Figure 1

Comparison of mathematically optimized protocols for equilibration of human oocytes with EG. All of the procedures terminated at a goal state with s^f/w^f = 30, which is equivalent to an intracellular EG molality of 9 Osm/kg, or a molar concentration of about 6 mol/L. The red line shows results from our previous study [16], which involved piecewise linear parameterization of m₁(τ) and m₂(τ) and a goal state fixed at the isotonic cell volume. The orange line shows results for the same piecewise linear parameterization of m₁(τ) and m₂(τ), but with a goal state that was not fixed at a specified final volume. The green and blue lines show two-step and three-step piecewise constant procedures, which also had goal states that were not fixed at a specific final volume. The horizontal dotted lines in the top figure show the osmotic tolerance limits. Note that the nondimensional EG concentration m₂ can be converted to molal units by multiplying by 0.3 Osm/kg.