Effects of highly active antiretroviral therapy on semen parameters of a cohort of 770 HIV-1 infected men

Background HIV-1 infected patients show impaired semen parameters. Currently, it is not clear whether HIV-1 infection itself or antiretroviral therapy have an effect on semen parameters. We aim evaluate semen quality in a large cohort of fertile HIV-1 infected men under stable highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and to assess the effect of HAART type and duration on semen parameters. Materials and methods Between January 2010 and June 2014, we enrolled in a retrospective case-control study 770 HIV-1 patients under stable HAART asking a reproductive counselling with their HIV negative partner. Co-infections with HBV or HCV, genital tract infections and known causes of infertility represented exclusion criteria. Semen samples were analysed and compared with the WHO reference values. A multivariate analysis including HAART type and duration, age, viral load and CD4 count, was performed on 600 patients out of 770. Results The median values of all semen parameters were significantly lower among HIV-1 infected patients compared to the WHO reference group, with a significant proportion of patients having values below the 5th percentile of the WHO reference value. In a multivariate analysis, only age and viral load negatively impacted progressive motility (\u3b2 -0.3 (95% CI: -0.5; -0.0) %, p<0.05) and semen morphology (\u3b2 -0.00 (95% CI: -0.00; -0.00) %, p0.01), while no associations were detected as regards HAART type and duration. Conclusions HIV-1 infected patients showed a significant impairment of semen parameters compared to the reference values. HAART type and duration showed no associations with semen quality. Further research is needed to investigate implications for clinical care of HIV infected men desiring a child

Testing the usefulness of the surface collecting method in a vertebrate microfossil site from the barremian of Spain (Los Menires, Mirambel formation)

Surface collecting is the first and sometimes the only type of sampling carried out in many fossiliferous localities, including vertebrate microfossil assemblages. Nevertheless, it is rare to test how representative these surface-collected samples are of the palaeobiocoenosis. A first approach to the palaeontological analysis of Los Menires, a Barremian vertebrate microfossil assemblage, is here performed while testing the usefulness of the surface collection method. New fossil material obtained by surface collection is described, and the resulting data are compared with those obtained by screen-washing. The fossil assemblage of Los Menires is dominated by parautochthonous remains of freshwater aquatic and semiaquatic organisms—i.e., charophytes, ostracods, bivalves, gastropods, testudinatans, crocodylomorphs, lissamphibians, and osteichthyans—although parautochthonous remains of terrestrial vertebrates—i.e., dinosaurs, lacertilians, and mammaliforms—are also present. The accumulation of vertebrate hard parts in Los Menires took place in a low-energy, shallow-water, depositional environment within the alluvial-lacustrine system represented by the Mirambel Formation. Sampling test results indicate that surface collection is effective in recognizing the main fossil groups present in an assemblage. Yet, it is not suitable for capturing delicate and tiny fossils nor for recognizing the abundance of eggshells. In contrast, it can generate an overrepresentation of other hard components such as coprolites or ornithopod teeth

Profile and reproductive roles of seminal plasma melatonin of boar ejaculates used in artificial insemination programs

Melatonin (MLT) is present in seminal plasma (SP) of mammalian species, including pigs, and it is credited with antioxidant properties. This study aims to identify the sources of variation and the role of boar SP MLT on sperm quality and functionality and in vivo fertilizing ability of liquid-stored semen doses used in AI programs. The SP MLT was measured using an ELISA kit in a total of 219 ejaculates collected from 76 boars, and reproductive records of 5,318 AI sows were recorded. Sperm quality was assessed according to motility (computer-aided sperm analysis) and viability (cytometry evaluation). Sperm functionality was assessed according to the cytometric determination of intracellular H2O2 generation, total and mitochondrial O2- production, and lipid peroxidation in liquid AI semen samples stored at 17°C over 144 h. The concentration of SP MLT differed among seasons (P < 0.01) and day length periods (P < 0.001) of the year, demonstrating that the ejaculates collected during the increasing day length period (9.80 ± 1.38 pg/mL, range: 2.75–21.94) had lower SP MLT concentrations than those collected during the decreasing day length period (16.32 ± 1.67 pg/mL, range: 5.02–35.61). The SP MLT also differed (P < 0.001) among boars, among ejaculates within boar, and among portions within the ejaculate, demonstrating that SP from the first 10 mL of sperm-rich ejaculate fraction (SRF) exhibited lower MLT concentrations than post-SRF. The SP MLT was negatively related (P < 0.001) to mitochondrial O2- production in viable sperm. The SP MLT did not differ among AI boars (n = 14) hierarchically grouped according to high and low fertility outcomes. In conclusion, SP MLT concentration in AI boars varies depending on the season of ejaculate collection and differs among boars, ejaculates within boar, and portions within ejaculate. The SP MLT may act at the mitochondrial level of sperm by reducing the generation of O2-. However, this antioxidant role of SP MLT was not reflected in sperm quality or in vivo fertility outcomes of AI semen doses

Watermarking strategies for IP protection of micro-processor cores

L. Parrilla, E. Castillo, U. Meyer-Bäse, A. García, D. González, E. Todorovich, E. Boemo, A. Lloris, "Watermarking strategies for IP protection of micro-processor cores", Proceedings of SPIE 7703, Independent Component Analyses, Wavelets, Neural Networks, Biosystems, and Nanoengineering VIII, 77030L (2010). Copyright 2010 Society of Photo‑Optical Instrumentation Engineers. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic reproduction and distribution, duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modification of the content of the paper are prohibited.Reuse-based design has emerged as one of the most important methodologies for integrated circuit design, with reusable Intellectual Property (IP) cores enabling the optimization of company resources due to reduced development time and costs. This is of special interest in the Field-Programmable Logic (FPL) domain, which mainly relies on automatic synthesis tools. However, this design methodology has brought to light the intellectual property protection (IPP) of those modules, with most forms of protection in the EDA industry being difficult to translate to this domain. However, IP core watermarking has emerged as a tool for IP core protection. Although watermarks may be inserted at different levels of the design flow, watermarking Hardware Description Language (HDL) descriptions has been proved to be a robust and secure option. In this paper, a new framework for the protection of μP cores is presented. The protection scheme is derived from the IPP@HDL procedure and it has been adapted to the singularities of μP cores, overcoming the problems for the digital signature extraction in such systems. Additionally, the feature of hardware activation has been introduced, allowing the distribution of μP cores in a "demo" mode and a later activation that can be easily performed by the customer executing a simple program. Application examples show that the additional hardware introduced for protection and/or activation has no effect over the performance, and showing an assumable area increase.This work was partially funded by project TEC2007-68074-C02-01/MIC (Plan Nacional I+D+I, Spain). CAD tools and supporting material were provided by Altera Corp. trough University Program agreements. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsors

Sports, morality and body: the voices of sportswomen under Franco's dictatorship

The aim of this research is to study sportswomen’s perceptions and experiences of women’s sport in Francoist Spain (1939–1975). The main objective is to analyse the social, moral and aesthetic elements that are present in the experience of these athletes. This study was carried out with an intentional sample of 24 women from Andalusia, Aragon, Asturias, Basque Country, Catalonia and Valencia. They were interviewed by a network of researchers from six universities. Outstanding results show the existence of social limitations to start sports practice (particularly in the post-war period); the importance of sport as a character-building aspect; sport’s remarkable influence on their body self-concept; and the incidence on sports of the mainstream moral discourse, which created a female model that even affected sports clothing. The main conclusion is that sportswomen in that period were pioneers and had to fight against most of society in order to develop their facet as athletes, as they would not follow the established model

Caso clínico de Reproducción

Se presentó en el Hospital Clínico Veterinario de la Universidad de Murcia un perro West Highland Terrier, 9 kg de peso y 7 años de edad, con un historial previo de dermatitis alérgica a pulgas, otitis y cistitis recurrentes. El propietario informa que dos meses antes el animal fue empleado para realizar varias inseminaciones artificiales sin éxito, pese a haber tenido descendencia hace unos años. El dueño nos insiste en que desearía obtener una camada de él cuando la perra vuelva a entrar en celo. En el examen físico no se observó ninguna alteración evidente. La exploración rectal de la próstata no demostró dolor, asimetría ni incremento del tamaño de la glándula. Los resultados de las analíticas sanguíneas y bioquímica séricas estaban dentro de los rangos normales. En el examen ecográfico abdominal se observó una próstata de bordes irregulares y ligeramente disminuida de tamaño (Fig. 1). La ecotextura era heterogénea (Fig. 2). A nivel de la vejiga se observaba ecográficamente que las paredes estaban engrosadas y la presencia de sedimento ecogénico en suspensión, realizándose una cistocentesis ecoguiada. El análisis de orina no reveló proteinuria ni alteraciones de la gravedad específica ni del pH. En el sedimento se observó una ligera hematuria y presencia de neutrófilos degenerados. En base a todo lo descrito previamente se diagnostica un cuadro de prostatitis crónica, siendo instaurado un tratamiento médico que permite la obtención de una camada de 3 cachorros 4 meses más tarde

The battle of the sexes starts in the oviduct: modulation of oviductal transcriptome by X and Y-bearing spermatozoa

BACKGROUND:Sex allocation of offspring in mammals is usually considered as a matter of chance, being dependent on whether an X- or a Y-chromosome-bearing spermatozoon reaches the oocyte first. Here we investigated the alternative possibility, namely that the oviducts can recognise X- and Y- spermatozoa, and may thus be able to bias the offspring sex ratio. RESULTS:By introducing X- or Y-sperm populations into the two separate oviducts of single female pigs using bilateral laparoscopic insemination we found that the spermatozoa did indeed elicit sex-specific transcriptomic responses. Microarray analysis revealed that 501 were consistently altered (P-value <0.05) in the oviduct in the presence of Y-chromosome-bearing spermatozoa compared to the presence of X-chromosome-bearing spermatozoa. From these 501 transcripts, 271 transcripts (54.1%) were down-regulated and 230 transcripts (45.9%) were up-regulated when the Y- chromosome-bearing spermatozoa was present in the oviduct. Our data showed that local immune responses specific to each sperm type were elicited within the oviduct. In addition, either type of spermatozoa elicits sex-specific signal transduction signalling by oviductal cells. CONCLUSIONS:Our data suggest that the oviduct functions as a biological sensor that screens the spermatozoon, and then responds by modifying the oviductal environment. We hypothesize that there might exist a gender biasing mechanism controlled by the female