Recently, fiber electronics have emerged as promising platforms for next-generation wearable and biomedical systems because of their flexibility, light weight, and softness. Among them, photothermal fibers are particularly attractive for therapeutic applications because of their remote and localized heat generation. However, most existing photothermal fibers rely on near-infrared (NIR)-I-responsive materials, which exhibit shallow tissue penetration and limited efficiency, thereby restricting their applicability in tissue implantation. In this study, a stretchable photothermal copper (II) selenide (CuSe) fiber was fabricated via a simple solution-based synthesis. Owing to the uniformly embedded CuSe nanoplates within the polyurethane matrix, the fabricated CuSe fiber exhibits high electrical conductivity (3.419 S/cm), excellent stretchability (100% tensile strain), and stable heating up to 81.7 degrees C under NIR-II irradiation. When integrated into textiles, the fiber can function as both a reliable strain sensor (gauge factor = 28.88) and a wearable heater (photothermal conversion efficiency = 40.1%). In addition, an implantable NIR-triggered drug release fiber was developed by coating the prepared CuSe fiber with a thermo-responsive hydrogel, achieving photothermal-triggered drug release and exhibiting therapeutic efficacy in mice with lipopolysaccharide-induced sepsis. Overall, the developed NIR-II-responsive CuSe photothermal fiber provides a versatile and clinically relevant platform for next-generation wearable and biomedical systems.
By analyzing highly informative account-level trade data, we study how an increase in the option contract multiplier affects investor composition in index options and futures markets. The increase in contract size reduces overall options trading, with heterogeneous effects across investor types: retail investors and high-frequency traders participate less, while (non-HFT) financial investment firms increase their relative activity. In the futures market, which is not directly affected by the regulation, high-frequency traders increase their share of volume, whereas investment firms reduce theirs. Intraday volatility and quoted spreads fall in the options market, while neither change significantly in the futures market. Enhanced market quality benefits institutional investors but makes the market less attractive for high-frequency traders. These shifts suggest that the two derivatives markets function as substitutes for certain investor groups.
In this paper, we propose a novel aerial backhaul architecture that employs an aerial active reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) to achieve energy-efficient, {full 3D coverage including UAV-BSs and ground users in 6G wireless networks}. Unlike prior aerial-RIS approaches limited to {2D coverage with only servicing ground users} or passive operation, the proposed design integrates an active-RIS onto a high-altitude aerial platform, enabling reliable line-of-sight links and overcoming multiplicative fading through amplification. In a scenario with UAV-BSs deployed to handle sudden traffic surges in urban areas, the aerial-active-RIS both reflects and amplifies backhaul signals to overcome blockage. We jointly optimize the aerial platform placement, array partitioning, and RIS phase configuration to maximize UAV-BS energy-efficiency. Simulation results confirm that the proposed method significantly outperforms benchmarks, demonstrating its strong potential to deliver resilient backhaul connectivity with comprehensive 3D coverage in 6G networks.
Current vision-language benchmarks predominantly feature well-structured questions with clear, explicit prompts. However, real user queries are often informal and underspecified. Users naturally leave much unsaid, relying on images to convey context. We introduce HAERAE-Vision, a benchmark of 653 real-world visual questions from Korean online communities (0.76
This article analyses Torín—a non-lethal form of bullfighting associated with patron-saint festivities in the Department of Paraguarí, Paraguay—as a dynamic instance of Latin American vernacular religion. Moving beyond frameworks that view such events merely as contested heritage or residual folklore, the study situates Torín at the intersection of Guaraní cosmologies, Jesuit mission history, and contemporary lived Catholicism. Drawing on longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork (2011–2024) and archival research, I argue that Torín constitutes a "contact zone" (Pratt, Profession 91:33–40, 1991) in which diverse ontologies meet and are negotiated. The analysis focuses on three dimensions. First, it examines the material theology of pyporé (sacred footprints) attributed to the syncretic figure of Saint Thomas/Pa'i Sumé and shows how these traces anchor an apostolic history in the Paraguayan landscape (Cadogan, 1959; Combès, Anthropos 106:99–114, 2011); González Torres, 2003). Second, it explores the ontological status of the bull not as a passive victim but as a co-celebrant and spiritual agent, whose presence activates a logic of conviviality rather than sacrificial death (Descola Lloyd, 2013; Marvin, 1994); Mitchell, 1991); Viveiros de Castro, J R Anthropol Inst 4:469–488, 1998)). Third, it interprets the ritual arena as a site of "corporal prayer" in which bodily risk functions as a non-lethal sacrificial offering embedded in conditions of rural precarity and popular Catholic economies of vow and exchange (Parker, 1996. By reframing Torín through the lenses of material religion (Meyer, 2010), the ontological turn, and lived religion (Orsi, J Sci Study Relig 42:169–174, 2003), the article shows how rural communities actively appropriate Christian narratives to assert a distinctive, autochthonous relationship with the divine and the nonhuman world. The Paraguayan case invites a rethinking of how animals, landscapes, and saints co-produce religious life and complicates simple oppositions between tradition and modernity, cruelty and devotion. The article also attends to the gendered distribution of participation and clarifies the analytic use of "agency" by distinguishing local attributions from the conceptual vocabulary of animism and nonhuman agency debates.
