ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Estrogens has traditionally been known as the female hormone, but this idea has been challenged in early 1990’s and an essential physiological role for estrogen in male fertility was identified. Phytoestrogens are naturally occurring non-steroidal plant chemicals that can act like the female hormone estrogen. The herbs ( anise alfalfa and vervain ) chosen in this study contain phytoestrogens. OBJECTIVE: Previous studies demonstrated controversy of the effects of phytoestrogens on the rat testes .Hence, the present investigation was undertaken to investigate the influence of typical dose of herbs containing phytoestrogen on the rat testis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-four apparently normal mature male rats were divided into four groups of 6 animals each. The first "control" group received only 4ml of distilled water as a placebo. The second group received 40mg/kg of anise seed; the third group received 53.3 mg/kg of dried herb of vervain and the fourth group received 400 mg /kg of alfalfa seeds. All experimental groups received the doses through orogastric tube daily for fourteen days. Testicular histology was evaluated by light and enzyme histochemistry. Plasma FSH and testosterone concentrations were taken to support our results. RESULTS: Histological examination of anise, alfalfa and vervain – treated groups showed an increase in the height of germinal epithelia. There was marked lipoprotein lipase activity in the whole of the interstitial tissue which is more in amount in experimental groups than that in control group. Acid phosphatase granules were infiltered the seminiferous epithelia mildly in control group , moderately in anise and vervain groups and markedly in alfalfa group. The number of interstitial cells showing marked acid phosphatase activity was higher in all experimental groups than that in control group. Alkaline phosphatase exhibited intense activity in the boundary tissue of the seminiferous tubules in testes of control and experimental groups but it appeared thicker in the latter. CONCLUSION: The low dose and short duration of treatment used in our study made these phytoestrogen – containing herbs to have a stimulatory effect on leydig cell steroidogenesis. This study also demonstrated that aniseed being the most potent of the three herbs followed by alfalfa in stimulating testosterone synthesis. This is possibly attributed to the coumarin constituent of aniseed and alfalfa. KEY WORDS: phytoestrogen-containing herbs, testis, acid phosphatase, alkaline phosphatase, lipoprotein lipase
Background: The roles of AI in the academic community continue to grow, especially in the enhancement of learning outcomes and the improvement of writing quality and efficiency. Objectives: To explore in depth the experience of senior pharmacy students in using artificial intelligence for academic purposes. Methods: This qualitative study included face-to-face individual interviews with senior pharmacy students from March to May 2023 using a pre-planned interview guide of open-ended questions. All interviews were audio-recorded. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Results: The results were obtained from 15 in-depth face-to-face interviews with senior pharmacy students (5th and 4th years). Eight participants were male, an
... Show MoreIdioms are a very important part of the English language: you are told that if you want to go far (succeed) you should pull your socks up (make a serious effort to improve your behaviour, the quality of your work, etc.) and use your grey matter (brain).1 Learning and translating idioms have always been very difficult for foreign language learners. The present paper explores some of the reasons why English idiomatic expressions are difficult to learn and translate. It is not the aim of this paper to attempt a comprehensive survey of the vast amount of material that has appeared on idioms in Adams and Kuder (1984), Alexander (1984), Dixon (1983), Kirkpatrick (2001), Langlotz (2006), McCarthy and O'Dell (2002), and Wray (2002), among others
... Show MoreIn this paper , some of lexical stylistic , syntactical stylistic devices , and one phonetic stylistic device are going to be illustrated in the study of the aphorisms of “life and death” . These stylistic devices are parallelism , hyperbole , alliteration , meiosis , irony , oxymoron , cliché , litotes , metalepsis , and loose sentences. This paper aims at identifying the functions and the frequencies of these devices. These stylistic devices make one speech and writing more interesting and help to get the attention of readers/ listeners
In this contribution, new derivatives of bicyclic fused rings with bridgehead nitrogen of 3-substituted imidazo/pyrimidine derivatives A1-A3 were synthesized by reacting 2-aminobenzothiazol, acetyl acetone, and different substituted aldehydes in a one-pot reaction. These compounds A1-A3 were then condensed with 4-bromobenzaldehyde and 4-(N,N-dimethylamino)benzaldehyde to form new chalcone derivatives A4-A9. Ring closure of these compounds A4-A9 with urea and malononitrile afforded new oxopyrimidine derivatives A10-A15 and cyanopyridine derivatives A16-A21, respectively. These compounds were characterized by FT-IR, 1H NMR, and 13C NMR spectroscopy. The second part of this work included some of the i
... Show MoreIndustrial development has recently increased, including that of plastic industries. Since plastic has a very long analytical life, it will cause environmental pollution, so studies have resorted to reusing recycled waste plastic (sustainable plastic) to produce environmentally friendly concrete (green concrete). In this research, producing environmentally friendly load-bearing concrete masonry units (blocks) was considered where five concrete mixtures were compressed at the blocks producing machine. The cement content reduced from 400 kg/m3 (B-400) to 300 kg/m3 (B-300) then to 200 kg/m3 (B-200). While (B-380) was produced using 380 kg/m3 cement and 20 kg/m3 nano-sil
... Show MoreSynthesis and preliminary biological evaluation of imidazo (2, 1-b) Thiazole derivatives is reported. Under Mannich conditions, a series of new imidazo (2, 1-b) Thiazole derivatives were synthesized. Starting from the reaction of 2- amino thiazole with 4- bromo phenyl bromide to produce 5-(4-bromo phenyl) imidazo (2, 1-b) thiazoles, following by introduce the substituted aminomethyl at position 6-by reacting with different aromatic amines under Mannich conditions to afford 6-secondary amine-5-(4-bromo phenyl) imidazo (2,1-b) thiazole in high yields.
FT-IR, 1H NMR, and 13C NMR techniques were used to characterize the synthesized derivatives. In addition, all compounds were tested for their antioxidant activity, and thr
... Show MoreA series of new 1,8-naphthalimides linked to azetidinone, thiazolidinone or tetrazole moieties were synthesized. N-ester-1,8-naphthalimide (1) was obtained by direct imidation of 1,8-naphthalic anhydride with ethylglycinate. Compound (1) was treated with hydrazine hydrate in absolute ethanol to give N-acetohydrazide-1,8-naphthalimide (2). The hydrazine derivative (2) was used to obtain new Schiff bases (3-7). Three routes with different reagents were used for the cyclization of the prepared Schiff bases. Fifteen cyclic Schiff bases (8-22) with four- and five-membered rings were obtained.
The structures of the newly synthesized compounds were identified by their FTIR, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR spectral data and some physical properties. Furtherm
This study involves the design of 24 mixtures of fiber reinforced magnetic reactive powder concrete containing nano Silica. Tap water has been used in mixing 12 of these mixtures, while the other 12 have been mixed using magnetic water. Nano Silica (NS) with ratios (1, 1.5, 2, 2.5 and 3) % were used. The results showed that the mixture containing 2.5%NS gives the highest compressive strength at age 7 days. Many different other tests were carried out, the results showed that the fiber reinforced magnetic reactive powder concrete containing 2.5% NS (FRMRPCCNS) has the higher bulk density, dynamic modulus of elasticity, ultrasonic pulse velocity electrical resistivity and lesser absorption than fiber reinforced
... Show MoreBackground: Shunt operations are performed for different reasons mainly hydrocephalus congenital or acquired. It’s associated with certain morbidity and mortality.
Patients and method: A prospective study from Jan 2004 to Jan 2006, 226 patients under went shunt operation in the specialized surgical hospital in Baghdad. The patients were divided into two groups according to the way of applying the upper end catheter. In group A49 patients where posterior parietal approach was used, and group (B) 174 where parietal or temproprietal approach was used.
Results and discussions: different complications were recorded, but the most frequent was upper end obstruction by choroids plexus or by debris. In group