Cyclic cystine-knot peptides offer protease-stable templates for targeting microbial membranes. We engineered simplified scaffolds and measured dye leakage and lipid order in giant vesicles. Activity rose with positive patch size but fell when hydrophobic faces drove aggregation in buffer. Molecular dynamics suggest a toroidal pore intermediate for the most selective variant, informing linker choices before animal testing.

Comparative education research often imports scales without testing linguistic fairness. We adapted a short cohesion battery across four languages and sampled students in six cities. Multi-group CFA supported weak invariance after two item rewordings; strong invariance held for trust-in-peers but not for institutional trust. Principals can track comparable trends while interpreting institution-focused items with local follow-up interviews.

Co-digestion can raise methane yield but also trigger acidification when lipid-rich wastes pulse into reactors. Semi-continuous trials with manure, glycerol, and slaughterhouse skimmings showed that staged lipid addition preserved propionate clearance compared with single-step loading. 16S profiles linked resilience to syntrophic associations rather than overall richness. Operators can use inexpensive VFA ratios as early warnings before biogas collapse.

Biodiversity surveys produce counts with missing months and overdispersion. We propose a hierarchical Poisson-lognormal model with shrinkage priors on seasonal coefficients and evaluate it on moth-trap and river-macroinvertebrate benchmarks. Posterior predictive intervals remain calibrated when sampling gaps exceed two seasons. The approach supports adaptive monitoring budgets by ranking sites by expected information gain for the next visit.

High-speed interrupted cuts generate localized heating that accelerates tool degradation. We tested alumina-toughened inserts under controlled thermal cycles while measuring crack network evolution by acoustic emission and surface replication. Transient tensile spikes at cooling dominated chipping rather than steady-state abrasion. A simple cycle-counting rule correlates with tool life better than peak temperature alone, aiding selection for roughing passes.

Coastal wetlands mediate large carbon exchanges, yet process models often disagree when upscaled from plot sensors to landscape grids. We synthesize eddy-covariance and chamber studies from three continents to show where calibration gains saturate. Parameter identifiability improves when tidal stage and groundwater salinity enter the likelihood, reducing biased summertime uptake estimates. The results highlight practical limits of one-dimensional formulations and suggest conservative reporting for blue-carbon inventories.

This study investigates the relationship between class attendance and mathematics pass rate among higher learning Institution students in South Africa. A quantitative correlational design was employed, using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Attendance registers for a sample of 190 students were marked twice weekly over two months during face-to-face mathematics lessons in the second semester. Final examination marks were recorded and analysed in relation to attendance. Attendance data was treated both as a continuous variable for correlation and regression analysis, and as categorical groups, poor (0–49%), moderate (50–79%), and regular (80–100%), for group comparisons using ANOVA and post-hoc tests. Results showed a moderate positive correlation between attendance and mathematics scores (Spearman’s ρ = 0.562, p < 0.001), significant at the 0.01 level. Linear regression indicated that attendance explained 31.6% of the variance in performance (R² = 0.316, p < 0.001). ANOVA revealed significant differences in mean scores across attendance groups (F (2, 187) = 40.485, p < 0.001), tested at the 0.05 level. The findings demonstrate a clear and statistically significant link between class attendance and mathematics achievement, highlighting the importance of consistent classroom engagement in improving academic outcomes.

La presente investigación tuvo como objetivo identificar los niveles de desarrollo de las competencias para la formación ciudadana en la asignatura de Consejo de Curso durante el Prácticum de la formación inicial docente universitaria de Educación Física, analizando las percepciones de los distintos agentes implicados en el proceso formativo. Metodología, se realizó un estudio cuantitativo inferencial de corte transversal con 64 participantes distribuidos en tres grupos: estudiantes de pedagogía en Educación Física (n=37), tutores de centros educativos (n=20) y tutores universitarios (n=7). Se aplicó un cuestionario de escala Likert (1-4 puntos) diseñado a partir de los resultados de aprendizaje del Prácticum vinculados al Consejo de Curso. Los estudiantes perciben un desarrollo significativamente mayor de sus competencias (medias entre 3,24 y 3,84) en comparación con la valoración otorgada por tutores de centro (medias entre 2,55 y 3,15) y tutores universitarios (medias entre 2,43 y 3,00). Se identificaron diferencias estadísticamente significativas (p<0,05) en cuatro de las seis competencias evaluadas, particularmente en aquellas relacionadas con la planificación de intervenciones y el análisis de propuestas para el Consejo de Curso. Conclusiones: El Prácticum constituye un espacio fundamental para el desarrollo de competencias profesionales vinculadas a la formación ciudadana, aunque existe una brecha perceptiva significativa entre estudiantes y tutores. Esta discrepancia sugiere la necesidad de fortalecer los mecanismos de tutoría coordinada, la reflexión compartida sobre el desempeño y la articulación teoría-práctica en la formación inicial docente para la enseñanza de la democracia en las escuelas.

Burnout among health sciences students has reached epidemic proportions, with prevalence rates of 45–71% reported across disciplines; however, the process by which burnout develops and how students navigate these experiences within institutional contexts remains poorly understood. The objective of this study was to develop a substantive theory explaining how health sciences students experience and respond to burnout during their training. Using a constructivist grounded theory methodology, 847 posts and comments from public online forums (Reddit r/medicalschool, r/nursing, and Student Doctor Network) posted between January 2022 and December 2023 were analyzed. Data collection and analysis occurred iteratively through constant comparative analysis. Analysis involved three phases of coding: initial open coding (291 codes), focused coding (12 categories), and theoretical coding to identify relationships and develop the core category. The core category that emerged was “Mechanical Persistence Through Authenticity Suppression,” a collective adaptive process in which students, trapped by institutional capture (debt and time investment) within contexts of unsustainable demands and toxic professional culture, progressively suppress authentic emotional, cognitive, and moral experience in favor of automatic, depersonalized functioning to maintain required performance. Students explicitly described becoming “empty husks,” functioning on “auto-pilot,” and feeling “dead inside” while maintaining performances of competence and enthusiasm. This mechanization was collectively normalized as a necessary “survival mechanism” rather than pathology. Burnout among health sciences students, therefore, represents not simply individual stress but a systemic process of institutional dehumanization, in which students adopt mechanical functioning through authenticity suppression because structural entrapment (financial debt and sunk costs) prevents exit despite recognition of harm, indicating that interventions focused on individual resilience are insufficient and that systemic transformation is required.