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Found 6273 publications
Effects of Single-Nucleotide Polymorphisms on the Estimated Breeding Values for Feet in Holstein-Friesian Cows in Hungary
Publication Name: Animals
Publication Date: 2026-05-01
Volume: 16
Issue: 9
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
The aim of this study was to identify SNPs in the cattle genome associated with estimated breeding values of feet (EBVfeet ) in Holstein-Friesian (HF) cows in Hungary. Foot health is of major importance in dairy cattle industry whereas claw disorders are leading to lameness and thus result in low fertility rates and productivity. Genotyping was performed using the EuroG_MDv4 microarray platform. The final database comprised 2963 animals and 59,151 SNPs. EBVfeet values have been divided into high and low groups. All calculations regarding the genetic differentiation (genome-wide and locus-specific) between high- and low-value groups for EBVfeet , linear regression, and haplotype association tests have been performed with the SNP and Variation Suite software. Thirty-nine SNPs associated with EBVfeet were determined on BTAs 3, 7, 8, 15, 21, and X. The maximum values of the identified SNPs were 0.22 for Fst_marker , 23.1 for the −log10(p) of the linear regression, and 26.3 for the −log10(p) of the haplotype association tests on BTA 3. The closest genes to SNPs associated with estimated breeding values for feet (EBVfeet ) are mainly associated with tissue structure, immune response, metabolism, growth, development, transport and signaling. Our results could add additional information to the genetic programs focusing on the improvement of foot health in HF cattle.
Open Access: Yes
DOI: 10.3390/ani16091299
Shear resistance of continuous steel beams with thin webs
Publication Name: Thin Walled Structures
Publication Date: 2026-05-01
Volume: 224
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
The shear buckling and post-buckling behaviour of welded plated I girders with slender webs plays a critical role in the safety and economy of steel bridge and building structures. However, experimental data and validated numerical models for multi-span girders with slender webs remain limited, and the accuracy of current design provisions is not yet fully established. This paper presents the results of an experimental and numerical investigation on ten two-span welded plated I girders with transversely stiffened webs. By placing transverse stiffeners on both sides, the web panels were divided into four or eight rectangular segments with an aspect ratio of a/h=2.5. The web slenderness ratios h/t ranged from 175 to 350, while the flange slenderness ratios b/t varied between 8 and 40. The specimens exhibited shear failure governed by tension-field action near the internal support or flange buckling in the middle of the span. To further examine the shear buckling behaviour, geometrically and materially nonlinear analyses with imperfections were performed using advanced full-shell finite element models. The validated numerical models were then employed in a comprehensive parametric study covering a wide range of geometric configurations. The numerical results were used to assess the accuracy of the shear strength formula specified in EN 1993-1-5:2024 and AISC 360-22. Based on the results of the numerical simulations new formulas are proposed for the contribution of the web and flanges to determine the shear strength of plated I girders.
Open Access: Yes
Mathematical Modeling and Dynamic Trajectory Analysis in a Virtual Reality Welding Simulator
Publication Name: Mathematics
Publication Date: 2026-05-01
Volume: 14
Issue: 9
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
This study presents a mathematical and kinematic modeling framework for analyzing trajectory behavior in a virtual reality (VR) welding simulator. Twenty novice participants performed repeated welding trials across three sessions, with torch trajectories recorded at 50 Hz in the task space. The proposed framework combines trial-level performance descriptors with derivative-based dynamic features, including spectral arc length (SPARC), log-normalized jerk (LNJ), and the number of velocity peaks (NVP), to characterize movement smoothness, intermittency, and longitudinal trajectory organization in a computer-simulated manual welding task. The results showed that spatial welding error decreased most clearly during the earliest stage of practice, with mean absolute lateral error declining from approximately 2.8 mm in the first trial to approximately 1.7 mm by the third trial. This early improvement was then broadly preserved across subsequent sessions. In contrast, smoothness- and fragmentation-related metrics exhibited more variable temporal patterns, indicating that improvements in task-space accuracy were not necessarily accompanied by uniform reorganization of movement dynamics. Associations between spatial error and kinematic features remained limited, suggesting that geometric task accuracy and dynamic trajectory organization represent complementary aspects of simulated manual performance. Overall, the findings show that high-frequency trajectory analysis in VR provides a useful basis for the mathematical modeling of dynamic behavior in simulated welding systems and supports the use of computer simulation for process-level investigation of manual task execution.
Open Access: Yes
DOI: 10.3390/math14091506
Aerobic Capacity, Body Composition, and Ventilatory Thresholds in Youth Endurance Athletes: Physiological Characteristics of Hungarian Junior Triathletes
Publication Name: Applied Sciences Switzerland
Publication Date: 2026-05-01
Volume: 16
Issue: 9
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
Limited data are available regarding the physiological profile of youth triathletes. The aim of this study was to characterize the physiological and body composition profile of Hungarian youth triathletes and to examine the relationships between anthropometric characteristics and aerobic performance indicators. Forty-one youth triathletes (20 females and 21 males; age: 15.8 ± 1.7 years), members of the Hungarian national development squad, participated in the study. Anthropometric and body composition parameters were assessed using standardized procedures and multi-frequency bioelectrical impedance analysis. Aerobic performance was evaluated using a graded cardiopulmonary exercise test on a treadmill with breath-by-breath gas analysis. Male athletes demonstrated higher body height, body mass, fat-free mass, and skeletal muscle mass compared with females (p < 0.05). Cardiopulmonary exercise testing revealed high aerobic capacity, with mean VO2 max values of 73.2 ± 5.4 mL·kg−1·min−1 in males and 63.1 ± 5.0 mL·kg−1·min−1 in females. The second ventilatory threshold occurred at approximately 82–86% of VO2 max. Strong positive correlations were observed between anthropometric parameters and absolute oxygen uptake (mL·min−1), particularly for fat-free mass, skeletal muscle mass, and body surface area (r = 0.83–0.95). However, these relationships are influenced by body size and were weaker or inverse when relative oxygen uptake (mL·kg−1·min−1) was considered. Regression analyses further indicated that body composition variables, especially fat-free mass and skeletal muscle mass, were positively associated with aerobic performance, while body fat percentage was not a significant predictor when body size and sex were controlled. These findings are based on cross-sectional associations and should be interpreted as descriptive reference data for this population rather than predictive criteria. The results contribute to the characterization of physiological and anthropometric profiles in youth triathletes and may support future research and athlete monitoring.
Open Access: Yes
DOI: 10.3390/app16094449
Evaluating the role of blue-green infrastructures in mitigating climate change: a case study of the Hungarian “Green City” program
Publication Name: Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy
Publication Date: 2026-05-01
Volume: 28
Issue: 5
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
Urban environments are increasingly vulnerable to climate change, with extreme weather events expected to become more frequent and severe. This paper addresses sustainable urban development and the importance of stormwater retention, integrating adaptation and mitigation strategies. It evaluates the publicly funded Hungarian “Green City” program’s water management, focusing on blue-green infrastructures. The 198 implemented projects in the program were assessed for green credentials, vegetation concepts, and rainwater retention using public databases of real municipal data and Google Earth spatial analyses rather than hypothetical scenarios. A lifetime climate change impact assessment with sensitivity analysis was conducted using two case studies from the “Green City” program, highlighting the benefits of prioritizing rainwater over tap water for irrigation. The study proposes a three-pillar—environmental as operational carbon footprint, economic as extended net present value (NPV), and social as accessibility and recreational benefit—evaluation method for urban blue-green developments. It found that many projects rely on tap water irrigation, thus resulting in higher lifetime carbon emissions. The financial assessment of carbon footprint within the extended NPV method emphasizes the need for improved green area irrigation strategies. By modernizing irrigation practices and implementing effective rainwater retention measures, blue-green infrastructures can significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions while improving long-term economic performance and social benefits through improved usability. The research offers valuable insights into the role of blue-green infrastructures in urban development to combat climate change. The combined three-pillar framework integrating LCA to assess green projects is a transferable decision-support tool that can be adapted to locally available data, advocating the use of rainwater over tap water to achieve environmental, social, and economic benefits. Unlike earlier studies that used hypothetical scenarios, this research relies on the implemented projects of the “Green City” development program with their observed designs and available real data, thus providing a framework for urban blue-green implementations to integrate sustainable practices and effectively address the challenges posed by climate change.
Open Access: Yes
Addressing the Impact of Resolution Scaling on YOLO Performance for Brain Tumor Detection Through Optimized Network Depth/Width Adjustments
Publication Name: Applied Sciences Switzerland
Publication Date: 2026-05-01
Volume: 16
Issue: 9
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
Deep learning-based object detectors, particularly You Only Look Once (YOLO) architectures, have demonstrated strong performance in automated brain tumor detection. However, the impact of resolution scaling on tumor localization accuracy remains underexplored, especially under conditions where image resolution is reduced. This study aims to investigate how lowering the input resolution from 640 × 640 to 480 × 480 affects detection performance and whether optimized depth/width scaling and hyperparameter tuning can compensate for the expected loss of spatial detail. In this work, we propose an optimized YOLO-based framework for brain tumor detection and localization in MRI scans, building upon the method “Addressing the Impact of Resolution Scaling on YOLO Performance for Brain Tumor Detection through Optimized Network Depth/Width Adjustments.” Our model, an enhanced variant of the BGF-YOLO architecture, is specifically tailored for the challenges of medical imaging. The proposed network features both architectural and training-level optimizations. We used a publicly available dataset from Kaggle that consists of 500 training images, 201 validation images, and 100 test images. Experimental analysis demonstrates that while reducing input resolution alone degrades performance, integrating targeted modifications specifically increases network depth and width. In addition, advanced training strategies such as MixUp augmentation, dropout regularization, AdamW optimization, cosine learning rate scheduling, and finely tuned learning rate ranges lead to substantial performance gains. The optimized model achieves a precision of up to 0.858, a recall of 0.943, mAP50 of 0.946, and mAP50–95 of 0.672. These results not only outperform the reduced-resolution baseline but also approach, and in some cases surpass, the original high-resolution BGF-YOLO setup.
Open Access: Yes
DOI: 10.3390/app16094320
Biorefining green triticale grass as a flavonoid-rich source of protein for sustainable food systems
Publication Name: Food Bioscience
Publication Date: 2026-05-01
Volume: 79
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
Green biomass serves as an eco-friendly, plant-derived substitute for conventional protein sources. Leaf protein concentrate (LPC) not only acts as a viable alternative to animal-derived proteins but also contains essential vitamins and bioactive compounds providing nutraceutical advantages. The extraction technique plays a critical role in maximizing LPC yield. In this study, green juice derived from the wet pressing of green triticale biomass was divided into two aliquots, each subjected to distinct processing techniques for LPC isolation. One portion underwent direct thermal coagulation via microwave irradiation, followed by vacuum filtration, yielding green LPC (MW-GLPC) and its brown juice (GJ-BJ). The other was first centrifuged to remove large photosynthetic complexes, producing yellow juice that was subsequently thermally coagulated and vacuum filtered to obtain yellow LPC (YLPC) and its brown juice (YJ-BJ).The crude protein content in the MW-GLPC fraction (38.44 g 100 g−1 DW) was higher than the raw green juice (16.38 g 100 g−1 DW). YLPC fraction, obtained by incorporating a centrifugation step into the process, resulted in a significantly increase in crude protein (67.22 g 100 g−1 DW). For fractions of brown juice (BJ), the crude protein content differed depending on the processing technique, with GJ-BJ exhibiting 0.73 g 100 g−1 FW and YJ-BJ displaying 1.06 g 100 g−1 FW. Size exclusion chromatography (SEC) indicated that BJ primarily contained oligopeptides ranging from 200 to 3000 Da.Phytochemical assessments demonstrated that YLPC exhibits the highest concentration of some beneficial bioactive compounds, such as luteolin (27.2 μg g−1), and isovitexin (111.6 μg g−1). These findings are consistent with results obtained from the Drosophila melanogaster model under high-sugar conditions designed to simulate high-sugar-induced stress. Flies supplemented with a concentration of 20% YLPC demonstrated a 10.52% increase in viability relative to the control group, thereby indicating the beneficial potential of YLPC in high-sugar containing environments.
Open Access: Yes
Rapid, Matrix-Dependent Changes in Polyphenols and Antioxidant Capacity of Methanol Plant Extracts During Short-Term Storage: Implications for Analytical Timing
Publication Name: International Journal of Molecular Sciences
Publication Date: 2026-05-01
Volume: 27
Issue: 9
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
Throughout this study, the short-term stability of methanol extracts was evaluated in cases of 15 distinctive, antioxidant-rich plant materials over 3, 7, and 14 days under refrigeration (4 °C), dark room-temperature, and light-exposed room-temperature conditions. A great variability in the matrix-dependent stability of the antioxidants, as well as the pronounced impact of the implied storage conditions on their plausible degradation, was revealed and featured. Initial total polyphenol content (TPC) ranged from 50.50 ± 0.44 mg gallic acid (GAE)/g DW (rosemary) to only 0.02 ± 0.006 mg GAE/g DW (amaranth). After 14 days, pigment-rich vegetable extracts (basil, beetroot powder, spinach powder, dried onion, tomato powder, and yarrow tail) lost 86.2–89.2% of TPC and 80–99% of DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) activity across all conditions, even under refrigeration. In contrast, for Lamiaceae species, markedly higher levels of the referred parameters were to be observed after 14-day-long storage. Decrease in TPC values was found to be 43.7% (rosemary), 50.6% (thyme), and 42.9% (oregano), respectively, while DPPH values were reduced by only 17–29%. Turmeric and walnut flour showed intermediate stability. Refrigeration consistently minimized the degradation of antioxidants (e.g., rosemary’s decrease in DPPH was only 20.3% at 4 °C vs. >70% under ambient conditions), while light exposure significantly accelerated losses of antioxidants in nearly all samples. Methanol extracts of many dietary plants, particularly pigment-rich ones, exhibit rapid and pronounced changes during short-term storage. Comparison with values obtained immediately after extraction shows that even brief storage can lead to substantial deviations. Although the current sampling intervals do not capture changes within the first hours, the results clearly indicate the need to minimize delays and standardize analytical timing to avoid underestimating phenolic content and antioxidant capacity. Moreover, these findings demonstrate that measured antioxidant properties are not solely inherent to the plant material but are strongly influenced by the extract matrix and methodological conditions. Consequently, antioxidant data should be regarded as matrix- and protocol-dependent, with important implications for their interpretation, comparability, and reproducibility across studies.
Open Access: Yes
DOI: 10.3390/ijms27093723
Exploring Teaching Methods for Construction Contract Law Using Analytic Hierarchy Process
Publication Name: Journal of Legal Affairs and Dispute Resolution in Engineering and Construction
Publication Date: 2026-05-01
Volume: 18
Issue: 2
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
Construction law holds significant importance due to its inherent rationale and pervasive presence at every stage of the project in the construction sector. The average value of construction disputes worldwide was USD 42.8 million in 2021. Complying with construction law and regulations plays a pivotal role in the seamless functioning of the sector. That is why construction law skills are vital for engineers. They ensure regulatory compliance, facilitate effective contract management, foster improved communication among stakeholders, and enhance risk mitigation. The substantial and unique nature of this subject makes it challenging to condense into a traditional course format. Despite being structured as a course, effectively conveying the practical aspects of construction contract law to engineers requires a distinct pedagogical approach. The present pilot study aims to rank student preferences for different teaching methods in construction contract law education in India using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). This study contributes to the knowledge base by identifying preferred pedagogical approaches from the students' perspective. Out of nine teaching methods, the lecture method is the highest ranked by Indian students. This research seeks to enhance subject understanding and effectiveness of construction law courses in the country. This can benefit the construction sector by producing engineers who are better equipped to navigate legal complexities.
Open Access: Yes
