Search Results (107)

This study investigated the fatty acid profile of Muli yak (Bos grunniens) milk and its relationship with compositional parameters across different parities. Milk samples from second-, third-, and fourth-parity yaks were analysed for protein, fat, vitamins, minerals, and 37 fatty acids using gas chromatography. Statistical analyses included ANOVA, correlation analysis, principal component analysis (PCA), machine learning algorithms, and molecular docking. Parity significantly affected 15 components (p < 0.05), with third-parity milk showing the highest eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, C20:5n3) and arachidonic acid (ARA, C20:4n6) concentrations. Among 134 significant correlations, calcium-ARA and ARA-EPA exhibited strong positive associations (|r| > 0.67). PCA explained 54.2% of the variance through three principal components, differentiating samples by parity. The optimal prediction models were ARA-XGBoost, EPA-Random Forest, ALA-GAM, and LA-SVM, with calcium and protein serving as key predictors. Molecular docking revealed that EPA-FABP2 had the lowest binding energy. These parity-related shifts in functional long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids are meaningful for the nutritional value of yak milk (e.g., omega-3/omega-6 profile) and may also influence technological properties associated with milk fat composition (e.g., oxidative stability and processing behaviour), supporting parity-oriented quality evaluation and targeted utilisation of yak milk. Full article

Dietary arachidonic acid (ARA) is essential for aquatic animal growth and health, but studies in bivalves are still limited. Here, microcapsule diets with increasing ARA concentrations (ARA1-6 groups: 0.35, 3.01, 5.25, 6.88, 8.69, and 10.27 mg g⁻¹ dry matter) were prepared by spray drying, and clam Sinonovacula constricta juveniles were fed these diets for 14 days. Results showed that dietary ARA concentrations did not significantly affect clams’ survival, weight gain, and shell length gain rates. The clams in the ARA6 group had significantly higher crude lipid content than those in the other microcapsule groups. The ARA concentrations in the clams increased with higher dietary ARA, while n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) concentrations decreased. The mRNA levels of cyclooxygenase 2 and 5-lipoxygenase type 2 were significantly higher in the ARA5 and ARA6 groups compared to the ARA1 group. The mRNA levels of 5-lipoxygenase type 3, toll-like receptor 4, and nuclear factor-kappa b p50 (nfκb p50) were significantly higher in the ARA6 group compared to the ARA1 group. As dietary ARA concentrations increased, the mRNA levels of glutamate–cysteine ligase catalytic subunit and glutathione S-transferase, along with malondialdehyde (MDA) content, increased in the clams. Additionally, the superoxide dismutase and catalase activities in the ARA5 and ARA6 groups were significantly higher than those in the ARA1 and ARA2 groups. Clam ARA content, acting as a central node, showed very strong positive correlations with MDA and cyclooxygenase 2, and very strong negative correlations with EPA and the n-3/n-6 PUFA ratio. Our results revealed that high dietary ARA, while not affecting growth, reduced the n-3/n-6 PUFA ratio and induced a response characterized by the upregulation of NF-κB and Nrf2 pathway genes in S. constricta. Full article

The arachidonic acid (C20:4 ω6, ARA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (C20:5 ω3, EPA) from Porphyridium purpureum endow this microalga with potential utilization value, but their distribution patterns remain poorly understood. In this study, a nitrogen concentration, a phosphorus concentration, light intensity and salinity were applied to investigate the synthesis and distribution patterns of EPA and ARA in P. purpureum by measuring growth, lipid content, lipid fractions, fatty acid composition, and the levels of EPA and ARA in storage lipids and membrane lipids. The results show that the optimal conditions for biomass accumulation were a nitrogen concentration of 0.75 g L⁻¹, a phosphorus concentration of 240 mg L⁻¹, a light intensity of 250–300 μmol photons m⁻² s⁻¹ and a salinity of 50 ppt. Reducing the phosphorus concentration and increasing salinity enhanced the total lipid content, whereas changes in nitrogen concentration and light intensity had minimal effects on total lipid content. Low nitrogen concentration, low phosphorus concentration and high light intensity favored ARA synthesis, whereas the opposite conditions promoted EPA synthesis. Culture conditions could alter the distribution of ARA and EPA between storage lipids and membrane lipids. Increasing the nitrogen concentration, phosphorus concentration and salinity, as well as reducing light intensity, promoted the distribution of ARA and EPA in membrane lipids. Conversely, the opposite conditions enhanced their distribution in storage lipids. In conclusion, the synthesis and distribution of EPA and ARA in P. purpureum are influenced by culture conditions. To improve the yield of ARA and EPA, P. purpureum should be cultivated under nutrient-sufficient conditions. Full article

Different rhizobial strains can lead to distinct symbiotic phenotypes in alfalfa, yet molecular differences at the mature nodule stage remain unclear. Here, we analyzed 21-day post-inoculation (dpi) nodules induced by strains WE2 and WWL2. We measured nitrogenase activity (acetylene reduction assay, ARA) and performed dual RNA-seq to compare gene expression in both the alfalfa host and the rhizobia. On the host side, WE2-induced nodules showed higher expression of mature nodule marker genes (ENOD93 and leghemoglobin (Lb) genes) and higher expression of genes encoding SWEET transporters and amino acid and peptide transporters. Host differentially expressed genes were enriched in pathways related to transmembrane transport, redox and heme-related functions, and processes linked to maintaining microaerobic conditions. On the rhizobial side, WE2 nodules showed higher expression of genes involved in microaerobic respiration and nitrogen fixation (e.g., nif/fix and key respiratory chain genes), whereas WWL2 nodules showed higher expression of genes linked to transport, chemotaxis/motility, and environmental information processing. Together, these host and rhizobia expression patterns suggest coordinated differences between host pathways related to resource supply and microaerobic conditions and rhizobial expression programs for respiration and nitrogen fixation. Based on these associations, we propose a working model and provide candidate genes and pathways for functional validation and inoculant screening. Full article

In this study, a pectin polysaccharide named DESP was extracted using a deep eutectic solvent (DES) from sweet potato residue (SPR) and the extract was optimized through response surface methodology (RSM). The DESP, based on choline chloride–urea (ChCl-Ur), was characterized for yield, molecular weight (Mw), and monosaccharide composition. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), ¹H-nuclearmagnetic resonance (¹H-NMR), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to analyze the structure. Optimal extraction conditions for DESP were ChCl-Ur in a molar ratio of 1:2, water content of 75 wt.%, extraction time of 125.7 min, extraction temperature of 83.2 °C, and a liquid-to-solid ratio of 37.0 mL·g⁻¹. The optimized extraction yield was 5.6% ± 0.09%, which was 2.4 times higher than that of hot-water-extracted sweet potato pectin (HWSP, 2.32%). The monosaccharide analysis revealed that galacturonic acid (GalA) was the most abundant saccharide, followed by glucose (Glc), galactose (Gal), arabinose (Ara), and rhamnose (Rha). The Mw of DESP was 20.90 kDa, which was lower than that of HWSP and HASP. In addition, DESP exhibited certain anti-inflammatory activity. Full article

Increasing spectral bandwidth in 5G networks improves capacity but cannot fully address the heterogeneous and rapidly growing traffic demands. Heterogeneous ultra-dense networks (HUDNs) play a key role in offloading traffic across multi-tier deployments; however, their diverse base-station characteristics and diverse quality-of-service (QoS) requirements make resource allocation highly challenging. Traditional static resource-allocation approaches lack flexibility and often lead to inefficient spectrum utilization in such complex environments. This study aims to develop a joint user association–resource allocation (UA–RA) framework for 5G HUDNs that dynamically adapts to real-time network conditions to improve spectral efficiency and service ratio under high traffic loads. A software-defined networking controller centrally manages the UA–RA process by coordinating inter-cell resource redistribution through the lending of underutilized resource blocks between macro and small cells, mitigating repeated congestion. To further enhance adaptability, a neural network–adaptive resource allocation (NN–ARA) model is trained on UA–RA-driven simulation data to approximate efficient allocation decisions with low computational cost. A real-world evaluation is conducted using the downtown Los Angeles deployment. For performance validation, the proposed NN–ARA approach is compared with two representative baselines from the literature (Bouras et al. and Al-Ali et al.). Results show that NN–ARA achieves up to 20.8% and 11% higher downlink data rates in the macro and small tiers, respectively, and improves spectral efficiency by approximately 20.7% and 11.1%. It additionally reduces the average blocking ratio by up to 55%. These findings demonstrate that NN–ARA provides an adaptive, scalable, and SDN-coordinated solution for efficient spectrum utilization and service continuity in 5G and future 6G HUDNs. Full article

Background/Objectives: Lipid transfer protein (LTP) syndrome is a leading cause of primary food allergy in Mediterranean countries, often associated with severe reactions. Due to in vitro cross-reactivity among plant foods, clinical manifestations are unpredictable, frequently requiring multiple oral food challenges (OFC) to assess nut tolerance. These procedures increase healthcare burden and patient anxiety. This study evaluated the safety and utility of a mixed-nut oral food challenge (MixNut) in LTP-sensitized patients. Methods: In this prospective observational multi-center study, patients with LTP syndrome were enrolled. Group A included individuals allergic to fruits or vegetables who had avoided nuts; Group B included patients with suspected or confirmed nut allergy. Participants underwent a MixNut challenge comprising 2–4 nuts (≥3 g protein per nut). Results: Nineteen patients (73.7% male; median age 32.5 years) underwent MixNut, testing 52 individual nuts. All challenges were negative. The MixNut approach reduced the number of OFC by 63% (from 52 to 19) and total testing time from 208 to 76 h. Specific IgE levels to LTP allergens (Pru p 3, Cor a 8, Ara h 9) varied widely and did not predict clinical reactivity. Conclusions: MixNut is an efficient diagnostic tool for LTP syndrome, significantly reducing testing time, costs, and patient burden. It facilitates accurate dietary management and prevents unnecessary food avoidance. Further studies should optimize MixNut protocols and identify predictive markers for clinical reactivity. Full article

The widespread use of leetspeak and dialectal Arabic on social media poses a critical challenge to automated hate speech detection systems. Existing Arabic NLP models, largely trained on Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), struggle with obfuscated, noisy, and dialect-specific text, leading to poor generalization in real-world scenarios. This study introduces a Hybrid AraBERT–Hierarchical Attention Network (HAN) framework for deobfuscating Iraqi Arabic leetspeak and accurately classifying hate speech. The proposed model employs a custom normalization pipeline that converts digits, symbols, and Latin-script substitutions (e.g., "3يب" → "عيب") into canonical Arabic forms, thereby enhancing tokenization and embedding quality. AraBERT provides deep contextualized representations optimized for Arabic morphology, while HAN hierarchically aggregates and attends to critical words and sentences to improve interpretability and semantic focus. Experimental evaluation on an Iraqi Arabic social media dataset demonstrates that the proposed model achieves 97% accuracy, 96% precision, 96% recall, 96% F1-score, and 0.98 ROC–AUC, outperforming standalone AraBERT and HAN models by up to 6% in F1-score and 4% in AUC. Ablation studies confirm the important role of the normalization stage (F1 = 0.91 without it) and the contribution of hierarchical attention in balancing precision and recall. Robustness testing under controlled perturbations (including character substitutions, symbol obfuscations, typographical noise, and class imbalance) shows performance retention above 91% F1, validating the framework’s noise tolerance and generalization capability. Comparative analysis with state-of-the-art approaches such as DRNNs, arHateDetector, and ensemble BERT systems further highlights the hybrid model’s effectiveness in handling noisy, dialectal, and adversarial text. Full article

The Cognitive Satellite–Terrestrial Network (CSTN) is an important infrastructure for the future development of 6G communication networks. This paper focuses on a potential communication scenario, where satellite users (SUs) dominate and are selected as the primary users, and terrestrial base station users (TUs) are the secondary users. Additionally, each terrestrial base station owns multiple antennae, and the interference of TUs to SUs in the CSTN is limited to a low level or below. In this paper, based on the observation of diversity and the time-varying characteristics of a variety of user requirements, a multi-agent deep Q-network algorithm under interference limitation (MADQN-IL) was proposed, where the power of each antenna in the base station is allocated to maximize the total system throughput while meeting the interference constraints in the CSTN. In our proposed MADQN-IL, the base stations play the role of intelligent agents, and each agent selects the antenna power allocation and cooperates with other agents through sharing system states and the total rewards. Through a simulation comparison, it was discovered that the MADQN-IL algorithm can achieve a higher system throughput than the adaptive resource adjustment (ARA) algorithm and the fixed power allocation methods. Full article

Nowadays, with the accumulation of large amounts of stress-response transcriptomic data in plants, it is possible to clarify the key genes and transcription factors (TFs) involved in these processes. Here, we present the comprehensive transcriptomic meta-analysis of the high light (HL) response in photosynthetic tissues of Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh., offering new insights into adaptation mechanisms of plants to excessive light and involved gene regulatory networks. We analyzed 21 experiments covering 58 HL conditions in total, yielding 218,000 instances of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) corresponding to 19,000 unique genes. Based on these data, we developed the publicly accessible AraLightDEGs resource, which offers multiple search filters for experimental conditions and gene characteristics, and we conducted a detailed meta-analysis using our R pipeline, AraLightMeta. Our meta-analysis highlighted distinct transcriptional programs between short- and long-term HL responses in leaves, revealing novel regulatory interactions and refining the understanding of key DEGs. In particular, long-term HL adaptation involves key TFs such as CRF3 and PTF1 regulating antioxidant and jasmonate signaling; ATWHY2, WHY3, and emb2746 coordinating chloroplast and mitochondrial gene expression; AT2G28450 governing ribosome biogenesis; and AT4G12750 controlling methyltransferase activity. We integrated these findings into a conceptual scheme illustrating transcriptional regulation and signaling processes in leaf cells responding to long-term HL stress. Full article

Background/Objectives: Alport syndrome (AS) predominantly presents with X-linked inheritance worldwide. However, the epidemiological landscape remains poorly characterized, particularly among ethnic minority groups like the Roma minority in Slovakia. Our study aimed to investigate the inheritance patterns of AS in this region and determine whether a distinct pattern predominates. Methods: Selective genetic screening for pathogenic variants previously occurring in Slovakia was performed. Samples from patients with persistent (familial) hematuria ± hearing loss who had not yet undergone biopsy or genetic testing were analyzed by high-resolution melting analysis. The prevalence of AS per million (pm) population was calculated by adding information on patients with previously confirmed AS. Results: Twenty-five new cases of ARAS, one digenic form, and two cases of XLAS were identified by screening. In total, we collected information on 46 patients with genetically or bioptically confirmed AS in the region of eastern Slovakia, corresponding to a prevalence of 29 pm population. The c.1598G>A (p.Gly533Asp) pathogenic variant of the collagen type IV alpha 4 chain, which follows an autosomal recessive inheritance pattern, was the most prevalent variant that was exclusively confirmed in Roma patients (n = 35), suggesting a founder effect. Within the Roma community, the prevalence of ARAS (the most prevalent inheritance pattern) corresponds to 133 pm of the Roma population, based on midpoint population estimates. Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate a unique genetic profile of AS in the Roma population, characterized by a high prevalence of ARAS, with implications for genetic counseling and screening strategies. Full article

Ultraviolet B (UVB) irradiation drives skin photodamage, prompting exploration of natural therapeutics. This study investigated the reparative effects and mechanisms of crude Gastrodia elata polysaccharides (GP) on UVB-induced acute skin damage. GP was extracted from fresh G. elata via water extraction and alcohol precipitation. It is a homogeneous polysaccharide with a weight-average molecular weight of 808.863 kDa, comprising Ara, Glc, Fru, and GalA. Histopathological analysis revealed that topical application of GP on the dorsal skin of mice effectively restored normal physiological structure, suppressing epidermal hyperplasia and collagen degradation. Biochemical assays showed that GP significantly reduced the activities of MPO and MDA following UVB exposure while restoring the enzymatic activities of SOD and GSH, thereby mitigating oxidative stress. Moreover, GP treatment markedly upregulated the anti-inflammatory cytokines TGF-β and IL-10 and downregulated the pro-inflammatory mediators IL-6, IL-1β, and TNF-α, suggesting robust anti-inflammatory effects. Transcriptomics revealed dual-phase mechanisms: Early repair (day 5) involved GP-mediated suppression of hyper inflammation and accelerated necrotic tissue clearance via pathway network modulation. Late phase (day 18) featured enhanced anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and tissue regeneration processes through energy-sufficient, low-inflammatory pathway networks. Through a synergistic response involving antioxidation, anti-inflammation, promotion of collagen synthesis, and acceleration of skin barrier repair, GP achieves comprehensive repair of UVB-induced acute skin damage. Our findings not only establish GP as a potent natural alternative to synthetic photoprotective agents but also reveal novel pathway network interactions governing polysaccharide-mediated skin regeneration. Full article

Lionfish (Pterois miles), an invasive species in the Mediterranean, pose ecological and socioeconomic challenges. This study examines the seasonal variation in the nutritional composition and technical quality of lionfish from the Ionian and Aegean Seas, evaluating their potential as a food resource. Fillets were high in protein (19.4%) and low in fat (2.0%), with significant seasonal differences in the Ionian Sea, where winter samples had higher lipid content. The fillet yield (28.4%) was satisfactory given the fish’s morphology. Fatty acid analysis confirmed lionfish as a valuable source of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), particularly eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), with EPA + DHA levels exceeding the recommended daily intake (119.2%). Seasonal variations in fatty acid composition were observed, including higher EPA in autumn and lower lipid nutritional quality in summer. Arachidonic acid (ARA) was also present at nutritionally significant levels (79.4 mg/100 g). The n3/n6 ratio (2.2) and favourable atherogenic and thrombogenic indices highlight its nutritional benefits. This is the first study to assess seasonal variations in the nutritional value and technical yield of lionfish in the Mediterranean, offering novel insights into its commercial valorisation. These findings support its promotion as a sustainable protein source and as a means of managing its invasive population. Full article

Semantic text chunking refers to segmenting text into coherently semantic chunks, i.e., into sets of statements that are semantically related. Semantic chunking is an essential pre-processing step in various NLP tasks e.g., document summarization, sentiment analysis and question answering. In this paper, we propose a hybrid chunking; two-steps semantic text chunking method that combines the effectiveness of unsupervised semantic text chunking based on the similarities between sentences embeddings and the pre-trained language models (PLMs) especially BERT by fine-tuning the BERT on semantic textual similarity task (STS) to provide a flexible and effective semantic text chunking. We evaluated the proposed method in English and Arabic. To the best of our knowledge, there is an absence of an Arabic dataset created to assess semantic text chunking at this level. Therefore, we created an AraWiki50k to evaluate our proposed text chunking method inspired by an existing English dataset. Our experiments showed that exploiting the fine-tuned pre-trained BERT on STS enhances results over unsupervised semantic chunking by an average of 7.4 in the PK metric and by an average of 11.19 in the WindowDiff metric on four English evaluation datasets, and 0.12 in the PK and 2.29 in the WindowDiff for the Arabic dataset. Full article

Essential fatty acids are extremely important nutrients in the diet of fish, and the balance between arachidonic acid (ARA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) is crucial for the healthy growth of fish. Six isonitrogenous and isolipidic basal diets were given to 540 juvenile fat greenling (Hexagrammos otakii) (31.4 ± 1.5 g) for 8 weeks to investigate the effects of dietary ARA/EPA ratio on growth performance, antioxidant capacity and lipid metabolism-related genes of juvenile H. otakii. The control group (A) had 7% fish oil added as the main fat source, while the experimental groups had 4% fish oil as the basic fat source, with varying proportions of ARA and EPA concentrates added to formulate five diets with varying ARA/EPA ratios (B 2.66; C 1.34; D 1.01; E 0.47; F 0.19). The experimental results revealed that adding ARA and EPA to the diet increased the percent weight gain (PWG) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) of juvenile H. otakii, and the PWG and FCR were greatest under Group E dietary conditions. The specific activities (U/mg protein) of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), and total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC) in the liver, as well as serum SOD and CAT were significantly higher in Groups D and E than those in other groups (p < 0.05). Malondialdehyde (MDA, nmol/g protein) content in the liver and serum was significantly lower in Group E than that in other groups (p < 0.05). Moreover, groups D and E exhibited significant increases in the specific activities (U/mg protein) of intestinal trypsin, lipase, and amylase, as well as in the intestinal villus length (p < 0.05). The incorporation of ARA and EPA into the feed reduced the expression levels of fat synthesis genes such as fas, scd1, accα, and srebp1, as well as the expression of lipolysis genes atgl and hsl. However, it also increased the expression of the lipolytic genes cpt1 and ppara. The ARA/EPA ratios in the dietary were 0.47 and 1.01, respectively, which are appropriate for enhancing growth efficiency, antioxidant enzyme activity, intestinal digestive enzyme activity and lipid metabolism regulation. Full article