The use of sex-sorted semen in horses.

The application of sex-sorted semen in horses has historically lagged the bovine industry due to differences in the reproductive physiology and grater variability in equine semen quality. Recent advancements, including SuperGen™ sorters and Ultraplus™ semen processing methods developed by STgenetics® (Navasota, Texas), have significantly improved the efficiency of the sex-sorting process and reduced the sperm damage previously reported. To facilitate the broader use sex-sorted semen in the equine industry, it is essential to address challenges such as shipping cooled semen to a central sorting facility, minimizing oxidative stress and DNA fragmentation, and developing effective methods for short-term cooling or long-term cryopreservation of the sex-sorted sperm.

A comparative study across mule, equine and equine clone pregnancies regarding the determination of the day of birth.

Monitoring equine parturition effectively is essential for preemptive intervention in periparturient issues and ensuring the overall well-being of both mares and foals. However, its implementation in breeding farms is challenging due to variable gestational lengths and nocturnal births. Predictive techniques have the potential to streamline the monitoring process, reduce labor intensity, and minimize costs.

Successful equine in vitro embryo production by ICSI - effect of season, mares' age, breed, and phase of the estrous cycle on embryo production.

This retrospective study aimed at identifying factors that contribute to the success of equine in vitro embryo production by intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). A total of 7993 ovum pick-up (OPU) sessions were performed, totaling 2540 donor mares and semen from 396 stallions. Oocytes were aspirated at multiple sites in Brazil and were sent to the laboratory, within 6 h from OPU, in pre-maturation medium where they were in vitro matured (IVM) followed by ICSI and in vitro embryo culture for 7-8 days.

Salinity spatial patterns in Mediterranean coastal areas: The legacy of historical water infrastructures.

Mediterranean coastal areas have been occupied and developed intensively for a long time facing issues related to agricultural production, urbanization, tourism, preservation of natural resources often linked to salinity. This article explores the relationship between historical land planning and water management, and current soil and water salinity to gain insights into future projections. Soil samples (1185) were collected in a coastal plain of 114 km in the south of France and saturated paste extract Electrical Conductivity (EC) was deduced from 1:5 dilution.

Associated Factors with Breast Nurses Unplanned Interventions in Patients Treated for an Early Breast Cancer.

Background: The presence of a breast nurse is recommended to advise and guide early breast cancer patients before and during chemotherapy/radiation therapy, and at the end of planned treatments. Nevertheless, some patients will need extra guidance. Little is known about the predisposing factors for additional requests.

Recovery of Equine Oocytes in Ambulatory Practice and Potential Complications.

Field collection of oocytes in mares using transvaginal follicular aspiration (TVA) for embryo production has the potential to revolutionate the equine industry. Protocols for TVA in specialized laboratory settings have been described in the scientific literature since the early 1980s. The objective of this study was to determine the success rate of TVA oocytes recovery under ambulatory conditions.

Author Correction: Global karst springs hydrograph dataset for research and management of the world's fastest-flowing groundwater.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Global karst springs hydrograph dataset for research and management of the world's fastest-flowing groundwater.

Karst aquifers provide drinking water for 10% of the world's population, support agriculture, groundwater-dependent activities, and ecosystems. These aquifers are characterised by complex groundwater-flow systems, hence, they are extremely vulnerable and protecting them requires an in-depth understanding of the systems. Poor data accessibility has limited advances in karst research and realistic representation of karst processes in large-scale hydrological studies.

New software dedicated to virtual mazes for human cognitive investigations.

Background: Compared to previous neuropsychological investigations with standard paper-pen tests limited to test complex spatial learning and memory processes, 3-D virtual immersive technology might offer new tools for research purposes and for diagnosis in patients suffering from mild cognitive impairment or dementia.

Comparison With Existing Methods: Current software proposes a customizable VR environment combined with an analyser module based on regions of interest and some parameters of analysis or pre-calibrated VR mazes with raw data.

New Method: We attempted to create the VRmaze software offering either turnkey mazes with automatic tracking and analysis, or more complex and specific virtual mazes for human brain-behavioural research adaptable to all desired settings and parameters of analysis.

Effects of Sleep and Age on Prospective Memory Consolidation: A Walk in a Virtual Museum.

Prospective memory (PM) refers to our ability to perform actions at the appropriate moment, either when a predetermined event occurs (event-based, EB) or after a predetermined amount of time (time-based, TB). Sleep favors the consolidation of both EB and TB intentions, but whether this benefit is preserved during ageing is still subject to debate. PM was assessed in 28 young and 27 older healthy volunteers using a virtual environment.

Attentional cost in additional visual feedback protocols in healthy young subjects.

Additional visual feedback (VFB) is a technique allowing improved postural stability in young healthy individuals despite an increased muscular activity, the two trends being assessed through center-of-gravity (CG) and differences between CG and center-of-pressure (CP) movements (CP-CG), respectively. These two opposing effects are likely explained by the respective contribution of automatic and voluntary controls and in turn the neural circuits involved. To specify these specific contributions, a dual-task protocol was set up, consisting in adding to VFB a navigation task performed at the maximum cognitive capacities of the subjects who were evaluated beforehand.

Impact of breast cancer on prospective memory functioning assessed by virtual reality and influence of sleep quality and hormonal therapy: PROSOM-K study.

Background: Breast cancer (BC) is the most frequent cancer in women with more than 70% of BC patients being treated with hormonal therapy (HT). Among these patients, some report difficulties in remembering what they are supposed to do at the right moment, referring to prospective memory (PM). PM is essential for autonomy and medical adherence of patients, and requires an ecological assessment.

Weak Gravitational Lensing of Finite Beams.

The standard theory of weak gravitational lensing relies on the infinitesimal light beam approximation. In this context, images are distorted by convergence and shear, the respective sources of which unphysically depend on the resolution of the distribution of matter-the so-called Ricci-Weyl problem. In this Letter, we propose a strong-lensing-inspired formalism to describe the lensing of finite beams.

Is binding decline the main source of the ageing effect on prospective memory? A ride in a virtual town.

: This study was designed to improve our understanding of (PM) changes in ageing, and to identify the cognitive correlates of PM decline, using a virtual environment, to provide a more realistic assessment than traditional laboratory tasks. : Thirty-five young and 29 older individuals exposed to a virtual town were asked to recall three event-based intentions with a strong link between prospective and retrospective components, three event-based intentions with a weak link, and three time-based intentions. They also underwent retrospective episodic memory, executive functions, binding in working memory, processing speed, and time estimation assessments.

Isolation of a new disaccharide nucleoside from Helleborus caucasicus: structure elucidation and total synthesis of hellecaucaside A and its β-anomer.

Hellecaucaside A, a new disaccharide nucleoside featuring a 2'-O-α-D-ribofuranosyluridine skeleton and a 4-hydroxybenzoyl group at the 5' position, was isolated from the underground part of Helleborus caucasicus. The structure of the compound was elucidated by means of chemical degradation and spectroscopic analyses, such as 1D/2D NMR, chiral-GC, and HRMS. The total synthesis of hellecaucaside A and its β-anomer was accomplished, unequivocally confirming the structure of the natural product.

Can all cosmological observations be accurately interpreted with a unique geometry?

The recent analysis of the Planck results reveals a tension between the best fits for (Ω(m0), H(0)) derived from the cosmic microwave background or baryonic acoustic oscillations on the one hand, and the Hubble diagram on the other hand. These observations probe the Universe on very different scales since they involve light beams of very different angular sizes; hence, the tension between them may indicate that they should not be interpreted the same way. More precisely, this Letter questions the accuracy of using only the (perturbed) Friedmann-Lemaître geometry to interpret all the cosmological observations, regardless of their angular or spatial resolution.

Local refractive index probed via the fluorescence decay of semiconductor quantum dots.

We present a novel approach for convenient tuning of the local refractive index around nanostructures. We apply this technique to study the influence of the local refractive index on the radiative decay time of CdSe/ZnS quantum dots with three distinct emission wavelengths. The dependence of the luminescence decay time on the environment is well described by an effective medium approach.

Inverse modeling approach to allogenic karst system characterization.

Allogenic karst systems function in a particular way that is influenced by the type of water infiltrating through river water losses, by karstification processes, and by water quality. Management of this system requires a good knowledge of its structure and functioning, for which a new methodology based on an inverse modeling approach appears to be well suited. This approach requires both spring and river inflow discharge measurements and a continuous record of chemical parameters in the river and at the spring.

Ovulation synchronization following commercial application of ultrasound-guided follicle ablation during the estrous cycle in mares.

A regimen of progesterone plus estradiol (P&E) was used as a standard for ovarian synchronization to test the efficacy and evaluate the commercial application of ultrasound-guided follicle ablation as a non-steroidal alternative for ovulation synchronization in mares. Recipient mares at a private embryo transfer facility were at unknown stages of the estrous cycle at the start of the experiment on Day 1 when they were randomly assigned to an ablation group (n=18-21 mares) or to a P&E group (n=20-21 mares). In the ablation group, mares were lightly sedated and all follicles > or = 10 mm were removed by transvaginal ultrasound-guided follicle aspiration.

Continuous-valued probabilistic behavior in a VLSI generative model.

This paper presents the VLSI implementation of the continuous restricted Boltzmann machine (CRBM), a probabilistic generative model that is able to model continuous-valued data with a simple and hardware-amenable training algorithm. The full CRBM system consists of stochastic neurons whose continuous-valued probabilistic behavior is mediated by injected noise. Integrating on-chip training circuits, the full CRBM system provides a platform for exploring computation with continuous-valued probabilistic behavior in VLSI.

Discovery of very high energy gamma rays associated with an x-ray binary.

X-ray binaries are composed of a normal star in orbit around a neutron star or stellar-mass black hole. Radio and x-ray observations have led to the presumption that some x-ray binaries called microquasars behave as scaled-down active galactic nuclei. Microquasars have resolved radio emission that is thought to arise from a relativistic outflow akin to active galactic nuclei jets, in which particles can be accelerated to large energies.

A new population of very high energy gamma-ray sources in the Milky Way.

Very high energy gamma-rays probe the long-standing mystery of the origin of cosmic rays. Produced in the interactions of accelerated particles in astrophysical objects, they can be used to image cosmic particle accelerators. A first sensitive survey of the inner part of the Milky Way with the High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) reveals a population of eight previously unknown firmly detected sources of very high energy gamma-rays.

High-energy particle acceleration in the shell of a supernova remnant.

A significant fraction of the energy density of the interstellar medium is in the form of high-energy charged particles (cosmic rays). The origin of these particles remains uncertain. Although it is generally accepted that the only sources capable of supplying the energy required to accelerate the bulk of Galactic cosmic rays are supernova explosions, and even though the mechanism of particle acceleration in expanding supernova remnant (SNR) shocks is thought to be well understood theoretically, unequivocal evidence for the production of high-energy particles in supernova shells has proven remarkably hard to find.

Differences in urine volume and supersaturation in 2 physician networks.

Purpose: We determined whether a network of practices devoted to a broad range of urological care would achieve a decrease in metabolic stone risk comparable to that achieved by a network of similar practices that emphasized kidney stone management as a distinct specialized interest, provided that each was given equivalent access to high level urine testing and software support.

Materials And Methods: Pretreatment and treatment 24-hour urine samples were obtained from patients in a large network of practices related by the shared use of lithotripsy facilities and instruments (group 2) and a contrasting network of practices that emphasize stone treatment over other concerns (group 1). All known urine risk factors, including supersaturation, were measured and calculated.