Search Results (176,763)

Blackcurrant (Ribes nigrum) is rich in polyphenols and is known for its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, yet its processing byproducts (pomace) remain underutilized. This study aimed to develop and characterize R. nigrum pomace extract-loaded alginate–inulin hydrogel for potential topical application, thus promoting the valorization of R. nigrum pomace extract. Comparative extract analysis demonstrated that the pomace extract contained the highest levels of total polyphenols (71.0 mg GAE/g dried extract) and tannins (21.8%) and exhibited the most promising antibacterial activity (MIC 3.1–6.3 mg/mL), although its antiradical activity was relatively lower than that of juice and berry extracts. Furthermore, the obtained hydrogels were structurally stable and provided a gradual release of polyphenols at pH 5.5, with 80% released within 24 h. Incorporation of R. nigrum pomace extract increased the swelling of the hydrogels and improved viscoelastic recovery. Overall, the findings highlight the potential of R. nigrum pomace as a sustainable bioactive component in alginate–inulin hydrogel systems for potential topical applications in wound care. Full article

The effects of shading with pearl- and red-colored nets on the essential oil content, yield per hectare, chemical composition, and antioxidant potential of rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) were evaluated in comparison with plants grown under non-shaded conditions. Pearl (1.69%) and red shade nets (1.73%) significantly reduced essential oil content compared to the control (2.50%). The number of individual compounds identified in rosemary essential oil (REO) varied slightly among the shading treatments, ranging from 35 to 36 constituents. The most abundant components were eucalyptol/1,8-cineole (31.5–32.5%), α-pinene (12.9–21.1%), camphor (13.4–18.4%) and borneol (4.6–5.9%). The content of the undesirable REO component, such as camphor, was the lower in plants covered with shading nets (13.4–13.7%) than in non-shading plants (18.4%). Ferric reducing antioxidant power assays (FRAP) ranged from 0.651 mg Fe²⁺/g in plant cover by pearl nets and 1.509 mg Fe²⁺/g in red nets to 1.905 mg Fe²⁺/g from non-shading, control plants. The DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical-scavenging assay), expressed as EC₅₀ (half maximal effective concentration—the lowest EC₅₀ value, corresponding to the highest activity), ranged from 0.819 mg/mL in non-shaded plants to 1.722 mg/mL in red and 16.456 mg/mL in plant cover by pearl nets. Shading modified EO composition, mainly by increasing the relative content of α-pinene and decreasing that of camphor, but it reduced antioxidant activity, as indicated by lower FRAP values and higher DPPH EC₅₀ values, particularly under pearl nets. Both shade nets reduced EO content compared with the unshaded control; however, owing to higher dry leaf biomass, the estimated EO yield per hectare under pearl nets was similar to or slightly higher than that of the control. These results suggest that reduced light availability lowers EO accumulation per unit of plant mass in rosemary, a species adapted to high-light environments. Full article

Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) are key long-chain omega-3 fatty acids in fish nutrition, but their differential effects on Atlantic salmon under unpredictable chronic stress (UCS) remain unclear. This study compared hepatic responses to DHA- and EPA-rich diets under unstressed and UCS conditions. Atlantic salmon post-smolts were fed a low-EPA+DHA, DHA-rich, or EPA-rich diet for 10 weeks, followed by 3 weeks of UCS. Liver transcriptomes were analyzed by RNA sequencing, and selected genes were validated by quantitative reverse transcription PCR. Growth did not differ among dietary groups. Under unstressed conditions, the DHA-rich diet induced more differentially expressed genes than the EPA-rich diet (67 vs. 29) and affected pathways related to fatty acid metabolism, autophagy, cholesterol homeostasis, and antioxidant defense. After UCS, the EPA-rich diet induced a broader hepatic transcriptional response than the DHA-rich diet (205 vs. 57 differentially expressed genes), with only 12 genes shared between the two comparisons. Both diets affected fatty acid- and steroid-biosynthesis-related pathways, while gene-level responses were diet-specific. These findings reveal distinct, stress-dependent hepatic responses to dietary DHA and EPA and may inform future optimization of their nutritional provision in Atlantic salmon production. Full article

Reconstruction of large craniofacial bone defects typically relies on vascularized autografts, but involves donor-site morbidity and limited availability. Tissue-engineered vascularized grafts could address this gap; however, current strategies remain limited by in vitro cell manipulation, regulatory complexity, high costs, and difficult clinical scaling up. We previously prefabricated a maxillary graft combining a devitalized bone matrix (DBM), freshly isolated human adipose-derived cells, known as the stromal vascular fraction (SVF), and Bone Morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2). Here, we tested if cells were essential by developing a cell-free approach with only DBM (SmartBone) and BMP-2. SmartBone blocks were loaded with BMP-2 (60 µg/mL in a fibrin hydrogel) with or without SVF cells and implanted subcutaneously in nude mice for 12 weeks (ectopic model) or combined to an axial arteriovenous (AV) bundle in nude rats (785 mm³) for 2 or 12 weeks (vascularized model). Bone formation was assessed by X-ray tomography and histology. Across both mice and rats, BMP-2 alone was sufficient to generate robust and organized bone, and adding SVF cells provided no additional benefit at this BMP-2 dosage. In mice, BMP-2 grafts formed lamellar bone with marrow, while grafts without BMP-2 produced only calcified fibrous tissue. Bone and marrow volumes did not differ between BMP-2 and BMP-2 + SVF groups (p > 0.05). In rats, both conditions showed significant increases in mineralized volume from 2 to 12 weeks (p < 0.05). In conclusion, the dose of BMP-2 tested here, combined with DBM, is enough to robustly generate pedicled bone grafts while using off-the-shelf, approved materials and microsurgical prefabrication, providing a simplified, translationally feasible approach for the reconstruction of large bone defects. Full article

Temporary CO₂ storage is gaining interest for applications requiring compact storage at moderate pressures, where the low volumetric density of gaseous CO₂ limits storage capacity without high-pressure compression. Adsorption in porous materials offers a potential means of increasing storage density, although tank-scale studies remain scarce. This work experimentally and numerically investigated adsorption-based CO₂ storage using a 17 L tank containing 6 kg of coconut shell activated carbon over a 1–10 bar charge–dormancy–discharge sequence. Experimental measurements of the CO₂ mass flow rate, pressure, and temperature were used to calibrate a lumped-parameter dynamic model that can be integrated into system-level simulations. The activated carbon increased the volumetric storage capacity compared with an empty tank, with deliverable storage enhancement factors between 4 and 8 depending on the discharge conditions. Heat exchange with the atmosphere during charging and discharging had only a minor influence, while cooling during dormancy reduced the recoverable working capacity. Compared with isothermal operation, the working capacity decreased by approximately 35% under adiabatic conditions, with an additional 37% reduction when heat exchange with the surroundings was included, highlighting the importance of limiting heat losses during storage. These findings highlight the potential of adsorption as a strategy for temporary CO₂ storage. Full article

This study develops a compact apparent-wind framework for high-performance sailing craft and uses vertical-axis wind-turbine (VAWT) kinematics as a bounded comparison. By establishing closed-form equations, the model connects key variables: sailing angle, lift-to-drag ratio, resistance, speed ratio, apparent-wind angle, and velocity made good (VMG). The model is formulated as an upper-bound framework limited to established, approximately steady foil-borne operation; it is not intended to replace a complete velocity-prediction program or dynamic model of takeoff, maneuvers, touchdown, and recovery. A constant loss factor is used only as a transparent sensitivity parameter, while a velocity-dependent formulation is identified as the appropriate iterative extension for class-specific prediction. Predictions are compared with representative published ranges for iQFOiL, SailGP F50, and racing iceboats. Differences between ideal and observed performance are interpreted through aerodynamic and hydrodynamic drag, foiling-transition nonlinearities, cavitation, ventilation, structural loading, and control limitations. The VAWT–sailing analogy is restricted to relative-flow kinematics and lifting-surface control because the systems have different optimization objectives and flow physics. Finally, an exploratory energy-harvesting analysis distinguishes the unloaded zero-driving-force speed limit from a generator-loaded operating point governed by a coupled force–energy balance. The resulting framework provides clear, practical relationships while identifying the additional class-specific and dynamic physics required for predictive performance modeling. Full article

Camera-based affective sensing degrades sharply when the face is partially occluded by hands, masks, eyeglasses or headwear. Existing occlusion-robust facial expression recognition (FER) methods either discard the information carried by occluded regions through attention re-weighting, hallucinate it back at the pixel level, or restore it in a purely visual latent space; none of them can consult an external semantic description of what the hidden region ought to look like. We propose TeCoRe, a text-conditioned completion-and-recognition framework that restores occluded patch tokens directly inside the joint vision–language embedding space of a frozen CLIP encoder. A lightweight visibility gate estimates a per-patch occlusion probability; a two-layer transformer decoder reconstructs the occluded tokens using class-level textual emotion embeddings, produced by the frozen CLIP text encoder, as both cross-attention memory and an alignment target; and a gated blend passes clean tokens through unchanged so that completion cannot corrupt visible evidence. TeCoRe is trained as supervised FER using the ground-truth emotion labels for classification and text alignment, together with an auxiliary self-supervised reconstruction objective. Because the occlusion masks are synthesised during training, the pre-occlusion CLIP tokens of the same image provide the reconstruction target without requiring additional manual annotation. The CLIP backbone is completely frozen—no low-rank adapters, no landmarks, no segmentation priors—and only about 27 M head and decoder parameters are trained. On the standard RAN occlusion and pose subsets, TeCoRe reaches 91.42% on Occlusion-RAF-DB, 84.79% on Occlusion-FERPlus, and 62.42% on Occlusion-AffectNet. It achieves the highest accuracy in our comparison on Occlusion-RAF-DB and on the RAF-DB and FERPlus pose subsets, while remaining competitive but not leading on the FERPlus and AffectNet occlusion subsets. The ablation and control studies are reported as three-seed means so that the small differences between variants are not read off a single initialisation. A backbone-generality control shows positive mean gains from the proposed modules across all three evaluated frozen CLIP configurations, with the largest gain observed in the main ViT-L/14@336 setting. These results indicate that performing occluded-token completion in a joint vision–language space, with class-level text embeddings providing shared conditioning to the completion process, is an effective and parameter-efficient route to occlusion-robust FER. Full article

Blockage of road drainage inlets by debris is a major cause of urban flooding. Manual inspection of urban drainage facilities is time-consuming and costly, highlighting the need for automated inspection technologies. In this study, a closed-circuit television (CCTV)- and AI-based technology was developed to automatically monitor the drainage inlet blockage status by varying camera height and observation angle to examine their influence on detection performance. The YOLOv11l and RT-DETR-L models classified the drainage inlet conditions in the testbed into three categories: fully open (clean), partially blocked (trash), and fully blocked (clogged). Both models achieved F1 scores of 0.994. Under clogged conditions, RT-DETR-L achieved a higher confidence score, whereas YOLOv11l achieved a slightly higher intersection over union (IoU). A three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that the inlet condition was the most influential factor affecting both the confidence score and IoU, with a significant height–angle interaction under the clogged condition: performance improved with height at a front-facing angle but declined at oblique angles. These findings indicate that observation height and angle should be considered jointly when evaluating CCTV configurations for drainage inlet monitoring. Further validation using independent real-world CCTV data is required before extending these findings to broader field applications. Full article

Hyperlipidemia is a widespread metabolic disease that triggers abnormal lipid accumulation. Plant polyphenols possess great potential for lipid metabolism regulation. Small-leaved kuding tea (Ligustrum robustum Roxb. Blume, SLKDT) is abundant in polyphenols with proven hypolipidemic activity, whereas its key active constituents and molecular targets remain unclear. This study aimed to identify the key active components and core targets responsible for the lipid-lowering effects of SLKDT polyphenols. Response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to optimize the extraction process of SLKDT polyphenols. In vitro cell experiments were performed to verify the lipid-lowering effect of SLKDT polyphenols, while the obtained polyphenols were further qualitatively characterized via LC-MS/MS. Furthermore, network pharmacology prediction combined with molecular docking was used to screen the key bioactive compounds and their target proteins associated with lipid metabolism regulation. Under the optimal extraction conditions (43% ethanol concentration, ultrasound time of 40 min, solid-to-liquid ratio of 1:56 g/mL, and ultrasonic temperature of 57 °C), the yield of polyphenols from SLKDT was 131.88 mg/g. In vitro experiments confirmed that SLKDT polyphenols significantly reduced intracellular lipid accumulation in HepG2 cells, increased the activities of antioxidant enzymes including GSH-PX, CAT, and T-SOD, and decreased MDA content. Furthermore, SLKDT polyphenols markedly downregulated the expression of lipid synthesis-related genes, including ACC, HMGCR, SREBP-1c, and FASN, while upregulating CYP7A1 expression. A total of 88 compounds were Preliminary identified by LC-MS/MS, mainly including glycosides, flavonoids and phenolic acids. Network pharmacology analysis revealed that chrysin, 6-demethoxytangeretin, bavachinin, isobavachin, and bavachalcone were the core components mediating the lipid-lowering activity of SLKDT polyphenols, with target proteins including TP53, STAT3, AKT1, HSP90AA1, and EGFR. This study elucidates the key components and critical targets underlying the lipid-lowering effects of SLKDT polyphenols, providing experimental evidence and theoretical support for the development of SLKDT-derived products and natural lipid-lowering agents. Full article

Oxidative stress is a major factor limiting oocyte quality during in vitro maturation (IVM) and subsequent embryonic developmental competence. This study investigated the effects of combined melatonin (MLT) and glutathione (GSH) supplementation on sheep oocyte quality and the potential regulatory mechanisms involved. Sheep oocytes were assigned to Control, MLT, GSH, and MLT+GSH groups, and oocyte maturation, redox homeostasis, and mitochondrial function were evaluated by assessing cumulus expansion, first polar body extrusion, F-actin organization, ROS- and GSH-associated fluorescence, JC-1 staining, and MitoTracker signals, while subsequent developmental competence was assessed following in vitro fertilization (IVF). SMART-seq2 transcriptomic analysis, Nrf2 immunofluorescence, antioxidant-related gene expression analysis, and pharmacological inhibition of Nrf2 with ML385 were further performed to explore the underlying mechanisms. MLT and GSH, either alone or in combination, improved multiple indices related to oocyte maturation, redox status, and mitochondrial function, with the MLT+GSH group generally showing the most favorable numerical changes. MLT+GSH treatment was associated with greater cumulus expansion, a higher first polar body extrusion rate, improved F-actin organization, reduced ROS accumulation, increased GSH-associated fluorescence, a higher JC-1 red-to-green fluorescence ratio, and enhanced mitochondrial-associated fluorescence. However, for some endpoints, the numerical improvement observed with MLT+GSH did not differ significantly from the corresponding single treatment. Following IVF, MLT+GSH treatment increased cleavage and blastocyst formation rates and improved subsequent developmental outcomes. Mechanistically, MLT+GSH treatment was accompanied by increased Nrf2 immunofluorescence intensity and altered expression of NFE2L2 and several Nrf2-related antioxidant genes, including NQO1, HMOX1, GCLC, GCLM, and GPX4, suggesting the involvement of an Nrf2-associated antioxidant regulatory network. Addition of the Nrf2 inhibitor ML385 to the MLT+GSH treatment increased ROS levels and reduced JC-1 and other redox- and mitochondria-related indices, while partially attenuating improvements in oocyte maturation and embryonic development. Overall, MLT and GSH co-supplementation was associated with improved redox homeostasis, antioxidant capacity, mitochondrial function, and subsequent developmental competence in sheep oocytes, with Nrf2-associated antioxidant regulation potentially contributing to these beneficial effects under standard IVM conditions. Full article

Bacterial extracellular vesicles (EVs) have emerged as a relevant mode of communication between host and resident microbiota. Evidence is limited regarding the ability of Gram-positive EVs to interact with primary colonic epithelial cells. We propose a murine organoid-based in vitro model to study the impact of EVs from the lactic acid bacteria species Limosilactobacillus reuteri (LR) and Lactiplantibacillus plantarum (LP) on primary colonic epithelium. Previous EV characterization revealed significant differences in zeta-potential (LR: −0.0185 V vs. LP: −0.0103 V, p 0.0125) and particle concentration (LR: 3.38 × 10⁸ particles/mL vs. LP: 8.32 × 10⁸ particles/mL, p 0.0029) but not in lipoteichoic acid (LTA) content and long-chain fatty acid composition. Applied to colonic organoids, uptake efficiency differed between LR and LP EVs, with LR exhibiting higher internalization rates than LP (5 µg EV, 46.56% vs. 20.03%, p < 0.0001) at the expense of cellular viability. Internalized EVs partially co-localized with endo-lysosomal compartments and, depending on the bacterial species of origin, induced a proteomic stress response mimicking molecular features of neurodegenerative diseases. Proteomic profiling of EVs and parental bacteria revealed the existence of lipoproteins predicted to be embedded in the cytoplasmic membrane, potentially acting as adhesion factors to the epithelium. Pre-emptive blocking with LTA reduced EV uptake into the epithelium (1 µg/mL LTA: 3.77 × 10⁵ A.U. vs. control: 1.02 × 10⁶ A.U., p 0.0231). Efficiency of EV internalization differs between LR and LP and may be associated with LTA decoration. Studies using LTA-mutant Lactobacillus species are warranted to clarify the role of vesicle-bound LTA in the EV uptake machinery. Full article

Algal polysaccharides have been linked to repair signaling pathways related to transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1), a mediator of skin wound healing. However, to our knowledge, no study has directly confirmed the efficacy of Chlorella vulgaris extract in repairing non-chronic wounds, and the underlying mechanism remains unexplored. Hence, we investigated the potential involvement of the TGF-β1/protein kinase B (AKT)/mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway in this process. Following preliminary structural characterization of the Chlorella vulgaris extract (CE), its cell migration, proliferation and scratch wound closure rate were determined in a wound remodeling phase HaCaT cell model. Compared to the model group, CE effectively was associated with enhanced cell migration and proliferation. At 100 μg/mL, CE was associated with significant upregulation of aquaporin-3 and filaggrin expression. It was associated with inhibited the nuclear translocation of nuclear factor of activated T-cells 1 and nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2. Mechanistically, CE was associated with increased TGF-β1 secretion and mTOR phosphorylation without significantly altering AKT phosphorylation, suggesting a potential involvement of the TGF-β1/mTOR signaling pathway rather than the canonical AKT/mTOR axis. Hemolysis and chicken chorioallantoic membrane assays indicated satisfactory biocompatibility, supporting the safety of the extract for topical application. These findings suggest a possible association between microalgal extracts and insights for developing natural cosmetic ingredients. However, further studies are required to confirm the mechanistic relationships suggested by these findings. Full article

The rapid emergence of antimicrobial resistance necessitates the development of novel antimicrobial agents with improved efficacy and favorable safety profiles. In this study, a new series of pyridine-3-carboxamide–1,3,4-thiadiazole hybrids and their corresponding N-Mannich bases bearing structurally diverse piperazine substituents were designed, synthesized, and characterized by FT-IR, ¹H/¹³C NMR, and HR-MS. Their antimicrobial activity was evaluated against reference and clinical bacterial and fungal strains using broth microdilution and agar diffusion assays. The compounds exhibited selective activity against Gram-positive bacteria, with minimum inhibitory concentrations of 0.034–0.069 mg/mL against Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 33591 and bactericidal effects reflected by MBC values comparable to MICs. No activity was observed against Pseudomonas aeruginosa or Candida albicans, and the compounds were ineffective in eradicating preformed staphylococcal biofilms. In vivo toxicity studies using the Galleria mellonella model indicated no-to-low apparent acute toxicity under the applied experimental conditions for most derivatives. DFT and QTAIM analyses revealed substituent-dependent electronic and conformational differences, while molecular docking identified DNA gyrase as the most likely molecular target, with compounds 6 and 7 showing the strongest predicted binding. These results identify pyridine-3-carboxamide–1,3,4-thiadiazole Mannich bases as promising leads for developing new antibacterial agents against Gram-positive pathogens. Full article

Forest-steppe grasslands are highly important ecosystems because they provide the transition from temperate forests to open steppes. This makes them exceptional from many important perspectives, such as biological diversity, ecological services, gene pools, agroecosystem resources, etc. These are some of the main reasons for the demand for long-term studies on topics such as vegetation succession or climate resilience records, because they can be useful for authorities and entities involved in the restoration of these agroecosystems. The aim of the research is to analyse the sward of a successional ex-arable grassland in the Western Romanian forest-steppe area, managed under an extensive system, using Ecological Indicator Values (EIVs) and their interaction with biodiversity, floristic composition (functional groups) and pastoral value. Data collection began in the ninth year after land abandonment, specifically in 2003. The results of the present research are extended to 21 years, covering the period from 2003 to 2023. The Landolt EIVs considered were the preferences for plant species in soil reaction (R), nutrients (N), soil moisture (F), temperature (T), light (L), and climatic continentality (K). The successional evolution of vegetation was highly complex during the study, highlighting changes in species composition, influenced along the time gradient by changes in biotope conditions. These changes were expressed by the trend of most of the analysed EIVs, respectively, temperature (T), soil moisture (F), soil reaction (R), and nutrients (N). EIVs are a useful tool that offers a more detailed description of a permanent grassland, expressing the evolution of the biotope conditions. Biodiversity was influenced by N and K, and floristic composition mostly by K. Full article

Limoniastrum guyonianum Durieu ex Boiss. is an endemic halophyte native to the semi-arid regions of North Africa and represents an under-explored source of bioactive phytochemicals. This study investigated the phytochemical composition and anti-urease potential of L. guyonianum aerial parts through an integrated experimental and computational approach. Plant material was subjected to sequential organic extraction and an additional independent aqueous extract was prepared from the raw plant; the resulting organic fractions were characterized using a targeted LC–MS/MS method validated for 53 phytochemicals. Overall, 21 compounds, mainly flavonoids and phenolic acids, were quantified, 11 of which are quantitatively reported in this species for the first time. The hydromethanolic and methanolic extracts showed the greatest phytochemical diversity, containing 17 and 16 compounds, respectively, together with high total phenolic contents (222.39 ± 0.61 and 157.65 ± 4.40 µg GAE/mg) and flavonoid contents (114.34 ± 16.82 and 223.62 ± 10.64 µg QE/mg). The anti-urease activity of L. guyonianum was evaluated for the first time; the combination of polar extracts showed substantial inhibitory activity (IC₅₀ = 44.66 ± 1.21 µg/mL) compared with the reference inhibitor thiourea (IC₅₀ = 19.62 ± 0.34 µg/mL). Combination analysis yielded CI point estimations below 1 across the non-extrapolated effect range (CI = 0.52–0.69 at Fa = 0.10–0.40), together with substantial dose-reduction effects (DRI ≥ 8.24 for ME and ≥1.75 for MEW). The hydromethanolic extract also exhibited preliminary antibacterial activity against Bacillus cereus and Staphylococcus aureus, with inhibition zones of 18.50 ± 0.07 and 19.50 ± 0.07 mm, respectively. Molecular docking against three urease structures (PDB IDs: 1E9Y, 4H9M, and 4UBP) identified epigallocatechin as the highest-ranked phytochemical according to the composite CNN_VS metric (3.80 ± 0.31), with an average predicted binding energy of −7.55 kcal·mol⁻¹. In silico ADME and drug-likeness assessment further revealed marked differences in predicted oral pharmacokinetic properties among the quantified phytochemicals, with lower-molecular-weight aglycones generally showing more favorable profiles than glycosylated and highly hydroxylated compounds. These findings provide the first evidence of the anti-urease potential of L. guyonianum and highlight the synergistic activity of its polar extracts, supporting further investigation of this North African halophyte as a source of bioactive phytochemicals. Full article