Krakodlew (Poland)

Understanding oocyte and ovarian aging has become critically important, as trends in family planning evolve, with many women choosing to have children later in life. The ovary, a crucial organ in female reproduction, is particularly susceptible to age-related changes and is one of the organs that exhibit functional deterioration most distinctly with age. The aging of female reproductive systems also affects longevity and various health outcomes. A better understanding of both oocyte and ovarian aging will lay the cornerstone to elucidate the phenomenon of longevity in women. Here, clinical data from 400 women of various ages undergoing intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) have been analyzed, including Anti-Müllerian Hormone (AMH) and Follicle-Stimulating Hormone (FSH) levels, the number of recovered oocytes, blastocyst rates, pregnancy rates, and live birth rates. Our analyses revealed significant differences in the aforementioned rates between patients of young and advanced age. For the biomarker analysis, we further utilised a novel predictive performance of age-associated gene expression signatures for oocyte aging, demonstrating its potential to provide molecular-level insights into oocyte quality over time. By analyzing RNA sequencing data generated from human oocytes of different ages, a genome-wide landscape of age-associated gene expression has been described. Additionally, metabolome profiling has been performed on young and reproductively aged mice, serving as a model for human ovaries. Changes in metabolites of the murine ovaries during aging have been recorded. In conjunction with traditional biomarkers, multiomics data represent a transformative approach in reproductive health, and they may offer personalised risk assessments and interventions to mitigate age-related fertility decline in women. Our metabolome profiling provides a valuable resource for elucidating the metabolomic basis of ovarian aging. Our findings offer novel insights into systemic shifts associated with oocyte and ovarian aging. This integrated approach may unlock new avenues for fertility preservation, ovarian rejuvenation, and assisted reproduction.

Fast Plastic Deposit (FPD) is an extrusion-based additive manufacturing (AM) technology developed by the authors to overcome the thermal, rheological, and dynamic limitations characteristic of high-speed and large-format Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM). The proposed approach integrates a multi-zone melt-conditioning block, reinforced high-torque filament feeding, a dual-nozzle deposition architecture, and predictive extrusion control. These features enable volumetric flow rates that significantly exceed those achievable with conventional desktop and industrial FDM systems. A prototype machine incorporating a 1 × 1 × 1 m heated chamber was constructed and subjected to extensive thermal, geometric, rheological, and mechanical testing. The results demonstrated melt-pool stability, volumetric flow rates above 25 g/min, and dimensional accuracy within ±0.1 mm, while maintaining consistent surface quality. Additionally, the printing time for a 5.5 kg demonstrator part was reduced by more than 60% compared with a professional FDM platform. These findings position FPD as a viable methodology for high-throughput polymer AM applications.

Detecting and resolving performance anomalies in Cloud services is crucial for maintaining desired performance objectives. Scaling actions triggered by an anomaly detector help achieve target latency at the cost of extra resource consumption. However, performance anomaly detectors make mistakes. This paper studies which characteristics of performance anomaly detection are important to optimize the trade-off between performance and cost. Using Stochastic Reward Nets, we model a Cloud service monitored by a performance anomaly detector. Using our model, we study the impact of detector characteristics, namely precision, recall and inspection frequency, on the average latency and resource consumption of the monitored service. Our results show that achieving a high precision and a high recall is not always necessary. If detection can be run frequently, a high precision is enough to obtain a good performance-to-cost trade-off, but if the detector is run infrequently, recall becomes the most important.

Although almost all studies exclude lip conditions because they would affect furrow patterns, some authors maintain that they should be considered temporary or permanent disabilities, all of which require further research in this context.We present a study in which we associate lip conditions with lip print patterns to associate both morphological elements for fieldwork purposes.Fifty-seven women and 48 men aged between 19 and 38 years who resided in Temuco (Chile) were included.The lip conditions and their prints were recorded, and an analysis, comparison, evaluation, and verification protocol (ACE-V) for lip prints was applied.Of the participants, 27.4 % had healthy lips, while 71.7 % had some type of condition.Although patterns related to temporary and permanent lip conditions were recognized in the lip prints in a non-significant way, the diagnosis of "healthy" or "altered" lip status could be made significantly by a calibrated examiner.Although these conditions do not represent identifying variables without empirical studies to validate them, they can affect the quality of the evaluated lip print; therefore, they should be recognized during the analyses considering the prevalence of these conditions.

The results of tests and examinations of the microstructure and mechanical properties of cast steel used for large-size slag ladles are presented. Castings of this type (especially large-size ladles with a capacity of up to 16 m3) operate under very demanding conditions resulting from the repeated cycles of filling and emptying the ladle with liquid slag at a temperature exceeding even 1600°C. The changes in operating temperature cause faster degradation and wear of slag ladle castings, mainly due to thermal fatigue. The tests carried out on samples taken from different parts/areas of the ladle (flange, bottom and half-height) showed significant differences in the microstructure of the flange and bottom part as compared to the microstructure obtained at half-height of the ladle wall. The flange and bottom were characterized by a ferritic-pearlitic microstructure, while the microstructure at the ladle half-height consisted of a ferritic matrix, cementite and graphite precipitates. Changes in microstructure affected the mechanical properties. Based on the test results it was found that both the flange and the bottom of the ladle had higher mechanical properties, i.e. UTS, YS, hardness, and impact energy than the centre of the ladle wall. Fractography showed the mixed character of fractures with the predominance of brittle fracture. Microporosity and clusters of non-metallic inclusions were also found in the fractures of samples characterized by low properties.

In industrial conditions, ductile iron was prepared and two molds were made, in which a 600mm thick plate was formed. Filling system for one mold was placed vertically and for the second -horizontally. In order to obtain cooling curves, "S" type thermocouples have been placed in the mold. After cooling the casts, the samples from the fixing points of thermocouples were cut by the trepanning method. In the "vertical" cast sample shrinkage porosity was observed, while in the "horizontal" cast sample no porosity was detected. A significant difference in the recorded temperature in the center of the casts was discovered, indicating a defect in "vertical" cast.