Electrochemical genosensing finds applications across a wide range of fields, including clinical diagnostics, forensic science, food safety, agriculture, biotechnology, cancer research, defense, environmental monitoring, etc. It focuses on the detection of specific DNA or RNA sequences, often called target sequences, rather than target analytes as in conventional (electro)analysis. Since the groundbreaking contributions dating back to the late 1990s and early 2000s, nearly 500 articles have been published elucidating various important aspects of this research field. This review aims to provide an overview of the current state of knowledge, serving as a comprehensive synthesis of the most recent literature on electrochemical genosensors, published in the last five years. Hopefully, it will also serve as a valuable resource for students, young researchers, scientists, non-academics, or other professionals seeking a consolidated understanding of the key aspects behind this research area, without delving into a collection of individual and scattered studies.

The spread of aquatic non-indigenous species (NIS) is recognised as a major threat to the recipient regions ecosystems. The present study reviewed all NIS that have been introduced to the marine waters of the European Union (EU) until 2021, and their introduction pathways. Further, the study statistically analysed temporal trends in new NIS introductions and addressed uncertainties in relation to transporting pathways. Time-series analyses indicated that the observed trends in new NIS introductions have followed smoothly increasing trajectories for the entire study area, Mediterranean Sea, North-East Atlantic Ocean, and the Baltic Sea, whereas abrupt increase was detected for the Black Sea. It is noteworthy that the increasing trends started to slow down at the end of 2010s. Strongly increased research interest towards marine invasions since the early 2000s, and new environmental policies likely affected the observed trends. Future updates will be key to assessing whether this slowdown is truly a persisting trend or only an anomaly in the long term. The pathway assessment suffered from notable uncertainties, as the assigned confidence levels for pathways were low or unassigned for a large proportion of the introduced NIS in all study regions. Transport by shipping vectors was assigned as the most common pathway (51%) for new NIS introductions to EU seas, although there was very rarely direct evidence of this. The study highlights the need to overcome the pathway uncertainties, as robust information on introduction pathways is critical to manage new NIS introductions effectively.

Damped and driven oscillators are generally modeled with a nonautonomous second-order nonlinear ordinary differential equation including a sinusoidal driving forcing term, such as the forced Duffing equation and the forced Holmes–Rand equation. These equations have been extensively studied during the last century and the last two decades. In the early 1990s, Abarbanel, Rabinovich and Sushchik proposed replacing the sinusoidal forcing term with a “force controlled by the movements of the oscillator itself”, i.e. by the product of two variables: the first being the solution of the oscillator itself, while the second is the solution of a first-order nonlinear ordinary differential equation. They referred to the resulting autonomous dynamical system of two coupled nonlinear ordinary differential equations as a “controlled nonlinear oscillator”. To that end, they introduced a change of variables and parameters to transform the “controlled nonlinear oscillator” that corresponds to a particular case of the forced Duffing equation into the Lorenz system. The aim of this work is to show that their idea can be further generalized and applied to many other dynamical systems, including the forced Holmes–Rand equation, Chua’s cubic circuit, Chen’s system and the forced Helmholtz oscillator. It is proved that a certain class of three-dimensional dynamical systems can be rewritten into the form of “generalized controlled nonlinear oscillators”, which can then be transformed into various Lorenz-like systems. Such a transformation could be very useful for the study of intermittent chaos.

Importance. The study of the dynamics and structure of income of the population in the crucial 1980s and 1990s remains of high scientific and practical importance. This period, encompassing the late Soviet stagnation, perestroika and radical market reforms, is a unique example of the transformation of the socio-economic system in a short period of time. The analysis of the causes and consequences of income changes makes it possible to identify the underlying mechanisms of economic crises, inflation, rising inequality and poverty, which is important for understanding modern socio-economic processes in Russia. The aim of the study is to conduct a comparative analysis of the income structure and their purchasing power in the USSR (in the 1980s – early 1990s) and Russia (in the 1990s), as well as to identify government policy impact on the well-being of the population in these periods. Materials and Methods. The study is based on the analysis of data from the official statistics of the USSR State Statistics Committee and Rosstat, materials from household budget surveys, and the works of economists and historians. Historical-comparative, structural and quantitative methods are applied, which made it possible to compare the key indicators of the two eras. Results and Discussion. It is revealed that the late Soviet period was characterized by steady nominal income growth with a simultaneous increase in hidden inflation and commodity shortages, which led to a decrease in their real purchasing power. In the 1990s, there was a drastic breakdown in the income structure (a decrease in the share of wages, an increase in business income and income from property), accompanied by a catastrophic drop in real incomes and purchasing power against the background of hyperinflation, as well as a sharp increase in social inequality. Conclusion. The analysis demonstrates that both the policy of centralized regulation at the end of the Soviet era and the radical liberalization of the 1990s entailed significant social costs. The crisis of purchasing power and the growth of inequality were common features of both periods, despite the opposite economic courses. This indicates the need for a balanced approach to reform, taking into account both economic efficiency and social stability.

The period from 1965 to 2020 in Russia was marked by unprecedentedly high alcohol-related and overall mortality, making it unique in the country’s demographic history. Despite the significance of this issue, alcohol-related causes of death and overall mortality trends have often been studied in isolation, without simultaneously considering their long-term dynamics. This study aims to comprehensively analyze alcohol-related and overall mortality trends over this period and identify key stages marked by changes in mortality patterns. Using Rosstat data, standardized mortality rates for men and women due to alcohol poisoning and all causes were calculated for 1965–2020. Correlation and regression analyses were performed to examine the relationship between overall and alcohol-related mortality. The dynamics of these indicators were compared over the entire period and across individual stages. The results revealed three complete cycles of synchronous fluctuations in alcohol and overall mortality in Russia: 1965–1988, 1988–1998, and 1998–2019, with peaks in 1980, 1994, and 2003, respectively. The historical maximum mortality rate occurred in 1994. Between 1965 and 1994, overall mortality increased by 47%, while alcohol poisoning mortality increased by 361%. By the early 2010s, both indicators had returned close to their 1965 levels. Analysis indicated that each shift in mortality trends was associated with the emergence of new, often multiple, factors affecting alcohol consumption and mortality, specific to periods of growth or decline. A strong synchronicity between overall and alcohol-related mortality was observed (R = 0.84; 95% CI: 0.73–0.91), despite alcohol poisoning accounting for only 1.4% of all deaths. Two exceptions were noted: 1965–1980 among women, and 2005–2019 among individuals with severe alcohol dependence, reflecting specific drinking behaviors. Four post-World War II anti-alcohol campaigns (1958, 1972, 1985, and 2000) were also analyzed. Only the 2000 campaign achieved a significant and sustained reduction in alcohol consumption and mortality. The synchronicity between alcohol-related and overall mortality in Russia indicates a substantial contribution of alcohol to excess mortality and population decline. Despite notable declines in alcohol consumption and overall mortality between 2005 and 2019, both indicators remain high. Russia continues to rank among the highest globally in alcohol-related mortality, showing disproportionately high mortality relative to alcohol consumption levels.

ABSTRACT The paper explores the evolving relationship between decarbonization strategies, environmental performance within ESG frameworks, and the economic performance of multinational companies in the context of increasing environmental and geopolitical uncertainty. Since the early 2000s, there has been a growing convergence towards greener and more sustainable business models, including the sectors of finance and banking. However, the recent technological transformation and geopolitical tensions pose challenges to the green transition, affecting its economic feasibility and environmental effectiveness. We adopt a risk‐management perspective and argue that aggregate ESG scores may obscure the financial implications of environmental behavior. Using a multi‐stage modeling approach—combining a preliminary dynamic framework with principal component analysis and efficiency benchmarking (DEA)—we test whether improvements in environmental performance translate into improved revenue growth in 16 multinational firms (2015–2023). Results show that even cost‐free emissions reductions do not guarantee better economic outcomes, challenging the assumption that E[SG] improvements are necessarily growth‐enhancing. Across differential‐equations modeling, PCA regressions, DEA benchmarking, and simulated “cost‐free” environmental improvements (up to 20%), we do not find evidence that environmental improvements per se raise revenue growth.

Ocean Literacy (OL), introduced in the early 2000s, refers to the essential knowledge individuals should acquire about the ocean by the end of formal education. Over time, the concept has expanded beyond cognitive understanding to include affective and behavioral dimensions that support attitudes and actions. Among these, emotional connections emerged as a significant driver of environmentally friendly behavior and represent a potential lever for educational practices. In this context, we conducted an informal survey involving 313 students (aged 8–12 and 14–15) living in a coastal area of northeastern Italy by means of a single open-ended question: “What is the sea to you?” Responses were analyzed through qualitative content analysis. Emotion-related expressions were the most frequent category (60.1%), followed by descriptive comments (42.8%), references to uses of the marine environment (35.8%), and statements identifying the ocean as a source of life (21.1%). Mentions of personal memories and references to the need for ocean conservation were less frequent. These findings suggest that, in our sample, frequent exposure to coastal environments may have fostered emotional connections with the ocean. Use of alternative teaching approaches (including technology-mediated ones) and further investigations into youths’ ocean connections could enhance the diffusion of OL in education settings.

Abstract This paper shows that music industry and EU initiatives at the start of the online era for music consumption between the early 2000s and the early 2010s, aiming for centralized copyright databases, failed in part due to misaligned remuneration systems and economic priorities. Some challenges present since those early years have remained, while new ones have emerged with the advent of music streaming, and more recently also with generative AI (GenAI) music tools and services. Decentralized solutions also still have to grapple with metadata design challenges for attaining music metadata interoperability, generally with regard to domain specificity, granularity and provenance. The transparency obligations in Articles 50 and 53(1)(d) of the AI Act do not provide sufficient practical, enforceable rules that can improve metadata interoperability or copyright attribution for GenAI music in the (European) music industry. The explanations and guidance given in the First Draft Code of Practice in relation to Article 50 or the Explanatory Notice and Template for Article 53 do not sufficiently fill those gaps either.

ABSTRACT This text examines how media contribute to the formation of fiscal hierarchies. Drawing on sociology and anthropology of taxation and using a comprehensive set of data, including media sources, archival materials, and expert interviews, our study analyzes the implementation of personal income tax (PIT) in the early 90s in Poland, to show how media representations shaped public perceptions of taxpaying and how the initial vision of fostering universal fiscal citizenship was gradually eclipsed by practical concerns. In the process of explaining the new fiscal obligation, the media constructed specific categories of taxpayers: the ‘everyman,’ the ‘average taxpayer,’ and the ‘active taxpayer.’ The ‘everyman,’ with minimal agency in tax matters, was largely absent from public discourse. The ‘average taxpayer’ was portrayed as vulnerable and in need of guidance, while the ‘active taxpayer’ was presented as the ideal model of citizen engagement. These fiscal hierarchies had significant implications for how various groups of taxpayers perceived their relationship with the state and their position in the emerging market economy.

This paper examines the structural forces driving the divestment of International Oil Companies (IOCs) globally. Since the early 2010s, IOCs have progressively withdrawn from mature oil fields, a trend that is clearly evident in Nigeria. This phenomenon is also noted in other African countries, including Ghana, Senegal, and Côte d’Ivoire, albeit to a lesser extent. In the global spotlight, this trend is prevalent in North America, Asia, and Europe, reflecting a transnational shift influenced by economic and geopolitical considerations. Through the analysis of secondary data, it was revealed that the rationale for IOCs’ divestment in Nigeria includes the global transition to renewable energy, increasing regulatory constraints, and heightened demands for environmental stewardship. Situated within the international relations discourse, this paper appraises the diverse forms of divestment and their broader implications. It asserted that this phenomenon transcends localised narratives, such as those related to Nigeria’s Niger Delta thereby reframing divestment as a structural political economy adjustment. By investigating these dynamics, the paper contributes valuable insights to the discourse on energy politics and global governance.

Abstract Objective Spot Leiostomus xanthurus is a forage fish that supports important commercial and recreational fisheries along the U.S. Atlantic coast. Our objectives were to (1) develop standardized indices of biomass using commercial fisheries data, (2) determine whether trends in biomass indices varied spatially over time, and (3) estimate effects of potential environmental drivers on biomass index trends. Methods We calculated indices of biomass using catch per unit effort from commercial gill-net fisheries from New Jersey to Florida. Dynamic factor analysis (DFA) was used to test for spatial differences in biomass trends. Results Indices of biomass varied over space and time. Indices of biomass may have increased over time in the northern states, whereas indices in Maryland showed a declining trend over time. Indices in the southern states varied over time without showing substantial trends. The results of the DFA indicated that trends in relative biomass were similar among regions, with deviations from the common trend strongest for Maryland. Environmental covariates do not appear to improve the DFA model fit. Conclusions The relative biomass of Spot was high in the early 2000s before declining through the mid-2000s. The relative biomass began to increase again in recent years after a low in 2016. The use of fishery-dependent indices may help to improve data-limited approaches for Spot management.

Introduction. The use of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) began globally in the early 2000s, with many countries incorporating them into national immunization programs. PCVs proved to be effective against those serotypes of the pneumococci (S. pneumoniae, Spn) that were part of the vaccines, leading to declines in invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) and reduced Spn circulation among healthy individuals for the first years after vaccination implementation. Aim. To analyze the characteristics of Spn circulation against the background of widespread PCV use, subsequent trends in serotype changes, and vaccine effectiveness (VE) in order to optimize its strategy. Materials and methods. This retrospective epidemiological review used systematic analysis of literature from 2010–2020s to examine global trends in IPDs, Spn carriage, serotype distribution, VE, and the emergence of new dominant serotypes before and after PCV introduction. Results. The analysis of the global situation demonstrates the dynamics of changes in Spn carriage among healthy children, the evolution of Spn serotypes under vaccine pressure, a gradual decline in VE, and a continuous increase in the valency of PCVs in use. Data from Ukraine are presented, where PCVs are not included in the national immunization program; nevertheless, over the past 10 years, a sharp decline in Spn carriage (~6.6-fold) has also been observed, along with a reduction in the number of circulating Spn serotypes. In particular, no circulation of PCV13 vaccine serotypes 3, 5, 14, and 19A was detected, nor of serotype 6C, which is antigenically related to the vaccine serotype 6A. Meanwhile, non-encapsulated Spn, now recognized as IPD etiological agents, in the children’s nasopharynx increased 4.5-fold, highlighting the need to consider both encapsulated and non-encapsulated Spn in predicting future VE. Conclusions. Given the high effectiveness of PCVs only against vaccine serotypes, in countries with moderate Spn circulation the most optimal strategy is vaccination of medical, age-related, and epidemic risk groups using the highest-valency PCVs. In addition to protecting these risk groups against vaccine serotypes, this approach may help limit their replacement by other Spn serotypes.

Although it is found all over the world, the perennial plant Kalanchoe pinnata is mostly found in the Caribbean, Central America, North America, and some regions of Africa and Asia. It is a member of the Crassulaceae family. Kalanchoe pinnata, a native of Madagascar, grows best on sandy and granitic soil in subhumid to temperate humid climates with 1000– 2000 mm of annual rainfall. This fragrant plant has huge therapeutic potential and significant medical significance because of its unique chemical components, which include essential oils that include alkaloids, lipids, triterpenes, bufadienolides, glycosides, steroids, flavonoids, and cardienolides. The leaves of Kalanchoe pinnata include a class of chemicals called "bufadienolides" that are biologically active. Digoxin, cardiac glycoside, bryotoxin A, bryotoxin B, and bryotoxin C are some of these substances. They may be antibacterial, chemopreventive, insecticidal, and anticancer. Kalanchoe pinnata is known to have wound-healing, insecticidal, antiinflammatory, anti-allergic, anti-microbial, anti-tumor, and CNS depressing qualities in addition to its anti-oxidant and anti-diabetic qualities. Solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs), which were first introduced in the early 1990s, are believed to be the most effective lipidbased colloidal carriers. This work used cow's ghee as the lipid core to produce solid lipid nanoparticles filled with Kalanchoe Pinnata extract. The current study used a high-speed homogenization approach to create solid lipid nanoparticles of Kalanchoe pinnata extract. The particle size analysis found that the SLNs varied from 194.7 nm to 297.1 nm. In SLNs, the highest entrapment rate is 95.64%. The enhanced batch yields 98.37% release in phosphate buffer. Physical analyses of all batches also showed increased stability at room temperature.

ABSTRACT This article examines Hungary’s digital grassroots feminist media landscape, which emerged in the early 2010s and has since sustained public platforms for women, amplifying their voices against the backdrop of an increasingly hostile illiberal government. Drawing on semi-structured interviews conducted in early 2025 with content creators purposefully sampled from feminist online platforms, the article maps this emerging digital ecosystem, focusing on how these spaces are used by women, and on their impacts (or the lack thereof) on the Hungarian illiberal government (2010-2026). The findings indicate that content creators primarily use these platforms for activities that are not overtly political, such as education, the public articulation of women’s lived experiences, and the accumulation and dissemination of expert knowledge, while only occasionally engaging in conventional political action, consistent with prior research on civil society in repressive political contexts. Interviewees justified this orientation toward ostensibly non-political practices by citing structural constraints on effective feminist action under the illiberal regime. Nevertheless, these practices can be interpreted as constituting a foundational cultural phase that diffuses new values and gradually reshapes public perceptions, thereby contributing to the broader cultural groundwork necessary for subsequent forms of formal political action.

ABSTRACT This article examines how Hole’s first three full-length albums, Pretty on the Inside (1991), Live Through This (1994), and My Body, The Hand Grenade (1997), creatively utilize images of women’s bodies (and the band’s own) to protest sexist injustice and enact sociopolitical reform in the United States in the early 1990s. Through performing the Kinderwhore style and including on- and off-stage examples of the abject and the monstrous-feminine in music and marketing, Courtney Love and Hole demonstrated how to use corporeal fragmentation to disrupt misogynistic expectations of women as well as advocate for the end to violence against women and sexism in media.

Abstract Drawing on data from the World Values Survey (1990–2018) and grounded in modernization and social transformation theories, this study examines the evolution of Chinese people’s attitudes toward work and life over the past three decades. The results reveal a general shift from “production-centered” to “life-centered” orientations. This specifically indicates that during the 1990s, work-centered values intensified, but since the early 2000s, they gradually weakened. As a key dimension of individual life, family orientation declined temporarily between 1990 and the early 2000s but later re-emerged as a factor central to everyday life. Leisure orientation, meanwhile, strengthened alongside socioeconomic development. In addition, class differences in these orientations have changed over time, and individual attitudes are found to relate more closely to their life-cycle stage than to their birth cohort.

Unusual DNA structures and misfolded proteins Alan Herbert, Founder and President of InsideOutBio, discusses the evolution of biological concepts related to DNA and protein structures, highlighting how traditional models have evolved due to new data and discoveries. Much of modern life depends on precisely engineered, highly reliable machines. Such concepts originally shaped our view of biology, beginning with the famous ‘watchmaker’, whom William Paley anointed in 1802 as the creator of life. This concept of ideals was continued by the lock-and-key model of antibody-bound toxins proposed by Ehrlich in 1900, and by the modern view that proteins control the readout of genetic information through the highly specific recognition of nucleotide sequences. All these proposals assume that the world as we see it today has always been this way. They ignore the past worlds that existed before these innovations arose. Each model was based on limited data or on the selective use of that data. They failed when the volume of contradictory information generated by technological advances was overwhelming. These transitions occurred as the Linnean catalog of life forms in the 1700s expanded, as new chemical elements were discovered in the 1800s, and as the zoo of exotic subatomic particles was discovered in the early 1900s. A similar transformation is now occurring in biology, where the old concepts of just a few years ago no longer align with the data.

ABSTRACT In this essay I discuss the cinema of Tom Tykwer within the framework of the complex relationships between European auteur cinema and Hollywood. In order to do so, I will sketch a brief history of the German authors who emigrated to Hollywood either because they were exiled in the aftermath of Hitler's seizure of power or because they were seeking success, after their apprenticeship within the German cinema production system of the 1920s and early 1930s. I will also briefly discuss subsequent phases (the cinema of the 1950s, the New German Cinema, and the transformations of the 1980s and 1990s). Tom Tykwer’s career as a filmmaker can usefully be divided into seven distinct phases which help to illuminate the production and reception contexts of his films.

Abstract: Compared to classical computing implementations, reversible arithmetic adders offer a valuable platform for implementing quantum computation models in digital systems and specific applications, such as cryptography and natural language processing. Reversible logic efficiently prevents energy wastage through thermal dissipation. This study presents a comprehensive exploration introducing new carry-select adders (CSLA) based on quantum and reversible logic. Five reversible CSLA designs are proposed and compared, evaluating various criteria, including speed, quantum cost, and area, compared to previously published schemes. These comparative metrics are formulated for arbitrary n-bit size blocks. Each design type is described generically, capable of implementing carry-select adders of any size.. Introduction: one of the critical factors in designing VLSI circuits and digital systems is power consumption and energy dissipation. Energy dissipation increases due to many transistors in circuits, shrinking the feature size. In the early 1960s, Landauer introduced a novel power dissipation principle in digital circuits. He issued his theory about power dissipation based on information loss during computation in digital systems. From his perspective, designing digital and logical circuits based on conventional logic, also known as irreversible logic, leads to inevitable power dissipation. The motive is that digital circuits designed based on irreversible logic contain more input lines

To characterize long-term sex-specific trends in past-year methamphetamine use in the United States and to assess whether prevalence trajectories differ between males and females, with implications for the practice of addiction medicine. We analyzed nationally representative, repeated cross-sectional data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health spanning 2002-2022 (N=1,155,417). Survey-weighted annual prevalence estimates of past-year methamphetamine use were calculated by sex. Survey-weighted logistic regression models, including a sex-by-year interaction were used to test whether temporal trends differed by sex. Past-year methamphetamine use was consistently more prevalent among males than females throughout the study period. Annual prevalence declined in the early 2000s and increased after the mid-2010s in both sexes, with larger increases among males. Male prevalence increased from 0.8% (95% CI: 0.6-1.0) in 2002 to 1.4% (95% CI: 1.0-1.8) in 2022, whereas female prevalence increased from 0.6% (95% CI: 0.5-0.7) to 0.7% (95% CI: 0.6-0.8). Additional analyses confirmed significantly different temporal trajectories between males and females. From 2002 to 2022, methamphetamine use in the United States demonstrated persistent and widening sex differences, with higher prevalence and larger increases among males than females in the past decades. These findings support the importance of incorporating sex-informed approaches into addiction medicine screening, prevention, harm reduction, and treatment planning.