Mammalian ovaries are endowed with a huge number of small oocytes in primordial follicles (primordial oocytes). The mechanism regulating initiation of oocyte growth and follicular development is not well understood. Several growth factors and cytokines are known to be involved in oocyte growth and follicular development. Herein, the involvement of KIT, a receptor tyrosine kinase, and its ligand...

Primordial follicle assembly is a process that occurs when oocyte nests break down to form individual primordial follicles. The size of this initial pool of primordial follicles in part determines the reproductive lifespan of the female. Connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) was identified as a potential regulatory candidate for this process in a previous microarray analysis of follicle develo...

The assembly of the primordial follicles early in ovarian development and the subsequent development and transition of the primordial follicle to the primary follicle are critical processes in ovarian biology. These processes directly affect the number of oocytes available to a female throughout her reproductive life. Once the pool of primordial follicles is depleted a series of physiological c...

The primordial follicle assembly, activation and the subsequent development are critical processes for female reproduction. A limited number of primordial follicles are activated to enter the growing follicle pool each wave, and the primordial follicle pool progressively diminishes over a woman's life-time. The number of remaining primordial follicles represents the ovarian reserve. Identificat...

The Monge-Ampère-Kantorovich (MAK) reconstruction is tested against cosmological N -body simulations. Using only the present mass distribution sampled with particles, and the assumption of homogeneity of the primordial distribution, MAK recovers for each particle the non-linear displacement field between its present position and its Lagrangian position on a primordial uniform grid. To test the ...

Patterns in nature result from dynamic relationships of forces and constraints. What is analogous for patterns in art? Art is created by human hands motivated by inspiration and thought. It is the product of creativity and skill. Creativity is constrained by cognitive processes and skill by the limits of technology. Based upon the author’s studies of Oriental carpets, this paper suggests that p...

Introduction Measures of farm diversification Data and model specification Econometric results Discussion Summary and conclusions Acknowledgements References Appendix Abstract. Farm planning often focuses on optimal diversification with respect to risk, where the riskmanagement strategies combine production, marketing, financial and environmental aspects of the farmfirm. In this study an empiri...

Incomplete Nature is about an important and difficult subject: how life and mind evolved from a world of inanimate matter. It is also about what are the right concepts to use in understanding the nature and workings of life and mind. We need to be able to conceive them in such a way that it becomes intelligible that they could have arisen naturally from the kinds of inanimate processes describe...

Primordial Black Holes evaporate due to Hawking radiation. We find that the evaporation time of primordial black holes increase when accretion of radiation is included. Thus depending on accretion efficiency more and more number of primordial black holes are existing today, which strengthens the idea that the primordial black holes are the proper candidate for dark matter. PACS numbers : 98.80....

objective: growth differentiation factor 9b (gdf9b) is an oocyte-derived growth factor. this protein is essential for the development of ovarian follicles and acts mainly by binding to its receptor on the surface of granulosa cells. the effect of gdf9b on the growth of follicles in various developmental stages, particularly primordial and primary follicles, is unknown. thus the aim of this stud...