Validation of a method for measuring sperm quality and quantity in reproductive toxicity tests with pair-breeding male fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas)

This article originally appeared in the ILAR e-Journal. It is reprinted with permission from the ILAR Journal, Institute for Laboratory Animal Research, National Research Council, Washington DC (www.nationalacademies.org/ilar).The fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas) is an OECD-proposed test species routinely used in reproductive toxicity trials with suspected endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs). The basic fecundity, endocrinology, and histopathology of reproductively active male and female fathead minnows has been well characterized, but there are few studies of the utility of male sperm concentration and motility as endpoints for use in reproductive trials. The purpose of this study was to (1) characterize the baseline sperm concentration and motility of pair-breeding male fathead minnows over their spawning cycle and (2) determine whether a repeated and nondestructive sperm sampling protocol would influence the baseline fecundity of the fish. Pair-breeding male fathead minnows that underwent sampling for milt three times a week for 4 weeks exhibited no significant changes in milt volume, sperm concentration, or motility parameters up to 6 days after each spawning event. The repeated sperm sampling procedure did, however, cause a significant lowering of spawning frequencies, although this decline did not correlate with effects on fecundity as there were no significant changes in the mean total numbers of eggs laid, fertilization, and hatching successes. This study confirmed the presence of a stable background of sperm concentration and motility parameters of pair-breeding male fathead minnows under reference conditions. The absence of any inherent “cycling” in the magnitude of these parameters over the spawning period suggests that sperm concentration and motility could be useful measures of male reproductive toxicity at the termination of tests in which pair-breeding males are at varying days post spawn.The research described was funded by the EU project Comparative Research on Endocrine Disrupters (COMPRENDO) Institute of Zoology Regents Park, London, contract No. EVK1-CT-2002-00129E

Experimental Implementation of Adaptive-Critic Based Infinite Time Optimal Neurocontrol for a Heat Diffusion System

Recently the synthesis methodology for the infinite time optimal neuro-controllers for PDE systems in the framework of adaptive-critic design has been developed. In this paper, first we model an experimental setup representing one dimensional heat diffusion problems. Then we synthesize and implement an adaptive-critic based neuro-controller for online temperature profile control of the experimental setup

Physical Electronics and Surface Physics

Contains reports on one research project.Joint Services Electronics Program (Contract DAAB07-74-C-0630

Low-Temperature Growth of High Resistivity GaAs by Photoassisted Metalorganic Chemical Vapor Deposition

We report the photoassisted low‐temperature (LT) metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) of high resistivity GaAs. The undoped as‐grown GaAs exhibits a resistivity of ∼106 Ω cm, which is the highest reported for undoped material grown in the MOCVD environment. Photoassisted growth of doped and undoped device quality GaAs has been achieved at a substrate temperature of 400 °C in a modified atmospheric pressure MOCVD reactor. By using silane as a dopant gas, the LT photoassisted doped films have high levels of doping and electron mobilities comparable to those achieved by MOCVD for growth temperatures, Tg≳600 °C

GPS測位誤差と地震発生との関連解析

修士論

Electron scattering due to dislocation wall strain field in GaN layers

The effect of edge-type dislocation wall strain field on the Hall mobility in n-type epitaxial GaN was theoretically investigated through deformation potential within the relaxation time approach. It was found that this channel of scattering can play a considerable role in the low-temperature transport at the certain set of the model parameters. The low temperature experimental data were fitted by including this mechanism of scattering along with ionized impurities and charge dislocation ones