between IADLs and the number of chronic diseases (OR = 1.17, 95% CI: 1.07-1.29, P = 0.01), age (OR = 4.73, 95% CI: 1.20-18.61, P < 0.001), and gender (OR = 2.27, 95% CI: 1.52-3.38, P < 0.001). This study found a positive correlation between nutritional status and functional capacity in the elderly population of Amirkola City. Therefore, planning for nutritional status improvement can be effective in improving the functional capacity and quality of life of the elderly.

This study seeks to recommend amendments to the Jordanian Cybercrime Law No. 17 of 2023, especially regarding the character assassination crime. The research mainly deals with the current legal framework's ambiguities by clarifying the legal terms and conceptual boundaries associated with this type of crime. The researchers point out that the law needs to be revised in order to include the current digital communicational channels which sometimes become the places of defamation that cause the loss of moral and reputation, thereby lighting the present ways of moral and reputational harm in the digital world. The study adopts a desciptive approach to explore the concept of character assassination from the perspectives of law and theory. Furthermore, a legal analytical approach is employed in order to evaluate the applicable provisions of Jordanian law, especially Article 16 of the Cybercrime Law, through the interpretation of statutory language, the identification of gaps, and the assessment of its concordance with general principles of criminal law and international legal systems. The research findings indicate that Jordanian statutes have clearly acknowledged the concept of moral character assassination which is quite the opposite of the approaches taken in some other legal systems. Yet, the prevailing law still does not give a clear picture on the issue of criminal liability. Who can be considered a perpetrator of such crimes is one of the unclear areas in particular. In addition, the law's relevance to digital and internet-based interactions is still not crystal clear, thus leading to uncertainty as regards both enforcement and legal interpretation. The research suggests amending the Jordanian Cybercrime Law, specifically Article 16, to make the law more certain and effective. It also recommends to add the word "moral" explicitly and to make the online and digital domains unambiguously referenced so that the law will be able to comprehend present-day reputational harm and adapt to current technological conditions.

There was significant activity through December 2025 in respect of advancing new weight management therapies, with the first approved orally GLP-1 receptor agonist becoming available from Novo Nordisk, but with late stage and early phase assets being pursued by Lilly, Structure Therapeutics, Pfizer/YaoPharma, and Zealand/OTR. Cell and gene therapy for rare diseases was highlighted in new product approvals for Fondazione Telethon, Novartis, and positive clinical trial findings for Capricor Therapeutics, Kyverna Therapeutics, Encoded Therapeutics and Kite. Other rare disease therapies were the subject of announcements around deals and collaborations from BioMarin/Amicus, Mirum/Bluejay, Shionogi/Tanabe, Regeneron/Tessera, and positive clinical trial outcomes from Belie Bio. Novel delivery approaches progressed with the approval of Milestone's nasal spray formulation of a calcium channel blocker for PSVT and clinical trial progress for a doxorubicin microneedle array patch from Medicus for basal skin carcinoma.

The article deals with the utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) and related technologies for the diagnosis of oral and maxillofacial anatomic variants and pathologic entities. The diagnosis of dental caries and periodontal disease is the most common aspect of dental diagnosis in a general dental setting and so, there was a subsection for this topic. There are dedicated portions within this article on applications of AI for oral and maxillofacial surgery.

The sorption of UO22+ and PuO22+ ions over mesoporous magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) has garnered quite a bit of importance lately. Apart from different sorption studies with higher concentrations of UO22+ and PuO22+ ions, limited studies are available for the sorption of both UO22+ and PuO22+ ions together at the ultratrace level. The effect of different thermodynamic and kinetic parameters owing to different structural attributions affecting sorption efficiency has always been the gray area. This present manuscript deals with the sorption of both UO22+ and PuO22+ ions over the MNPs, which were dispersed in a silica-based mesoporous material called KIT-6 (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology). The sorption behavior in these materials was investigated in terms of different structural parameters using several characterization techniques like X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), zeta potential, M&#xf6;ssbauer spectroscopy, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area analysis, Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy, and High-Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRTEM). These provide deep insights for the different structural factors such as surface charge, surface hydroxyl groups, particle size, and magnetic properties governing their sorption mechanism and capabilities. These materials uniquely show very high Kd values for sorption of both UO22+ (8.34 &#xd7; 103 mL/g) as well as PuO22+ ions (4.75 &#xd7; 104 mL/g) under optimized conditions like pH, temperature, and analyte concentration. Isotherm modeling studies show highly comparable sorption capacity for UO22+ ions (66.31 mg/g) following Langmuir adsorption behavior. It was established that mainly the thermodynamic parameters govern the sorption efficacy and not the kinetic parameters. Selectivity for the materials toward UO22+ and PuO22+ ions individually was tested in the presence of different interfering ions.

This paper deals with eleven species of the genus Ornativalva Gozm&#xe1;ny, 1955 from China based on the specimens collected in the northwest regions of the country. Four species are described as new: O. artuxiensis Li, sp. nov., O. dorsimaculata Li, sp. nov., O. longisaccula Li, sp. nov. and O. minutispina Li, sp. nov. Six species are firstly recorded for the Chinese fauna: O. afghana Sattler, 1967, O. levifrons Sattler, 1976, O. mongolica Sattler, 1967, O. pulchella Sattler, 1976, O. sieversi (Staudinger, 1871) and O. singula Sattler, 1967. The female of O. frontella Sattler, 1976 is described for the first time. Morphological features of the new species are described and illustrated, and diagnostic characters are given to the species newly recorded for China. A checklist of all the Chinese Ornativalva species is included, along with a key to distinguish these species.

Profile conveyor belts are used in operational applications where the transport of bulk materials is required at high inclinations on conveyor belts, typically in the range of 30-40&#xb0;. This paper deals with the analytical determination of the critical angle of inclination of a homogeneous transverse profile (protrusion), beyond which relative movement of bulk material occurs on the surface of the conveyor belt. The compressive forces induced by the known gravity component of the bulk material acting on a 20 mm high transverse protrusion were experimentally measured on a specially designed laboratory apparatus. The measurements were performed at different inclination angles of the folding plate, which simulated the working surface of the conveyor belt. During the experiments, the investigated bulk material-river gravel with a grain size of 4 &#xf7; 8 mm-was placed in a plastic frame with a width corresponding to the defined loading width of the conveyor belt. On the basis of the measured values of compressive forces, the static coefficient of shear friction in contact with grains of bulk material with two types of surfaces, namely plastic and rubber, was analytically determined. From the experimental data, the mean values of the static shear friction coefficient were determined, which were 0.33 for the plastic surface and 0.48 for the rubber surface, with the orientation of the protrusion perpendicular (90 deg) to the longitudinal axis of the conveyor belt. The experimental investigation also included the determination of the internal friction angle of the river gravel. The results show that when bulk material is conveyed by a profile conveyor belt, it is possible to safely convey material with a cross-sectional height greater than the height of the transverse protrusion, provided that the conveyor inclination angle does not exceed the internal friction angle of the bulk material.

This article deals with the analysis of total chromium (Cr) by ICP-MS/MS, as well as soluble Cr3+ and soluble Cr6+, which are commonly found in the PM10 size fraction of airborne aerosols. Chromium speciation analysis was based on the ion-exchange HPLC-ICP-MS/MS method utilising isotopically enriched chromium species standards, providing deeper insight into the chromium balance. Total Cr content showed no difference between winter and autumn, but it was highly dependent on location within the city. Since Cr3+ was the dominant extractable chromium species (representing 87-100%), it primarily mirrored the trends observed for total chromium. However, it should be noted that the soluble Cr species fraction was only 15.4&#xa0;&#xb1;&#xa0;17.1%. The content of Cr6+ increased especially during the winter period, when more precipitation was recorded and, atypically, higher concentrations of O3 were observed in the air. Conversely, the proportion of Cr3+ increased with rising air pressure and temperature, as well as with the intensity of global radiation and sunshine. From a local perspective, the highest abundance of Cr6+ was observed in Lu&#x17e;&#xe1;nky Park, which is located near heating plants. During the intense heating season, transport was rather a minor source of Cr6+. Finally, the chromium profile was determined in the fourteen different size fractions of PMx within the range of 0.016 - 10&#xa0;&#x3bc;m. The highest Cr levels were observed in the 0.6, 1.6 and 10&#xa0;&#x3bc;m size fractions during the winter period, reaching approximately 465&#xa0;&#xb1;&#xa0;88&#xa0;pg&#xa0;m-3.

Conventional chemotherapy for cancer treatment often suffers from limitations such as non-specificity, multidrug resistance (MDR), poor drug circulation, and rapid metabolism. Designing a nanocarrier system with a targeting ability may aid in efficiently delivering chemotherapeutic agents with high specificity. This work deals with synthesis of a biotin-conjugated nanomicellar carrier derived from curcumin bearing pH-, enzyme-, and redox-responsive linkages. It is preliminarily characterized using FTIR, 1H NMR, and 13C NMR, and the size and morphology are studied using TEM and DLS measurements. The synthesized amphiphilic polymer self-assembles into spherical micelles having an average diameter of 80 nm. It exhibits a drug loading efficiency (DLE) of 51% and stimuli-triggered drug release in response to variation in pH, enzyme, and glutathione concentration. It shows a complete and sustained drug release profile in vitro under a simulated tumor microenvironment (TME). Encapsulation enhances potency, lowering the IC50 to 49.5 &#x3bc;g/mL (MCF-7) and 46.3 &#x3bc;g/mL (HepG2) versus 91.82 and 76.3 &#x3bc;g/mL for the free drug with results further supported by in vivo hepatocarcinoma mouse models.

Urban heat islands have become a global issue, as they severely impact several key factors, including elevated energy consumption, increased air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, compromised human health and comfort, and reduced water quality. This escalating issue has become a concern and requires strategic technology deployment to address the threat. In this view, the present work deals with the synthesis of corundum-structured and octahedral site-engineered Mg3- xAxTeO6 (A = Fe, and Co; x = 0.05-0.25 wt.%) pigments with brilliant colors via a solution combustion route. The designed corundum-structured Mg3- xAxTeO6 pigments exhibit an isostructural geometry with a centrosymmetric space group ( R 3 &#xaf; $\overline {{{R}_3}} $ ). The prepared pigments exhibit aesthetically pleasing and vibrant brown and purple hues through the engineering of site-specific (Mg/Fe/Co)O6 octahedral positions within the corundum-structured Mg3TeO6 lattice. The colors of the pigments were manipulated (i.e., from absolute white to brown and purple colors) by integrating specific concentrations of transition-metal chromophores. The prepared best-performing Mg2.85Fe0.15TeO6 and Mg2.85Co0.15TeO6 pigments showcase their capability of delivering exceptional average reflectance properties in the near-infrared region (800-2500 nm) of &#x223c;86%. The integration of transition-metal ions into corundum-structured Mg3TeO6 could effectively modulate its electronic structure through hybridization between O(p) and Fe(d)/Co(d) states, thereby enhancing the near-infrared reflectance of the pigments. The prepared pigments delivered a low thermal conductivity of about 0.06 and 0.08 W/m.K, which signifies their candidacy in cooling systems over traditional roofing materials. The cooling pigments demonstrated their stability against acid/alkali treatment, photo-resistivity, and thermal stability. The deficient electricity demand as compared to bare cement and TiO2-mica pearlescent pigment coating was evidently witnessed when the prepared pigments were used as cool coatings in an energy simulation. All clarifies the suitability of pigments in real-time implementation.

Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output Ground-Penetrating Radar (MIMO-GPR), collecting multiview-multistatic data, is now becoming an assessed diagnostic tool, enabling enhanced reconstruction accuracy and subsurface target detection due to the exploitation of multiple Tx/Rx channels. In this context, the present work deals with a 2D radar imaging approach for contactless MIMO GPR based on the equivalent permittivity concept. The imaging problem is formulated as a linearized inverse scattering problem under Born approximation, and a ray propagation model, based on equivalent permittivity spatially varying along depth, is adopted to account for the wave propagation through the air-soil interface. The resulting linear inverse problem is solved by means of an adjoint inversion, enabling reliable target reconstruction. Despite the approximation introduced by the present formulation, numerical simulations show that the proposed imaging strategy is sufficiently accurate from an engineering viewpoint and is computationally efficient.

Due to the inherent correlation between Rice's noise and the Magnetic Resonance (MR) signal that occurs during the MR images formation, denoising these images is an important but complex process, as it can prove insufficient and even result in the loss of information details. To overcome these two drawbacks, filtering methods based on Partial Differential Equations (PDEs) have been introduced, but the parameters of the filters they propose must be determined with great accuracy. The work proposed in this paper deals with this issue. In fact, in order to denoise MR images with high Rice's noise levels, we propose adapted filtering anisotropic diffusion PDE filter models by using precise local parameters adjustment. These filtering models incorporate a robust Rician noise estimator and an unbiased variant of filters based on anisotropic diffusion, whose parameters are all calculated simultaneously and optimized adaptively through the introduction of the PSO algorithm and the use of reference-based and no-reference quality metrics (PSNR, SSIM and Blind/Referenceless Image Spatial Quality Evaluator (BRISQUE)). The various tests performed on synthetic and real MR images provided excellent results compared to some other published methods, thus demonstrating the high performance of the proposed filters in terms of noise reduction and preservation of important details.

This review deals with the development and progress of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) actuators, which are needed in microfluidic applications, such as lab-on-a-chip and diagnostics. In the last 10 years, there have been tremendous advances in materials, microfabrication and computational modeling that have increased the functionality and scope of MEMS-based microfluidic actuation. This study classifies MEMS actuators on the basis of the physical method of actuation, including electrostatic, piezoelectric, and pneumatic actuation designs, in comparison with their application in pumping, valving, and droplet control. It examines the suitability of emerging structural and functional materials, such as piezoelectric thin-films and electroactive polymers, paying special attention to their reliability and biocompatibility. It also highlights the progress in multiphysics modeling that incorporates electrical, thermal, mechanical, and fluidic models, which facilitates the efficient design and performance optimization procedures. Other trends are multifunctional actuators with built-in sensing capability and the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted design in production. With these developments, however, there exist issues of power efficiency, thermal control, fabrication uniformity and operational durability, and also the absence of standardized benchmarking. Finally, future research directions are outlined, including hybrid MEMS actuation, intelligent microfluidic operations, to improve the performance of the system and enable the transfer of the lab demonstrations to the large scale application of the system.

As a product of cellular metabolic activity, the level change of metabolites is closely related to the occurrence and development of diseases, so the prediction of metabolite-disease association is a key issue in biomedical research. Traditional methods face the challenges of insufficient long-range dependency modeling and poor interpretability. To address these challenges, we propose a dual-path dynamic contrastive learning framework integrating graph neural networks (GNN) and Mamba architectures, enhanced by fast Kolmogorov-Arnold networks (FastKAN) for metabolite-disease association prediction (GMC-DMA). First, we construct a multi-source heterogeneous network that contains similarity and known associations. Then, the residual graph convolutional Network (ResGCN) is designed to capture the local topological features, and the Mamba architecture is introduced to establish the selective state space model (SSM), which deals with the global dependency with linear time complexity and eliminates the over-smoothing problem of message passing. Then, the InfoNCE loss function is used to implement cross-modal contrast learning, and the sample imbalance problem is solved by the dynamic negative sampling strategy. Finally, the bilinear decoder enhanced by FastKAN outputs the correlation probability. A large number of experimental results show that the comprehensive performance of GMC-DMA is significantly better than that of the baseline methods, proving its effectiveness in predicting disease-related metabolites. In addition, the case studies have also confirmed that GMC-DMA has good reliability in discovering potential metabolites.