BACKGROUND The global obesity epidemic has paralleled a decrease in semen quality. Yet, the association between obesity and sperm parameters remains controversial. The purpose of this report was to ...update the evidence on the association between BMI and sperm count through a systematic review with meta-analysis. METHODS A systematic review of available literature (with no language restriction) was performed to investigate the impact of BMI on sperm count. Relevant studies published until June 2012 were identified from a Pubmed and EMBASE search. We also included unpublished data (n = 717 men) obtained from the Infertility Center of Bondy, France. Abstracts of relevant articles were examined and studies that could be included in this review were retrieved. Authors of relevant studies for the meta-analysis were contacted by email and asked to provide standardized data. RESULTS A total of 21 studies were included in the meta-analysis, resulting in a sample of 13 077 men from the general population and attending fertility clinics. Data were stratified according to the total sperm count as normozoospermia, oligozoospermia and azoospermia. Standardized weighted mean differences in sperm concentration did not differ significantly across BMI categories. There was a J-shaped relationship between BMI categories and risk of oligozoospermia or azoospermia. Compared with men of normal weight, the odds ratio (95% confidence interval) for oligozoospermia or azoospermia was 1.15 (0.93-1.43) for underweight, 1.11 (1.01-1.21) for overweight, 1.28 (1.06-1.55) for obese and 2.04 (1.59-2.62) for morbidly obese men. CONCLUSIONS Overweight and obesity were associated with an increased prevalence of azoospermia or oligozoospermia. The main limitation of this report is that studied populations varied, with men recruited from both the general population and infertile couples. Whether weight normalization could improve sperm parameters should be evaluated further.
This study was conducted to determine a possible relationship between regular cell phone use and different human semen attributes. The history-taking of men in our university clinic was supplemented ...with questions concerning cell phone use habits, including possession, daily standby position and daily transmission times. Semen analyses were performed by conventional methods. Statistics were calculated with SPSS statistical software. A total of 371 were included in the study. The duration of possession and the daily transmission time correlated negatively with the proportion of rapid progressive motile sperm (r = − 0.12 and r = − 0.19, respectively), and positively with the proportion of slow progressive motile sperm (r = 0.12 and r = 0.28, respectively). The low and high transmitter groups also differed in the proportion of rapid progressive motile sperm (48.7% vs. 40.6%). The prolonged use of cell phones may have negative effects on the sperm motility characteristics.
Summary
The aim of this study was to examine the relationship of semen parameters, sexual function‐related hormones and waist/hip ratio. Eighty‐one selected patients presenting with infertility were ...examined. Weight, height, waist circumference and hip circumference were measured, and reproduction‐related hormone levels were determined. Semen was analysed by conventional methods. Semen volume, sperm concentration, motility, total sperm count, total motile sperm cell number, rapid progressive motile sperm count and reproduction‐related hormone levels follicle‐stimulating hormone, luteinizing hormone, prolactin, testosterone, 17β‐oestradiol and sexual hormone‐binding globulin (SHBG). Significant correlations were found: (i) weight, waist circumference and hip circumference versus testosterone level, SHBG level, and testosterone/17β‐oestradiol ratio; (ii) hip circumference versus sperm concentration; (iii) waist circumference and hip circumference versus sperm count, total motile sperm cell number and rapid progressive motile sperm count; (iv) weight versus total sperm count and total motile sperm cell number; (v) waist circumference and hip circumference versus prolactin level (positively) and SHBG (negatively); (vi) waist circumference and waist/hip ratio versus semen volume. It can be concluded that the waist/hip ratio is correlated with the reproductive hormone levels. Although both the waist circumference and hip circumference correlated with the semen characteristics, the waist/hip ratio did not.
The understanding of the intraplate tectonics of Central Europe requires a detailed picture of how stress is transferred from the interaction of the Eurasian, Nubian and Anatolian plates to the ...Alpine, Carpathian, Pannonian and Dinaric regions. Recent strain distribution is controlled by the Adria horizontal push, by the Vrancea vertical slab pull and associated horizontal displacements, and by the Aegean/Anatolia extension and slab-roll back. We present a horizontal velocity field for the Alpine-Carpathian-Pannonic-Dinaric and Balkan regions resulting from a new combination of seven different GPS networks formed from permanent and campaign stations. Dedicated velocity profiles in two specific regions are studied in detail. One is the Alpine Pannonian region, with a detailed picture of the NS indentation of the Adria microplate into the Southern Alps, in NE Italy, the deformation in the Tauern Window and the eastwards kinematics of a Pannonian plate fragment. The second study region includes Transylvania, the Southern Carpathians up to the Aegean sea and Albania, where a major right lateral shear deformation exists as a consequence of the NE convergence of the Apulia platform towards the Dinarids, and the SSW motion of Macedonia, Western Bulgaria and Rumania, related to the Hellenic arc dynamics in the Eastern Mediterranean. The profiles in the Alpine–Pannonian area indicate that a velocity drop of 2.5
+/−
0.4 mm/yr associated with the Adria indentation concentrates on a segment of some 50 km south of the Periadriatic fault. The deformation becomes extensional by a similar amount just north of the Periadriatic fault, in the Tauern Window, where the updoming of the Tauern Window implies vertical motion which could well be associated with surface extension. In the EW profile, we observe a sudden velocity change of 1.5
+/−
0.2 mm/yr in 20 km, corresponding to the right lateral Lavant fault, which seems to mark the border between dominant indentation kinematics to the West and dominant extrusion kinematics to the East.
Three profiles are considered in Southern and Eastern Europe: one across the lower Adriatic sea from Apulia in Italy to the southern Dinarides, which enables it to constrain the velocity drop associated with the subduction of the Adria microplate into the Dinarides to 3.2
+/−
0.5 mm/yr in 140 km. The second profile is longitudinal and constrains the velocity inversion of 7.4
+/−
1.0 mm/yr in 350 km associated with right lateral shear faults in Albania. The third profile crosses the Transylvania region with a shortening of 2.3
+/−
1.0 mm/yr in 220 km, and the Wallachian–Moesian region up to the Chalcidic peninsula in N Greece. This lower part of the profile implies an extensional stretch of the upper crust of 3.2
+/−
0.9 mm/yr in 440 km, culminating in the Hellenic arc. Strain rate maps are presented in this regional scale, showing the excellent agreement between fault plane solutions of crustal earthquakes and the eigenvectors of the GPS derived two dimensional strain rate tensor.
Three profiles are considered in the Balkan and SE Carpathians: one across the lower Adriatic sea from Apulia in Italy to the southern Dinarides, which enables to constrain the velocity drop associated to the subduction of the Adria microplate into the Dinarides to 3.2
+/−
0.5 mm/yr in 140 km. The second profile is longitudinal and constrains the velocity inversion of 7.4
+/−
1.0 mm/yr in 350 km associated to right lateral shear faults in Macedonia, a highly seismic region. The third profile crosses the Transylvania with a shortening2.3
+/−
1.0 mm/yr in 220 km, and the Wallachian–Moesian region up to the Chalcidic peninsula in N Greece. This lower part of the profile implies an extensional stretch of the upper crust of 3.2
+/−
0.9 mm/yr in 440 km, culminating in the Hellenic arc.
A Cone Penetration Test (CPT) survey with a high spatial resolution was performed in order to investigate the stratigraphy as well as the spatial variability of various soil properties of the ...Krauthausen test site. Analyses of the CPT measurements showed the subsurface to be dominated by a planar layered structure. Variogram analysis of the various CPT parameters disclosed that within each layer the soil properties have an anisotropic spatial correlation structure.
A correlation analysis of the measured CPT data and co-located grain size distributions from soil samples was performed. Since the correlation coefficients were greater equal to 0.7, a reliable empirical relationship between the data sets could be developed. Based on this empirical relationship grain size distributions were estimated at CPT locations. The statistical processing of estimated and measured grain size distributions with respect to their spatial correlation structure disclosed good agreement between the data sets.
The estimated grain size distributions from CPT data were used to estimate the hydraulic conductivity in the aquifer. The results provide detailed information of the spatial heterogeneity of the hydraulic conductivity at Krauthausen test site. The validation of these results, using a prior investigation of hydraulic conductivity statistics, suggests the CPT a fast and inexpensive tool for the estimation of three dimensional hydraulic conductivity fields with sufficient accuracy.
Kinetics of the reaction Br + CH2ClBr ↔ CHClBr + HBr (1, −1) were studied experimentally in the forward direction. The absolute reaction kinetics method of laser flash photolysis coupled with Br atom ...resonance fluorescence detection and three different relative-rate methods with gas-chromatographic analysis were applied to carry out the experiments. The rate constants determined were found to obey the Arrhenius law in the wide temperature range of T = 293−785 K providing the kinetic expression k 1 = (2.8 ± 0.1) × 1013 exp−(47.6 ± 0.3) kJ mol-1/RT cm3 mol-1 s-1 (the errors given refer to 1σ precision). An ab initio direct dynamics method was used to study reaction (1, −1) theoretically. The electronic structure information including geometries, gradients, and force constants was obtained at the MP2 level of theory; and energies were improved at higher theoretical levels. Rate constants were calculated using the canonical variational transition state theory with small-curvature tunneling correction over the temperature range 200−1000 K. Theory substantially underestimates k 1 compared to experiment. The agreement was found good with k -1 reported previously predicting positive temperature dependence. The experimental kinetic parameters were utilized in thermochemical calculations yielding the recommended standard enthalpy of formation of Δf H°298 (CHClBr) = (140 ± 4) kJ mol-1 (with 2σ accuracy given).
The Space VLBI Geodesy Demonstration Experiment (GEDEX) was designed to apply space VLBI delay and delay rate data for orbit reconstruction of the space VLBI satellite HALCA and to demonstrate, how ...to tie the Celestial Reference Frame to the Terrestrial Reference Frame directly using only space VLBI and tracking data. Software developments for these aims are being carried out by different groups in different countries. The effort is coordinated by the Satellite Geodetic Observatory in Hungary. The VSOP Survey Programme provides the observational basis for the experiment.
The Russian Academy of Sciences and Federal Space Agency, together with the participation of many international organizations, worked toward the launch of the RadioAstron orbiting space observatory ...with its onboard 10-m reflector radio telescope from the Baikonur cosmodrome on July 18, 2011. Together with some of the largest ground-based radio telescopes and a set of stations for tracking, collecting, and reducing the data obtained, this space radio telescope forms a multi-antenna ground-space radio interferometer with extremely long baselines, making it possible for the first time to study various objects in the Universe with angular resolutions a million times better than is possible with the human eye. The project is targeted at systematic studies of compact radio-emitting sources and their dynamics. Objects to be studied include supermassive black holes, accretion disks, and relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei, stellar-mass black holes, neutron stars and hypothetical quark stars, regions of formation of stars and planetary systems in our and other galaxies, interplanetary and interstellar plasma, and the gravitational field of the Earth. The results of ground-based and inflight tests of the space radio telescope carried out in both autonomous and ground-space interferometric regimes are reported. The derived characteristics are in agreement with the main requirements of the project. The astrophysical science program has begun.
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