Serum estradiol level on the day of ovulation trigger and pregnancy outcomes in in-vitro fertilisation-intracytoplasmic sperm injection cycles

Background: There is conflicting evidence with regards to the impact of supraphysiologic estradiol levels in in-vitro fertilisation-intracytoplasmic sperm injection (IVF-ICSI) cycles on pregnancy outcomes such as oocyte quality, implantation, and clinical pregnancy. The objective of our study was to evaluate the effect of serum estradiol levels on the day of ovulation trigger on pregnancy outcomes in IVF-ICSI cycles.Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study, which included eighty-three women who underwent IVF-ICSI and experienced fresh embryo transfer (ET) over one year period. The women included in the study were divided into four groups according to the serum estradiol level on the day of ovulation trigger; Group I: 4000pg/ml. The outcome measures including number of oocytes retrieved, MII (metaphase II) oocytes, fertilization rate, embryo quality, overall pregnancy rate, implantation rate and clinical pregnancy rate were compared among these four groups.Results: The total number of oocytes, MII oocytes as well as good quality embryos significantly increased from group 1 to group 4. The implantation rate was lowest in group 4 compared to all other groups, although not statistically significant. There was no significant difference in overall and clinical pregnancy rate between the groups.Conclusions: Serum estradiol level shows a positive correlation with the number of oocytes retrieved and good quality embryos. A higher estradiol level does not have a significant negative impact on the implantation rate, overall or clinical pregnancy rate

Emission Spectra of Fallback Disks Around Young Neutron Stars

The nature of the energy source powering anomalous X-ray pulsars is uncertain. Proposed scenarios involve either an ultramagnetized neutron star, or accretion onto a neutron star. We consider the accretion model proposed recently by Chatterjee, Hernquist & Narayan, in which a disk is fed by fallback material following a supernova. We compute the optical, infrared, and submillimeter emission expected from such a disk, including both viscous dissipation and reradiation of X-ray flux impinging on the disk from the pulsar. We find that it is possible with current instruments to put serious constraints on this and on other accretion models of AXPs. Fallback disks could also be found around isolated radio pulsars and we compute the corresponding spectra. We show that the excess emission in the R and I bands observed for the pulsar PSR 0656+14 is broadly consistent with emission from a disk.Comment: 12 pages, 1 table, 4 figures, submitted to Ap

van der Woude syndrome- a syndromic form of orofacial clefting

van der Woude Syndrome is the most common form of syndromic orofacial clefting, accounting for 2% of all cases, and has the phenotype that most closely resembles the more common non-syndromic forms. The syndrome has an autosomal dominant hereditary pattern with variable expressivity and a high degree of penetrance with cardinal clinical features of lip pits with a cleft lip, cleft palate, or both. This case report describes van der Woude syndrome in a 19 year old male patient with a specifi c reference to the various aspects of this condition, as clinical appearance, etiological factors (genetic aspects), differential diagnosis, investigative procedures and management

Superfluid, Mott-Insulator, and Mass-Density-Wave Phases in the One-Dimensional Extended Bose-Hubbard Model

We use the finite-size density-matrix-renormalization-group (FSDMRG) method to obtain the phase diagram of the one-dimensional ($d = 1$) extended Bose-Hubbard model for density $\rho = 1$ in the $U-V$ plane, where $U$ and $V$ are, respectively, onsite and nearest-neighbor interactions. The phase diagram comprises three phases: Superfluid (SF), Mott Insulator (MI) and Mass Density Wave (MDW). For small values of $U$ and $V$, we get a reentrant SF-MI-SF phase transition. For intermediate values of interactions the SF phase is sandwiched between MI and MDW phases with continuous SF-MI and SF-MDW transitions. We show, by a detailed finite-size scaling analysis, that the MI-SF transition is of Kosterlitz-Thouless (KT) type whereas the MDW-SF transition has both KT and two-dimensional-Ising characters. For large values of $U$ and $V$ we get a direct, first-order, MI-MDW transition. The MI-SF, MDW-SF and MI-MDW phase boundaries join at a bicritical point at ($U, V) = (8.5 \pm 0.05, 4.75 \pm 0.05)$.Comment: 10 pages, 15 figure

4-(4-Bromo­phen­yl)-6-(1H-indol-3-yl)-2,2′-bipyridine-5-carbonitrile

In the title compound, C25H15BrN4, the two pyridine rings lie in a common plane [r.m.s. deviation = 0.023 (2) Å], whereas the bromo­phenyl and indole rings are twisted away from this plane by 52.82 (12) and 28.02 (10)°, respectively. The crystal structure is stabilized by inter­molecular N—H⋯N inter­actions

Gravitational-radiation losses from the pulsar-white-dwarf binary PSR J1141-6545

Pulsars in close binary orbit around another neutron star or a massive white dwarf make ideal laboratories for testing the predictions of gravitational radiation and self-gravitational effects. We report new timing measurements of the pulsar-white-dwarf binary PSR J1141-6545, providing strong evidence that such asymmetric systems have gravitational wave losses that are consistent with general relativity. The orbit is found to be decaying at a rate of $1.04\pm0.06$ times the general relativistic prediction and the Shapiro delay is consistent with the orbital inclination angle derived from scintillation measurements. The system provides a unique test-bed for tensor-scalar theories of gravity; our current measurements place stringent constraints in the theory space, with a limit of $\alpha_0^2 < 2.1 \times 10^{-5}$ for weakly non-linear coupling and an asymptotic limit of $\alpha_0^2 < 3.4 \times 10^{-6}$ for strongly non-linear coupling, where $\alpha_0$ is the linear coupling strength of matter to an underlying scalar field. This asymptotic limit is nearly three times smaller than the Cassini bound ($\alpha_0^2 \approx 10^{-5}$).Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, To Appear in Physical Review

Differentiation of primate primordial germ cell-like cells following transplantation into the adult gonadal niche.

A major challenge in stem cell differentiation is the availability of bioassays to prove cell types generated in vitro are equivalent to cells in vivo. In the mouse, differentiation of primordial germ cell-like cells (PGCLCs) from pluripotent cells was validated by transplantation, leading to the generation of spermatogenesis and to the birth of offspring. Here we report the use of xenotransplantation (monkey to mouse) and homologous transplantation (monkey to monkey) to validate our in vitro protocol for differentiating male rhesus (r) macaque PGCLCs (rPGCLCs) from induced pluripotent stem cells (riPSCs). Specifically, transplantation of aggregates containing rPGCLCs into mouse and nonhuman primate testicles overcomes a major bottleneck in rPGCLC differentiation. These findings suggest that immature rPGCLCs once transplanted into an adult gonadal niche commit to differentiate towards late rPGCs that initiate epigenetic reprogramming but do not complete the conversion into ENO2-positive spermatogonia

Convective heat transfer in airflow through a duct with wall thermal radiation

This paper presents a numerical investigation on airflow through a heated horizontal rectangular duct wherein the model considers the combined modes of natural and forced convection heat transfer and the thermal radiation from duct walls. The duct periphery is differentially heated with known temperature profiles imposed on the two opposite vertical sidewalls while the other two walls are treated as adiabatic. The air enters into the duct hydrodynamically fully developed and flows steadily under laminar conditions undergoing thermal development within the duct. Considering several temperature profiles on the two vertical sidewalls, the numerical simulation generates the heat transfer rates and associated fluid flow patterns in the duct for a range of airflow rates, duct aspect ratios and surface emissivity. The variation of local Nusselt number at duct walls and the fluid flow patterns are critically examined to identify thermal instabilities and the significance of wall thermal radiation effects on the overall heat transfer rates

3′-Benz­yloxy-3-hydr­oxy-3,3′-bi-1H-indole-2,2′(3H,3′H)-dione monohydrate

In the title compound, C23H18N2O4·H2O, the two oxindole rings subtend a dihedral angle of 54.29 (5)°. The crystal structure is stabilized by intermolecular N—H⋯O, O—H⋯O and C—H⋯π inter­actions