A novel approach to sperm selection: Nanoparticle-based purification improves quality of Angora cryopreserved buck’s semen

The Aim: The aim of the study was to investigate the applicability of an up-to-date method, sperm selection with nanoparticles at different temperatures (37ºC, 21ºC, and 4ºC), on Angora buck semen. Material and Methods: Semen samples were collected from 3 Angora bucks with 7 repetitions and each sample was diluted and divided into 4 groups. Nanopurification procedure was applied by using a nanoparticle dose of 10 μg/ml to the three groups at 37ºC, 21ºC, and 4ºC while in the control group samples were cryopreserved without nanopurificiation treatment. Post-thaw motility and morphology parameters of the sperm samples were analyzed by using computer-aided sperm analysis (CASA) and fluorescein microscopy.Results: After nanopurification at 37ºC total motility, linearity (LIN) (P<0.05), curvilinear velocity (VCL), straight-line velocity (VSL), and acrosome integrity parameters (P<0.001) were higher than the control group while the semen samples nanopurified at 21ºC were superior to the control group in terms of LIN, straightness (STR) (P<0.05), VCL, VSL, average path velocity (VAP), wobble and acrosome integrity (P<0.001). There was no significant difference between the control and the 4ºC group.Conclusion: In conclusion, nanopurification procedure on buck semen was useful in terms of parameters that affect fertility and the method can be performed at 21ºC, as well as 37ºC, to adapt the procedure to field conditions

Nonreciprocal and Reciprocal Dating Violence and Injury Occurrence among Urban Youth

Objective: Dating violence is a significant health problem among youth that leads to adverse health outcomes, including injuries. Reciprocal violence (perpetrated by both partners) is associated with increased injury in adults, but very little is known about the prevalence and context for reciprocal violence, as well as injury rates, among youth. We sought to determine the prevalence and scope of reciprocal dating violence and injury occurrence among urban youth in a high-risk community. Methods: Analyses were based on data from the Youth Violence Survey, conducted in 2004, and administered to over 80 % of public school students in grades 7, 9, 11, and 12 (N=4,131) in a highrisk, urban school district. The current analyses were restricted to those who reported dating in the past year and who also reported any dating violence (n=1,158). Dating violence was categorized as reciprocal (the participant reported both violence perpetration and victimization) and non-reciprocal (the participant report either violence perpetration or victimization, but not both). Results: Dating violence reciprocity varied by sex. Girls who reported any dating violence were more likely to report reciprocal dating violence (50.4%) than were boys (38.9%). However, reciprocity did not vary by race/ethnicity or grade level. Reciprocal dating violence was more common among participants who reported more frequent violence experiences. Reciprocal violence was als

In Reply

A reply to a letter to the editor regarding their article: Swahn MH, Alemdar M, Whitaker DJ. 2009. Nonreciprocal and Reciprocal Dating Violence and Injury Occurrence Among Urban Youth. The Western Journal of Emergency Medicine. 11(3):264-268

Assessment of Practice-Focused Middle School Science Modules

AMP-IT-UP is an NSF-funded K-12 program intended to promote math, science, and engineering learning through STEM integration-focused curricula. As part of this program, one-week modules were designed to teach specific science practices within the context of the appropriate grade-level content. Nine science modules were created, one focused on each practice (practices are data visualization, experimental design, and data-driven decision making) at grade levels 6, 7, and 8. In this presentation, we will focus on our assessment of the implementation of these modules across four middle schools during the 2016-2017 academic year. We will present our methodology for assessing this complex instructional effort, which includes classroom observations, online implementation surveys, and online teacher discussions about their experiences implementing the modules. We will also provide results from our pre-post assessments of student learning. Overall, the results indicate positive teacher experiences as well as significant increases in student learning in some modules

Anomaly detection in elderly daily behavior in ambient sensing environments

Current ubiquitous computing applications for smart homes aim to enhance people’s daily living respecting age span. Among the target groups of people, elderly are a population eager for “choices for living arrangements”, which would allow them to continue living in their homes but at the same time provide the health care they need. Given the growing elderly population, there is a need for statistical models able to capture the recurring patterns of daily activity life and reason based on this information. We present an analysis of real-life sensor data collected from 40 different households of elderly people, using motion, door and pressure sensors. Our objective is to automatically observe and model the daily behavior of the elderly and detect anomalies that could occur in the sensor data. For this purpose, we first introduce an abstraction layer to create a common ground for home sensor configurations. Next, we build a probabilistic spatio-temporal model to summarize daily behavior. Anomalies are then defined as significant changes from the learned behavioral model and detected using a cross-entropy measure. We have compared the detected anomalies with manually collected annotations and the results show that the presented approach is able to detect significant behavioral changes of the elderly