Search Results (1,182)

Body image develops during childhood, yet few universal programs address body dissatisfaction and disordered eating risk across the primary school years. This paper describes the development of Butterfly Body Bright, which is, to our knowledge, a world-first whole-of-school program promoting positive body image and healthy relationships with eating and physical activity across all primary school years. We also describe an uncontrolled pilot study that evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, and impact of components of the program, namely, online staff training and three teacher-led lessons. Lessons targeted appearance-based teasing, media literacy, body gratitude, and self-compassion. Participants were 12 teachers and 114 Grade 4 to 6 children in Australia, who received one of three Body Bright lessons. Significant pre- to immediate post-program improvements emerged in state body satisfaction, body appreciation, confidence managing appearance-based teasing, and help-seeking intentions. Specific lessons improved media literacy and appearance comparison and, at a 3-to-7-week follow-up, trait body appreciation. Boys showed improvement in state body satisfaction, confidence managing appearance-based teasing, and appreciation of body functionality. Girls showed improvement in state body satisfaction and media literacy. Butterfly Body Bright showed some promising preliminary results, with small to large effects, and was deemed feasible and acceptable by teachers, supporting the need for a randomized controlled trial. Full article

The growing demand for high-quality beef has driven the selection of bovine genotypes offering superior marbling and tenderness. This study evaluated meat quality parameters in heifers from four Nellore-based genetic groups: ½ Aberdeen Angus × ½ Nellore (AN), ½ Japanese Brown × ½ Nellore (BN), ½ Japanese Brown × ¼ Aberdeen Angus × ¼ Nellore (TriBAN), and ½ Japanese Black × ¼ Aberdeen Angus × ¼ Nellore (TriJAN). Thirty-two heifers (eight/group) were finished in commercial feedlots. Samples of the longissimus thoracis muscle were analyzed for physical attributes (pH, cooking loss, shear force, marbling, water retention capacity, and colour), chemical composition, and fatty acid profile. In addition, animal performance (daily gain and final weight) was determined. A completely randomized design was used with analysis of variance followed by Tukey’s test (α = 0.05). The AN group showed the greatest final weight and daily gain (p < 0.01). There were no significant differences among genetic groups for pH, cooking loss, shear force, marbling, water-holding capacity, or colour (p > 0.05). Across all groups, the mean ultimate pH was 5.59, shear force (WBSF) averaged 41.11 N, and intramuscular fat (ether extract) content averaged 13.15 g 100 g⁻¹, indicating desirable technological and eating-quality characteristics. Most fatty acids did not differ among treatments (p > 0.05), except for arachidonic acid (C20:4 n-6), which was present at higher concentrations (p < 0.05) in the TriBAN group than in the other genetic groups. In conclusion, despite differences in productive performance, all genotypes produced meat with consistent quality traits, including tenderness, marbling, and fatty acid profiles associated with high-quality beef. Full article

Water scarcity caused by irregular rainfall and high evapotranspiration rates in the Brazilian semi-arid region is one of the main factors limiting watermelon cultivation, underscoring the need for irrigation strategies capable of mitigating the adverse effects of water deficit. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of foliar salicylic acid application on the induction of water-deficit tolerance in watermelon plants subjected to water restriction at different phenological stages under semi-arid conditions. The experiment was conducted using a randomized block design in a split-plot arrangement, with five irrigation management strategies based on crop evapotranspiration (ETc) and four salicylic acid (SA) concentrations, with three replications and three plants per plot. Water deficit adversely affected the morphophysiological traits of the plants and the physical and chemical attributes of ‘Crimson Sweet’ watermelon fruits, with water restriction during the vegetative and flowering stages causing the most severe effects. Foliar application of salicylic acid at concentrations ranging from 1.2 to 2.6 mM increased relative water content by 9.4%, reduced electrolyte leakage by 11.60%, and enhanced CO₂ assimilation by 18.82%, instantaneous water-use efficiency in 128.10%, and instantaneous carboxylation efficiency by 46.92%. Salicylic acid concentrations within this range also improved plant water status, gas exchange, photosynthetic pigment content, growth, and the physical and chemical attributes of the fruits. In contrast, concentrations above 2.6 mM reduced gas exchange, photosynthetic pigment accumulation, chlorophyll a fluorescence, and the physical and chemical quality of ‘Crimson Sweet’ watermelon fruits. Thus, salicylic acid may be an alternative to modulate the tolerance of watermelon plants under water deficit during phenological phases. Full article

Preserving high-quality forage through silage is essential for continuous livestock production, yet protein degradation during fermentation remains a major challenge. To mitigate this nutrient loss, probiotics and phytobiotics are utilized as protective additives. This study investigated the synergistic application of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and plant-derived bioactive compounds as deamination inhibitors to improve the fermentation quality and amino acid profiles of tropical forage silages. The experiment followed a 2 × 4 × 4 completely randomized factorial design with five replications. Factor A tested the inclusion of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) inoculum (Lactiplantibacillus plantarum). Factor B compared different plant extracts as additives (Acacia mangium, Swietenia macrophylla, and cumin essential oil), while Factor C evaluated various forage types (Pennisetum purpureum, Indigofera zollingeriana, Gliricidia sepium, and Stylosanthes guianensis). Statistical analysis revealed that LAB inoculation significantly reduced the pH level, suppressed fungal contamination, and improved physical traits (p < 0.05). Both the additive sources and forage types also exerted strong influences across all measured variables (p < 0.05). The interaction between microbes and plant extracts enhances protein preservation during ensiling. Among all the treatments tested, Indigofera zollingeriana showed the best response. The specific combination of L. plantarum and A. mangium extracts in Indigofera silage produced the best fermentation characteristics and a high ability to retain essential amino acids, particularly histidine, lysine, tryptophan, and valine. Lower NH₃-N concentrations and better amino acid preservation in this treatment indicate reduced protein loss due to proteolysis and deamination during fermentation. These findings confirm that the combination of probiotics and certain plant extracts is a highly effective strategy for maintaining the nutritional integrity of tropical forage preserved in silage form. Full article

Depressive symptoms are prevalent among college students. This study examined cross-domain associations among depressive symptom dimensions, physical activity, Big Five personality traits, and goal orientation using network analysis, latent profile analysis (LPA), multi-group network analysis, and multiple linear regression. LPA was conducted using behavioral, personality, and motivational variables only, with depressive symptom indicators excluded from class extraction. Data from 911 Chinese undergraduates were analyzed. The results showed that psychological equivalents, a cognitive-related depressive subdimension, had the highest strength centrality in the overall network, while neuroticism showed prominent positive bridge expected influence between personality traits and depression-related indicators. In the regression models, task orientation, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness were negatively associated with depressive symptoms to varying degrees. MVPA and sedentary time were not significantly associated with depressive symptoms in the total-sample model, whereas walking showed a subgroup-specific negative association only in the maladaptive, low-motivation, inactive profile. Three behavioral–personality–motivation profiles were identified, and the maladaptive profile showed relatively higher depressive symptom levels and stronger neuroticism-related associations. These findings provide associative, network- and profile-based evidence for understanding depressive symptoms among college students and may inform future longitudinal and intervention studies targeting behavioral–personality–motivation heterogeneity. Full article

Background: Depression-related liability is frequently accompanied by reduced physical function, yet the shared genetic architecture linking mood-related traits and physical-function decline remains incompletely characterized. Methods: We applied genomic structural equation modeling to European-ancestry GWAS summary statistics for five constituent phenotypes: depressive symptoms, depression diagnosis, grip strength, appendicular lean mass, and walking pace. A Depression–Physical Function shared genetic factor was constructed as a cross-trait genetic covariance dimension and evaluated using LDSC-based validation and leave-one-trait-out sensitivity analyses. We then performed factor GWAS, FUMA locus annotation, Bayesian fine-mapping, MAGMA gene-based analysis, transcriptome-wide association analysis, pathway enrichment, CELLECT/MAGMA cell-type specificity analysis, partitioned heritability analysis, and gsMap spatial transcriptomic mapping. Results: The shared factor showed good model fit and retained 755,397 quality-controlled variants for downstream analysis. The factor was positively genetically correlated with depression-related traits and negatively correlated with physical-function-related traits. FUMA identified 245 genome-wide significant SNPs, 44 lead SNPs, and 38 genomic risk loci, with 127 positional mapped genes. Fine-mapping prioritized one high-confidence locus. MAGMA identified 19 Bonferroni-significant genes and 326 FDR-significant genes, while TWAS identified 322 FDR-significant expression-associated genes. Integrating FUMA positional mapping, MAGMA gene-level association and TWAS expression-level association prioritized eight convergent genes: TMEM106B, CENPW, DRD2, LRFN5, NCAPG, DCAF16, SGIP1, and FAM120A. Functional enrichment highlighted postsynaptic structure, neuron spine, synaptic plasticity, and synapse organization. CELLECT/MAGMA prioritized brain non-myeloid neurons and glial populations, with additional endocrine-metabolic and immune-hematopoietic signals. Spatial transcriptomic mapping localized top signals to brain and spinal cord regions in the embryonic neuro-muscle reference. Partitioned heritability analysis showed enrichment in conserved, intronic, promoter, and chromatin-related genomic annotations. Conclusions: These findings support a shared polygenic covariance dimension linking depression-related liability with reduced physical-function-related genetic propensity. Downstream analyses prioritized candidate loci, genes, and biological contexts, with enrichment patterns consistent with neuronal, synaptic, and regulatory genomic processes. Full article

The grapevine syndrome, Esca proper, causes significant yield losses. This study analyses and discusses the enological traits of musts from healthy (HV) and Esca-proper-affected (EpV) ‘Primitivo’ vines cropped in southern Italy. Tiger-striped leaves, sudden wilting on arms or shoots, berry spots, shrivelling and wilting, wood browning and white rot are linked to the presence of Phaeoacremonium minimum, Phaeomoniella chlamydospora, and Fomitiporia mediterranea within the woody tissues and characterize EpVs. The lack of symptoms on trunks, leaves, berries, and in the wood of branches and shoots, along with the absence of Esca-proper mycota, typifies HVs. Must from the selected HVs is darker and contains greater total soluble solids, reducing sugars, titratable and volatile acidity, tartaric, citric, and L-malic acid, and total polyphenols. The must from the selected EpVs has a higher pH and laccase activity, and contains pullulan, scytalone, and isosclerone, secondary metabolites of P. minimum and P. chlamydospora. During fermentation, musts from EpVs negatively impact the growth and enological performance of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Byosal HS1™ and IOC 18-2007™ and reduce the overall quality of the resulting wines. The physical–chemical conditions during fermentation may degrade pullulan and aid scytalone oxidation to isosclerone. Full article

Background: Maternal nutrition during pregnancy is increasingly recognized as an important determinant of offspring neurodevelopment. The Mediterranean diet has been associated with favorable cognitive and behavioral outcomes in children; however, evidence regarding autism-related traits remains limited, particularly during late childhood and adolescence. Objective: To investigate the association between maternal adherence to the Mediterranean diet during pregnancy and autism-related traits in preadolescent offspring in the KLOTHO birth cohort. Methods: This exploratory analysis included 96 adolescents (49 boys and 47 girls) from the KLOTHO birth cohort. Maternal adherence to the Mediterranean diet during pregnancy was assessed using a Mediterranean Diet Score derived from a food frequency questionnaire administered during gestation. Autism-related traits were evaluated during preadolescence using a parent-completed questionnaire that assessed social and emotional abilities, communication skills, cognitive characteristics, special interests, and motor skills. Associations were examined using Spearman’s correlation analyses and sex-stratified linear regression models adjusted for offspring body mass index, sleep duration, and physical activity, all assessed during the preadolescent follow-up examination. Results: Boys exhibited higher communication (3.92 ± 3.90 vs. 1.70 ± 2.89, p = 0.026), cognitive (5.76 ± 3.80 vs. 3.33 ± 2.99, p = 0.014), special-interest (2.64 ± 3.29 vs. 1.04 ± 2.16, p = 0.046), and overall autism-related trait scores (19.08 ± 13.92 vs. 10.15 ± 8.57, p = 0.009) compared with girls. In the overall cohort, maternal Mediterranean Diet Score was not associated with autism-related traits. Among boys, higher maternal Mediterranean Diet Scores were associated with lower communication-related trait scores (ρ = −0.442, p = 0.027). In multivariable analyses, the inverse association remained consistent in direction but did not retain statistical significance after adjustment for body mass index, sleep duration, and physical activity. Sensitivity analyses incorporating offspring KIDMED scores yielded similar findings. Conclusions: Higher maternal adherence to the Mediterranean diet during pregnancy was associated with lower communication-related trait scores in male offspring. These findings should be considered exploratory and require confirmation in larger prospective cohorts. Full article

Drawing on the personal-resource logic of the Job Demands–Resources (JD–R) model, this study examines emotional intelligence (EI) not as a single global trait but as a differentiated set of self-regulatory resources associated with distinct burnout dimensions. Using cross-sectional, self-report data from higher-education instructors (N = 292; complete-case N = 161–185 for the multivariable models), EI was assessed with the Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory and burnout with the BO-SE Burnout Screening Scales (mental, emotional, physical, and social exhaustion, plus an aggregated index); hierarchical regression, relative-importance analysis, and bootstrapped indirect-effect models were estimated. Overall EI was negatively associated with all burnout dimensions. At the component level, intrapersonal skills and stress management (stress tolerance and impulse control) were the two most consistent correlates, with complementary coverage—stress management most consistent for mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion, and intrapersonal skills strongest for mental and emotional exhaustion—while general mood was specific to physical exhaustion; associations survived false discovery rate correction. General mood and stress-management capacity statistically accounted for part of these associations in exploratory indirect-effect models. Because the design is cross-sectional and based on a single self-report method, findings are interpreted as associations and statistical indirect effects rather than causal mechanisms. The findings are consistent with a differentiated resource interpretation of EI in emotionally demanding work, but they do not establish causal mechanisms or temporal ordering. Full article

Field-based phenotyping of water-related traits for precision irrigation in tropical agroecosystems poses a persistent methodological challenge, driven by high climatic variability and the complex water-use physiology of Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (CAM) crops such as pineapple (Ananas comosus var. MD2). We developed and validated a Physics-Informed Machine Learning (PIML) framework that integrates high-resolution UAV multispectral imagery, IoT-based microclimatic records, and a mechanistic soil water balance based on the FAO-56 Penman–Monteith standard to predict plot-scale soil moisture depletion as a proxy of plant water status. A six-month field campaign (March–August 2022) across 25 georeferenced commercial pineapple plots in the Colombian Orinoquia piedmont yielded a spatiotemporally balanced dataset of $N=150$ observations. Soil-adjusted vegetation indices (OSAVI, MSAVI) outperformed standard NDVI for capturing water-related canopy traits, effectively decoupling spectral responses from substrate noise. A Gradient Boosting regressor achieved $R^2=0.842$ and $RMSE=0.0705$ on a normalized target scale, corresponding to a $7.05\%$ error over the prediction range, while the traffic-light Decision Support System (DSS) for irrigation scheduling reached $91.1\%$ accuracy (Cohen’s Kappa $=0.91$). Incorporating daily soil moisture depletion as a mechanistic feature improved predictive accuracy over a spectral-only baseline ($\mathrm{\Delta }{R}^2=+0.052$) and anchored predictions within a physically consistent framework based on the FAO-56 water balance, with no false negatives observed for water deficit detection in the hold-out validation set. This framework advances high-throughput, population-scale phenotyping of water-related traits in open-canopy CAM crops, establishing a transferable methodology for operational precision irrigation under tropical savanna conditions. Full article

Background: Substance Use Disorder (SUD) is frequently associated with psychiatric comorbidity, including psychotic symptoms, impulsivity and neurodevelopmental traits. The influence of age and duration of substance use on these clinical characteristics and on treatment retention remains insufficiently understood. Objectives: To examine the influence between age, duration of substance use, clinical presentation, patterns of violence, and treatment retention in individuals with SUD. Methods: A prospective 6-month cohort study was conducted at the Alcoholism Treatment Unit of the CAUSA Hospital Complex in Salamanca, Spain. A total of 264 patients with SUD were classified into two groups: prolonged substance use (≥55 years of age or ≥25 years of substance use; n = 127) and shorter substance use trajectories (<55 years and <25 years of substance use; n = 137). Participants completed structured clinical interviews and validated measures of quality of life, impulsivity, autistic traits, addiction severity, psychotic symptoms and violence. Non-parametric analyses were applied (α = 0.05; 95% CI). Results: Younger participants showed a significantly higher prevalence of auditory and visual hallucinations and persecutory delusions at baseline. During follow-up, both groups exhibited a reduction in physical aggression while driving and an increase in insults and verbal threats. No significant differences were observed in recent uncontrolled violence. Positive screening results for ADHD, autistic traits and impulsivity were not associated with treatment retention. Lower baseline physical functioning was associated with reduced completion of the 6-month follow-up assessment. Conclusions: Age and duration of substance use were associated with differences in the clinical presentation of SUD. Younger individuals exhibited a greater burden of psychotic symptoms and violence-related behaviours, whereas poorer physical functioning was associated with lower follow-up retention among individuals with prolonged substance use histories. These findings support the importance of age-sensitive assessment and management strategies in patients with SUD. Full article

Background/Objectives: Emotional eating (EE) is an emerging public health concern among university students, a population exposed to heightened academic demands, psychosocial stressors, and lifestyle changes that may promote maladaptive coping behaviors. EE has been linked to psychological distress, particularly depressive and anxiety symptoms, as well as sociodemographic, lifestyle, and anthropometric factors; however, findings remain heterogeneous and insufficiently integrated within comprehensive analytical frameworks. This study aimed to examine the association between EE and depressive and anxiety symptoms in university students, while assessing the independent contributions of sociodemographic, academic, lifestyle, and anthropometric determinants. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was performed among 1279 university students from 10 regions in Greece. Sociodemographic, academic, lifestyle, and anthropometric data were collected using validated instruments and standardized procedures. Depressive and anxiety symptoms were assessed by the use of the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) and the six-item State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-6), respectively. EE was evaluated utilizing the EE subscale of the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire–Revised 18 (TFEQ-R18). Multivariable ordinal logistic regression models were applied to examine independent associations. Results: In fully adjusted models, depressive and anxiety symptoms were the strongest correlates of higher EE levels, each associated with more than twofold increased odds. Female sex, Greek nationality, rural residence, enrollment in biomedical sciences, later academic years, and regular smoking were also positively associated with EE. Higher physical activity was inversely associated with EE levels. Overweight, obesity, and increased waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio were consistently linked to higher EE, with several associations exceeding twofold increased odds. Conclusions: EE in university students is strongly associated with psychological distress and clusters with adverse lifestyle and anthropometric characteristics. These findings support the need for integrated interventions targeting mental health, lifestyle behaviors, and obesity-related risk factors. Longitudinal studies are warranted to clarify causal pathways and underlying mechanisms. Full article

In intensive aquaculture, non-invasive real-time monitoring of morphological traits and body weight of largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) is essential for precision feeding and yield estimation. Manual measurement is laborious and stressful, whereas vision-based methods are challenged by insufficient dual-view feature fusion, poor robustness to underwater noise, and over-parameterized models unsuitable for edge deployment. To address these issues, a lightweight framework, MECT-MobileViT, is proposed based on MobileViT-xxs. A Morphometric-Guided Multi-Scale Fusion module is designed to couple physical priors with dual-branch visual features, strengthening shape–weight association. An ECA-NL attention block employing instance normalization, GLU gating, and threshold filtering is embedded to enhance feature robustness against visual disturbances typical in aquaculture and to accentuate critical morphological features. A three-stage synergistic pruning strategy—attention head pruning, structured channel pruning, and depthwise separable attention substitution—is applied to achieve substantial compression while preserving representational capacity. Experiments on a self-built lateral–dorsal dual-view dataset show that the proposed model significantly outperforms mainstream benchmarks. The pruned version attains an R² of 0.8266 and an RMSE of 16.4201, with less than 2% accuracy degradation relative to the best unpruned model, and contains only 7.34 M parameters. This study demonstrates a promising prototype for contactless, stress-free weight estimation in largemouth bass and offers new technical insights into feature fusion, noise suppression, and collaborative model compression for aquaculture visual perception. Full article

The production of low- and non-alcoholic beer remains a major technological challenge due to the need to restrict ethanol formation while maintaining acceptable sensory quality and fermentation-derived complexity. Conventional approaches, including physical dealcoholization and arrested fermentation, often result in flavor imbalance, reduced aroma intensity, diminished mouthfeel, and persistent wort-like off-flavors. In this context, non-Saccharomyces yeasts have emerged as promising biological tools due to their species- and strain-dependent carbohydrate utilization, aroma production potential, and intrinsic metabolic constraints. This review provides a structured and mechanistically informed synthesis of current knowledge regarding the application of non-Saccharomyces yeasts in low- and non-alcoholic beer production, with emphasis on metabolic regulation, fermentation process control, and sensory implications. Particular attention is given to sugar transport limitations, glycolytic regulation, carbon redistribution, redox balance, and the role of controllable process variables, including wort fermentability, pitching rate, oxygen availability, and temperature. The available evidence indicates that fermentation outcomes depend strongly on interactions between strain-specific metabolic traits and process design. Collectively, this review proposes a brewery-oriented precision fermentation framework in which strain-specific physiological constraints are deliberately aligned with controllable process variables to support rational strain selection, more predictable ethanol control, and targeted sensory optimization in low- and non-alcoholic beer production. Full article

Tetraploid wheat (Triticum turgidum), the progenitor of common wheat, provides rich genetic resources for wheat genetic improvement. TDI-1 is a long-grain cultivated emmer wheat (T. turgidum ssp. dicoccum) accession collected in our laboratory. It was crossed with TDU-1, a short-grain durum wheat (T. turgidum ssp. durum) accession. The F₁ hybrids exhibited heterobeltiosis (i.e., performance superior to the better parent) for grain length, thousand-kernel weight, and other kernel traits. In the F₂ population, grain length showed a strong positive correlation with thousand-kernel weight (r = 0.77), and the ratio of plants with the short-grain parental phenotype, heterobeltiosis phenotype, and long-grain parental phenotype was approximately 1:2:1 (χ² ≈ 0.697, p > 0.7), suggesting that a major locus plays a primary role in controlling grain length in this population. Combined with phenotyping of F_2:3 families, homozygous long-grain and short-grain bulks constructed from F₂ individuals were genotyped using bulked segregant analysis based on 120K-SNP array. The results showed that polymorphic SNPs were mainly concentrated on the short arm of chromosome 2A, leading to the inference that this region harbors a locus regulating grain length, tentatively designated TtGL-2A. Twelve SSR markers were developed on the short arm of chromosome 2A, mapping TtGL-2A to an 8.1 cM genetic interval between markers 2AS-280t26 and 2AS-280t29, corresponding to the physical interval 121.2–158.8 Mb, with a LOD score of 12.3. Using the diagnostic marker 2AS-95t3 to genotype 253 wheat accessions, the proportion of long-grain allelic variation TtGL-2A_TDI in landraces, cultivars, and introduced lines is 40.27%, 75.86%, and 82.35%, respectively. Transcriptome sequencing of grains at 15 days post-anthesis from the parental lines TDI-1 and TDU-1 identified 11 differentially expressed genes within the TtGL-2A interval. These results lay a foundation for map-based cloning of TtGL-2A and provide an efficient marker for molecular breeding of wheat yield. Full article