soil quality is a necessary indicator of land management. different indices are applied to evaluate farming systems, soil types and land uses based on soil quality. the slope of retention curve at its inflection point has been defined as soil physical quality index (si) but the relationships between si and penetration resistance (pr), the least limiting water range (llwr), and available water c...

STUDY QUESTION Can pharma drug discovery approaches be utilized to transform investigation into novel therapeutics for male infertility? SUMMARY ANSWER High-throughput screening (HTS) is a viable approach to much-needed drug discovery for male factor infertility. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY There is both huge demand and a genuine clinical need for new treatment options for infertile men. However,...

The zona-free hamster egg penetration test (HEPT) is widely used for evaluating the fertilizing ability of human spermatozoa. However, the relationship between the HEPT and microassisted fertilization has yet to be determined. To evaluate the efficiency of HEPT in selecting the most appropriate method of in-vitro fertilization (IVF), including intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) in couples ...

Electroejaculate traits and circulating follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH), and testosterone concentrations were analyzed in adult leopard cats (Felis bengalensis), a rare felid species indigenous to east Asia. The ability of leopard cat sperm to bind and penetrate zona-free hamster ova and zona-intact domestic cat oocytes in vitro was examined as a means of testing sp...

By March 2015, 30% of all Medicare beneficiaries were enrolled in Medicare Advantage (MA) plans. Research to date has not explored the impacts of MA market penetration on individual or population health outcomes. The primary objective of this study is to examine the relationships between MA market penetration and the beneficiary's portfolio of cardiometabolic diagnoses. This study uses 2004 to ...

The use of a volume holographic filter as collector element in a confocal system imaging through scattering (turbid) material is described. We show that the penetration depth of the volume holographic system is de-coupled from the scatter noise discrimination properties, and is potentially more advantageous than the traditional confocal microscope. Since the volume-holographic filter is a match...

The liquefaction resistance of soil can be evaluated using laboratory tests such as cyclic simple shear, cyclic triaxial, cyclic torsional shear as well as field methods like Standard Penetration Test (SPT), Cone Penetration Test (CPT) and Shear Wave Velocity (Vs). In this regard, this study attempts to compare the results of the SPT based on the simplified procedure proposed by Seed and Idriss...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the release of rosmarinic acid (RA) from the experimental topical formulations with the Melissa officinalis L. extract and to evaluate its penetration through undamaged human skin ex vivo. The results of the in vitro release study showed that higher amounts of RA were released from the emulsion vehicle when lemon balm extract was added in its dry form. An i...