Industrial anomaly detection is an important research topic in the field of computer vision. Although widely studied, anomaly detection methods based on supervised learning have long faced challenges due to the scarcity of anomaly samples. To overcome this limitation, recent efforts have shifted toward reconstruction-based methods, which typically operate by first generating pseudo-anomalies and then reconstructing them. However, the pseudo-anomalies generated by current methods lack the requisite similarity and localization, and the reconstruction networks struggle to balance image fidelity with the accurate reconstruction of anomalous regions. To tackle these issues, this paper proposes an unsupervised anomaly detection framework called RDEAD. The core components of RDEAD are an Edge-based pseudo-anomaly generation strategy (EPA) and a distillation-based dual-encoder reconstruction network (YNet). EPA accurately generates pseudo-anomalies on the target object that closely resemble real anomalies in shape. YNet employs an encoder that has been distilled to provide the decoder with discrepancy features of anomalies, which are then used to reconstruct the anomalous regions accurately. Additionally, YNet incorporates an encoder feature fusion module (EFFM) to effectively integrate the features from dual encoders, enhancing detection performance. Experimental results on several widely used industrial datasets fully demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed RDEAD method.
The release behavior of diltiazem-loaded microcapsules prepared from gelatin B and gum arabic was evaluated experimentally and mechanistically in distilled water and simulated saliva. Release amounts were quantified by liquid chromatography over 5-720 min and used directly as input for kinetic and mechanistic modeling. Kinetic analysis was performed using different models, and model performances were compared using the Akaike and Bayesian information criteria (AIC, BIC). The Weibull model provided the best fit in both media (R2 = 0.989 for distilled water, R2 = 0.994 for simulated saliva). A two-compartment mechanistic model developed in SimBiology/MATLAB yielded release rate constants of 0.0111 min-1 (water) and 0.0026 min-1 (saliva). Agreement between the Weibull mechanistic model and experimental results was R2 = 0.989 for distilled water (RMSE = 0.524 mg) and R2 = 0.994 for simulated saliva (RMSE = 0.348 mg). Model validation was performed using Visual Predictive Check (VPC) with N = 200 virtual individuals, confirming that all observed data points fell within the 5%-95% percentile prediction interval. The validated model was further extended to a sublingual pH variability scenario (pH 6.2-7.4), demonstrating that saliva pH influences cumulative release through its effect on the unionized fraction of diltiazem.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of immersion in butyric acid (BA, pH 4.1) or phosphate-buffered saline (PBS, pH 7.0) on the properties of Clinker (CL) with particle sizes of 2 to 30 µm or < 2 µm associated with zirconium oxide and manipulated with distilled water (DW) or liquid with additives (LA) compared with Bio-C Repair (BCR) and Biodentine (BIO). Dentin tubes were prepared and filled with materials. After 24 hours, the specimens were immersed in BA or PBS (n = 5) for 7 and 28 days. Micro-computed tomography was used to evaluate volumetric change, porosity, and material/dentin interface. Surface analysis was performed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Statistical analyses included Kruskal-Wallis and Dunn, Mann-Whitney, Wilcoxon, unpaired t-test, paired t-test, and ANOVA and Tukey tests (α = 0.05). All groups exhibited volumetric changes similar to BCR and BIO (p > 0.05). BA significantly increased porosity (approximately 8%) compared with PBS (approximately 2%), except for CL 2 to 30 µm with LA (p < 0.05). After 28 days in BA, all groups showed increased porosity and gaps at the interface compared with baseline values (p < 0.05). CL 2 to 30 µm with DW showed greater porosity and interface gaps than the other groups (p < 0.05). SEM analysis revealed that all groups showed hydroxyapatite formation on the material surface in PBS, and structural loss in BA. Findings: Acidic pH damages the material/dentin interface, increases porosity, and promotes dimensional changes in calcium silicate cements. Distilled water without additives increases the Clinker's porosity, interface gaps, and volume loss.
Automatic waste classification is an important enabling technology for cleaner cities, source-level recycling, and low-cost smart-bin systems. Although modern convolutional neural networks achieve strong recognition performance, their deployment on affordable edge devices remains constrained by memory footprint, computational cost, and response latency. This paper presents an edge-oriented compact CNN framework for waste image classification, combining a high-accuracy MobileNetV4 reference model with three lightweight student architectures: EfficientNet-Lite0, LCNet-0.5, and MobileNetV3-Small-0.5. All models are evaluated on TrashNet under a unified preprocessing, training, and size-accounting protocol, allowing a clear comparison of accuracy-efficiency trade-offs. On the main stratified train/validation/test split, the MobileNetV4 teacher achieves 97.09% top-1 accuracy, while the compact students retain strong performance with substantially smaller footprints: EfficientNet-Lite0 reaches 93.99% with 3.38 M parameters, LCNet-0.5 reaches 94.18% with only 0.61 M parameters, and MobileNetV3-Small-0.5 reaches 87.73% with 0.57 M parameters. A complementary stratified five-fold evaluation, including both knowledge-distilled and non-distilled student variants, provides a robust assessment of model behavior across data partitions and confirms LCNet-0.5 as the most suitable sub-megabyte candidate under the proposed size-accuracy selection rule. The selected LCNet-0.5 model achieves a macro-F1 score of 0.9247 on the main TrashNet test split and is integrated into a self-contained Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ prototype that performs local camera-to-display inference with an observed end-to-end latency of approximately 1.0 s per image. Cross-dataset evaluation on RealWaste further shows that the compact model can be adapted effectively to cluttered real-world imagery through short fine-tuning. Overall, the results demonstrate that careful lightweight architecture selection, supported by knowledge distillation analysis and edge-prototype validation, can deliver accurate, compact, and practically deployable waste classifiers for resource-constrained environments.
The aim of this study was to compare in-vitro changes and properties of conventional chairside-dispensed, 3D-printed and milled interim fixed dental protheses using two different cements. Identical three-unit fixed dental prostheses (FDP) were fabricated from conventional dispensed (1x), milled (1x) and 3D-printed (2x) materials and cemented onto standardized Co-Cr-Mo alloy molars using either conventional or resin cement. Ten FDPs of each group were stored in distilled water and artificially aged for a simulated wear period of 5 years (1.2 × 106 cycles, 50 N force) through thermocycling (TCML). An additional ten FDPs of each group served as the control group, stored in distilled water without aging. Fracture resistance was analyzed before and after TCML (α = 0.05). Survival rates: All FDPs made from conventional and subtractive materials survived TCML, while those made from additive materials did not. Fracture resistance: The median of the fracture resistance values for conventional material was 1096 N (24 h water storage, conventional cementation), 1117 N (TCML, conventional cementation), 1762 N (24 h water storage, adhesive cementation) and 1400 N (TCML adhesive cementation). Significant differences were observed between conventional and additive materials, but not for the subtractive material. The median of the fracture resistance values for subtractive material was 988 N (24 h water storage, conventional cementation), 1065 N (TCML, conventional cementation), 1486 N (24 h water storage, adhesive cementation) and 1204 N (TCML adhesive cementation). Significant differences were found between subtractive and additive materials. The median of the fracture resistance values of the additive materials was 953 N and 754 N (24 h water storage, conventional cementation), 1090 N and 876 N (24 h water storage, adhesive cementation) and 706 N and 373 N (TCML adhesive cementation), showing significant differences both among them and compared to the other materials. Conventionally and subtractively fabricated temporaries do not show significant differences in fracture resistance, although they do outperform additively fabricated temporaries, which exhibit significantly lower fracture resistance. Since none of the tested additively manufactured specimens survived TCML when cemented with Temp Bond NE, premature failure of these materials can be expected in clinical use. This study informs clinicians on the fracture resistance of chairside, milled, and 3D-printed provisional FDPs with different cements, aiding material selection to improve durability and predictability of provisional restorations in clinical practice.
Restricting nutrients in eggs may hinder the growth of commercial chickens, which could result in higher embryonic mortality and poor growth performance, indicating the significance of in ovo injection of dietary nutrients to support embryonic and post-hatch growth in poultry. This study investigated the in ovo supplementation of a dietary supplement on egg weight, embryonic development, hatching, and chick quality traits of broiler chickens. A total of 300 hatching eggs were randomly pre-assigned to a specific in ovo injection protocol (T-1, T-2, T3, and T-4) and incubated under standard conditions. At embryonic day (ED) 12, the eggs were either injected with distilled water or a dietary supplement (containing a mixture of vitamins, trace minerals, and amino acids). The injection treatment consisted of T-1 (non-injected eggs), T-2 (eggs injected with 5 mL of distilled water), T-3 (eggs injected with 5 mL of a solution containing 0.04% of the dietary supplement), and T-4 (eggs injected with 5 mL of a solution containing 0.08% of the dietary supplement). The results revealed that the experimental treatment had no effect on egg weight or egg weight loss during embryogenesis (p > 0.05). The lowest weight of yolk-free body mass (YFBM-w), yield of yolk-free body mass (YFBM-Y), embryo length (Em-L), embryo width (Em-W), tibia length (TL), and wing length (WL) at ED 16 were identified in T-4 (p < 0.05). At ED 19, the highest Em-L and eye width (Ey-w) were identified in T-3 (p < 0.05). The highest chick weight at hatch (CWAH) and chick yield (CY) were identified in T-4 (p < 0.05). While the chick length and appearance score were lowest in T-4, the chick eye score was lowest in T-2 (p < 0.05). The embryonic mortality, hatchability, navel, and leg scores of chicks were similar among the treatments (p > 0.05). It was concluded that the in ovo injection of a mixture of dietary nutrients could improve embryonic traits during the latter part of embryogenesis, chick weight, and chick yield at hatch; however, it may possess a strong negative effect on hatchability, embryonic mortality, and chick quality traits.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the surface roughness and optical characteristics of three ceramics with resin matrix for computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing, after different surface treatment protocols associated or not with the application of film deposition by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) after different in vitro aging procedures. A total of 720 specimens were prepared and divided into groups: mechanical polishing (MP), sealant (S), MP + PECVD, and S + PECVD. The in vitro aging procedures were thermocycling, erosive challenge, and immersion in dye solution (I): distilled water (IW), black tea (IBT), and red wine (IRW). The response variables were surface roughness (Ra), color change (ΔE00), translucency parameter (TP), and contrast ratio (CR). For multiple comparisons, the three-way analysis of variance test was used, followed by Tukey's post hoc test (α = 0.05). Aging increased roughness in all ceramics, whereas the surface sealant reduced Ra more effectively than MP, even with PECVD. The red wine solution showed the highest staining potential, followed by black tea and distilled water (p > 0.05). In the IRW, there was a significant reduction (>50%) in the ΔE00 values in both surface treatments associated with PECVD for all ceramics. Aging caused changes in the TP and CR values of the ceramics (more opaque). Film deposition by PECVD was beneficial in reducing color change when immersed in black tea and red wine.
Introduction: Oil pulling therapy has gained increasing attention as a natural oral hygiene practice; however, evidence regarding its clinical effectiveness remains limited and inconclusive. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of oil pulling therapy on dental plaque regrowth and tooth discoloration compared with chlorhexidine. Materials and Methods: One hundred systemically healthy dental students were randomly allocated to five groups: chlorhexidine, coconut oil, black cumin seed oil, terebinth oil, and distilled water. Following professional prophylaxis, participants refrained from mechanical oral hygiene for four days and used their assigned intervention twice daily. Plaque accumulation was assessed using the Turesky modification of the Quigley-Hein Plaque Index, gingival inflammation using the Gingival Index, and tooth color using CIELAB color difference measurements. Data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA or Kruskal-Wallis test with appropriate post hoc tests, depending on the distribution of data. Results: Plaque scores differed significantly among groups (p < 0.001), with chlorhexidine showing superior plaque inhibition compared with all oil-based interventions and distilled water. Gingival index values were lowest in the chlorhexidine group, although differences among oil groups were not statistically significant. Tooth discoloration was significantly greater with chlorhexidine than with all oil-based interventions (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Oil pulling therapies demonstrated lower anti-plaque efficacy than chlorhexidine but resulted in less tooth discoloration. These findings suggest that oil pulling may serve as an adjunct rather than an alternative to conventional plaque control.
Although EDTA remains the gold standard, concerns regarding its toxicity/environmental persistence have driven the search for bio-friendly alternatives. We evaluated the effect of EDDS on microhardness, smear layer, and dentine penetration of canal sealer. Two hundred and fifteen single-rooted teeth with round morphology were used. Samples were treated with solutions for 3 min. Vickers microhardness was analysed. Final irrigation was performed: GroupET: 17%-EDTA; GroupED:15%-EDDS; GroupET/N:17%-EDTA +2.5%-NaOCl; GroupED/N:15%-EDDS +2.5%-NaOCl; GroupC:distilled-water. The smear layer was evaluated. Canals were obturated using epoxy-resin and bioceramic-sealer. Dentine penetration was analysed using confocal microscopy. One-way-ANOVA, Student's t-test, Fisher-Freeman-Halton-exact, and Wilcoxon signed-rank-test were applied. EDTA and EDDS affected microhardness, smear layer, and dentine penetration similarly (p > 0.05). Dentine penetration was higher with the bioceramic-sealer and was enhanced by NaOCl (p < 0.05). EDDS demonstrated similar results to EDTA and represents a potentially more bio-friendly chelating approach that may support more biologically/environmentally conscious irrigation strategies.
Predicting the fitness impact of mutations is central to protein engineering but constrained by limited assays relative to the size of sequence space. Protein language models (pLMs) trained with masked language modeling (MLM) exhibit strong zero-shot fitness prediction;we provide a interpretive lens by regarding natural evolution as implicit reward maximization and MLM as inverse reinforcement learning (IRL), in which extant sequences act as expert demonstrations and pLM log-odds serve as fitness estimates. Building on this perspective, we introduce EvoIF, a lightweight model that integrates two complementary sources of evolutionary signal: (i) evolutionary profiles from retrieved homologs and (ii) inverse folding profiles distilled from inverse folding logits. EvoIF fuses sequence-structure representations with these profiles via a compact transition block, yielding calibrated probabilities for log-odds scoring. On ProteinGym (217 mutational assays; > 2.5M mutants), EvoIF and its MSA-enabled variant achieve competitive performance while using only 0.15% of the training data and fewer parameters than recent large models. Ablations confirm that evolutionary and inverse folding profiles are complementary, improving robustness across function types, MSA depths, taxa, and mutation depths. Code is archived on Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20139484.
A high-fat diet (HFD) with excessive sugar intake contributes to obesity and type 2 diabetes, leading to increased use of non-nutritive sweeteners (NNS). However, evidence on their metabolic effects remains inconsistent, especially between natural and synthetic NNS. This study compared the effects of a natural NNS, monk fruit extract (MFE), with sucrose and synthetic sucralose, at equivalent sweetness on body weight and glucose homeostasis in HFD-induced obese mice. Male C57BL/6 mice were fed an HFD for 8 weeks to induce obesity, then randomized to receive distilled water (control), sucrose (266 g/L), MFE (1.1 g/L; ~50% mogroside V), or sucralose (0.36 g/L) in drinking water for another 8 weeks. Body weight, food and water intake, and oral glucose tolerance tests (OGTT) were assessed. At sacrifice, serum biochemistry, organs, tissues, and duodenal expression of sweet taste receptors (T1R2/T1R3) and glucose transporters (SGLT-1/GLUT2) were analyzed. The results showed that sucralose and sucrose further increased body weight gain, whereas MFE did not promote additional weight gain despite increased food intake. MFE significantly reduced fasting blood glucose, while sucralose impaired glucose tolerance, reflected by increased OGTT area under the curve. No significant differences in visceral adipose tissue weights or duodenal T1R2, T1R3, SGLT-1, and GLUT2 expression were observed among groups. In conclusion, MFE, within ADI-equivalent doses, improved fasting glycemia without promoting further weight gain compared with the HFD-control, whereas sucralose exacerbated obesity-related impaired glucose tolerance. These findings suggest that natural sweeteners such as MFE may represent a safer alternative to added sugars and synthetic NNS for weight management and glycemic control for obese subjects.
This project aimed to evaluate the anti-melanogenic characteristics of Nasturtium officinale (N. officinale) by assessing the impact of both aqueous and hydroalcoholic extracts on the inhibition of cellular and mushroom tyrosinase enzymes, as well as the suppression of the melanin synthesis in B16F10 melanoma cells. The aerial components of N. officinale were subjected to extraction using distilled water: ethanol (7:3) through the maceration technique. The extract's phenolic compounds were quantified employing the Folin-Ciocalteu method. The evaluation of the safety profile of the extracts on B16F10 cells was done by the MTT assay. Subsequently, the melanin concentration in B16F10 cells, alongside the inhibitory effects on both mushroom and cellular tyrosinase, was assessed following treatment with the aforementioned extracts. The aqueous and hydroalcoholic extracts exhibited no significant toxicity on B16F10 when compared to Phosphate-Buffered Saline (PBS). Additionally, there was no notable difference in the cytotoxic effects of extracts on the B16F10 cell line. Both extracts resulted in inhibition of cellular and mushroom tyrosinase, along with a decrease in melanin levels in B16F10 in a concentration-dependent manner. Ultimately, the total phenolic content in the aqueous and hydroalcoholic extracts was found to be approximately 14 and 30 mg/g of gallic acid, respectively. This in vitro investigation offers evidence supporting the skin brightening properties of N. officinale as an anti-melanogenic agent. Given its safety profile and absence of toxic effects on melanoma cells, it may be incorporated into the formulation of skin-brightening products following preclinical tests.
Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second-most diagnosed age-related neurodegenerative disorder globally. PD pathology causes dysregulation of motor movement and for many, mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI). The most recommended global screening exam to detect PD-MCI is the Montreal Cognitive Assessment© (MoCA). Traditionally, the MoCA is scored according to guidelines and compared against a standardized cutoff, but clinical professionals additionally draw upon their observations of the patient's performance to determine the score. To better understand how clinicians use the MoCA in real-world clinical settings, we employed the qualitative descriptive approach to identify performance patterns professionals utilize to assess the cognitive health of a person with PD. We curated retrospective data from nine people with PD-MCI to PD-Dementia. Each patient had one completed MoCA exam and one neuropsychological report containing health data. The assessments were organized into three groups of three and used in semi-structured interviews with six clinical professionals to gather at minimum two clinical opinions for each. Three coders distilled, based on consensus, three clinically meaningful patterns from the interviews composed of features emphasized as vital by the interviewees for determining a person's cognitive health. The derived features were from a patient's performance on sections of the MoCA exam, sociodemographic and health data from the neuropsychological report, and dependent relationships between the assessments. Our study leveraged the popular MoCA exam to explore its real-world clinical use. Extracting these patterns clinicians recognized provides deeper insights into how they interpret cognitive health creating a blueprint for future efforts to tailor the exam for detecting cognitive impairment in people with PD.
We report on the synthesis and photocatalytic activity of Er3+ and Er3+/Yb3+ (co-)doped TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) prepared via microwave-assisted non-aqueous sol-gel (M) and hydrothermal (H) methods. Both routes yielded anatase NPs, with rare earth doping reducing crystallite size and increasing surface area, while M synthesis achieved higher dopant incorporation. Photocatalytic performance was assessed on minocycline under simulated solar light. Co-doping with 3% Er and 6% Yb using M synthesis (T3Er6Yb-M) led to nearly complete minocycline degradation in 60 min, outperforming commercial TiO2 NPs (Aeroxide P25). The superiority of this sample derives not only from the presence of more surface hydroxyl groups, and a larger surface area, but also from upconversion effect. The infrared (IR) to ultraviolet (UV)/visible (Vis) upconversion was confirmed by photoluminescence measurements and corroborated by photocatalytic tests under simulated solar light with a UV cut-off filter (400-1680 nm), when the co-doped catalyst maintained 42% degradation activity. As proof of concept, T3Er6Yb-M was immobilized (20 wt%) into silica-titania porous microspheres (MICROSCAFS®; MS) to improve the robustness. The supported catalyst (T3Er6Yb-M@MS) removed 95% of minocycline from distilled water in 30 min under simulated solar light. Moreover, it achieved 94% minocycline removal from municipal wastewater in 60 min and 55% from pharmaceutical effluent in 120 min, where turbidity and competing species reduced performance. Overall, this study demonstrates a solar-light-active photocatalyst with a strong performance in both laboratory and real wastewater systems. While matrix effects remain a challenge, the integration of rare-earth co-doping and immobilization on MICROSCAFS® offers a promising pathway toward sustainable water treatment.
Exposure to mercuric chloride (HgCl2) causes liver damage by disrupting the hepatic architecture, increasing oxidative stress, and altering cytokeratin integrity, resulting in hepatocyte fragility and impaired function. The present study evaluated the effects of Senecio biafrae leaf ethanol extract (SBLEE) on HgCl2-induced liver injury and cytoskeletal integrity. Forty-two adult Wistar rats were divided into seven groups. The control group was given distilled water, whereas the other groups were given 4 mg/kg of mercuric chloride, orally, for 21 days, followed by either immediate sacrifice or a recovery period, and treatment with silymarin or various doses of SBLEE (300, 400, and 600 mg/kg) for 21 days. The histologic, immunohistochemical, and biochemical studies showed that HgCl2 significantly disrupted the hepatic architecture and cytokeratin networks, increased oxidative stress, and altered liver enzyme levels. Treatment with SBLEE restored cytokeratin integrity, reduced oxidative stress, and normalized the liver biomarkers, with results comparable to those of the silymarin and control groups. Our findings suggest that Senecio biafrae leaves have cytoprotective properties that help stabilize the hepatic cytoskeleton and preserve liver function after toxic injury.
Older adults frequently face difficulties in activities of daily living (ADLs) due to age-related declines in strength, coordination, and perception. Myoelectric control provides an intuitive human-robot interface by translating muscle activity into assistive commands. However, its practical application is still challenged by signal annotation, multijoint coordination, and cross-task generalization. This study proposes a 3-level intelligent framework for multijoint upper-limb assistance based on electromyography (EMG) to support the daily living activities of older adults. At the physiological level, situation-aware labeling protocols matched to different EMG conditions are proposed to reduce annotation ambiguity and improve robustness to signal changes. At the functional level, focusing on elemental joint activities, a deep backbone model is designed to infer both single-joint movements and coordinated multijoint patterns with an accuracy of 95.34%. At the behavioral level, the model is further distilled to support complex ADL tasks with human-robot interactions while continually incorporating new knowledge without catastrophic forgetting. The framework is implemented in real time on an EMG-controlled multijoint robotic system, providing smooth and coordinated assistance in daily activities. Overall, the proposed framework provides a systematic solution for EMG-based multijoint coordination, encompassing the entire pathway from physiological signal processing to functional intent decoding and behavioral adaptation during daily activities. It offers a technical approach to coordinated upper-limb assistance and lays a broader foundation for the design of practical and adaptive assistive systems, contributing to improved autonomy for older adults and supporting the broader societal goal of healthy aging.
This study investigated the use of microwave (MW) to enhance the performance of a granular thermo-plasma expanded graphite (GTPEG) to remove an organic cationic dye, methylene blue (MB), from freshwater, taking the benefits of MW-assisted regeneration. Expanded graphite (EG), low-density and mesoporous, has been proposed previously as a means of extracting organic compounds from water due to its hydrophobicity and weak polarity. We granularized EG to facilitate its subsequent regeneration and reuse and separation, and MW was used to improve the adsorption of EG. The most important factors affecting adsorption were determined using response surface methodology, along with 3-D graphics illustrating the relationship between several variables. The experimental results show that 94% of MB adsorbed onto MW-GTPEG in deionized distilled water within 20 min. Additionally, adsorbent regeneration using MW did not affect the adsorption capacity and rate after 10 cycles albeit with a small weight loss of <8%. From our results, we believe that the main factor affecting the adsorption was the physical characteristics of the adsorbent, with other minor factors such as the adsorbent dose and initial concentration. Our findings suggest that MW irradiation may be a promising alternative for enhancing and regenerating GTPEG.
Comprehensive characterization of volatile compounds is essential for understanding baijiu flavor and quality. However, conventional gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry (GC-IMS) methods are limited by single-polarity detection and headspace sampling. In this study, we developed a GC-Fourier deconvolution IMS (GC-FDIMS) method combined with fast polarity switching and direct injection. This method effectively overcomes the information loss associated with single-polarity detection and significantly improves the detectability of low-volatility compounds. A total of 105 volatile compounds were identified from two baijiu samples, sauce-aroma and strong-aroma, more than twice the number obtained by headspace GC-IMS. Detection sensitivity improved markedly for medium- and high-boiling compounds, including ethyl esters, pyrazines, lactones, and phenolics that critically impact flavor depth and aftertaste. This method provides robust chemical evidence for aroma type differentiation and demonstrates strong potential for flavor identification and quality authentication, establishing GC-FDIMS as a powerful high-throughput tool for distilled spirits analysis.
This study reports the preparation of potassium hydroxide-impregnated corn-cob-derived activated carbon (AC500-K1.1) as an efficient adsorbent for the rapid removal of the azo dye tartrazine (TZ) from aqueous solutions. The raw corn-cob (CC) powder was chemically activated at various KOH-to-biomass ratios and activation temperatures to optimise surface chemistry and porosity. Under optimal conditions (1.1 ratio at 500 °C), the prepared activated carbon exhibited an amorphous structure, a BET surface area of 276.34 m2 g⁻1, and a well-developed porous morphology. FTIR, XRD, FESEM-EDX, TEM, TGA, and BET characterisation confirmed the formation of abundant oxygen-containing acidic functional groups (which can also significantly enhance dye adsorption through electrostatic attraction and hydrogen-bond interactions). The batch adsorption studies revealed that the optimum adsorbent dosage was 0.04 g, with a contact time of 60 min, an initial dye concentration of 100 mg L-1, a pH of 7, and a temperature range of 15-40 °C. The adsorption of TZ onto AC500-K1.1 was best represented by the Freundlich isotherm model (R2 ≈ 0.9986), suggesting heterogeneous and multilayer adsorption, whereas the kinetic behavior was adequately described by the pseudo-first-order model. Thermodynamic parameters demonstrated that the adsorption process was spontaneous and exothermic (ΔH° =  - 8.157 kJ mol⁻1). Moreover, the prepared adsorbent exhibited excellent performance, achieving a maximum experimental adsorption capacity of 675.88 mg g⁻1 and a removal efficiency of 95.07% under the optimized conditions. All of them were shown to exhibit much higher stability in regeneration experiments with up to 10 adsorption-desorption cycles and in recycling experiments. For the TZ-spiked real water samples (distilled water, tap water, and river water), significant dye uptake (> 73%) was observed with AC500-K1.1 and was marginally affected by ionic strength. This process establishes its practical applicability for actual real effluent decontamination. Molecular dynamics simulations performed using BIOVIA Materials Studio indicated that van der Waals interactions play a major role in the adsorption of TZ on activated carbon, with additional contributions from electrostatic interactions, hydrogen bonding, and π-π stacking. RDF and adsorption energy analyses further supported the spontaneous and stable adsorption configuration of TZ molecules on the carbon surface. These results provide molecular-level evidence supporting the experimentally observed adsorption behavior.
Despite various attempts at solubility enhancement and advances in formulation technologies, improving the bioavailability of poorly water-soluble compounds remains a significant challenge. Melt extrusion deposition (MED®) 3D printing is an additive manufacturing technology developed specifically for pharmaceutical applications to produce dosage forms with complex internal and external geometrical structures. This technology provides novel solutions and unique opportunities for enhancing the bioavailability of poorly soluble compounds through structurally engineered tablets and supports the development of patient-centric medications tailored to meet diverse clinical needs. This study describes the use of MED® technology to formulate a poorly water-soluble model compound, enhance its solubility, and modulate its release profile to achieve immediate release (IR), extended release (ER), and extended-plus-delayed release (ER + DR). After the model compound was formulated as an amorphous solid dispersion (ASD), the solubility in distilled water increased to around 60 μg/mL, representing up to a 4-fold increase relative to its thermodynamic solubility (∼15 μg/mL). Utilizing the same ASD drug-core formulation, two distinct 3D-printed tablet structures were designed and fabricated: a mesh structure for an IR tablet and a multi-compartment structure with variable-thickness delayed-release layers for an ER + DR tablet. These designs enabled tailored release profiles for the poorly water-soluble model compound. This structure-driven approach via MED® 3D printing enables both solubility enhancement and precise release modulation for poorly water-soluble drugs, thereby providing a new pathway for the rational design and efficient development of tablet dosage forms.