Spermatozoon is a motile cell with a special ability to travel through the woman’s reproductive tract and fertilize an oocyte. To reach and penetrate the oocyte, spermatozoa should possess progressive motility. Therefore, motility is an important parameter during both natural and assisted conception. The global trend of progressive reduction in the number and motility of healthy spermatozoa in the ejaculate is associated with increased risk of infertility. Therefore, developing approaches for maintaining or enhancing human sperm motility has been an important area of investigation. In this review we discuss the physiology of sperm, molecular pathways regulating sperm motility, risk factors affecting sperm motility, and the role of sperm motility in fertility outcomes. In addition, we discuss various pharmacological agents and biomolecules that can enhance sperm motility in vitro and in vivo conditions to improve assisted reproductive technology (ART) outcomes. This article opens dialogs to help toxicologists, clinicians, andrologists, and embryologists in understanding the mechanism of factors influencing sperm motility and various management strategies to improve treatment outcomes.Preference-based measures allow patients to report their level of health, and the responses are then scored using preference weights from a representative general population sample for use in cost utility analysis. The development process of new preference-based measures should ensure that valid items are selected to reflect the constructs of interest included in the measure and that are suitable for use in preference-elicitation exercises. Existing criteria on patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) development were reviewed, and additional considerations were taken into account in order to generate criteria to support development of new preference-based measures. Criteria covering 22 different aspects related to item selection for preference-based measures are presented. see more These include criteria related to how items are phrased to ensure accurate completion, the coverage of items in terms of range of domains as well as focus on current outcomes and whether items are suitable for valuation. The criteria are aimed at supporting the development of new preference-based measures with discussion to ensure that even where there is conflict between criteria, issues have been considered at the item selection stage. This would minimize problems at valuation stage by harmonizing established criteria and expanding lists to reflect the unique characteristics of preference-based measures.

(i) To investigate the influence of concurrent changes in age, maturity status, stature, body mass, and skinfold thicknesses on the development of peak ventilatory variables in 10-17-year-olds; and, (ii) to evaluate the interpretation of paediatric norm tables of peak ventilatory variables.

Multiplicative multilevel modelling which allows both the number of observations per individual and the temporal spacing of the observations to vary was used to analyze the expired ventilation (peak [Formula see text]) and tidal volume (peak V

) at peak oxygen uptake of 420 (217 boys) 10-17-year-olds. Models were founded on 1053 (550 from boys) determinations of peak ventilatory variables supported by anthropometric measures and maturity status.

In sex-specific, multiplicative allometric models, concurrent changes in body mass and skinfold thicknesses (as a surrogate of FFM) and age were significant (p < 0.05) explanatory variables of the development of peak [Formula see text], once these covariates had been contes. Paediatric norms based solely on age or stature or body mass are untenable.Sense of Agency, the phenomenology associated with causing one’s own actions and corresponding effects, is a cornerstone of human experience. Social Agency can be defined as the Sense of Agency experienced in any situation in which the effects of our actions are related to a conspecific. This can be implemented as the other’s reactions being caused by our action, joint action modulating our Sense of Agency, or the other’s mere social presence influencing our Sense of Agency. It is currently an open question how such Social Agency can be conceptualized and how it relates to its nonsocial variant. This is because, compared with nonsocial Sense of Agency, the concept of Social Agency has remained oversimplified and underresearched, with disparate empirical paradigms yielding divergent results. Reviewing the empirical evidence and the commonalities and differences between different instantiations of Social Agency, we propose that Social Agency can be conceptualized as a continuum, in which the degree of cooperation is the key dimension that determines our Sense of Agency, and how it relates to nonsocial Sense of Agency. Taking this perspective, we review how the different factors that typically influence Sense of Agency affect Social Agency, and in the process highlight outstanding empirical questions within the field. Finally, concepts from wider research areas are discussed in relation to the ecological validity of Social Agency paradigms, and we provide recommendations for future methodology.

Contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has the potential to replace angiographic evaluation of atherosclerosis. While studies have investigated contrast agent (CA) uptake in atherosclerotic plaques, exact CA spatial distribution on a microscale is elusive. The purpose of this study was to investigate the microdistribution of gadolinium (Gd)- and iron (Fe) oxide-based CA in atherosclerotic plaques of New Zealand White rabbits.

The study was performed as a post hoc analysis of archived tissue specimens obtained in a previous in vivo MRI study conducted to investigate signal changes induced by very small superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (VSOP) and Gd-BOPTA. For analytical discrimination from endogenous Fe, VSOP were doped with europium (Eu) resulting in Eu-VSOP. Formalin-fixed arterial specimens were cut into 5-μm serial sections and analyzed by immunohistochemistry (IHC Movat’s pentachrome, von Kossa, and Alcian blue (pH1.0) staining, anti-smooth muscle cell actin (anti-SMA), and anti-rabbit macrophage (anti-RAM-11) immunostaining) and elemental microscopy with laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) and synchrotron radiation μX-ray fluorescence (SR-μXRF) spectroscopy.