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Carotenoids, such as β-carotene, accumulate in chromoplasts of various fleshy fruits, awarding them with colors, aromas, and nutrients. The Orange (CmOr) gene controls β-carotene accumulation in melon fruit by posttranslationally enhancing carotenogenesis and repressing β-carotene turnover in chromoplasts. Carotenoid isomerase (CRTISO) isomerizes yellow prolycopene into red lycopene, a prerequisite for further metabolism into β-carotene. We comparatively analyzed the developing fruit transcriptomes of orange-colored melon and its two isogenic EMS-induced mutants, low-β (Cmor) and yofi (Cmcrtiso). The Cmor mutation in low-β caused a major transcriptomic change in the mature fruit. In contrast, the Cmcrtiso mutation in yofi significantly changed the transcriptome only in early fruit developmental stages. These findings indicate that melon fruit transcriptome is primarily altered by changes in carotenoid metabolic flux and plastid conversion, but minimally by carotenoid composition in the ripe fruit. Clustering of the differentially expressed genes into functional groups revealed an association between fruit carotenoid metabolic flux with the maintenance of the photosynthetic apparatus in fruit chloroplasts. Moreover, large numbers of thylakoid localized photosynthetic genes were differentially expressed in low-β. CmOR family proteins were found to physically interact with light-harvesting chlorophyll a–b binding proteins, suggesting a new role of CmOR for chloroplast maintenance in melon fruit. This study brings more insights into the cellular and metabolic processes associated with fruit carotenoid accumulation in melon fruit and reveals a new maintenance mechanism of the photosynthetic apparatus for plastid development.

Parent peer advocacy, mentoring, and support programs, delivered by parents with lived child protection (CP) experience to parents receiving CP intervention, are increasingly recognized internationally as inclusive practices that promote positive outcomes, but little is known about what shared characteristics exist across these types of programs and what variations may exist in service delivery or impact. This scoping review examines 25 years (1996-2021) of empirical literature on these programs to develop a systematic mapping of existing models and practices as context for program benefits and outcome achievement. Studies were selected using a systematic search process. The final sample comprised 45 publications that addressed research on 24 CP-related parent peer advocacy and support programs. Data analysis explored how programs were studied and conceptualized and examined their impact on parents, professionals, and the CP system. Substantial variation in program settings, target populations, aims, advocate roles, and underlying theoretical frameworks were identified. Across program settings, existing empirical evidence on impact and outcomes also varied, though positive impacts and outcomes were evident across most settings. Findings from this review highlight the need to account better for parent peer advocacy and support program variations in future practice development to ensure alignment with inclusive and participatory principles and goals. Future research is also needed to address current knowledge gaps and shed light on the impact of these differences on individual, case, and system outcomes.

This article, written with parents as co-authors, has two aims: (1) to provide a critical view of the English child protection system based on parents’ views and to locate these views within contemporary child protection studies and (2) to present the transformative value of co-production in the context of child protection studies both as a form of critical scholarship and as a means to influence policy and practice. The current children’s social work system in England does not achieve good outcomes for families, and many children and parents frequently experience it as stigmatizing, inhumane, and harmful. The article presents the experience and recommendations for change produced by parents with a broad range of experience with child protection services in England. The Parents, Families and Allies Network worked with five allied organizations in which parents identified the extensive range of problems that the current system presents and ways forward to achieve more supportive, humane, and inclusive practice with families. Seven main themes emerged: a better definition of need and response to need; partnership, participation, and humane practice; improving legal representation and support in legal proceedings; better support in care proceedings; permanence that maintains links; a better response to domestic violence; and the lack of support for disabled children. The article discusses five features of the project that supported meaningful co-production: taking a political stance, choosing clear and feasible aims, incorporating a range of knowledge, the participation of parents with lived experience throughout all phases of the project, and not settling with just knowledge production.

The recent expansion of networks of low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites such as Starlink, OneWeb, and Telesat and the evolution of communication systems toward B5G and 6G with densely interconnected devices could generate opportunities for various cyber attacks. As the satellite network offers many crucial services to the public and governmental organizations, cyberattacks pose severe risks to the communication infrastructure. In this study, we propose a random routing algorithm to prevent distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on an LEO satellite constellation network. The routing algorithm utilizes the classical algorithms, i.e., k-DG, k-DS, k-SP, and k-LO, by introducing randomness and selecting one with weighted probability distribution to increase the uncertainty in the algorithm. The study shows that the proposed random routing algorithm improves the average and median cost of the attacker against DDoS attacks while maintaining the functionality of the network. The algorithm is optimized by formulating a Bayesian optimization problem. In addition to providing an additional level of uncertainty in the routing, there is an improvement of 1.71% in the average cost and 2.05% in the median cost in a typical scenario. The algorithm causes the network to be robust to cyber attacks against LEO Satellite Networks (LSNs), however, similar to any other defensive measures, it reduces the network’s goodput.

This article aims to explore the potential contribution of incorporating the Poverty-Aware Paradigm for Child Protection—a critical framework for child protection policy and practice—with public health approaches to protecting children. It focuses on one Israeli social services department that embraced the Poverty-Aware Paradigm as an overarching framework for all levels of practice and specifically in the context of child protection. Based on an in-depth case study of the department’s child protection practice, the findings outline and describe the primary, secondary, and tertiary services and interventions through which the department addresses child maltreatment. These services and interventions are explored in light of Higgins and colleagues’ conceptualization of the six core components of public health approaches to preventing child maltreatment. This exploration points to the compatibly of the two frameworks and suggests three potential contributions of the Poverty-Aware Paradigm to the development of a public health approach. First, it offers a holistic and critical framework that focuses on a multidimensional analysis of child maltreatment and makes it possible to link tertiary responses to primary-level interventions. Second, it provides a firm ethical foundation rooted in a commitment to resisting social oppression and standing by parents, children, and their relationships. Third, it infuses relational concepts and practices into the policy and practice of public health approaches.

Critical perspectives and practices are fundamental to social work, yet there are only scarce examples of direct critical practice in public social services, and even fewer empirical evaluations of their outcomes for service users and social workers. This article presents a rapid evidence review of 25 evaluation studies of five programs that operate in the social services departments in Israel according to the principles of the Poverty-Aware Paradigm (PAP). The PAP is a critical paradigm for direct social work practice with people living in poverty that was implemented in the welfare services by the Ministry of Welfare, targeting over 14,000 service users. The evaluation studies we reviewed encompass an overall quantitative sample of 4612 service users and 1363 professionals, and a qualitative sample of 420 service users and 424 professionals. The findings present: (1) the program’s outcomes for service users in terms of relationship with social workers, financial circumstances, family relations, and children’s safety; and (2) the program’s impact on social workers’ attitudes and practices. Finally, we discuss the lessons learned regarding social workers’ role in combatting poverty, the construction of success in interventions with people in poverty, and the article’s limitations.

Abstract The spatial aspects of therapeutic intervention receive marginal attention in the practice and discourse of therapeutic professions. Currently, influenced by the classic Freudian tradition, the central therapeutic space of social workers and psychologists is the agency and the office. Despite the fact that models of home therapy have been developed over the years, its practice has remained marginal in the professional discourse. This article introduces the concept of intervention in a real-life context as a theoretical and practical framework for work with people in poverty that takes place outside the agency. The article is based on a qualitative study that examined the ongoing experiences of nine women who participated in an intervention programme based on the poverty-aware social work paradigm. The findings revealed that intervention in a real-life context takes place in four major realms: the home space, in which meetings were held regularly; the utilisation-of-rights space; the emergency space; and the professional-friendly space. The discussion sheds light on intervention in a real-life context as a means to practise the psychodynamic concept of holding in working with people who live in poverty.

Quantum light–matter interactions of bound electron systems have been studied extensively. By contrast, quantum interactions of free electrons with light have only become accessible in recent years, following the discovery of photon-induced near-field electron microscopy (PINEM). So far, the fundamental free electron–light interaction in all PINEM experiments has remained weak due to its localized near-field nature, which imposes an energy–momentum mismatch between electrons and light. Here, we demonstrate a strong interaction between free-electron waves and light waves, resulting from precise energy–momentum phase-matching with the extended propagating light field. By exchanging hundreds of photons with the field, each electron simultaneously accelerates and decelerates in a coherent manner. Consequently, each electron’s quantum wavefunction evolves into a quantized energy comb, spanning a bandwidth of over 1,700 eV, requiring us to extend the PINEM theory. Our observation of coherent electron phase-matching with a propagating wave is a type of inverse-Cherenkov interaction that occurs with a quantum electron wavefunction, demonstrating how the extended nature of the electron wavefunction can alter stimulated electron–light interactions. Energy–momentum phase-matching enables strong interactions between free electrons and light waves. As a result, the wavefunction of the electron exhibits a comb structure, which was observed using photon-induced near-field electron microscopy.

Background Aging affects gene expression in pathways essential for energy metabolism, DNA repair, cell cycle regulation, and antioxidant defenses, directly affecting oocyte quality and viability. Single-cell RNA deep sequencing studies of aged versus young human MII oocytes revealed many differentially expressed genes. In addition, single human oocyte transcriptome analysis at both germinal vesicle (GV) and MII stages revealed distinct stage-dependent pathways impacted by aging, with a decrease in mitochondrial-related transcripts from GV to MII oocytes, and a much greater reduction in MII oocytes with advanced age. Objective Our aim was to investigate the age-related differences in gene expression of germinal vesicle (GV) oocytes between young and advanced age patients. Patients and methods Immature GV oocytes were donated by 6 patients, divided into two age groups: The “Young” group (ages 16–29) had three participants (mean age: 23.3 ± 6.6 years), and the “Elderly” group (ages 38–40) included three participants (mean age: 39 ± 1 year). After retrieval, oocytes were denuded and donated GV oocytes were cryopreserved at -196 0 C until analysis. For library preparation, we used the NEBNext ® Single Cell/Low Input RNA Library Prep Kit for Illumina, Sect. 1 (cat no. E6420S, New England Biolabs (NEB), USA), strictly adhering to the manufacturer’s instructions. Gene expression quantification was performed using feature Counts from the Subread package (v1.5.3), and comprehensive quality control reports were generated using MultiQC (v1.25.1). To further corroborate the differential expression of hub genes associated with oocyte aging identified in our preliminary analysis, quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) was performed for four selected hub genes (MYL4, POMZP3, and LINC002087). Results Of top 10 significantly differently expressed genes 7 (LINC02087, POMZP3, LINC02749, MYL4, AGPAT2, GCA, and LIMK1) were downregulated and 3 (CLEC3A, ARPP21, and CITED2) showed significant upregulation in young versus old oocytes. These genes underscore the impact of aging on critical oocyte pathways, including chromosomal stability, epigenetic regulation, mitochondrial function, immune response, structural integrity, and calcium signaling. Moreover, among these genes, LINC02087 was the most downregulated (log2FC = -7.66), while CITED2 showed the strongest upregulation (log2FC = 3.43) in young versus old oocytes. Following the RNA extraction of pooled GV oocytes of 8 elderly and 9 young donors’ GV oocytes. We observed significant differences in gene expression levels between the two age groups, in line with the single-cell RNASeq. Conclusion Understanding the effects of aging on the oocyte transcriptome could identify biomarkers that characterize good MII oocyte quality. The different genes expressions in aged oocytes highlight their potential contributions to oocyte quality and development. Moreover, by elucidating age-related changes across diverse cellular functions, this preliminary study opens avenues for therapeutic interventions aimed at extending reproductive longevity and optimizing outcomes in assisted reproductive technologies.

An essential aspect of motor learning is generalizing procedural knowledge to facilitate skill acquisition across diverse conditions. Here, we examined the development of generalized motor learning during initial practice-dependent learning, and how distinct components of learning are consolidated over longer timescales during wakefulness or sleep. In the first experiment, a group of young healthy volunteers engaged in a novel motor sequence task over 36 h in a two-arm experimental design (either morning-evening-morning, or evening-morning-evening) aimed at controlling for circadian confounders. The findings unveiled an immediate, rapid generalization of sequential learning, accompanied by an additional long-timescale performance gain. Sleep modulated accuracy, but not speed, above and beyond equivalent wake intervals. To further elucidate the role of sleep across ages and under neurodegenerative disorders, a second experiment utilized the same task in a group of early-stage, drug-naïve individuals with Parkinson’s disease and in healthy individuals of comparable age. Participants with Parkinson’s disease exhibited comparable performance to their healthy age-matched group with the exception of reduced performance in recalling motor sequences, revealing a disease-related cognitive shortfall. In line with the results found in young subjects, both groups exhibited improved accuracy, but not speed, following a night of sleep. This result emphasizes the role of sleep in skill acquisition and provides a potential framework for deeper investigation of the intricate relationship between sleep, aging, Parkinson’s disease, and motor learning.