Characterization of Instrument Transformers under Realistic Conditions: Impact of Single and Combined Influence Quantities on Their Wideband Behavior.

Instrument transformers (ITs) play a key role in electrical power systems, facilitating the accurate monitoring and measurement of electrical quantities. They are essential for measurement, protection, and metering in transmission and distribution grids and accurately reducing the grid voltage and current for low-voltage input instrumentation. With the increase in renewable energy sources, electronic converters, and electric vehicles connected to power grids, ITs now face challenging distorted conditions that differ from the nominal ones.

How Instrument Transformers Influence Power Quality Measurements: A Proposal of Accuracy Verification Tests.

The integration of renewable energy sources on a large scale in the electrical energy distribution systems, as well as the widespread of non-linear loads, has led to a significant increase in power quality (PQ) disturbances. For this reason, PQ monitoring is also becoming a key task in medium voltage (MV) grids. The measurement of PQ at MV levels can only be performed using instrument transformers (ITs) to scale down the level of voltage and current to levels suitable for the input stage of PQ instruments.

Impact of DC Transient Disturbances on Harmonic Performance of Voltage Transformers for AC Railway Applications.

This paper analyzes the impact of typical DC transient events occurring in railway grids on the frequency performance of instrument transformers (ITs) installed onboard trains and in AC substations for power quality (PQ) applications. PQ monitoring in railway systems is an issue of great interest because it plays a key role in the improvement of energy efficiency. The measurement chain for the PQ measurements, at 15 kV at 16.

Laboratory Production of Equine Embryos.

Assisted reproduction technologies (ART) are well developed in humans and cattle and are gaining momentum also in the equine industry because of the fact that the mare does not respond to superovulation but can donate large numbers of oocytes through ovum pick up (OPU). After collection, the oocytes can be fertilized by intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) using a variety of stallion semen samples, even of poor quality, and the resulting embryos can establish high pregnancy rates after cryopreservation and transfer. The discoveries that equine oocytes can be held at room temperature without loss of viability and that an increase in vitro maturation time can double the number of embryos produced are fueling the uptake of the OPU technique by several clinics that are shipping oocytes of their client's mares to specialized ICSI laboratories for embryo production and freezing.

Transferability and inter-laboratory variability assessment of the in vitro bovine oocyte fertilization test.

The dramatic increase in the number of animals required for reproductive toxicity testing imposes the validation of alternative methods to reduce the use of laboratory animals. As we previously demonstrated for in vitro maturation test of bovine oocytes, the present study describes the transferability assessment and the inter-laboratory variability of an in vitro test able to identify chemical effects during the process of bovine oocyte fertilization. Eight chemicals with well-known toxic properties (benzo[a]pyrene, busulfan, cadmium chloride, cycloheximide, diethylstilbestrol, ketoconazole, methylacetoacetate, mifepristone/RU-486) were tested in two well-trained laboratories.

Transferability and inter-laboratory variability assessment of the in vitro bovine oocyte maturation (IVM) test within ReProTect.

The new European chemicals policy for the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) will most probably impose a dramatic increase in the number of animals required for reproductive toxicity testing. For this purpose, the development and validation of alternative methods is urgently needed in order to reduce the use of laboratory animals. The present study describes the inter-laboratory variability and the transferability assessment of an in vitro test able to identify chemical effects during the process of oocyte maturation in a bovine model.

Development of an in vitro test battery for assessing chemical effects on bovine germ cells under the ReProTect umbrella.

Current European legislation for the registration and authorization of chemicals (REACH) will require a dramatic increase in the use of animals for reproductive toxicity testing. Since one objective of REACH is to use vertebrates only as last resort, the development and validation of alternative methods is urgently needed. For this purpose ReProTect, an integrated research project funded by the European Union, joining together 33 partners with complementary expertise in reproductive toxicology, was designed.

Comparative aspects of somatic cell nuclear transfer with conventional and zona-free method in cattle, horse, pig and sheep.

Nuclear transfer (NT) is a complex procedure that requires considerable technical skills. Over the years attempts have been made to simplify the micromanipulations involved and to make the procedure more user-friendly. A significant step forwards has been the development of the zona-free NT methods.

In vitro fertilisation with frozen-thawed bovine sperm sexed by flow cytometry and validated for accuracy by real-time PCR.

The methodologies used for cytometric sorting of fresh spermatozoa never allowed a clear resolution of sexual chromosomes of frozen-thawed semen. To devise a novel method for the production of bovine predefined sexed embryos using frozen-thawed semen, sorting efficiency of different protocols was studied using a new quantitative real-time PCR method to verify the purity of sexed semen. To this aim, after Percoll separation, frozen-thawed samples were stained at different temperatures and concentrations of Hoechst 33342 using a short-incubation time.

Somatic cell nuclear transfer in horses: effect of oocyte morphology, embryo reconstruction method and donor cell type.

The objective of the present work was to investigate and clarify the factors affecting the efficiency of somatic cell nuclear transfer (NT) in the horse, including embryo reconstruction, in vitro culture to the blastocyst stage, embryo transfer, pregnancy monitoring and production of offspring. Matured oocytes, with zona pellucida or after zona removal, were fused to cumulus cells, granulosa cells, and fetal and adult fibroblasts, and fused couplets were cultured in vitro. Blastocyst development to Day 8 varied significantly among donor cells (from 1.

Influence of probe size on the measurement accuracy of non-uniform ELF magnetic fields.

The accuracy of extremely low frequency (ELF) magnetic field measurements can be sensitively varied by the meter probe size when the spatial distribution of the magnetic flux density is highly non-uniform, e.g. if the measurement point is close to the field source.

Pregnancy: a cloned horse born to its dam twin.

Several animal species, including sheep, mice, cattle, goats, rabbits, cats, pigs and, more recently, mules have been reproduced by somatic cell cloning, with the offspring being a genetic copy of the animal donor of the nuclear material used for transfer into an enucleated oocyte. Here we use this technology to clone an adult horse and show that it is possible to establish a viable, full-term pregnancy in which the surrogate mother is also the nuclear donor. The cloned offspring is therefore genetically identical to the mare who carried it, challenging the idea that maternal immunological recognition of fetal antigens influences the well-being of the fetus and the outcome of the pregnancy.

Embryonic and foetal development of bovine oocytes treated with a combination of butyrolactone I and roscovitine in an enriched medium prior to IVM and IVF.

Cattle oocytes were maintained at germinal vesicles (GV) stage for 24 hr using a combination of two specific and potent inhibitors of M-phase promoting factor (MPF) kinase activity, butyrolactone I (BL-I) and roscovitine (ROS). The media used for inhibition were (a) TCM-199 only and (b) TCM-199 supplemented with serum, hormones and growth factors. The effective doses of inhibitors were 6.