Does the number of oocytes retrieved influence pregnancy after fresh embryo transfer?

BACKGROUND: The nature of the association between the number of oocytes retrieved and in vitro fertilization (IVF) outcomes after fresh embryo transfer remains unclear because of conflicting results reported in the studies on this subject. In addition, the influence of the quality of the embryos transferred is usually neglected. The objective of this study is to assess the relationships of the number of oocytes retrieved, the number and quality of embryos transferred, and the prospects of pregnancy after fresh embryo transfer. METHODS: The data on 3131 infertile women undergoing their first IVF treatment cycle between January 2009 and December 2010 were collected retrospectively. Restricted cubic splines and stratified analyses were used to explore the relationships between the number of oocytes retrieved, the number and quality of embryos transferred, and the IVF outcomes. RESULTS: When stratified by the number and quality of transferred embryos, no significant differences in the chances for clinical pregnancy and live birth were found in three groups of oocytes yielded (≤6, 7-14, or ≥15). The relationship between the number of oocytes retrieved and pregnancy is nearly a reflection of the pattern of the relationship between the number of oocytes retrieved and the probability of having two good-quality embryos transferred. The patients with the "optimal" number of oocytes were not only younger but also had the highest probability of having two good-quality embryos replaced. CONCLUSIONS: Similarly aged patients have similar pregnancy prospects after fresh embryo transfer when the same number and quality of embryos are replaced, irrespective of their number of oocytes. Selecting the desired number of good-quality embryos for transfer is the key to IVF success. Thus, aiming at retrieving an optimal number of oocytes to maximize IVF outcomes in a fresh cycle could place undue stress on the patients and may not be the best medical decision

Restricted cubic spline analysis of the functional form of the association between the number of oocytes retrieved and the IVF outcomes after fresh ET.

<p>A) Restricted cubic spline curve and 95% confidence levels between the number of oocytes retrieved and the log odds of clinical pregnancy; B) Restricted cubic spline curve and 95% confidence levels between the number of oocytes retrieved and the log odds of live birth; C) Proportion of having two good-quality embryos transferred by the number of oocytes retrieved; D) Proportion of patients younger than 35 years old by the number of oocytes retrieved.</p

Type-1 and Type-2 effective Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy models for decentralized control of multi-input-multi-output processes

tEffective model is a novel tool for decentralized controller design to handle the interconnected inter-actions in a multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) process. In this paper, Type-1 and Type-2 effectiveTakagi-Sugeno fuzzy models (ETSM) are investigated. By means of the loop pairing criterion, simple cal-culations are given to build Type-1/Type-2 ETSMs which are used to describe a group of non-interactingequivalent single-input-single-output (SISO) systems to represent an MIMO process, consequently thedecentralized controller design can be converted to multiple independent single-loop controller designs,and enjoy the well-developed linear control algorithms. The main contributions of this paper are: i)Compared to the existing T-S fuzzy model based decentralized control methods using extra terms tocharacterize interactions, ETSM is a simple feasible alternative; ii) Compared to the existing effectivemodel methods using linear transfer functions, ETSM can be carried out without requiring exact mathe-matical process functions, and lays a basis to develop robust controllers since fuzzy system is powerful tohandle uncertainties; iii) Type-1 and Type-2 ETSMs are presented under a unified framework to provideobjective comparisons. A nonlinear MIMO process is used to demonstrate the ETSMs’ superiority overthe effective transfer function (ETF) counterparts as well as the evident advantage of Type-2 ETSMs interms of robustness. A multi-evaporator refrigeration system is employed to validate the practicabilityof the proposed methods.Funding Agencies:National Research of Singapore School of Electrical &amp; Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University </p

Characteristics of the cohort (n = 3131).

<p>Characteristics of the cohort (n = 3131).</p

Unconditional and conditional logistic regression analysis of the number of oocytes retrieved.

1<p>Unconditional logistic regression model with only the number of oocytes retrieved included.</p>2<p>Conditional logistic regression model with the number of oocytes retrieved included, stratified by the number of good-quality embryos transferred and the number of embryos transferred.</p>3<p>Conditional logistic regression model with the number of oocytes included, stratified by the number of good-quality embryos transferred and the number of embryos transferred and maternal age (<35, ≥35).</p>a<p>p-value for testing overall effects of number of oocytes retrieved.</p

Attentional Keypoint Detection on Point Clouds for 3D Object Part Segmentation

In the field of computer vision, segmenting a 3D object into its component parts is crucial to understanding its structure and characteristics. Much work has focused on 3D object part segmentation directly from point clouds, and significant progress has been made in this area. This paper proposes a novel 3D object part segmentation method that focuses on integrating three key modules: a keypoint-aware module, a feature extension module, and an attention-aware module. Our approach starts by detecting keypoints, which provide the global feature of the inner shape that serves as the basis for segmentation. Subsequently, we utilize the feature extension module to expand the dimensions, obtain the local representation of the obtained features, provide richer object representation, and improve segmentation accuracy. Furthermore, we introduce an attention-aware module that effectively combines the features of the global and local parts of objects to enhance the segmentation process. To validate the proposed model, we also conduct experiments on the point cloud classification task. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our method, thus outperforming several state-of-the-art methods in 3D object part segmentation and classification