Search

The prevalence of varicoceles in male infertility is increasing; however, the exact mechanism is unknown, and no direct studies of varicose spermatic veins have been conducted. Three patients with varicocele infertility were included to explore the possible factors that cause varicocele infertility, and varicose and nearby normal veins were harvested by varicocelectomy. RNA sequencing was performed on six vascular samples, followed by Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway analyses of the screened differential expressed genes which were validated by quantitative reverse transcription‐polymerase chain reaction. The genomes of the patients were analysed using next‐generation sequencing to screen for genetic factors behind varicocele infertility. 1171 genes were upregulated and 2772 were downregulated in varicose spermatic veins compared with those in normal veins. These genes were significantly enriched in the alcohol consumption pathway. HIST1H4C, HIST1H4F, HIST1H4K, TM9SF1, and TMEFF1 were significantly differentially expressed. The genomic results identified patients with mutations in CFTR, NANOS1, SRCAP, GATA4, GCM2, TUBB1, ALDH7A1, ANTXR1, and MAP3K1. In conclusion, our results indicated that Alcohol consumption may be a cause of varicoceles. Mutations in certain genes, such as CFTR, may be a cause of male infertility due to varicoceles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a perfectly matched inhomogeneous receiving metasurface for line source incidence, based on the effective medium equivalency. Each building block of the inhomogeneous metasurface has effective constitutive parameters that satisfy a specific relationship dependent on the location of the line source. By doing so, the reflection from the receiving metasurface for the cylindrical wave incidence can be significantly suppressed, improving the total reception efficiency greatly. Theoretical analysis, numerical calculation, full‐wave simulations and experimental results are consistent with each other, showing promising applications in some short‐range wireless power transmission systems, where the incident wave is non‐planar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a novel interdigital capacitor resonator (ICR), which has a high spurious frequency and compact size. A six-pole high-temperature superconducting (HTS) bandpass filter (BPF) has been designed and fabricated with this ICR on a double-sided MgO-based YBCO thin film. Measurement at cryogenic temperature shows a fractional bandwidth of 0.4%, and an ultra high spurious passband at about 4.1 f0. Moreover, the measurement shows a good agreement with simulation in wideband response. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 55:443-447, 2012; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.27324 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wearable systems are important for future smart home care for the disabled and ageing population. One of the key challenges is the power supply. One solution is to develop an energy harvesting system suitable for providing power wirelessly. The matching network and filter in traditional energy harvesting system occupy lots of space, introduce additional losses, and reduce the total efficiency. This paper presents a novel filtering antenna suitable for wearable energy harvesting systems. The developed antenna has a broadband operation, harmonics suppression, compact size, and low cost. Firstly, a novel technique for broadband filtering antenna modeling and design in order to realize complex input impedance is presented. By adjusting the external quality factors and coupling coefficients of the resonators, complex impedance matching can be realized. Then, the theory of characteristic mode is used for the modal analysis of the filtering antenna. To verify the design concept, a C‐band circularly polarized filtering antenna with complex impedance is designed and fabricated. The results show that the impedance bandwidth is more than 14.5% with a peak gain higher than 8.5 dBi. The proposed antenna is conjugate matched to the rectifying circuit at 5.8 GHz and mismatched at the second harmonic frequency to suppress the harmonic reradiation, leading to a compact rectenna structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]