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Objective To compare the longer-term development outcomes in children born after freeze-only versus fresh embryo transfer (ET) in women with an ovulatory cycle. Design Long-term follow-up study (NCT04099784) of babies born alive after the first ET in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) comparing ongoing pregnancy and live birth rates after use of a freeze-only versus fresh ET strategy (NCT02471573). Setting Private clinic. Patient(s) Of 391 couples randomized to each treatment group in the RCT, 132 (97 singleton/35 twins) and 123 (95 singleton/28 twins) in the freeze-only and fresh ET groups had live birth; 113 parents (86%) from the freeze-only group (147 babies) and 99 (80%) from the fresh ET group (120 babies) returned questionnaires for this follow-up study. Intervention(s) Use of a freeze-only or fresh ET strategy after controlled ovarian hyperstimulation with a follicle-stimulating hormone/gonadotropin-releasing antagonist protocol. Main Outcome Measure(s) Developmental status at ≥2 years after birth, determined using the Developmental Red Flags and Ages & Stages Third Edition (ASQ-3) Questionnaires. Result(s) Mean age of children at the end of follow-up was 37 months. Height (95.0 ± 6.1 vs. 95.7 ± 5.6 cm) and weight (14.9 ± 2.6 vs. 14.8 ± 2.6 kg) were similar in the freeze-only and fresh ET groups (results were similar when singletons and twins were analyzed separately). Overall, ASQ-3 scores for problem solving were significantly better in the freeze-only versus fresh ET group (overall: 53.6 ± 8.4 vs. 51.1 ± 10.2), with no significant between-group difference when singletons (52.3 ± 10.1 vs. 51.0 ± 9.9) and twins (55.0 ± 5.5 vs. 51.4 ± 11.1) were analyzed separately. Fine motor skills scores were numerically higher (with P values approaching statistical significance) in the freeze-only versus fresh ET group in the overall analysis (47.8 ± 11.6 vs. 44.9 ± 12.6) and twins (49.85 ± 8.72 vs. 43.93 ± 12.71), but not singletons (46.0 ± 13.4 vs. 45.4 ± 12.6). The overall proportion of children with abnormal ASQ-3 (6.8% vs. 8.3%) or abnormal Red Flags (5.4% vs. 6.7%) findings in the freeze-only and fresh ET groups was low and did not differ significantly between groups. Conclusion(s) These data provide physicians with additional information on which to base decisions about the relative merits of different approaches to infertility treatment. There do not appear to be any grounds for concern about worse outcomes after use of a freeze-only strategy. However, additional studies comparing childhood development after a freeze-only strategy, fresh ET, and natural cycles are needed before firm conclusions can be drawn.

A signcryption, which is an integration of a public key encryption and a digital signature, can provide confidentiality and authenticity simultaneously. Additionally, a signcryption associated with equality test allows a third party (e.g., a cloud server) to check whether or not two ciphertexts are encrypted from the same message without knowing the message. This application plays an important role especially in computing on encrypted data. In this paper, we propose the first lattice-based signcryption scheme equipped with a solution to testing the message equality in the standard model. The proposed signcryption scheme is proven to be secure against insider attacks under the learning with errors assumption and the intractability of the short integer solution problem. As a by-product, we also show that some existing lattice-based signcryptions either is insecure or does not work correctly.

The calculations of 1H and 13C NMR chemical shifts were performed on three 5–5 lignin dimers, prominent substructures in softwood lignins, to compare with experimental data. Initially, 10 DFT functionals (B3LYP, B3PW91, BPV86, CAM-B3LYP, HCTH, HSEH1PBE, mPW1PW91, PBEPBE, TPSSTPSS, and ωB97XD) combined with the gage-including atomic orbital (GIAO) method and basic set 6–31G(d,p) were tested on 3,3′-(6,6′-dihydroxy-5,5′-dimethoxy-[1,1′-biphenyl]-3,3′-diyl)dipropionic acid (1), efficiently synthesized from ferulic acid. HSEH1PBE, mPW1PW91, and ωB97XD were found to be the three best performing functionals with strong correlations (r2 ≥ 0.9988) and low errors (CMAEs ≤ 0.0611 ppm for 1H and CMAEs ≤ 1.19 ppm for 13C). These functionals were also well-performed for the 1H and 13C shift calculations of dimers 3,3′-dimethoxy-5,5′-dimethyl-[1,1′-biphenyl]-2,2′-diol (2) and 5,5′-diallyl-3,3′-dimethoxy-[1,1′-biphenyl]-2,2′-diol (3). Overall, the ωB97XD functional consistently provided the calculated 1H and 13C chemical shifts with a high level of accuracy.

Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for plants that is often in short supply. In rice (Oryza sativa L.), inorganic phosphate (Pi) deficiency leads to various physiological disorders that consequently affect plant productivity. In this study, a large-scale phenotyping experiment using 160 Vietnamese rice landraces was performed under greenhouse conditions, by employing an alpha lattice design with three replicates, to identify quantitative trait loci (QTLs) associated with plant growth inhibition caused by Pi deficiency. Rice plantlets were grown for six weeks in the PVC sand column (16 cm diameter × 80 cm height) supplied with Pi-deficient medium (10 μM P) or full-Pi Yoshida medium (320 μM P). The effects of Pi deficiency on the number of crown roots, root length, shoot length, root weight, shoot weight and total weight were studied. From 36 significant markers identified using a genome-wide association study, 21 QTLs associated with plant growth inhibition under Pi starvation were defined. In total, 158 candidate genes co-located with the defined QTLs were identified. Interestingly, one QTL (qRST9.14) was associated with all three weight-traits. The co-located gene GLYCEROPHOSPHODIESTER PHOSPHODIESTERASE 13 was found to be potentially involved in Pi transport. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of Pi-starvation responses, and identifying the potential QTLs responsible for low-Pi stress tolerance, will provide valuable information for developing new varieties tolerant of low-Pi conditions.

Nowadays, instant or quick cooking brown rice is a food product that has marketing potential due to the life style of new generation. This research mainly aimed to characterize, model and optimize the key processing conditions including water-rice ratio (WRR), microwave power level (MWL) and hot air temperature (HAT) for producing instant brown rice by applying Box-Behnken technique. The process responses comprised with color, rehydration ratio and textural qualities of products. The microscopic images of products were also determined. The result indicated that MWL caused the most intense effect on the rehydration ratio and textural qualities. Furthermore, the MWL and HAT influenced on the lightness while the WRR affected on the hardness of rehydrated samples. All three processing parameters significantly affected on the color intensity and stickiness of rehydrated rice. The optimal processing conditions for WRR, MWL and HAT were 1.44, 499.8 W and 89.99 °C respectively with 88% overall desirability.

Association rule hiding is an efficient solution that helps enterprises avoid the risk caused by sensitive knowledge leakage when sharing data in their collaborations. This study examines how data sharing has the potential to create risk for enterprises in retail supply chain collaboration and proposes a new algorithm to remove sensitive knowledge from the released database based on the intersection lattice of frequent itemsets. The proposed algorithm specifies the victim item such that the modification of this item causes the least impact on frequent itemsets and the non-sensitive association rule. In the experiment described in this paper, this algorithm is used in risk avoidance for a retailer sharing data in retail supply chain collaboration. The results indicate that our approach is applicable in a real context and outperforms previous mechanisms.

A total of 89 blood samples collected from HIV-infected infants and children from provinces of southern Vietnam who were hospitalized at Children's Hospital 1, Ho Chi Minh City, during the 1-year period from October 2004 to September 2005 were submitted to serological screening for IgG, IgA, and IgM antibodies against Chlamydophila pneumoniae (C. pneumoniae). The presence of this microorganism was also evaluated by PCR. The results showed that 64 % of the samples were positive for anti-C. pneumoniae IgG, 31.5 % were positive for IgA, and 3.4 % were positive for IgM. The highest prevalences of IgG and IgA positivity, 75 % and 66.7 %, respectively, were noted in the 1- to 2-year-old age group. However, all the samples were negative for C. pneumoniae by PCR. The study revealed a high seroprevalence of C. pneumoniae in Vietnamese infants and children with HIV/AIDS.