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Areca palm leaves derived porous carbon material as the electrode for symmetrical solid-state supercapacitors (SSCs). The areca palm leaves biomass was processed using a fast carbonization method followed by in situ chemical activation. The structures and compositions of these biomass-derived carbon materials were characterized using X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, respectively. One of the biomass-derived porous carbon materials, AR2, was a lightweight carbon material that possessed a large surface area of 876 m2 g–1. Electrochemical studies revealed that AR2 possessed a high specific capacitance of 262 F g–1 at a scan rate of 5 mV s–1. We fabricated symmetrical SSCs featuring these carbon material as major (80 wt%) components of the electrodes and poly(vinyl alcohol)–Li2SO4 as gel polymer electrolyte. The optimal supercapacitor (SAR2) involving AR2 exhibited a specific capacitance of 132 F g–1 at a current density of 0.5 A g–1 and an energy density of 10.3 W h kg–1 at a power density of 375 W kg–1, and durability of retaining 92% of its initial capacitance after 5000 cycles—performance that is the excellent values reported for devices featuring derived from biomass.

In this paper, a non-negative adaptive mechanism based on an adaptive nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode control strategy is proposed to have finite time and high-speed trajectory tracking for parallel manipulators with the existence of unknown bounded complex uncertainties and external disturbances. The proposed approach is a hybrid scheme of the online non-negative adaptive mechanism, tracking differentiator, and nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode control (NFTSMC). Based on the online non-negative adaptive mechanism, the proposed control can remove the assumption that the uncertainties and disturbances must be bounded for the NFTSMC controllers. The proposed controller has several advantages such as simple structure, easy implementation, rapid response, chattering-free, high precision, robustness, singularity avoidance, and finite-time convergence. Since all control parameters are online updated via tracking differentiator and non-negative adaptive law, the tracking control performance at high-speed motions can be better in real-time requirement and disturbance rejection ability. Finally, simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Land-use planning is an important policy instrument for governing landscapes to achieve multifunctionality in rural areas. This paper presents a case study conducted in Na Nhan commune in the northwest montane region of Vietnam to assess land-use strategies toward multiple ecosystem services, through integrated land-use planning. The assessment employed the Land-Use Planning for Multiple Ecosystem Services (LUMENS) framework and a number of methods and tools, including land-use mapping, GIS-based land-use change analysis, survey questionnaire, rapid carbon-stock appraisal for different land uses, qualitative ecosystem services assessment, and a backcasting technique. Our findings suggest that a lack of participation and acknowledgement of customary land-use practices inhibit successful implementation of current land-use planning and relevant policies such as payment for forest environmental services and the nationally determined contributions. The study also confirmed the contributions of forests and the land-use sector in achieving national emission reduction targets, especially when local stakeholders are involved early in the planning process. Other findings with important policy implications are: (i) tree-based land uses such as agroforestry are key to securing multiple ecosystem services and are highly relevant to local stakeholders, yet their potentials were not made explicit in current debates at the local level; (ii) local stakeholders are highly aware of the co-benefits of ecosystem services to climate-change mitigation and this should be considered in nationally determined contributions; and (iii) an approach for integrated, participatory land-use planning can help catalyze stakeholder engagement, and hence improve governance in rural landscapes.

This manuscript reported an effort in malaria eradication by identifying and functionally characterizing a novel Plasmodium vivax micronemal protein, PvMP38, involved in erythrocyte invasion. A narrow repertoire of an efficacious vaccine targeting P. vivax candidates is being developed due to the lack of continuous in vitro culture. This study addresses a gap in P. vivax research using P. knowlesi as a model for both genome editing and antibody functionality validation. By enhancing the protein-protein interaction screening framework, this study demonstrated that PvMP38 forms a complex with Pv12 and Pv41, opening the approaches to multi-antigen vaccines. The successful application of CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing techniques to disrupt its homolog, the pkmp38 gene, further assesses the protein’s significance in the growth and invasion of the parasite. These findings provided valuable insights into the biology of P. vivax and proposed PvMP38 as a promising candidate for malaria intervention strategies.

This study investigates the antimalarial potential of extracts and compounds from various plants used in traditional Korean medicine, in response to the increasing resistance of Plasmodium falciparum to standard treatments such as chloroquine and artemisinin. The antimalarial activity screening was conducted on 151 extracts, identifying the top seven candidates, including Geranium thunbergii (50% ethanol and 100% methanol extract), Reynoutria japonica, Amomum villosum (hot water and 50% ethanol extract), Cinnamomum zeylanicum, and Platycodon grandiflorum. Among these, G. thunbergii was identified as the top priority for further analysis due to its high antimalarial activity and high yield of bioactive compounds. The plant extracts were fractionated using ethyl acetate, chloroform, and hot water, and their efficacy against P. falciparum was evaluated through IC50 determination and microscopic analysis. The compounds evaluated included ellagic acid, gallic acid, afzelin, quercetin, and protocatechuic acid. Among the tested compounds, ellagic acid showed the most potent antimalarial activity with an IC50 of 1.60 ± 0.09 µM, followed by gallic acid (39.43 ± 1.48 µM) and afzelin (52.77 ± 1.84 µM). In contrast, quercetin (116.8 ± 3.78 µM) and protocatechuic acid (1.23 ± 0.02 mM) exhibited minimal antimalarial effects. Giemsa staining was employed to visualize parasite morphology and confirmed that ellagic acid is effective in inhibiting growth at the late trophozoite stage. These findings suggest that ellagic acid could serve as a promising lead compound for developing a novel antimalarial agent. This study highlights the importance of exploring plant-based compounds as alternative strategies against drug-resistant malaria. Further investigation into the mechanisms underlying the antimalarial activity of these compounds is necessary to fully validate their therapeutic potential.

Speed and accuracy are important parts of the human tracking system. To design a system that tracks the target human working well in real time, as well as on mobile devices, a tracking real-time target human system is proposed. First, real-time human detection is performed by the combination of MobileNet-v2 and single-shot multibox detector (SSD). Subsequently, the particle filter algorithm is applied to track the target human. The proposed system is evaluated with the different color shirts and complex background conditions. In addition, the system also works with the support of a depth Kinect-v2 camera to evaluate performance. The experiment result indicates that the proposed system is efficient without the impact of colors, background, and light. Moreover, the system still tracks the human when the human has disappeared or the size of the target has a significant change, and an FPS of 12 (Kinect-v2 camera) and 22 (conventional camera) ensures the system works well in real time.

Many mammal species have declining populations, but the consequences of small population size on the genomic makeup of species remain largely unknown. We investigated the evolutionary history, genetic load and adaptive potential of the Cat Ba langur ( Trachypithecus poliocephalus ), a primate species endemic to Vietnam’s famous Ha Long Bay and with less than 100 living individuals one of the most threatened primates in the world. Using high-coverage whole genome data of four wild individuals, we revealed the Cat Ba langur as sister species to its conspecifics of the northern limestone langur clade and found no evidence for extensive secondary gene flow after their initial separation. Compared to other primates and mammals, the Cat Ba langur showed low levels of genetic diversity, long runs of homozygosity, high levels of inbreeding and an excess of deleterious mutations in homozygous state. On the other hand, genetic diversity has been maintained in protein-coding genes and on the gene-rich human chromosome 19 ortholog, suggesting that the Cat Ba langur retained most of its adaptive potential. The Cat Ba langur also exhibits several unique non-synonymous variants that are related to calcium and sodium metabolism, which may have improved adaptation to high calcium intake and saltwater consumption. Fewer than 100 wild Cat Ba langurs survive in Vietnam. Here, the authors use whole genome sequencing to demonstrate potential adaptations to saltwater consumption as well as maintenance of adaptive potential despite low levels of genetic diversity and high levels of inbreeding.

Background The discovery of novel antimalarial drugs against Plasmodium falciparum has become globally urgent due to the consistent increase in mortality, morbidity, and drug resistance in endemic areas. Methods Using an in-house library, novel antimalarial agents were identified through in vitro high-throughput screening (HTS) and meta-analysis. Hit compounds were selected from the primary HTS at 10 µM and confirmed in a dose-dependent manner to determine their IC₅₀ values. The identified hit molecules were further selected based on the following criteria: novelty, antimalarial activity (IC 50 ), pharmacokinetic properties (C max and T 1/2 ), mechanism of action, and safety (in vitro and in vivo) (CC 50 , SI, LD 50 , and MTD). In vitro and in vivo antimalarial activity against drug-sensitive and resistant strains (3D7, NF54 and K1, Dd2, Dd2-R539T (+), and CamWT-C580Y (+)) and the rodent Plasmodium berghei parasite-infected animal model, respectively, were subsequently used to validate hit compounds. Results Based on the top 3% threshold, 256 compounds were selected for dose‒response curve analysis from the HTS. Among them, 110 compounds without published research related to Plasmodium and 157 compounds with IC 50 values < 1 µM were identified. Further analysis confirmed 69 compounds with median lethal doses, maximum tolerated doses or treated doses greater than 20 mg/kg, 48 compounds with FDA approval, 29 compounds characterized by C max  > IC 100 and T 1/2  > 6 h, and 38 compounds with a potential mechanism in Plasmodium . Next, 19 candidates were further evaluated for in vitro inhibition of drug-resistant parasites and inhibition in a mouse model of P. berghei parasites . Notably, three potent inhibitors were identified, exhibiting 95.9% and 81.4% suppression via oral delivery at a dose of 50 mg/kg ONX-0914 and methotrexate, respectively, and 96.4% suppression via intraperitoneal delivery at a dose of 20 mg/kg of an antimony compound. In addition, strong in vitro antimalarial activity was demonstrated against CQ- and ART-sensitive and resistant strains (IC 50  < 500 nM). Conclusions Combining HTS and meta-analysis provides a robust method for screening antimalarial candidate compounds and identifying new hits with in vivo activity as candidates to treat drug-resistant malarial strains.

Facial and object recognition are more and more applied in our life. Therefore, this field has become important to both academicians and practitioners. Face recognition systems are complex systems using features of the face to recognize. Current face recognition systems may be used to increase work efficiency in various methods, including smart homes, online banking, traffic, sports, robots, and others. With various applications like this, the number of facial recognition methods has been increasing in recent years. However, the performance of face recognition systems can be significantly affected by various factors such as lighting conditions, and different types of masks (sunglasses, scarves, hats, etc.). In this paper, a detailed comparison between face recognition techniques is exposed by listing the structure of each model, the advantages and disadvantages as well as performing experiments to demonstrate the robustness, accuracy, and complexity of each algorithm. To be detailed, let’s give a performance comparison of three methods for measuring the efficacy of face recognition systems including a support vector machine (SVM), a visual geometry group with 16 layers (VGG-16), and a residual network with 50 layers (ResNet-50) in real-life settings. The efficiency of algorithms is evaluated in various environments such as normal light indoors, backlit indoors, low light indoors, natural light outdoors, and backlit outdoors. In addition, this paper also evaluates faces with hats and glasses to examine the accuracy of the methods. The experimental results indicate that the ResNet-50 has the highest accuracy to identify faces. The time to recognize is ranging from 1.1s to 1.2s in the normal environment

This paper presents a novel dynamic Petri fuzzy neural network (DPFNN) for controlling the position of a metal ball in a magnetic levitation system (MLS). The DPFNN reduces parameter learning costs by combining Petri nets and fuzzy frameworks. Given the nonlinear and uncertain dynamics of the MLS, an adaptive DPFNN control system was developed for high-precision position control. The parameter set has been optimized using the BCMO algorithm for the best performance. The desired system stability and control performance can be achieved by the proposed control system.