As network attack methods continue to evolve, flooding attacks remain a major threat that causes network paralysis and service disruption. Statically configured systems are particularly vulnerable, as attackers can exploit reconnaissance information to launch large-scale attacks, while conventional defense mechanisms often fail under high-intensity traffic. To address this problem, this paper introduces Moving Target Defense (MTD) within a decentralized framework and proposes a blockchain-based decentralized End Hopping system. The system employs the Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) consensus protocol for dynamic controller election and incorporates a disaster recovery mechanism, which eliminates single points of failure while ensuring reliable controller transitions and rapid service restoration. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed system achieves satisfactory performance in terms of availability, effectiveness, and security, providing a practical approach to constructing robust proactive defense networks.

GlassCurtainCrackAdversarialDefense: A convolutional and attention-based adversarial defense network for glass curtain wall crack detection

Quercetin enhances antioxidant defense and modulates immune homeostasis in mandarin fish (Siniperca chuatsi): Insights from biochemical and transcriptomic analyses.

Aluminium (Al) toxicity in acid soils severely limits forage productivity, and dissecting Al-tolerance mechanisms is crucial for securing forage supply in acid-soil regions. White clover (Trifolium repens L.), an excellent acid-soil-adapted forage with pronounced Al tolerance, serves as an ideal model for studying legume Al-tolerance mechanisms. We exposed white clover seedlings to gradient Al³⁺ concentrations (0, 2, 4, 6, 10 mmol·L⁻¹) to characterize the core physiological and molecular responses underlying its Al adaptation. Al³⁺ stress inhibited growth in a concentration-dependent manner, suppressing both root and shoot development. Roots adopted a prioritised defence strategy, with enhanced antioxidant enzyme activity and soluble sugar accumulation mitigating oxidative damage. Transcriptome analysis revealed coordinated regulation of key pathways: flavonoid biosynthesis showed a core inhibition-branch-specific activation pattern, photosystem-related genes were upregulated to reinforce photosynthetic function, and hormone signalling networks were extensively rewired with divergent responses among auxin, gibberellin, cytokinin, ABA and JA pathways. White clover copes with Al³⁺ stress via an integrated mechanism featuring root-prioritised defence, photosynthetic maintenance and hormone network remodelling. These findings provide new insights into legume Al tolerance and a framework for breeding Al-tolerant forages. Future studies will quantify Al content in shoots and roots, and perform functional validation of upregulated hormone-related genes to clarify their roles in the Al-tolerance regulatory network.

Hosts generating unsolicited network traffic increasingly operate in a coordinated manner rather than in isolation. Scanning and exploitation activities are often distributed across multiple hosts that share common infrastructure, toolchains, and behavioral patterns, forming loosely coupled yet persistently aligned sender groups. Accurately attributing such groups is critical for understanding organized activities and strengthening network defense capabilities. However, existing attribution approaches face notable limitations. Methods that rely on threat intelligence suffer from delayed updates and limited coverage. Static feature-based approaches ignore temporal ordering and therefore fail to capture multi-stage behavioral evolution. Although dynamic sequence models incorporate temporal patterns, they typically overlook the collaborative structural relationships among coordinated senders. In this paper, we propose SentinelGraph, a temporal graph reasoning framework for sender group attribution from honeypot traffic. SentinelGraph constructs a temporal knowledge graph and integrates a recurrent graph evolution module to jointly model coordination structures and their temporal dynamics. A structure enhancement module further exploits contextual information available at the target time, while an auxiliary relation loss encourages the learning of enriched entity representations. This design enables accurate attribution even for previously unseen senders by leveraging information from their observed neighbors. Experiments on real-world honeypot data demonstrate that SentinelGraph substantially outperforms state-of-the-art methods in modeling coordinated network behaviors.

Resistant cotton maintains vascular health via an integrative defense network against Verticillium dahliae.

The immune system is a complex biological defense network that protects the human body from pathogenic microorganisms and malignant cells. In recent years, the global emphasis on natural immunoboosters has increased due to their safety, accessibility, and therapeutic potential. This review focuses on the immunomodulatory properties of various herbal plants found in the Satpuda region, including Ocimum sanctum (Tulsi), Trigonella foenum-graecum (Fenugreek), Moringa oleifera (Moringa), Murraya koenigii (Curry leaves), Bambusa spp. (Bamboo shoots), Colocasia esculenta (Colocasia leaves), Amaranthus spp. (Amaranth leaves), Emblica officinalis (Amla), and Tinospora cordifolia (Giloy). Each of these plants contains bioactive compounds such as flavonoids, alkaloids, saponins, tannins, and essential vitamins that play a crucial role in modulating immune responses. Their mechanisms of action include stimulation of phagocytic activity, regulation of cytokine production, enhancement of antibody formation, and antioxidant defense. Lifestyle factors—such as nutrition, sleep, and exercise—further complement the efficacy of these herbal immunoboosters. Collectively, these findings highlight the pharmacological and preventive potential of Satpuda’s traditional flora in promoting immune health and combating infections through natural and sustainable means.

BackgroundOxidative stress plays a crucial role in the development and treatment response of endometrial cancer, yet the antioxidant defense mechanisms in different tumor subtypes remain unclear.MethodsWe investigated the cellular response to oxidative (menadione) and genotoxic (doxorubicin) stress in two TP53-mutated endometrial cancer cell lines, AN3CA and KLE. Cell viability, reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels, and the expression of antioxidant-related genes (SESN2, SESN3, SOD1) were assessed using qPCR and In-Cell Western assays.ResultsAN3CA cells showed greater sensitivity to doxorubicin, marked by increased ROS and reduced viability, while KLE cells were more susceptible to menadione-induced toxicity. Protein expression analysis revealed a biphasic response: low doses of doxorubicin transiently increased SESN and SOD1 expression, whereas higher doses suppressed them. Gene expression at the mRNA level did not always correlate with protein levels, suggesting possible post-transcriptional regulation.ConclusionOur findings demonstrate cell line - specific redox responses and identify SESN2, SESN3, and SOD1 as key players in the antioxidant defense network. These genes may serve as potential therapeutic targets in aggressive, hormone-independent endometrial cancers.

Abstract Silicon-rich biochars (Si-chars) have demonstrated effectiveness in heavy metal remediation. However, the evolution of their functionality during environmental aging remains poorly understood. Here, we investigated the effects of artificial aging on rice husk-derived Si-chars pyrolysis at 300 ℃, 500 ℃, and 700 ℃, further evaluating their efficacy in mitigating cadmium (Cd) toxicity in soil-pakchoi systems. Aging induced a temperature-dependent response, which reduced the performance of high-temperature Si-chars but acted as an activation process for low-temperature variants. Notably, aged 300 ℃ Si-char exhibited the strongest suppression of Cd accumulation in pakchoi leaves, reducing concentrations by 27.1% and 15.6% compared to the control and non-aged 300 ℃ Si-char, respectively. This effect was attributed to the aging-induced release of bioavailable Si (ASi) and high-molecular-weight dissolved organic matter (DOM), both of which could interact with Cd to reduce its bioavailability in the amended soils. Meanwhile, ASi and DOM promoted the activities and enrichment of Cd-immobilizing bacteria. Furthermore, Si-char amendment enhanced Si deposition in pakchoi leaves, triggering a molecular defense network characterized by the down-regulation of Cd transporter genes and the up-regulation of stress-responsive pathways. Our findings establish a novel framework in which feedstock Si concentration and initial pyrolysis temperature jointly drive the functional evolution of biochar in the environment. Graphical Abstract

Indonesia’s defense architecture faces a critical strategic dissonance. While threats have shifted to the "Gray Zone"—manifesting as cyber-attacks and economic coercion—the national defense posture remains heavily oriented toward territorial military operations (Sishankamrata). This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of Indonesia’s current defense management in responding to transnational non-military threats and to diagnose the specific governance gaps hindering rapid response. This research employs a systematic critical review of key documents, including reputable journal articles, the National Defense Law, and strategic white papers. Data were analyzed using thematic content analysis to juxtapose global threat evolution against domestic regulatory responses.The study reveals three core findings: Doctrine Lag: Indonesia’s regulations predominantly address physical invasion, leaving digital domains legally vague;Governance Mismatch: There is a significant "Administrative Lag" caused by sectoral egos among civilian and military agencies;Structural Void: The absence of an integrated operational command hub results in fragmented crisis management. Implications: To survive the invisible siege, Indonesia must shift from a hierarchical to a networked defense governance. Specifically, this requires operationalizing the National Security Council (DKN) as a unified command authority and redefining "People's Defense" to prioritize digital and economic resilience.

Although the physiological level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is crucial for governing life processes through redox signaling, the excessive accumulation of ROS can contribute to biomolecular damage and pathological state, namely, oxidative stress. This review systematically summarizes the molecular mechanisms underlying the dynamic equilibrium of cellular redox state, including the intracellular sources of ROS and the multilayered antioxidant defense network. When ROS production exceeds the regulatory limits of the antioxidant system, excessive ROS will act on a series of molecular targets and participate in the pathogenesis of diseases. Therapeutic targeting of the redox balance is regarded as an effective strategy for treating oxidative stress-related diseases, such as supplementation of direct antioxidants and enhancement of endogenous antioxidant defense network. Nevertheless, clinical trials that attempt to delay the onset or progression of such diseases are mostly negative. This review discusses the challenges encountered in the clinical application of antioxidant therapy and highlights the opportunities brought by novel technologies such as intelligent drug delivery system and personalized medicine. By adopting these new technologies, it is expected to overcome the limitations of traditional antioxidant therapy.

Soil salinization and alkalization critically limit global agricultural production. This study aimed to investigate the differential response mechanisms of rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) varieties to saline and alkaline stresses at the seedling stage. Seedlings of a salt-tolerant variety, Huayouza 62 (H62), and a non-salt-tolerant variety, Xiangyou 15 (X15), were exposed to saline (NaCl:Na2SO4 = 1:1) and alkaline (Na2CO3:NaHCO3 = 1:1) stresses. An integrated analysis combining physiology, biochemistry, transcriptomics, and metabolomics was conducted to systematically elucidate their differential stress responses. (1) H62 maintained favorable photosynthetic and carbon-nitrogen homeostasis. Notably, under saline and alkaline stresses, the activity of glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) in H62 showed a significant increasing trend, whereas it was inhibited in X15. (2) Alkaline stress triggered more differential genes than saline stress, with H62 exhibiting broader transcriptional up-regulation in carbon-nitrogen metabolism. (3) Metabolomic profiling showed that H62 accumulated more beneficial metabolites than X15 under both stresses, such as phenolic acids, amino acids, and their derivatives. (4) In multi-omics analysis, key genes in starch-sucrose and amino acid metabolism in H62 were up-regulated to accumulate osmolytes, enabling an efficient defense network. However, X15's responses were disordered. H62 leverages robust transcriptional reprogramming to coordinate carbon-nitrogen metabolism, constituting a multidimensional defense network. This study provides potential physiological indicators, candidate genes, and metabolite markers associated with short-term saline-alkaline stress responses, laying a foundation for further exploration of stress response mechanisms.

This paper examines the silence of critical and radical geographers during the Trump administration's 2025 federal occupations of Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., Despite decades of theoretical development around urban sovereignty and spatial resistance, scholars remained largely absent from public discourse during unprecedented military interventions. Analysis of academic responses reveals California universities dominated engagement while Northeastern institutions stayed silent, and legal scholars far outnumbered geographers in commentary. Google search data demonstrates immigration enforcement commanded minimal public attention despite record operations, averaging just 2.6% of national searches while competing issues maintained sharp advantages. This reflects broader academic marginalization of immigrant movements, where immigration activism ranks seventh in citations despite sustained effectiveness. We argue structural path dependencies, rather than moral failings, explain this disciplinary withdrawal. The paper calls for immediate deployment of critical geographic tools including counter-mapping federal occupation patterns and spatial analysis for community defense networks.

Chronic inflammation is an established driver of tumorigenesis across multiple organs, including the liver. Yet, the precise mechanisms linking persistent inflammatory signaling to tumorigenesis remain unclear. While classic tumor immunology focuses on immune-mediated tumor eradication, in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), growing evidence highlights a paradoxical immune capacity to foster malignant growth. HCC is a major health burden, most often arising in the setting of chronic inflammatory liver disease and cirrhosis. Nonetheless, some HCC cases occur in patients lacking cirrhosis or its traditional triggers, underscoring gaps in our mechanistic understanding. The immune system orchestrates a highly regulated defense network; however, neoplastic cells can subvert this network by sculpting an immune-modulating milieu that mimics protective inflammation while promoting tumor survival and expansion. In HCC, immune influences are bidirectional and stage dependent. As liver disease evolves to cirrhosis, the interplay among the inflammatory response, immune response, cirrhosis-associated immune dysfunction syndrome, and the tumor microenvironment becomes increasingly intricate. This review delineates these overlapping but distinct processes, dissects their individual contributions to HCC pathogenesis, and highlights immune-cell compositional changes across disease stages. We contrast protective immune-inflammatory responses that contain early chronic liver injury with the pro-tumorigenic environment characteristic of cirrhosis. Finally, we propose that mapping stage-specific biomarker signatures could transform inflammatory staging into a precision modality, informing immune-based prevention strategies and guiding individualized systemic therapies for HCC.

Phyllosphere microorganisms play a vital role in plant defense, thereby aiding plants in their adaptation to environmental changes. Plant hormone signals can regulate the composition of the phyllosphere microbial community. Jasmonic acid (JA) is a critical phytohormone that regulates anti-herbivore pathways in plants; however, the dialogue between JA and phyllosphere microorganisms in anti-herbivore defense remains unclear. Here, we investigate the role of JA-enriched phyllosphere microorganisms in the defense of tomato plants against Helicoverpa armigera Hübner. Our results demonstrate that JA-enriched phyllosphere bacteria enhance the direct defense of tomato plants by inhibiting the development of H. armigera larvae. Furthermore, these microorganisms increase the plants' ability to attract predatory Harmonia axyridis Pallas by elevating the emission of specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) namely α-pinene, α-terpinene, and caryophyllene. We observed positive correlations between the abundance of phyllosphere microorganisms, the level of VOC emissions, and the density of trichomes, suggesting an integrated anti-herbivore defense network regulated by JA. These findings underscore the importance of phyllosphere microorganisms in enhancing plant fitness and further comprehension of the intricate relationship between plant anti-herbivore defenses and phyllosphere microorganisms. © 2026 Society of Chemical Industry.

Bacterial wilt, caused by Ralstonia solanacearum, is a devastating disease that limits global tobacco production. To decipher the molecular basis of resistance, we conducted an integrated multiomics analysis of a susceptible cultivar, Honghua Dajinyuan (HD), and a moderately resistant cultivar, Yanyan 97 (YY), leveraging LC‒MS-based metabolomics and RNA-seq transcriptomics. The resistant YY cultivar exhibited coordinated multitiered defense, characterized by the accumulation of resistance-related metabolites (e.g., prenol lipids and organooxygen compounds) and the enrichment of plant hormone signaling pathways. Transcriptomic analysis revealed 818 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) involved in cell wall modification and stress responses. Crucially, the integration of weighted gene coexpression network analysis (WGCNA) with prior QTL mapping pinpointed Nta17g05760 within the qBWR17b locus as a core candidate gene. Our study systematically elucidates a defense network involving hormone signaling, cell wall reinforcement, and antimicrobial synthesis and provides a key candidate gene and theoretical foundation for the molecular breeding of wilt-resistant tobacco.

Can plants live without defenses? Mutant analysis in Arabidopsis thaliana has identified numerous regulators of biotic, abiotic, and hormone-based defenses, but the redundancy among separate defense pathways remains unexplored. We constructed an Arabidopsis mutant, defenseless, lacking six canonical defense pathways using abi1-1 (abscisic acid), coi1 (jasmonic acid), sid2 (salicylic acid), ein2 (ethylene), eds1 (biotic defense signaling), and rbohD (apoplastic reactive oxygen species production), enabling dissection of defense network resilience. In optimal growth conditions, defenseless exhibited no stress phenotypes, demonstrating that plant defenses are dispensable under favorable environments. Stress assays revealed paradoxical responses: some defenses remained functional in defenseless, while others were severely compromised. Notably, ozone-triggered apoplastic ROS signaling was largely preserved, uncovering alternative and redundant defense mechanisms. Transcriptome profiling identified a core set of immune-related genes consistently downregulated in defenseless, yet pathogen susceptibility was not elevated beyond known immunity-deficient mutants, underscoring extensive redundancy and positioning defenseless as a platform to probe several layers of plant defenses.

Members of receptor like cytoplasmic kinase VII (RLCK VII) subfamily are important participants in plant growth and development, innate immunity, and resistance to abiotic stress. However, in broad beans, the regulatory mechanisms of RLCK VII subfamily genes involved in these processes remains unclear. To further elucidate the regulatory mechanisms, a comprehensive whole-genome analysis was conducted. To investigate the disease resistance function of VfRLCK VII genes, their expression patterns under infection by Alternaria alternata were analyzed through transcriptome sequencing. And functional validation of VfRLCK VII4 (VfRLCK176) was performed via transformation into Nicotiana tabacum (tobacco). VfRLCK VII subfamily comprised 45 members, which were unevenly distributed across 6 chromosomes. These genes encoded protein sequences ranging from 296 to 595 aa in length, with 39 located in the nucleus and 6 in chloroplasts. VfRLCK VII proteins were classified into 9 subgroups and 3 members, all of which contained only a single PKc_like superfamily domain. Promoter analysis indicated that VfRLCK VII genes possessed various cis-acting elements, including light responsive elements, plant hormone responsive elements, stress responsive elements, and growth and development regulatory elements. Among them, 21 genes exhibited differential expression level, which might be involved in the disease resistance function of broad beans. The disease resistance assessments demonstrated that after inoculation with A. alternata, transgenic tobacco plants displayed milder symptoms and significantly smaller lesion areas compared to wild type controls. This finding suggested that VfRLCK VII4 could positively regulate tobacco's resistance to A. alternata. This study provides novel insights into the RLCK VII-mediated defense network and offers candidate genes for breeding disease-resistant broad bean varieties.

Juniperus przewalskii Komarov, an endemic conifer in the high-altitude mountains of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, develops its cones in a synergistic manner with the oligophagous pest Megastigmus sabinae Xu et He (Hymenoptera: Torymidae), forming a highly specialized interaction system. However, the physiological adaptation mechanisms underlying this interaction remain unclear. Feeding by M. sabinae larvae significantly induced defense responses in J. przewalskii cones. During the early instars (2nd~3rd) of M. sabinae larvae, infested J. przewalskii endosperms upregulated protein content (48.91%; 3rd instar), significantly enhanced peroxidase (POD) activity (71.10%; 2nd instar), and specifically enriched coumarins and cinnamaldehyde derivatives (2nd instar) to increase M. sabinae larvae metabolic costs. In later instars (4th~5th) of M. sabinae larvae, the infested endosperms downregulated starch content (29.69%; 4th instar), increased phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) activity (57.34%; 4th instar), and accumulated steroid derivatives to suppress larvae development. Conversely, M. sabinae larvae demonstrated unique adaptive strategies: maintaining high levels of glutathione S-transferase (GST) as an antioxidant defense system during early instars and upregulating the level of digestive enzymes in later stages to overcome host multi-layered defenses. Juniperus przewalskii counters pest infestation through dynamic nutrient modulation, temporal activation of protective enzymes, and a multi-layered chemical defense network. The adaptation of M. sabinae larvae appears to involve the developmental regulation of detoxification and digestive enzyme levels. This study provides novel insights that enrich coevolution theory in alpine ecosystems.

Software-defined (SD) honeypots, as dynamic cybersecurity technologies, enhance defense efficiency through flexible resource allocation. However, traditional SD honeypots face latency and jitter issues under network fluctuations, while balancing adjustment costs with defense benefits remains challenging. This paper proposes a DPU-accelerated SD honeypot security service deployment method, leveraging DPU hardware acceleration to optimize network traffic processing and protocol parsing, thereby significantly improving honeypot environment construction efficiency and response real-time performance. For dynamic attack–defense scenarios, we design an adaptive adjustment strategy combining Stackelberg game theory with deep reinforcement learning (AASGRL). By calculating the expected defense benefits and adjustment costs of optimal honeypot deployment strategies, the approach dynamically determines the timing and scope of honeypot adjustments. Simulation experiments demonstrate that the mechanism requires no adjustments in 80% of interaction rounds, while achieving enhanced defense benefits in 20% of rounds with controlled adjustment costs. Compared to traditional methods, the AASGRL mechanism maintains stable defense benefits in long-term interactions, verifying its effectiveness in balancing low costs and high benefits against dynamic attacks. This work provides critical technical support for building adaptive proactive network defense systems.