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This article proposes a new coulometric approach to calculate the state of charge of a lead-acid battery in electric vehicles. The main existing state of charge algorithms have two major defects: a state of charge definition not adapted to electric vehicle applications and the non optimal use of static performance of the accumulator to estimate its state under dynamic stresses. In order to improve these two weaknesses, we propose a new coulometric algorithm linked to the performance of the electric vehicle and where the ampere-hours virtually discharged are obtained by applying statistical equivalence coefficients to the real current profile. The evaluation of this new algorithm on real discharges reveals a significant improvement with less than 5 % errors in all cases studied. Index Terms--Batteries, energy conversion, energy measurement, road vehicle electric propulsion.

Introduction: Animal models, especially rodents, have become instrumental to experimentally investigate the effects of an adverse post-natal environment on the developing brain. For this purpose, maternal separation (MS) paradigms have been widely used in the last decades. Nonetheless, how MS affects maternal behavior and, ultimately, the offspring depend on multiple variables., Methods: To gain further insights into the consequences of MS, we decided to thoroughly measure and compare the effects of short (15 min, 3 times/day) vs. long (3 h, 1 time/day) separation on multiple maternally-associated behaviors and across the entire post-natal period., Results: Compared to unhandled control litters, our results confirmed previous studies and indicated that SMS enhanced the time and variety of maternal care whereas LMS resulted in poor caregiving. We also showed that SMS-accrued caregiving persisted during the whole post-natal period. In contrast, LMS effects on maternal behavior were restricted to the early life (P2-P10). Finally, we also analyzed the behavioral consequences of these different rearing social environments on the offspring. We found that MS has profound effects in social tasks. We showed that affiliative touch, a type of prosocial behavior that provides comfort to others, is particularly sensitive to the modification of maternal caregiving., Discussion: Our results provide further support to the contention that interactions during the early post-natal period critically contribute to emotional processing and brain co-construction., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Rombaut, Roura-Martinez, Lepolard and Gascon.)

Introduction: Although intensively studied in the last decades, how microRNAs (miRNAs) are expressed across different cell types in the brain remains largely unknown., Materials: To address this issue, we sought to develop optimized fluorescence reporters that could be expressed in precise cellular subsets and used to accurately quantify miR contents in vivo ., Results: Focusing on miR-124, we tested different reporter designs whose efficiency was confirmed in different in vitro settings including cell lines and primary neuronal cultures from different brain structures. Unlike previous reporters, we provide experimental evidence that our optimized designs can faithfully translate miR levels in vitro ., Discussion: Tools developed here would enable assessing miRNA expression at the single cell resolution and are expected to significantly contribute to future miRNA research in vivo ., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Lepolard, Rombaut, Jaouen, Borges, Caccomo-Garcia, Popa and Gascon.)

Organoid systems take advantage of the self-organizing capabilities of cells to create diverse multi-cellular tissue surrogates that constitute a powerful novel class of biological models. Clearly, the formation of a testicular organoid (TO) in which human spermatogenesis can proceed from a single-cell suspension would exert a tremendous impact on research and development, clinical treatment of infertility, and screening of potential drugs and toxic agents. Recently, we showed that primary adult and pubertal human testicular cells auto-assembled in TOs either with or without the support of a natural testis scaffold. These mini-tissues harboured both the spermatogonial stem cells and their important niche cells, which retained certain specific functions during long-term culture. As such, human TOs might advance the development of a system allowing human in vitro spermatogenesis. Here we describe the methodology to make scaffold-based and scaffold-free TOs.

Recently, complete in vitro generation of male gametes starting from pluripotent stem cells was obtained in a mouse model with live offspring as a result. This breakthrough was probably due to the use of a stepwise differentiation protocol taking the tightly regulated in vivo situation into account. As shown previously, factors of the TGFβ superfamily, metabolites of vitamin A, growth hormones, sex steroids and, most importantly, somatic cell support are major regulators of the development, survival, proliferation and differentiation of male gametes. However, up till now, all differentiation protocols starting from human pluripotent stem cells only focused on one or two of these substantive factors, not taking any timeframe into account, leading to promising but unsatisfying results with low efficiency. Therefore, progress might be achieved by including a stepwise differentiation protocol, including all proven contributing regulators, and therefore mimicking more closely human in vivo spermatogenesis and its temporo-spatial organization. In this review, the indispensable regulators of in vivo spermatogenesis and the outcomes of related human in vitro studies are discussed with the aim of unravelling the most successful combinations of medium factors to be used in future differentiation protocols., (© The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Objective: To study the ability of human spermatogonial stem cells (hSSCs) to proliferate in vitro under mouse spermatogonial stem cell (mSSC) culture conditions., Design: Experimental basic science study., Setting: Reproductive biology laboratory., Patient(s): Cryopreserved testicular tissue with normal spermatogenesis obtained from three donors subjected to orchiectomy due to a prostate cancer treatment., Intervention(s): Testicular cells used to create in vitro cell cultures corresponding to the following groups: [1] unsorted human testicular cells, [2] differentially plated human testicular cells, and [3] cells enriched with major histocompatibility complex class 1 (HLA - )/epithelial cell surface antigen (EPCAM + ) in coculture with inactivated testicular feeders from the same patient., Main Outcome Measure(s): Analyses and characterization including immunocytochemistry and quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction for somatic and germ cell markers, testosterone and inhibin B quantification, and TUNEL assay., Result(s): Putative hSSCs appeared in singlets, doublets, or small groups of up to four cells in vitro only when testicular cells were cultured in StemPro-34 medium supplemented with glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF), basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), and epidermal growth factor (EGF). Fluorescence-activated cell sorting with HLA - /EPCAM + resulted in an enrichment of 27% VASA + /UTF1 + hSSCs, compared to 13% in unsorted controls. Coculture of sorted cells with inactivated testicular feeders gave rise to an average density of 112 hSSCs/cm 2 after 2 weeks in vitro compared with unsorted cells (61 hSSCs/cm 2 ) and differentially plated cells (49 hSSCS/cm 2 ). However, putative hSSCs rarely stained positive for the proliferation marker Ki67, and their presence was reduced to the point of almost disappearing after 4 weeks in vitro., Conclusion(s): We found that hSSCs show limited proliferation in vitro under mSSC culture conditions. Coculture of HLA - /EPCAM + sorted cells with testicular feeders improved the germ cell/somatic cell ratio., (Copyright © 2016 American Society for Reproductive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: Previous studies have shown that the removal of one testis leads to a compensatory mechanism in the contralateral one, but this was species and age dependent. The aim of this study was to check whether this compensation would still occur after the combination of a unilateral orchiectomy and gonadotoxic treatment, since this resembles the clinical situation of patients who have to undergo highly toxic cancer treatment and therefore choose to cryopreserve a testicular biopsy for fertility restoration purposes., Materials & Methods: Sprague Dawley rats underwent either unilateral orchiectomy, gonadotoxic busulfan treatment, the combination of both or served as fertile control. A comparison of the compensatory effects was made between adult and prepubertal treated rats. Mating experiments were performed, testosterone levels were followed-up, testicular weight was recorded and histology was analysed., Results: Adult treated rats were able to restore fertility spontaneously in all treatment groups. On the other hand, 30% of the rats that underwent a unilateral orchiectomy and gonadotoxic treatment at prepubertal age showed hampered spermatogenesis, low testosterone levels, decreased testicular weights and were not able to reproduce., Conclusion: This study emphasizes the need of fertility preservation strategies in prepubertal patients before gonadotoxic interventions., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Infertility is a global healthcare problem, and despite long years of assisted reproductive activities, a significant number of cases remain idiopathic. Our currently restricted understanding of basic mechanisms driving human gametogenesis severely limits the improvement of clinical care for infertile patients. Using exome sequencing, we identified a nonsense mutation leading to a premature stop in the TEX15 locus (c.2130T>G, p.Y710*) in a consanguineous Turkish family comprising eight siblings in which three brothers were identified as infertile. TEX15 displays testis-specific expression, maps to chromosome 8, contains four exons and encodes a 2789-amino acid protein with uncertain function. The mutation, which should lead to early translational termination at the first exon of TEX15, co-segregated with the infertility phenotype, and our data strongly suggest that it is the cause of spermatogenic defects in the family. All three affected brothers presented a phenotype reminiscent of the one observed in KO mice. Indeed, previously reported results demonstrated that disruption of the orthologous gene in mice caused a drastic reduction in testis size and meiotic arrest in the first wave of spermatogenesis in males while female KO mice were fertile. The data from our study of one Turkish family suggested that the identified mutation correlates with a decrease in sperm count over time. A diagnostic test identifying the mutation in man could provide an indication of spermatogenic failure and prompt patients to undertake sperm cryopreservation at an early age., (© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

The hospital treatment of anorexic adolescents is complex, multidisciplinary and often long.The psychopathological functioning of these young patients places the caregivers in a difficult position. The team of the adolescent crisis and hospitalisation unit at Caen general hospital benefits from the support of a psychologist from outside the unit.