Cardiovascular diseases are a serious threat to humans. Arterial pulse monitoring using wearable electronics could help to assess the cardiac conditions of the wearer, which further reduces the possibility of a sudden lethal heart attack. However, pulse sensors are usually tightly bonded to the wrist during pulse monitoring. This scenario brings great discomfort to the wearer, but also causes unreliable pulse recording due to the susceptibility of motions and pressure sensing nonlinearity with high preload. To this end, a 3D-printed iontronic pressure sensor with high sensitivity (11.65 pF kPa-1) and ultrawide linearity range (150 kPa) was developed, which could monitor a fingertip pulse wave in a "plug-and-play" manner. The wide linearity range enabled the sensor to accurately record the fingertip pulse with variable applied preload, which dramatically improved the reliability of practical pulse sensing. The sensor was applied for monitoring the pulse of patients with cardiovascular diseases, and the correlation between disease type and characteristic pulse waveforms was analyzed. The superior pulse monitoring performance, as well as unprecedented operational convenience, highlights the great potential of the as-prepared pulse sensor in wearable health monitoring.

Governments worldwide are increasingly adopting intrusive surveillance measures to counter terrorism. However, the psychological and public health consequences of exposure to terrorism remain underexplored. This study examines how exposure to cyber and conventional terrorism affects perceived national threat and support for surveillance policies, using a controlled virtual reality experiment in which participants were immersed in realistic simulations of lethal terror attacks targeting critical railway infrastructure in Israel. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: cyber (N = 59), conventional (N = 59), or control (N = 45). Outcomes were standardized, but the framing differed by type of attack. Findings show that perceived national threat perceptions are a key mechanism linking exposure to terrorism to surveillance attitudes. At lower threat levels, participants differentiated between cyber and conventional attacks. In contrast, heightened threats led to uniform support for expansive surveillance regardless of the attack modality. Results demonstrate that exposure to terrorism, including cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, can activate psychological responses with implications for public resilience and policy attitudes, shaping preferences concerning privacy and security. These findings underscore the broader societal and public health relevance of understanding how people react to evolving security threats that disrupt essential systems such as transportation, energy, and healthcare.

The AUKUS alliance, a three-way strategic defence partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, was announced with the aim of building a nuclear submarine fleet. The research method used in this analysis is a qualitative approach, focusing on foreign policy studies and literature reviews related to geopolitical relations in the Asia-Pacific region. The author uses the concept of foreign policy to understand how the threat from China affects Australia's security strategy. The strategy aims to better position Australia to contribute to regional security and stability, as China’s increasing self-sufficiency and the risk of military conflict between major powers in the Indo-Pacific region increase. The document provides a grim assessment of security in the Pacific and sets out a massive increase in defence expenditures to restructure the Australian military to cope with the changing security environment in Asia-Pacific. The review also focuses on the operationalization of a deterrence by a denial strategy, which includes the acquisition of a more powerful and lethal long-range attack capability and the upgrading of Australian northern bases to force rotations. This strategy emphasizes the importance of suppressing China's "competitive tactics" through a combination of military capabilities, diplomacy and alliances with traditional partners.

The AUKUS alliance, a three-way strategic defence partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, was announced with the aim of building a nuclear submarine fleet. The research method used in this analysis is a qualitative approach, focusing on foreign policy studies and literature reviews related to geopolitical relations in the Asia-Pacific region. The author uses the concept of foreign policy to understand how the threat from China affects Australia's security strategy. The strategy aims to better position Australia to contribute to regional security and stability, as China’s increasing self-sufficiency and the risk of military conflict between major powers in the Indo-Pacific region increase. The document provides a grim assessment of security in the Pacific and sets out a massive increase in defence expenditures to restructure the Australian military to cope with the changing security environment in Asia-Pacific. The review also focuses on the operationalization of a deterrence by a denial strategy, which includes the acquisition of a more powerful and lethal long-range attack capability and the upgrading of Australian northern bases to force rotations. This strategy emphasizes the importance of suppressing China's "competitive tactics" through a combination of military capabilities, diplomacy and alliances with traditional partners.

Increased fire activity in the western United States since 2000 has produced an abundance of fire‐injured trees at risk to lethal attack by bark beetles. Large populations of bark beetles reproducing in fire‐injured trees may disperse (or spillover) from inside the fire perimeter to adjacent, unburned forests, potentially causing extensive tree mortality. In the western United States and Canada, fire‐injured Douglas‐fir (DF; Pseudotsuga menziesii) are frequently colonized by Douglas‐fir beetle (DFB; Dendroctonus pseudotsugae), prompting concern among land managers about elevated risk of spillover. We investigated spatiotemporal patterns of DF tree mortality from DFB in unburned areas surrounding 61 wildfires (2000–2017) with a high likelihood for spillover in the Northern Rocky Mountains, USA. We developed a multiple‐scale analytical framework to examine tree mortality potentially associated with spillover following fire. Synchronous fluctuation in the amount of DF mortality within and beyond the flight distance of DFB in the region and surrounding individual fires (0–10 km) suggested that DFB activity primarily responded to a broader scale process, such as drought, rather than proximity to burned trees. Using shorter and longer range dispersal scenarios, we estimated that at <0.25 km from the fire perimeter, the dominant source of DFBs transitioned from burned to unburned sources due to the closer proximity of DFBs from unburned sources. Some fires (8%–15%; range of fires from sensitivity analysis) did exhibit evidence of DFB spillover, but spillover occurred <1 km from fires (based on our criteria) and DF tree mortality associated with spillover was 0.2%–0.3% of total DF damage area during the study period. Spillover was not associated with climate conditions that increase host tree stress, rather it was associated with greater DF mortality from DFB in the prior year in the same area (i.e., poorly linked to spillover). Site‐specific monitoring of post‐fire DFB populations in susceptible, unburned DF forests adjacent to fires by land managers may be necessary to determine the risk of DFB emigrating from burned areas. Our findings inform post‐fire planning and the ecological implications of disturbance interactions that occurred in the early 21st century during a period of amplified wildfire and DFB activity.

The antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) Klebsiella pneumoniae (Kp) poses an enormous threat to human health, with O2 serotypes accounting for up to 35–59% of infections. Although the O-polysaccharide (OPS) of the Kp O2 serotype can be used as an antigen target for vaccine preparation, its simple structure (only galactose repeats) makes it difficult to generate effective antibody responses and protection. Here, we prepared a novel Kp O2 OPS bioconjugate nanovaccine using protein glycan coupling technology (PGCT) and a SpyCatcher/SpyTag (SC/ST) orthogonal assembly system. The hepatitis B virus core antigen (HBc), which can assemble into nanoparticles, was used as a carrier to display OPS on its surface, allowing the bioconjugate to reach the nanoscale. The HBc-OPS exhibited attractive stability without aggregation or degradation for up to 10 months. A series of mouse experiments revealed the OPS-specific antibody activation ability of HBc-OPS and its protective effect against different infection doses. In particular, when coadministered with the AS03 adjuvant, all the mice were protected from higher doses of lethal attacks. Through in vitro and in vivo experiments, we found that the addition of AS03 further promoted the humoral immune response by stimulating increased levels of cytokines and T follicular helper (Tfh), germinal center B (GC B), and antigen-specific memory B cells. Moreover, we found that the use of AS03 as an adjuvant can provide a better protective effect than commonly used CpG-based adjuvants. Therefore, we have developed an attractive, stable, and effective bioconjugate nanovaccine against the Klebsiella pneumoniae O2 serotype. This bioconjugate nanovaccine design greatly potentiated the immunogenicity of polysaccharides, and the orthogonal modular assembly strategy reduced the technical difficulty of bioconjugate nanovaccine preparation, both of which could be applicable to the development of OPS conjugate vaccines for serotypes with low immunogenicity.

This study examines the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISK), a terrorist organization operating primarily in Central Asia, with a particular focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan. As a regional affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS Central), which was militarily defeated in 2019, ISK continues to orchestrate lethal attacks across Central Asia and beyond, osing an ongoing security threat. It perceives multiple entities, including the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and Western powers, as adversaries. While ISK inherits the ideological framework of ISIS Central, it has strategically diverged by adopting a guerrilla warfare approach. This research aims to analyse the distinctions between ISIS Central and ISK, specifically in terms of their objectives and operational strategies. The central hypothesis posits that ISK’s tactical and ideological deviations stem from contemporary geopolitical conditions and its unique organizational dynamics. Methodologically, this study employs qualitative research, drawing upon secondary sources to examine ISK’s evolution. In addition, it employs a case scenario methodology to assess the evolving threat posed by the ISK to Central Asia and beyond. The findings indicate that Wilayat Khorasan represents the most extreme manifestation of Islamic jihadism and is widely regarded as the most dangerous ISIS affiliate in the present era.

On 22 May 2017, the Manchester Arena bombing resulted in twenty-two fatalities, marking the United Kingdom’s most lethal terrorist attack since 2005. A subsequent public inquiry revealed the necessity for improved operational, tactical and strategic response and management strategies, and highlighted the barriers to effective decision-making processes of those present during the incident. Integrating macro-level societal ideologies, meso-level group dynamics and micro-level individual factors to understand decision-making complexities and the challenges, the present study thematically evaluated decision making, providing fresh insights into the multifaceted nature of high-stakes decision making. Using twelve transcripts, with an applied data saturation approach, findings represented three primary themes across the macro, meso and micro dimensions. Combined, these findings highlighted gaps between theoretical concepts and training, and practical application in high-stakes situations. It also highlighted difficulties in immediate response action, command and control and balancing established protocols with the need for adaptability in unpredictable emergency situations. We conclude that response decisions should be driven by the desire to optimize least-worst outcomes.

The modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA) is approved for use as a smallpox and monkeypox virus vaccine and was also designed as a popular recombinant viral vector for vaccine development and gene therapy. However, the extensive genomes of poxviruses present a significant challenge for the development of recombinant viral vaccines; therefore, it is essential to establish a user-friendly in vitro reverse genetic system. We systematically assembled the 180-kb MVA genome into a five-plasmid system, facilitating one-step packaging of the MVA virus. The MVA rescued using this system exhibited similar virological characteristics, including host cell tropism, growth kinetics, plaque size, and viral particles, comparable to those of wild-type MVA. Immunization with rescued MVA intramuscularly or subcutaneously triggered robust-specific immune responses and conferred protection against lethal attacks by the ectromelia virus in mice. We also developed a recombinant MVA-Luc-eGFP virus, which served as a tool for screening antiviral compounds against poxviruses. The synthetic MVA system efficiently generates recombinant vaccines with robust immune responses. These findings provide a novel and fast method for engineering large viral genomes with more specialized structures and lay a foundation for the advancement of more rapid and effective viral vector vaccines.

Whole-canine neutralizing antibodies generated by single B cell antibody technology elicit therapeutic protection against canine distemper virus infection.

The consumption of tomatoes has been associated with diminishing the risk of several lethal diseases, e.g., heart attack and cancer. This is because tomato contains high antioxidants that have been shown to protect against oxidative damage in numerous empirical and epidemiological studies. Considering the health benefits, more emphasis should be given to produce organic tomatoes. Tomatoes have been ranked as the most important fruit and vegetable in Western diets as essential source of antioxidants such as lycopene, β-carotene, phenols, vitamin E, and vitamin C. Environmental conditions and agricultural practices are key factors that affect the quantities of these compounds available in tomato. Therefore, controlling the environmental conditions, such as water availability, temperature, light, saline soil, and agricultural practices (fertilization practices, harvesting, and food storage) are valuable tools to enhance the nutritional value of tomato fruits organically. Although, the quantitative and qualitative contents of health-promoting compounds in vegetables and fruits depend on their genetic predispositions. Agricultural practices and different environmental condition have broad effects on the nutraceutical compounds. Thus, this present study emphasizes on enhancing tomato nutrition through improved agricultural practices and optimized farming, especially in saline and water-deficit conditions. This organic-oriented strategy may counteract the scepticism caused by genetically modified tomatoes (GMOs) and will prompt further exploration in future studies.Keywords: Organic grown tomato; Antioxidants; Nutritional values; Salinity; Water deficit; Temperature; Agricultural practices; Fertilization

Self-assembling nanoparticle vaccine elicits a robust protective immune response against avian influenza H5N6 virus in chickens

IntroductionJapanese encephalitis virus (JEV) and Zika virus (ZIKV) are prevalent in over 80 countries or territories worldwide, causing hundreds of thousands of cases annually. But currently there is a lack of specific antiviral agents and effective vaccines.MethodsIn the present study, to identify human neutralizing monoclonal antibody (mAb) against JEV or/and ZIKV, we isolated ZIKV-E protein-binding B cells from the peripheral venous blood of a healthy volunteer who had received the JEV live-attenuated vaccine and performed 10× Genomics transcriptome sequencing and BCR sequencing analysis, we then obtained the V region amino acid sequences of a novel mAb LZY3412. We expressed mAb LZY3412 and evaluated its ability to bind to E proteins of dengue virus, JEV and ZIKV, neutralize JEV and ZIKV infections in vitro, protect mice against lethal JEV or ZIKV attack. The epitopes on E proteins of JEV/ZIKV recognized by mAb LZY3412 were analyzed using molecular docking and constructing E protein mutants.ResultsOur results show that recombinant mAb LZY3412 has high-affinity with the E proteins of three viruses, with the kinetically derived binding affinity (KD) values of 440 and 482.5 nM against JEV-E protein and ZIKV-E protein, respectively; recombinant mAb LZY3412 can efficiently neutralize JEV and ZIKV infections in vitro, with the NT50 values of 19.9 ng/mL and 631 ng/mL, respectively; application of recombinant mAb LZY3412 can significantly improve the percentage survival and reduce the serum viral loads of neonatal mice infected with JEV or ZIKV. Finally, two amino acid residues (Ala399 and Gly400) located in EDIII of JEV-E protein were potentially recognized by LZY3412 whereas two amino acid residues (Met15 and Thr406) out of EDIII of ZIKV-E proteins were recognized by LZY3412.DiscussionConsidering mAb LZY3412 has neutralizing effects on various flaviviruses, this mAb is expected to be developed as therapeutic or preventive drug for these flaviviruses, and can also be used to guide the development of vaccines against these flaviviruses.

This article examines the effects of the militarization of public security and the conflicts it triggers on a central democratic institution: press freedom. We focus on Mexico, which experienced multiple waves of assassinations of local journalists after the federal government declared a War on Drugs against the country’s main cartels and deployed the military to the country’s most conflictive regions. We argue that violence against journalists is tied to the outbreak of criminal wars—the multiple localized turf wars and power struggles unleashed by the federal military intervention. Subnational politicians and their security forces and drug lords are at the center of these conflicts because they jointly enable local operations of the transnational drug-trafficking industry. To defend their interests, they have individual and shared incentives to prevent city- and town-level journalists from (or punish them for) publishing fine-grained information that may compromise their criminal and political survival and their quest for local control. We compiled the most comprehensive dataset available on lethal attacks on journalists from 1994 to 2019 to test our claims. Using a difference-in-differences design, we show that violence against local journalists substantially increased in militarized regions, where the military decapitated the cartels and fragmented the criminal underworld, triggering violent competition for criminal governance—de facto rule over territories, people, and illicit economies. Evidence from original focus groups and interviews with at-risk reporters suggests that governors, mayors, and their police forces possibly joined cartels in murdering journalists to mitigate the risks of unwanted information and to minimize the costs of criminal governance by silencing the press and society. Our study offers a sobering lesson of how the militarization of anti-crime policy and the onset of criminal wars can undermine local journalism, press freedom, and democracy.

In the past recent years, WSN has progressively grown as an emerging technology. Various research efforts have been made in the literature to address the problem associated with WSN security. Based on the review analysis, it is found that the existing methods are mostly associated with complex security operations that are not suitable for resource constraint sensor nodes. The proposed paper has presented cost-effective modeling of the security framework that addresses the problem of security and energy in WSN. The proposed security framework implements two different protocols to attain maximum security services and optimizes the security operation of the proposed security models to achieve higher energy efficiency and privacy preservation against a majority of the lethal attacks. The first security model introduces a novel cost-efficient pair-wise key-based authentication mechanism to identify the availability of optimal routes under the presence of adversary in the network. The second security model introduces an integrated part of the first security model that optimizes security operation to perform secure communication using a lightweight encryption mechanism. Based on the experimental outcome and analysis, the proposed system attains a 60% performance improvement in terms of security and computational efficiency compared to the existing Sec-LEACH. The second security model has achieved a 50% improvement in terms of overall aspects like reduction in transmission delay, packet delivery ratio, remaining energy, and communication performance. &nbsp;

Multivalent presentation of antigens using nanoparticles (NPs) as a platform is an effective strategy to enhance the immunogenicity of subunit vaccines and thus induce a high level of organismal immune response. Our previous results showed that pre-existing porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) antibodies could increase the antibody levels of nanoparticle vaccines carried in PCV2 VLPs. Here, we have established a generalized nanoantigen display platform, Cap-Cat virus-like particles (VLPs). By combining PCV2 VLPs with the modular linker element SpyTag003/SpyCatcher003 system, four porcine-derived viral protective antigens with different sizes and multimeric structures: the PRRSV B-cell epitope, the PEDV COE monomer, the CSFV E2 dimer, and the SIV HA trimer were efficiently demonstrated to elicit a strong immune response in mice. Crucially, the modification of antigens by the Cap-Cat VLPs platform enhanced the Th2 response and improved the Th1 response. The use of the platform demonstrates that HA antigen protects against lethal attacks by influenza viruses and reduces viral load in the lungs. We have demonstrated that the Cap-Cat VLPs platform demonstrates that antigens enhance the immune response by improving the processes of DC uptake, transport, lymph node (LN) localization, and immune cell activation. This "plug-and-display" assembly strategy facilitates the use of the Cap-Cat VLPs nanoantigen display platform for more applications and thus facilitates the development of more efficient, general-purpose porcine subunit vaccines.

Reports of primate violence frequently note wounds to the genital region, raising the possibility that attackers target genitals to eliminate the reproductive capacity of rivals. Alternatively, in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and other species with prominent genitals, injuries may occur simply because large size makes genitals easy targets. To test these hypotheses, we compiled records of wounds suffered by chimpanzees in four communities at three long-term study sites (Gombe, Tanzania; Kibale, Uganda; Fongoli, Senegal), including both nonlethal (N = 1,268 wounds; N = 891 male wounds; N = 377 female wounds) and lethal attacks (N = 258 wounds), to determine whether genital wounding occurred more frequently than expected by chance. In nonfatal cases, wounds occurred in the genital region more often than expected for females (Kasekela: N = 9/80 wounds, Mitumba: N = 8/61 wounds, Fongoli: N = 11/84 wounds, Kanyawara: N = 31/152 wounds), but only in Kasekela did males suffer genital wounds more often than expected by chance (Kasekela: N = 3/80 wounds, Mitumba: N = 2/48 wounds, Fongoli: N = 6/413 wounds, Kanyawara: N = 4/350 wounds). In contrast, killings of males involved genital wounds more often than expected (N = 12/258 wounds). Increased genital wounding may occur when genitals are more accessible, such as when females flee from male aggression, exposing their hindquarters, or when victims are immobilized during fatal attacks.

IntroductionVariant pseudorabies virus (PRV) is a newly emerged zoonotic pathogen that can cause human blindness. PRV can take advantage of its large genome and multiple non-essential genes to construct recombinant attenuated vaccines carrying foreign genes. However, a major problem is that the foreign genes in recombinant PRV are only integrated into the genome for independent expression, rather than assembled on the surface of virion.MethodsWe reported a recombinant PRV with deleted gE/TK genes and an inserted porcine circovirus virus 2 (PCV2) Cap gene into the extracellular domain of the PRV gE gene using the Cre-loxP recombinant system combined with the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system. This recombinant PRV (PRV-Cap), with the envelope-embedded Cap protein, exhibits a similar replication ability to its parental virus.ResultsAn immunogenicity assay revealed that PRV-Cap immunized mice have 100% resistance to lethal PRV and PCV2 attacks. Neutralization antibody and ELISPOT detections indicated that PRV-Cap can enhance neutralizing antibodies to PRV and produce IFN-γ secreting T cells specific for both PRV and PCV2. Immunological mechanistic investigation revealed that initial immunization with PRV-Cap stimulates significantly early activation and expansion of CD69+ T cells, promoting the activation of CD4 Tfh cell dependent germinal B cells and producing effectively specific effector memory T and B cells. Booster immunization with PRV-Cap recalled the activation of PRV-specific IFN-γ+IL-2+CD4+ T cells and IFN-γ+TNF-α+CD8+ T cells, as well as PCV2-specific IFN-γ+TNF-α+CD8+ T cells.ConclusionCollectively, our data suggested an immunological mechanism in that the recombinant PRV with envelope-assembled PCV2 Cap protein can serve as an excellent vaccine candidate for combined immunity against PRV and PCV2, and provided a cost-effective method for the production of PRV- PCV2 vaccine.

The human species presents a paradox. No other species possesses the propensity to carry out coalitionary lethal attacks on adult conspecifics coupled with the inclination to establish peaceful relations with genetically unrelated groups. What explains this seemingly contradictory feature? Existing perspectives, the "deep roots" and "shallow roots" of war theses, fail to capture the plasticity of human intergroup behaviors, spanning from peaceful cooperation to warfare. By contrast, this article argues that peace and war have both deep roots, and they co-evolved through an incremental process over several million years. On the one hand, humans inherited the propensity for coalitionary lethal violence from their chimpanzee-like ancestor. Specifically, having first inherited the skills to engage in cooperative hunting, they gradually repurposed such capacity to execute coalitionary killings of adult conspecifics and subsequently enhanced it through technological innovations like the use of weapons. On the other hand, they underwent a process of cumulative cultural evolution and, subsequently, of self-domestication which led to heightened cooperative communication and increased prosocial behavior within and between groups. The combination of these two biocultural evolutionary processes-coupled with feedback loop effects between self-domestication and Pleistocene environmental variability-considerably broadened the human intergroup behavioral repertoire, thereby producing the distinctive combination of conflictual and peaceful intergroup relations that characterizes our species. To substantiate this argument, the article synthesizes and integrates the findings from a variety of disciplines, leveraging evidence from evolutionary anthropology, primatology, archeology, paleo-genetics, and paleo-climatology.

For nonhuman primates living in anthropogenic areas, predation by larger predators is relatively rare. However, smaller predators, such as free-ranging as well as domesticated dogs, can shape the socioecology of urban nonhuman primates, either directly by attacking and killing them or indirectly by modifying their activity patterns. Here, we describe three (two probably fatal) cases of dog attacks on adult rhesus macaques inhabiting an anthropogenic landscape in Northern India and the circumstances surrounding these incidents. We discuss the importance of considering human presence and intervention in dog–nonhuman primate relationships while studying nonhuman primate populations across anthropogenic gradients, and its potential influences on group social dynamics and transmission of zoonotic agents.