## 3 Results and Discussion
### Principal Component Analysis  
Across palm date types that were both untreated and treated with SDBD plasma, the relationships among the evaluated variables were evaluated using principal component analysis (PCA), as shown in Table 4. The six principal components exhibited eigenvalues higher than unity (Eigenvalue \(>\) 1) under untreated and treated with SDBD plasma of palm date types in this study. Since PC1 and PC2 have the greatest eigenvalues greater than unity and account for 54.29% and 53.08 of the total variance in all studied variables under untreated and treated palm dates with SDBD plasma, respectively, they were both retained for the final analysis. These findings confirm that the assessed variables were different between the two treatments and that the variability in treated varieties was higher than in untreated varieties by most PCs. As noticed in Table 2, the variance % by PC1 of the total variation of the studied variables in untreated types had more than in treated types, while the opposite is true for PC2. Based on the first two PCs, we can evaluate the association between the studied variables of the untreated and treated palm date types with SDBD plasma. PC1 and PC2 explained 31.00% and 21.00%, 60.27% and 17.11%, as well as 77.90% and 11.40% of the total variation of date palm fruit factors, respectively [77; 78; 79]. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Variables**} & \multicolumn{8}{c}{**Untreated**} & \multicolumn{8}{c}{**Treated**} \\ \cline{2-13}  & **PC1** & **PC2** & **PC3** & **PC4** & **PC5** & **PC6** & **PC1** & **PC2** & **PC3** & **PC4** & **PC5** & **PC6** \\ \hline Eigenvalues & 11.80 & 8.83 & 6.01 & 5.27 & 3.36 & 2.74 & 10.83 & 9.34 & 6.29 & 4.47 & 4.03 & 3.04 \\ Variance \% & 31.06 & 23.23 & 15.81 & 13.87 & 8.83 & 7.20 & 28.50 & 24.58 & 16.56 & 11.77 & 10.59 & 8.00 \\ Cumulative\% & 31.06 & 54.29 & 70.10 & 83.97 & 92.80 & 100.00 & 28.50 & 53.08 & 69.65 & 81.41 & 92.00 & 100.00 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 4: PCA results of the six PCs for the investigated variables under study for both untreated and treated palm date types using SDBD plasma. Figure 5: The effect of SDBD plasma on microelements (mg/Kg) of palm dates, (i) Fe, \(p\) value = 0.23, (ii) Mn, \(p\) value = 0.99, (iii) Zn, \(p\) value = 0.18, and (iv) Cu, \(p\) value = 0.07, lowercase letters a–g in the same column represent significance analysis; the different letters mean significant difference among various treatments at \(p\) < 0.05 level. The relationships among the analyzed variables under untreated (Figure 6) and treated (Figure 7) palm date varieties with SDBD plasma were depicted using a biplot created from the first two PCs. Out of 38 variables, 30 and 32 variables with PC1, as well as 21 and 19 variables with PC2, showed positive correlation under both untreated and treated palm date varieties, respectively. The highest positive correlations of factor loadings with PC1 were recorded for methionine (22), lysine (23) in both treatments, for ash % (1), total carbohydrates % (5), B1 (10), Fe (19), isoleucine (24), histidine (25), arginine (26), phenylalanine (28), leucine (29), and glycine (30) under untreated palm date types, and for Na (11), P (15), Mn (18), serine (20), glutamic acid (31), tyrosine (34), threonine (35) and antioxidant RSA % (38) under-treated palm date types. On the other hand, the PC2 has identified total protein % (3), total sugar % (4), Mg (12), Cu (16), alanine (27), and HMF (36) variables as well as total fat (2), B12 (6), B9 (7), B6 (8), isoleucine (24), histidine (25), arginine (26), and aspar acid (32) as possessing high positive correlations of factor loadings under untreated and treated palm date types, respectively. In the examined date palm cultivars, PC1 and PCA2 were positively associated with most quantitative and qualitative traits [77]. A variety of date palm fruit hydroxycinnamates and flavor flavonoids were discovered to correlate with PCA1 [80]. However, some of them did not.