Research indicates that a sizable proportion of adolescent defendants have difficulty understanding and participating in legal proceedings against them, and may be incompetent to stand trial. To examine attorneys' experience in defending adolescents with competence-related difficulties, 214 juvenile attorneys were surveyed. Findings indicated that attorneys have doubts about the competence of a...

BACKGROUND Natriuretic peptides (NPs), brain and C type NPs (BNP and CNP), were involved in the maintenance of porcine oocyte meiotic arrest. The present study investigated the effects of NPs on developmental competence of immature porcine oocytes with follicles of different sizes. METHODS Follicular fluid NP levels were examined by radioimmunoassay. The developmental competence of porcine oo...

BACKGROUND Single embryo transfer (SET) is the most successful way to reduce the frequency of multiple pregnancies following in vitro fertilisation. However, selecting the embryo for SET with the highest chances of pregnancy remains a difficult challenge since morphological and kinetics criteria provide poor prediction of both developmental and implantation ability. Partly through the expressio...

Objective DNA methylation is one the epigenetic mechanisms, which is critically involved in gene expression. This phenomenon is mediated by DNA methyl-transferases and is affected by environmental stress, including in vitro maturation (IVM) of oocytes. Melatonin, as an antioxidant, may theoretically be involved in epigenetic regulation via reductions of reactive oxygen species. This study was p...

Existing models of competence development are characterised by a fixed sequence of stages of which assessment by others and following a fixed set of competence development activities are obligatory components. This paper shows that these models do not do justice to the large diversity of learning needs among lifelong learners. It then presents a model, consisting of four non-obligatory stages t...

Oocyte in vitro maturation (IVM) has become a valuable technological tool for animal breeding and cloning and the treatment of human infertility because it does not require the administration of exogenous gonadotropin to obtain fertilizable oocytes. However, embryo development after IVM is lower compared to in vivo maturation, most likely because oocytes collected for IVM are heterogeneous with...

The present study assessed the effects of repeated ovarian stimulation on oocyte quality. Female mice were stimulated with eCG and hCG at 1-wk intervals for 4 wk. Germinal vesicle (GV)-stage oocytes were evaluated in relation to size, somatic cell association, and chromatin organization after each week of stimulation. In addition, ATP content and expression of meiotic competence were monitored ...

Background: Oocyte cryopreservation is of utmost importance in the current repertories of assisted reproductive technology (ART). Despite this, oocyte vitrification is yet a problematic issue with limited successful pregnancies has been arisen after transfer of embryos derived from vitrified-warmed oocytes. In this sense, great attention has been paid to investigate possible mechanisms underlyi...

The major challenge in assisted reproduction technologies remains producing oocytes with optimal developmental competence. Such developmental competence can be defined as the ability of the oocyte to fulfill maturation, undergo successful fertilization, reach the blastocyst stage and yield a viable and healthy progeny. The main follicular parameters linked to oocyte competence are presented in ...