Effect of the essential oil of Rosmarinus officinalis (L.) on rooster sperm motility during 4°C short-term storage

Aim : This study aimed to investigate the protective effect of Rosmarinus officinalis (L.) essential oil on rooster sperm motility during 4°C short-term storage. Materials and Methods : R. officinalis essential oil was analyzed using gas chromato graphy coupled to mass spectrometry to identify the active components. 10 of 45-week-old Hubbard commercial broilers were subjected to biweekly semen collections during 3 weeks. At each collection, sperm was pooled and divided into four aliquots and then diluted with Tris extender supplemented with 870, 87, or 8.7 μg/ml of R. officinalis essential oil, identified as treatments R, R5, and R10, respectively. Tris-based extender without any supplementation was considered as a control group. Diluted sperm was then stored at 4°C in the refrigerator and analyzed at 0, 6, 24, and 48 h using a computer-assisted sperm analyzer. Different semen parameters were measured including total motility, progressive motility, gametes velocities (straight line velocity [VSL], curvilinear velocity [VCL], and average path velocity [VAP]), amplitude of the lateral head displacement [ALH], and beat- cross frequency [BCF]. Results : The phytochemical analysis of R. officinalis essential oil revealed the presence of 25 active components including seven major molecules: Camphor (18.88%), camphene (5.17%), 1,8-cineole (7.85%), β-thujene (13.66%), α-thujene (4.87%), chrysanthenone (12.05%), and β-cubenene (7.97%). The results showed a beneficial effect of R. officinalis essential oil on sperm cells motility, particularly when using the lowest concentrations, 8.7 and 87 μg/ml. Progressive motility and gametes velocities (VCL, VSL, and VAP), materializing the quality of gametes motility, showed highly statistically significant values (p<0.01) in 8.7 and 87 μg/ml treatments, especially from 6 h of storage at 4°C. Conversely, the highest concentration (870 μg/ml) showed harmful effects with a total spermicidal activity after 24 h of storage. Conclusion : The current results revealed the positive impact of R. officinalis essential oil on rooster sperm at 4°C short-term storage probably through fighting against oxidative stress and cold shock damages

ATRACO: Adaptive and Trusted Ambient Ecologies

ATRACO is an EU funded R&D project that considers ambient ecologies consisting of people, context-aware artefacts and digital commodities(e.g., services and content). Members of the ecology are able to adapt to each other and form trusted ad hoc collaborations to achieve specific tasks resulting from the need to serve specific human goals. Our aim is to research the factors and develop the technologies that will lead to the realisation of such ecologies, following an interdisciplinary effort which involves Computer Science, HCI, AI, Control Theory and Sociology. Key factors of the ATRACO problem space to be examined include adaptation, interoperability, user interaction and dynamicity of trust. We focus our efforts on seeking abstractions and mechanisms for establishing trust relationships between its members and on devising adaptation mechanisms based on system behaviour modelling, supervisory control theory of discrete event systems and type-2 fuzzy systems. © 2008 IEEE

A pervasive system architecture that supports adaptation using agents and ontologies

In the context of the EU funded R&D project ATRACO we are developing a conceptual framework and a system architecture that will support the realization of adaptive and trusted ambient intelligent systems. Our approach is based on a number of well established engineering principles, such as the distribution of control and the separation of service interfaces from the service implementation, adopting a SOA model combined with intelligent agents and ontologies. Agents support adaptive task realization and enhanced humanmachine interaction while ontologies provide knowledge representation, management of heterogeneity, semantically rich resource discovery and adaptation. ATRACO systems are dynamic compositions of distributed, loosely-coupled and highly cohesive components that operate in dynamic environments. © 2009 IEEE

Gesture in Human-Machine Communication: capture, analysis-synthesis, recognition, semantics

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Multidimensional pervasive adaptation into ambient intelligent environments

In this paper we describe the ATRACO (Adaptive and TRusted Ambient eCOlogies) approach towards next generation ambient intelligent environments. Several agents, such as a Fuzzy Task Agent with learning capabilities and an Interaction Agent collaborate in a goal-related Activity Sphere and adapt heterogeneous artifacts within the sphere in order to support the user to fulfill tasks. All components work on a dynamic Sphere Ontology, which forms the main knowledge base of the ecology. The presented prototype is able to realize the Goal "Feel comfortable at home after work" and was implemented in an existing intelligent environment. © 2009 IEEE