The hardening of the zona pellucida as a result of the cortical reaction was estimated in triploid oocytes produced with cytochalasin B by two different procedures. Triploid oocytes resulting from fertilization in the presence of cytochalasin B did not reveal hardening of the zona pellucida unlike triploids obtained by inhibiting in-vitro extrusion of the second polar body in oocytes fertilized...

A nascent debate pits researchers who believe that hard-core smokers are coming to dominate the remaining population of smokers against others who perceive the hardening of the target as a far more distant concern. At stake is the future emphasis of tobacco control: should we alter the current allocation of resources between treatment of individual smokers and modification of the psychosocial e...

Certain regions of the body can be relatively difficult to image optimally by computed tomography (CT). The lower neck falls into this category. A routine transverse image at this level includes the shoulders, which can cause beam hardening [1] . Beam hardening reduces subject contrast and often produces streak artifacts between the shoulders [2, 3]. This image degradation is especially trouble...

In late-age silicon, soft errors become an issue even for low-margin products. Since classical hardening techniques are associated with costs which may not be acceptable for such ICs, selective hardening which targets only a subset of all possible soft errors has been suggested. We propose a soft error selection method based on severity of an error’s impact on system behavior. Some soft errors ...

Gravitational waves from the inspiral of a neutron star (NS) or stellarmass black hole (BH) into an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) with mass M ∼ 50M⊙ to 350M⊙ may be detectable by the planned advanced generation of ground-based gravitational-wave interferometers. Such intermediate mass ratio inspirals (IMRIs) are most likely to be found in globular clusters. We analyze four possible IMRI f...

Dynamic recrystallization (DRX) processes are widely used in industrial hot working operations, not only to keep the forming forces low but also to control the microstructure and final properties of the workpiece. According to the second derivative criterion (SDC) by Poliak and Jonas, the onset of DRX can be detected from an inflection point in the strain-hardening rate as a function of flow st...

Hardening of SD (8 and 12 hrs) and LD (18- and 24-hr photoperiods) cabbage plants in stages at temperatures starting with + 5 degrees and ending with - 3 degrees led to the following changes:Soluble protein plus nonprotein N showed a net increase only in the SD plants. In both SD and LD plants, it decreased to a minimum toward the end of the first stage of hardening, increased to a maximum in t...

Magnetic hardening and generation of room-temperature ferromagnetism at the interface between originally nonmagnetic transition metals and π-conjugated organics is understood to be promoted by interplay between interfacial charge transfer and relaxation-induced distortion of the metal lattice. The relative importance of the two contributions for magnetic hardening of the metal remains unquantif...

Mental health claims in the workplace are rising, particularly those due to depression. Associated with this is an increase in disability costs for the employer and the disability insurer, but even more important is the human suffering that results. While treatments are available for the depression there is a gap in interventions that specifically target return-to-work preparation. This paper p...