Infection and Infertility

Infection is a multifactorial process, which can be induced by a virus, bacterium, or parasite. It may cause many diseases, including obesity, cancer, and infertility. In this chapter, we focus our attention on the association of infection and fertility alteration. Numerous studies have suggested that genetic polymorphisms influencing infection are associated with infertility. So we also review the genetic influence on infection and risk of infertility

FVIFormer: flow-guided global-local aggregation transformer network for video inpainting

Video inpainting has been extensively used in recent years. Established works usually utilise the similarity between the missing region and its surrounding features to inpaint in the visually damaged content in a multi-stage manner. However, due to the complexity of the video content, it may result in the destruction of structural information of objects within the video. In addition to this, the presence of moving objects in the damaged regions of the video can further increase the difficulty of this work. To address these issues, we propose a flow-guided global-Local aggregation Transformer network for video inpainting. First, we use a pre-trained optical flow complementation network to repair the defective optical flow of video frames. Then, we propose a content inpainting module, which use the complete optical flow as a guide, and propagate the global content across the video frames using efficient temporal and spacial Transformer to inpaint in the corrupted regions of the video. Finally, we propose a structural rectification module to enhance the coherence of content around the missing regions via combining the extracted local and global features. In addition, considering the efficiency of the overall framework, we also optimized the self-attention mechanism to improve the speed of training and testing via depth-wise separable encoding. We validate the effectiveness of our method on the YouTube-VOS and DAVIS video datasets. Extensive experiment results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in edge-complementing video content that has undergone stabilisation algorithms

Metabonomic analysis of follicular fluid in patients with diminished ovarian reserve

BackgroundOvarian reserve is an important factor determining female reproductive potential. The number and quality of oocytes in patients with diminished ovarian reserve (DOR) are reduced, and even if in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer (IVF-ET) is used to assist their pregnancy, the clinical pregnancy rate and live birth rate are still low. Infertility caused by reduced ovarian reserve is still one of the most difficult clinical problems in the field of reproduction. Follicular fluid is the microenvironment for oocyte survival, and the metabolic characteristics of follicular fluid can be obtained by metabolomics technology. By analyzing the metabolic status of follicular fluid, we hope to find the metabolic factors that affect the quality of oocytes and find new diagnostic markers to provide clues for early detection and intervention of patients with DOR.MethodsIn this research, 26 infertile women with DOR and 28 volunteers with normal ovarian reserve receiving IVF/ET were recruited, and their follicular fluid samples were collected for a nontargeted metabonomic study. The orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis model was used to understand the separation trend of the two groups, KEGG was used to analyze the possible metabolic pathways involved in differential metabolites, and the random forest algorithm was used to establish the diagnostic model.Results12 upregulated and 32 downregulated differential metabolites were detected by metabolic analysis, mainly including amino acids, indoles, nucleosides, organic acids, steroids, phospholipids, fatty acyls, and organic oxygen compounds. Through KEGG analysis, these metabolites were mainly involved in aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis, tryptophan metabolism, pantothenate and CoA biosynthesis, and purine metabolism. The AUC value of the diagnostic model based on the top 10 metabolites was 0.9936.ConclusionThe follicular fluid of patients with DOR shows unique metabolic characteristics. These data can provide us with rich biochemical information and a research basis for exploring the pathogenesis of DOR and predicting ovarian reserve function

FGF, Mechanism of Action, Role in Parkinson’s Disease, and Therapeutics

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease associated with severe disability and adverse effects on life quality. In PD, motor dysfunction can occur, such as quiescence, muscle stiffness, and postural instability. PD is also associated with autonomic nervous dysfunction, sleep disorders, psychiatric symptoms, and other non-motor symptoms. Degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra compact (SNPC), Lewy body, and neuroinflammation are the main pathological features of PD. The death or dysfunction of dopaminergic neurons in the dense part of the substantia nigra leads to dopamine deficiency in the basal ganglia and motor dysfunction. The formation of the Lewy body is associated with the misfolding of α-synuclein, which becomes insoluble and abnormally aggregated. Astrocytes and microglia mainly cause neuroinflammation, and the activation of a variety of pro-inflammatory transcription factors and regulatory proteins leads to the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons. At present, PD is mainly treated with drugs that increase dopamine concentration or directly stimulate dopamine receptors. Fibroblast growth factor (FGF) is a family of cellular signaling proteins strongly associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as PD. FGF and its receptor (FGFR) play an essential role in the development and maintenance of the nervous system as well as in neuroinflammation and have been shown to improve the survival rate of dopaminergic neurons. This paper summarized the mechanism of FGF and its receptors in the pathological process of PD and related signaling pathways, involving the development and protection of dopaminergic neurons in SNPC, α-synuclein aggregation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and neuroinflammation. It provides a reference for developing drugs to slow down or prevent the potential of PD

Molecular Doping Inhibits Charge Trapping in Low-Temperature-Processed ZnO toward Flexible Organic Solar Cells

There has been a growing interest in the development of efficient flexible organic solar cells (OSCs) due to their unique capacity to provide energy sources for flexible electronics. To this end, it is required to design a compatible interlayer with low processing temperature and high electronic quality. In this work, we present that the electronic quality of the ZnO interlayer fabricated from a low-temperature (130 °C) sol–gel method can be significantly improved by doping an organic small molecule, TPT-S. The doped TPT-S, on the one hand, passivates uncoordinated Zn-related defects by forming N–Zn bonds. On the other hand, photoinduced charge transfer from TPT-S to ZnO is confirmed, which further fills up electron-deficient trap states. This renders ZnO improved electron transport capability and reduced charge recombination. By illuminating devices with square light pulses of varying intensities, we also reveal that an unfavorable charge trapping/detrapping process observed in low-temperature-processed devices is significantly inhibited after TPT-S doping. OSCs based on PBDB-T-2F:IT-4F with ZnO:TPT-S being the cathode interlayer yield efficiencies of 12.62 and 11.33% on rigid and flexible substrates, respectively. These observations convey the practicality of such hybrid ZnO in high-performance flexible devices

Activation Mode Effects on the Shear Bond Strength of Dual-cured Resin Cements

Objectives: This study evaluated the immediate (10-minute) and delayed (24-hour) bond strength of dual-cured resin cements that are light-activated either immediately or delayed (after five minutes) or chemically-activated only. Materials and Methods: Three dual-cured resin cements were evaluated: RelyX ARC, Panavia F and Enforce. Cylinders of resin cement were built up over resin composite blocks following the manufacturers’ instructions for each luting agent. The cements were mixed, inserted into the molds and light-activated either immediately or after five minutes (delayed light activation). When no light activation was performed, the materials were protected from light exposure until testing. Half of the samples were tested at 10 minutes; the remaining samples were stored at 100% relative humidity for 4 hours when they were then test ed (n=10). Data were submitted to three-way ANOVA and post-hoc Tukey’s tests (α=0.05). The failure mode was evaluated under SEM. Results: RelyX ARC presented the highest values of shear bond strength, followed by Enforce. Panavia F showed the lowest values. Both immediate and delayed light activation caused the cements to present the highest means of shear bond strength. There was an improvement in bond strength after 24 hours of storage. Conclusions: RelyX ARC produced the highest bond strength, which was improved by light activation and storage for 24 hours

Satellite testing of a gravitationally induced quantum decoherence model

Quantum mechanics and the general theory of relativity are two pillars of modern physics. However, a coherent unified framework of the two theories still remains an open problem. Attempts to quantize general relativity have led to many rival models of quantum gravity, which, however, generally lack experimental foundations. We report a quantum optical experimental test of event formalism of quantum fields, a theory which attempts to present a coherent description of quantum fields in exotic spacetimes containing closed timelike curves and ordinary spacetime. We experimentally test a prediction of the theory with the quantum satellite Micius that a pair of time-energy entangled particles probabilistically decorrelate passing through different regions of the gravitational potential of Earth. Our measurement results are consistent with the standard quantum theory and hence do not support the prediction of event formalism

The chemistry of 2,3-unsaturated glycosyl cyanides

Carbohydrate research remains one of the most exciting endeavors in the field of organic chemistry. The importance of carbohydrates needs little elaboration. Quite literally, without glucose, cellulose, and starch, the necessities of life such as food, clothing, and shelter would be missing. In our laboratory, we have for some time been interested in one particular class of carbohydrate derivatives - the aldohexopyranosyl cyanides

The chemistry of 2,3-unsaturated glycosyl cyanides

Carbohydrate research remains one of the most exciting endeavors in the field of organic chemistry. The importance of carbohydrates needs little elaboration. Quite literally, without glucose, cellulose, and starch, the necessities of life such as food, clothing, and shelter would be missing. In our laboratory, we have for some time been interested in one particular class of carbohydrate derivatives - the aldohexopyranosyl cyanides

Progress in key technologies for evaluating marine shale gas development in China

The Lower Paleozoic Longmaxi and Qiongzhusi Formatiion shale plays were taken as research objects to summarize the geologic and reservoir characteristics of marine shale gas in China. Based on the theory and technology achievements made during the twelfth five-year plan, a key index system was established to evaluate shale gas well production effect in China, and a comprehensive classification was consequently presented by integrating geological statistical indexes and economic evaluation indexes; to characterize the complex fracture network formed by fracturing, a generalized analytical model was established by incorporating fractal and continuum geometry theory to capture the transient behavior of such fractured horizontal well throughout production life. An associated probabilistic analysis, based on the Monte Carlo simulation was presented by linking a probabilistic worksheet with the analytical model, and then used to determine a range of possible outcomes (i.e., EUR, decline rate and production time). Meanwhile, an optimization approach for development parameters, including fractured horizontal segment, fracture geometry (i.e., fracture length, conductivity, number), well spacing and drawdown management was advanced. There are still many unresolved problems on geologic theory, flow mechanism and productivity evaluation method, development technical policy and economic benefits, which limit large-scale and high-efficiency exploitation of shale gas resource in China. Key words: shale gas, reservoir characteristics, productivity evaluation, horizontal section length, fracture parameter, development well spacing, production syste