Journals
2026 EN
Avramov Marc · Cullingham Catherine I. · Gallo Vanessa
+9 more
California serogroup (CSG) viruses, West Nile virus (WNV), Cache Valley virus (CVV), and eastern equine encephalitis virus (EEEV), are the main mosquito-borne arboviruses of public health concern in Canada. We report findings from a 2017–2021 mosquito sampling campaign in eastern Ontario, Canada, with the aim to optimise surveillance frameworks using mosquito species and spatiotemporal affinities for these endemic arboviruses. Mosquitoes were collected in diverse land uses of eastern Ontario, Canada, from May to October. Female mosquitoes were pooled by species and screened for arboviruses via RT-qPCR. We detected CSG viruses in 610 pools, WNV in 22, EEEV in one, and CVV in one (12,413 pools; 121,042 mosquitoes). In all years, Ochlerotatus provocans showed the greatest infection rate for CSG viruses (up to 22.15 per 1000 mosquitos), while WNV was found mainly in Culex pipiens / restuans (77.2% of WNV-positive pools). The prevalence of CSG viruses was associated with highly forested and lowly urbanised sites, with peak detections in late spring to early summer. High infection rates in certain mosquito species indicate their potential role as vectors and underscore the need for additional vector competence assays. The observed spatiotemporal associations with arboviral activity, particularly for CSG viruses, emphasise the importance of incorporating vector and reservoir ecology and life-history characteristics into arbovirus surveillance frameworks.
Journals
2026 EN
Xhardez Catherine
In an era of skills-focused immigration, subnational units increasingly assert their role in attracting the ‘best and brightest’ migrants, creating a complex landscape of vertical (national vs subnational levels) and horizontal (among subnational units) competition. This article investigates the marketing tools and strategies employed by subnational units in Canada and Australia in competing for migrants. Adopting a subnational comparative approach, the study examines eighteen subnational units across both federal states, utilizing official immigration websites, migration plans, strategy documents, and immigration streams. Qualitative content analysis reveals that subnational units use sophisticated marketing tools, including comparisons and rankings, dedicated websites, videos, overseas missions, and employer resources. This marketing is not merely supplementary to national efforts; subnational units create distinctive narratives and policies that appeal to specific groups, differentiating themselves from other units and even from the central government. These units leverage local advantages, target specific migrant groups, and adapt their strategies according to their population size, migrant attractiveness, and regional needs. I argue that subnational migration marketing shows competition for desired migrants extends inwards from national borders as subnational units develop their own strategies. Subnational migration marketing transcends traditional nation-centric approaches, demonstrating the importance of localized, niche-focused, and competitive strategies in influencing not only who arrives, but where they settle, ultimately impacting regional development and addressing internal population distribution challenges. The findings underscore the distinctive nature of subnational migration marketing, as subnational governments actively differentiate themselves from the federal level and from other units to shape migration flows and policies.
Journals
2026 EN
Marsee Justin D · Brambley Chad A · Ho Thi
+13 more
Polyaspartic acid (PAA) is a biodegradable polymer with various industrial applications. To date there are only three known PAA hydrolases (from the gene PahZ ) capable of degrading PAA. These enzymes are expressed in two different bacteria, Sphingomonas sp. KT-1 (PahZ1 KT-1 and PahZ2 KT-1 ) and Pedobacter sp. KP-2 (PahZ1 KP-2 ). PahZ1 KT-1 and PahZ2 KT-1 form a two-component system degrading tPAA to oligoaspartic acid (OAA) and subsequently into aspartic acid. This study aims to expand the diversity of PAA hydrolases and inform efforts to improve PAA degradation. To further understand the known PahZ1 homologs, the X-ray crystal structure of PahZ1 KP-2 was determined to examine its structural homology with PahZ1 KT-1 . Crystallographic analysis revealed PahZ1 KP-2 is monomeric, contrasting with the dimeric PahZ1 KT-1 , yet both share a conserved serine protease catalytic triad. With the aim of expanding the PahZ1 family, four putative homologs were identified using bioinformatics and AI-based structural modeling, all of which retained the α/β hydrolase domain. Importantly, all homologs exhibited measurable PAA-degrading activity and each was classified as either monomer or dimer to further expand the diversity of PahZ1 enzymes and provide a broader toolbox for sustainable polymer degradation.
Journals
2026 EN
Ladds Catherine
The twentieth-century codification of British nationality, beginning with the 1914 British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act, had a profound impact upon British settler communities on the edges of empire, where the loss or acquisition of British status determined access to passports and extraterritorial protection. Although the 1948 British Nationality Act has often been privileged as a watershed moment in the intertwined histories of national belonging and post-war migration to Britain, this study instead draws attention to the longer genealogy of this political dialogue by positioning the inter-war period as a time when the parameters of British nationality were defined and refracted through the circumstances of putative Britons overseas. Consular responses to applications for British status in the Chinese treaty ports suggest that the parameters of British legal belonging, which required more careful definition against the backdrop of extraterritorial rights and protections, were worked out in detail in jurisdictional borderlands on the edges of empire. Petitions from individual constituents grappling with an evolving statutory landscape demonstrate that nationality became increasingly meaningful in concrete ways in the lives of ordinary settlers and sojourners in the twentieth century. The formal exclusion from this legal category of specific groups of people living beyond the boundaries of British territory, particularly ‘illegitimate’ children, married women, and children born to British mothers, had sharply felt effects upon the mobility, personal freedoms, and family cohesion of scores of settlers.
Journals
2026 EN
Brady Shan · Sakita Francis · Taddie Marissa
+7 more
Injury is the leading cause of death for youth aged 5–24 years with the majority of deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Interventions directed at reaching appropriate care faster have the potential to improve pediatric injury-related outcomes in LMICs. Using a pediatric injury registry, we examined the rates of morbidity and mortality of pediatric injury patients in Northern Tanzania based on referral status, location, distance, and time to definitive care. We included 849 patients aged <18 years. Patients treated at a health care facility prior to KCMC had higher morbidity that those who presented direct to KCMC. There was no significant association between distance of first care site to KCMC and mortality or morbidity, however there was a statistically significant increase in mortality with longer time to definitive care at KCMC. We found that pediatric injury patients treated at first care sites prior to KCMC had higher morbidity. Additionally, the chance of mortality was statistically higher in pediatric injury patients who took longer than 48 hours to reach definitive care at KCMC. This study identifies facilities with longer median times and allows for future targeted interventions to improve pediatric readiness and raising awareness of the importance of timely pediatric specific injury care.
Journals
2026 EN
Dennetiere David · Moreno Thierry · Capitanio Blandine
+9 more
It is now well established that multilayer coated gratings may offer high diffraction efficiencies over the tender X‐ray range, from about 1 keV to 5 keV, covering the gap between single layer coated grating monochromators and crystal monochromators. Nevertheless, few beamlines in the world are using such gratings in their monochromator. The successful implementation of a multilayer grating monochromator requires producing a matched pair of a multilayer grating and a multilayer mirror, and this matching is not straightforward as it must account for different incidence angles and refraction effects on each element. Here we review the realization of the multilayer grating monochromator of the SIRIUS beamline which has been successfully in service for several years. We show how, by alternating computer simulation with our diffraction code and measurements, we could optimize the monochromator transmission on a very wide energy range. After the grating was coated, it was found that the angle of optimal efficiency versus photon energy was significantly different from what was predicted by a simple conformal model of binary layers. Layer interdiffusion and profile smoothing during the deposition process must be added to the multilayer model to reproduce the measured data. The critical adjustment of the mirror multilayer period is achieved by the lateral translation of the mirror, which was given a small transverse period gradient. The monochromator is thus providing high transmission efficiency in the 1 to 5 keV energy range, more than 30% over 2.5 keV and up to 46% at 4.6 keV.
International Union of Crystallography
Resource
2026 EN
Chiara Rossi · Daniel Lizzit · Charlotte Van Dijck
+3 more
Ferroelectric field effect transistors (FeFETs) are among the most promising candidates for the implementation of artificial synapses for neuromorphic computing. However, their scaling poses big challenges, as multilevel behavior is hindered by the two-level or very-few-level polarization behavior reported for devices featuring an aggressive lateral scaling. Moreover, the switching and stabilization of ferroelectric polarization, and consequently the device operation, is inherently linked to high levels of charge trapping in the gate stack, limiting the reliability and increasing the variability of the FeFETs. In this work we investigate, by means of calibrated TCAD simulations, FeFETs integrating a metal interlayer inside the gate stack. FeFETs are designed so that, by properly biasing the device, the metal interlayer can get charged thanks to charge tunneling through the dielectric layer. We first investigate a conventional front-end-of-line implementation, consisting of an aggressively scaled FeFET featuring a ferroelectric hafnium zirconium oxide and a dielectric hafnium oxide in the gate stack, a single-crystal silicon channel, and highly-doped source and drain pockets. Then we consider a back-end-of-line compatible device structure featuring lightly– doped amorphous gallium-oxide channel material, with Schottky-type tungsten contacts. We show that, for both architectures, the charge in the metal interlayer can effectively stabilize the ferroelectric polarization, even for a negligible charge trapping in the dielectric stack. Moreover, the interplay between ferroelectric polarization and charge in the metal interlayer enables a multilevel operation even for a uniform ferroelectric polarization.
Resource
2026 EN
Nandini Sengupta · Rezaul Begg · Aravinda S. Rao
+4 more
A decrease in Minimum Foot Clearance (MFC), which represents the minimum vertical distance of the foot from the ground surface during the swing phase of the gait cycle, is one of the primary contributors to tripping-related falls among people with stroke. Accurate prediction of upcoming MFC values, understanding their potential range, and evaluating whether future values will fall within the variability of actual MFC values are crucial for early fall risk assessment. This work proposes a new Transformer model for predicting multistep MFC values in stroke survivors collected from the affected lower-limb during walking on a treadmill utilizing a two-head self-attention mechanism. We introduce a data-driven conditional post-normalization projection approach to enhance the performance of multistep prediction for MFC values. In addition, we introduce a statistical moment-matching loss function during training to account for significant data variability, such as that observed in individuals with stroke. We compare the performance of our model with two other deep learning models. Our findings indicate that the Transformer model training is faster and achieves an average Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of approximately 0.0035, Maximum Absolute Error (MaxAE) of 0.0085 and a Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 0.0043, using the leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV) method. The highest prediction within the upper bound (PWUB) of around 89% is achieved with self-attention LSTM model. The main contribution of our work is to identify when an individual stroke survivor is at increased risk of tripping-related falls due to a lower MFC value in their affected lower limb.
Journals
2026 EN
DeMarchi Joseph A. · Carter Edward D. · Gray Matthew J.
+5 more
Abstract Host competence—the ability to acquire, harbour and transmit infections—drives pathogen spread and persistence in multi‐host communities. Evaluating species‐specific competence is critical for predicting transmission, particularly for generalist fungal pathogens like Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). Despite its central role in disease dynamics, we lack an epidemiologically grounded competence metric that rigorously accounts for how infection intensity affects a host's competence. This knowledge gap limits our ability to compare mechanisms across species and assess their roles in pathogen persistence. To address these challenges, we developed a novel, load‐dependent competence metric using host–pathogen Integral Projection Models (IPMs) that integrates variation in susceptibility, within‐host pathogen growth and pathogen shedding dynamics. We applied this metric to laboratory‐based challenge experiments with three common North American amphibians ( Notophthalmus viridescens , Rana clamitans and Rana catesbeianus ) that persist endemically with Bd. Using dose–response assays and repeated pathogen shedding measurements across species, we asked: (i) is there a consistent, non‐linear relationship between infection intensity and pathogen shedding across species? and (ii) which load‐based traits best predict host competence? We quantified four of five components of host competence—susceptibility, pathogen growth, pathogen survival and load‐dependent shedding—and used these to parameterize species‐specific IPMs, integrating competence into a single relative metric across species. We found that Bd shedding increased non‐linearly with infection intensity, contradicting the standard assumption that Bd shedding is linearly related to infection intensity. Notophthalmus viridescens and R. catesbeianus were the most competent hosts but through distinct pathways: high susceptibility in N. viridescens and elevated shedding rates in R. catesbeianus . In contrast, density‐dependent reductions in pathogen growth and shedding limited R. clamitans competence. Thus, species‐level competence is not determined by a single trait, but emerges from interactions among multiple load‐based processes. Our results demonstrate that variation in competence emerges from distinct, species‐specific processes across multiple dimensions of competence. By linking individual infection dynamics to population‐level transmission potential, our integrative framework provides a more mechanistic approach to predicting host contributions to community‐level pathogen persistence. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
Journals
2026 EN
Paroissien Ruby · Tangney Ryan · Offord Catherine A.
+1 more
Abstract Climate change has increased the likelihood of extreme events, increasing the number of days with dangerous fire weather conditions, resulting in fires with increased severity, frequency and extent. This can greatly impact vegetation communities by reducing diversity and slowing recovery. The role of in situ soil seed banks in mediating impacts of shifting fire regimes is often unclear and may vary between different vegetation types. In particular, the impact of high fire severity, an increasingly common fire regime shift, may increase the likelihood of temperatures lethal to seeds in the soil, while higher fire frequencies may reduce diversity via increased immaturity risk. Here we aim to assess how fire severity impacts the species' and functional group diversity of soil seed banks in a threatened mesic forest community. We collected 396 soil samples from 12 sites within wet sclerophyll forest in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Australia that had been burnt during the 2019/2020 Australian megafires at differing fire severities (moderate, high and extreme), as well as from unburnt (control) sites, 3 years post‐fire. Soil samples were split into the leaf litter and soil, both treated with smoke and heat to break fire‐related dormancy, and regularly watered in a greenhouse to observe germination for a year. This was compared to floristic surveys conducted at each site. Our data showed a hump‐shaped relationship between species richness and fire severity in the extant vegetation. The lowest richness occurred at unburnt sites peaking at moderate severity burn sites and declining slightly at high and then extreme severity sites. This relationship was not significant in the soil seed bank, indicating it may buffer against losses in diversity long term. Obligate resprouters generally declined as severity increased. A distinct difference in composition between extant vegetation and in the soil seed bank emphasises that a significant portion of the species richness within these communities solely exists in the soil seed bank, fluctuating as environmental conditions change. Composition in both extant vegetation and the soil seed bank shifted with increasing fire severity, suggesting potential impacts on the future functioning of these ecosystems. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.