Cryopreserving ovarian tissue followed by transplantation has been suggested to preserve fertility for young cancer survivors. However, ischemia in the early stage after transplantation causes massive follicle loss. The aim was to investigate the histological and ultrastructural characteristics of the frozen-thawed human fetal ovarian tissue after xenotransplantation and the effects of Salviae miltiorrhizae (SM) on the angiogenesis. The human fetal ovarian tissues were frozen-thawed, xenografted into the immunodeficient nu/nu mice, and then collected 2, 7, and 28 days after transplantation. SM was administered. Compared with that of the frozen-thawed ovarian tissue, the total follicle number of the grafts was greatly reduced. Nearly half of the primordial follicles were damaged at different levels on day 2. Moreover, edema was prevalent in the stroma during the first week after the graft, especially on day 2. The microvessel density of the grafts was increased on day 2, reached a peak on day 7, and then declined on day 28. Both healthy primordial follicle proportion and the total healthy primordial follicles pool in the SM group were significantly higher than those of the control group (P ¼ 0.003 and P ¼ 0.001). We found a statistically significant difference of microvessel density between the two groups on day 2 (P < 0.001). In the frozenthawed fetal ovarian grafts, angiogenesis has been begun on day 2, and the first week is the critical time for the grafts to regain their function, in which SM can facilitate graft vascularization and improve the preservation of primordial follicles. Anat Rec, 293:2154Rec, 293: -2162

The ever increasing oil and gas exploration and production cost requires highly efficient and safe operation of the existing offshore and subsea equipment and facilities. At the same time, a large number of facilities and parts of the existing infrastructure are quickly approaching or have exceeded their originally designed service life. Many fields, however, still have large amount of remaining recoverable oil and gas reserve which can be profitable if current production equipment's service life can be extended beyond their nominal design, otherwise economic penalty of stopping production or installing new equipment will be too high.On the other hand, once existing equipment have been operating beyond their design life, unforeseen failure and integrity problems can occur that site personnel may have not previously encountered. In many cases this can cause production to cease unexpectedly, and result in costly emergency repairs to get the asset back online.To extend asset life and push the design envelop, operators must prove to themselves and often their regulators that the assets are safe to operate with limited and controlled risks. In a scenario like this, the subsea integrity management of ageing assets has become a key issue for the oil and gas industry.This paper provides an actual case study for asset integrity assessment of subsea facilities life extension, performed by DNV GL and the O&G asset operator team. The study includes the asset integrity condition assessment based on equipment design documentation, operations data, maintenance and inspection analysis data, risk assessment and recommended mitigation of identified threats, engineering critical analysis of high risk equipment, and proposed destructive lab testing of parts retrieved from subsea.

The lignin−carbohydrate complexes (LCCs) typically present in the liquors produced in the pre-hydrolysis of biomass cause severe difficulties in downstream fractionation. To address this issue, a series of LCC samples were accessed from solutions obtained from the pre-hydrolysis of extractive-free pine wood meal (H-LCC) and compared with LCC obtained from the corresponding residues (B-LCC). Chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques revealed that 8.2% of the lignins were degraded at 160 °C, resulting from the breakage of β-O-4′ linkages during pre-hydrolysis. Meanwhile, (reactive) hemicelluloses were mainly removed from the fibers' cell walls. Some hemicelluloses in the prehydrolysis liquor, such as glucomannans, were associated with degraded lignin fragments via ether and ester bonds. However, the newly formed LCCs were pH-labile and underwent rapid hydrolysis. Overall, we reveal details about LCC formation and degradation during pre-hydrolysis at given temperatures, critically important in efforts to improve biomass processing and valorization.

A recent study showed that peroxiredoxins (Prxs) play an important role in the development of pathological cardiac hypertrophy. However, the involvement of Prx5 in cardiac hypertrophy remains unclear. Therefore, this study is aimed at investigating the role and mechanisms of Prx5 in pathological cardiac hypertrophy and dysfunction. Transverse aortic constriction (TAC) surgery was performed to establish a pressure overload-induced cardiac hypertrophy model. In this study, we found that Prx5 expression was upregulated in hypertrophic hearts and cardiomyocytes. In addition, Prx5 knockdown accelerated pressure overload-induced cardiac hypertrophy and dysfunction in mice by activating oxidative stress and cardiomyocyte apoptosis. Importantly, heart deterioration caused by Prx5 knockdown was related to mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway activation. These findings suggest that Prx5 could be a novel target for treating cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure.

High pressure high temperature (HPHT) technology and field development have received much attention in recent years. Materials for HPHT environments, including ultra-high strength alloys and soft polymer compounds will in some cases be close to their capability limits. Materials testing and qualification have therefore been challenging for HPHT equipment design and project execution. At the same time, lower oil prices have put cost pressures on project developments. To overcome both technical and financial challenges while ensuring satisfactory project safety and performance, holistic and systematic solutions promoting materials standardization and innovation are necessary. In this paper, case studies and lessons learned from several recent and widely recognized Joint Industry Projects on subsea materials are presented. The philosophy of materials standardization and innovation behind these efforts will be discussed and their positive impacts on HPHT materials qualification and testing will be summarized.