Abstract
The manufacturing process of thermoregulation products with polyester (PES) fabric and conductive polymers such as poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) doped with poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) with proper wearability, comfort, and high performance is still a challenge due to low adhesion, environment instability and nonuniform coatings. This study presents a simple and effective method for producing thermoregulatory PES fabrics using the Joule heating effect. Textiles treated with dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma were functionalized with PEDOT:PSS incorporating secondary dopants, such as dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and glycerol (GLY). PEDOT:PSS was used because it does not compromise the mechanical properties of base materials. DBD plasma treatment was applied to PES to improve the substrate's functional groups and consequently increase adhesion and homogeneity of the PEDOT:PSS on the substrate. The polymer were applied to the textiles by dip-pad-drycure method ensuring uniform distribution and homogeneous heating of the materials. The samples' conductivity, impedance, potential and Joule effect, and their morphological, chemical and thermal properties were studied. Control samples without plasma treatment and secondary dopants were also prepared. The results showed that the DBD-treated samples, coated with 5 layers of PEDOT:PSS, doped with DMSO 7 % (w/v), displayed the best conductivity and Joule effect performance reaching 44.3 degrees C after 1 h.

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Virtual presence demands ultra-low latency, a factor that centralized architectures, by their nature, cannot minimize. Local peer-to-peer architectures offer a compelling alternative, but also pose unique challenges in terms of network infrastructure.This paper introduces a prototype leveraging Conflict-Free Replicated Data Types (CRDTs) to enable real-time collaboration in a shared virtual environment. Using this prototype, we investigate latency, synchronization, and the challenges of decentralized coordination in dynamic non-Byzantine contexts.We aim to question prevailing assumptions about decentralized architectures and explore the practical potential of P2P in advancing virtual presence. This work challenges the constraints of mediated networks and highlights the potential of decentralized architectures to redefine collaboration and interaction in digital spaces. © 2025 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s).

Abstract
Retailers offering Attended Home Delivery (AHD) struggle with thin profit margins due to high delivery costs and constrained routing flexibility. AHD requires retailers and customers to agree on specific time windows, limiting operational efficiency and increasing fleet requirements, particularly when customer preferences tend to cluster around peak times. While retailers have some ability to influence customer choices through pricing and availability strategies, failing to account for fleet costs and delivery constraints can lead to inefficient operations and reduced profitability. This study introduces an integrated approach to fleet sizing and time-window pricing for price-sensitive customers. We propose a Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) model that maximizes profit by balancing revenue and delivery costs, leveraging a nonparametric rank-based choice model to capture customer behavior while explicitly considering routing constraints and fleet ownership expenses over multiple periods. Using computational experiments on small-sized instances inspired by real-world data, we evaluate the impact of explicitly modeling routing costs, compare different pricing strategies, examine the effects of multi-period fleet planning, and assess sensitivity to varying customer and cost conditions. Results show that explicitly modeling routing constraints reduces profit loss by 29% compared to traditional cost approximations but increases computational complexity. To address this, we develop a Fix & Optimize (F&O) matheuristic approximate solution method that enables the application of our model to larger instances. Our findings emphasize the need for retailers to integrate demand management and fleet planning to optimize operational profitability.

Abstract
This research addresses the challenge of generating synthetic data that resembles real-world data while preserving privacy. With privacy laws protecting sensitive information such as healthcare data, accessing sufficient training data becomes difficult, resulting in an increased difficulty in training Machine Learning models and in overall worst models. Recently, there has been an increased interest in the usage of Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) to generate synthetic data since they enable researchers to generate more data to train their models. GANs, however, may not be suitable for privacy-sensitive data since they have no concern for the privacy of the generated data. We propose modifying the known Conditional Tabular GAN (CTGAN) model by incorporating a privacy-aware loss function, thus resulting in the Private CTGAN (PCTGAN) method. Several experiments were carried out using 10 public domain classification datasets and comparing PCTGAN with CTGAN and the state-of-the-art privacy-preserving model, the Differential Privacy CTGAN (DP-CTGAN). The results demonstrated that PCTGAN enables users to fine-tune the privacy fidelity trade-off by leveraging parameters, as well as that if desired, a higher level of privacy.