The current study considered the distribution of macrophages within the major ovarian structures throughout the estrous cycle.Immunohistochemical analyses were carried out using an avidin-biotin-peroxidase staining method and the rat anti-mouse macrophage monoclonal antibody anti-Mac-l was applied to stain macrophages. A computer-assisted image analysis system was used to quantify and compare the distribution of macrophages within individual ovarian structures during the estrous cycle. The following morphological structures were analyzed: primordial, preantral, antral, pre-Graafian, and atretic follicles; first-, second-, and third-generation corpora lutea; and the interstitium. The analysis included follicular and corpus luteum substructures: theca, granulosa cells, and interstitium. The system allows the estimation of macrophage distribution as a macrophage density per microns2 of the defined area.Primordial and preantral follicles did not contain macrophages during all stages of the estrous cycle. In antral, pre-graafian, and graafian follicles, macrophages were located and quantified only in the theca and were not detected in the granulosa cell layer. In contrast, atretic follicles showed macrophage localization in both thecal and granulosa cell layers. Macrophages were present in small numbers in the granulosa luteal cell layer and in high numbers in the thecal layer of newly developing corpora lutea. In the second generation of corpus luteum, macrophages followed the same pattern of distribution, while old corpora lutea contained significantly higher numbers of macrophages in both thecal and luteal cell layers. Surprisingly, significant quantitative changes in the macrophages distribution were detected over the course of the estrous cycle. Macrophage density was significantly higher in proestrus and metestrus when compared with the density in diestrus and estrus in most of the studied substructures with the exception of atretic follicles. Atretic follicles showed high macrophage density throughout the cycle with a two-fold higher density at metestrus.Macrophages were present in the mouse ovary over the course of the estrous cycle. The greatest numbers of macrophages appearing in corpora lutea and in atretic follicles suggest a role for macrophages in corpus luteum differentiation and follicular atresia. Their patterns of distribution at proestrus and metestrus within microenvironmental compartments suggests a functional correlation with the events of ovarian development.
The intrinsic coercivity Hci in Sm(CobalCuxFe0.1Zr0.033)z powder materials was found to increase with increasing temperature when Cu content x=0.048, but to decrease when Cu content x⩾0.068. This abnormal behavior, which is also reversible, was found in a series of samples with various ratios z. The field dependence of the intrinsic coercivity suggests that the bonded magnets were fully saturated with an applied field of 20 kOe. The exposure to higher temperatures did not change the room temperature value of coercivity. This indicates that the microstructure does not change during the measurement from 573 to 773 K. The change of coercivity mechanism was found to be responsible for this abnormal temperature behavior. Monte Carlo simulation showed that the coercivity increases (decreases) with increasing temperature for the repulsive (attractive) cell boundary, which is consistent with the experimental results.
Education digitalization is the use of modern information technology into education for advanced teaching and learning experiences. It involves the use of digital tools, resources and platforms to support communication, teaching, learning and assessment. Metaverse is a new technology for education digitalization, where learners interact with each other in a virtual world. The aim of the paper is to explain the basics of the Metaverse and to point out its benefits and challenges in the education digitalization from a technical, economic and pedagogical points of view to define its potential for transformation of modern teaching and learning.
The effect of ratio z on the high temperature magnetic properties of Sm(Co, Fe, Cu, Zr)z magnets have been examined in a range of ratio z values from 6.7 to 9.1. Reasonably high coercivity at room temperature has been achieved in all the magnets. It was found that the lower the ratio z, the smaller the temperature coefficient of coercivity. When the ratio z=7.0, a temperature coefficient of coercivity of −0.03%/°C can be achieved, which is more than eight times smaller than the magnet with z=8.5. A coercivity of more than 10 kOe has been obtained at 773 K for the newly developed magnets, which is believed to be the highest coercivity at 773 K ever reported. Transmission electron microscope studies showed that the cell size decreases with the decrease of the ratio z, while the density of lamella phase remains almost the same. This suggests that smaller cell size leads to a smaller temperature coefficient of intrinsic coercivity.
The wide-spread use of social networks has given rise to subjective, misleading, and even false information on the Internet. Thus, subjectivity detection can play an important role in ensuring the objectiveness and the quality of a piece of information. This paper presents the solution built by the Gpachov team for the CLEF-2023 CheckThat! lab Task~2 on subjectivity detection. Three different research directions are explored. The first one is based on fine-tuning a sentence embeddings encoder model and dimensionality reduction. The second one explores a sample-efficient few-shot learning model. The third one evaluates fine-tuning a multilingual transformer on an altered dataset, using data from multiple languages. Finally, the three approaches are combined in a simple majority voting ensemble, resulting in 0.77 macro F1 on the test set and achieving 2nd place on the English subtask.
Abstract : Hard, adherent, and low-friction silicon-containing diamond-like carbon coatings (Si-DLC) have been synthesized at room temperature by 40 keV (N(+) + N2(+)), 50% Ar(+)/50% (N(+) + N2(+)), and Ar(+) ion-beam-assisted deposition (IBAD) of a tetraphenyl-tetramethyl-trisiloxane oil on silicon and sapphire substrates. X-ray diffraction analysis indicated that all coatings were amorphous. The average coating wear rate and the average unlubricated steel ball-on-disk friction coefficient, mu, decreased with increasing fraction of nitrogen in the ion beam, along with an increase in the average coating growth rate. The Knoop microhardness and nanohardness values of the coatings synthesized by the mixed argon and nitrogen ion beam were higher than the values for the coatings synthesized with 100% nitrogen or 100% argon ion beams. These friction/wear improvements are tentatively attributed to both increased hardening due to greater penetration and ionization induced hardening by the lighter (N) ions and to the presence of SiO2 on the surface of N-bombarded samples.
