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
Shatt Al-Hilla was considered one of the important branches of Euphrates River that supplies irrigation water to millions of dunams of planted areas. It is important to control the velocity and water level along the river to maintain the required level for easily diverting water to the branches located along the river. So, in this research, a numerical model was developed to simulate the gradually varied unsteady flow in Shatt AL-Hilla. The present study aims to solve the continuity and momentum (Saint-Venant) equations numerically to predict the hydraulic characteristics in the river using Galerkin finite element method. A computer program was designed and built using the programming language FORTRAN-77. Fifty kilometers was consid
... Show MoreThe presence of construction wastes such as clay bricks, glass, wood, plastic, and others in large quantities causes serious environmental problems in the world. Where these wastes can be used to preserve the natural resources used in construction and reduce the impact of this problem on the environment, it also works to reduce the problem of high loads of concrete blocks. Clay bricks aggregate (AB) can be recycled as coarse aggregate and replaced with volumetric proportions of coarse aggregate by ( 5% and 10%), as well as the use of clay brick powder (PB) by replacing its weight of cement (5% and 10%) and reduced in the manufacture of concrete blocks (blocks). Four mixtures will be prepared and tested to learn how to re
... Show MoreThe degradation and mineralization of 4-chlorophenol (4-CP) by advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) was investigated in this work, using both of UV/H2O2 and photo-Fenton UV/H2O2/Fe+3 systems.The reaction was influenced by the input concentration of H2O2, the amount of the iron catalyst, the type of iron salt, the pH and the concentration of 4-CP. A colored solution of benzoquinon can be observed through the first 5 minutes of irradiation time for UV/H2O2 system when low concentration (0.01mol/L) of H2O2 was used. The colored solution of benzoquinon could also be observed through the first 5 minutes for the UV/H2O2/Fe+3 system at high
concentration (100ppm) of 4-CP. The results have shown that adding Fe+3 to the UV/H2O2 system enhanced
The aim of this research work is to study the effect of stabilizing gypseous soil, which covers
vast areas in the middle, west and south parts of Iraq, using liquid asphalt on its strength properties
to be used as a base course layer replacing the traditional materials of coarse aggregate and broken
stones which are scarce at economical prices and hauling distances.
Gypseous soil brought from Al-Ramadi City, west of Iraq, with gypsum content of 66.65%,
medium curing cutback asphalt (MC-30), and hydrated lime are used in this study.
The conducted tests on untreated and treated gypseous soil with different percentages of medium
curing cutback asphalt (MC-30), water, and lime were: unconfined compression strength, and o
This study focuses on the modeling of manufactured damper when used in steel buildings. The main aim of the manufactured dampers is to protect the steel buildings from the damaging effects that may result due to earthquakes by introducing an extra damping in addition to the traditional damping.
Only Pure Manufactured Dampers, has been considered in this study. Viscous modeling of damping is generally preferred in structural engineering as it leads to a linear model then it has been used during this study to simulate the behavior of the Pure Manufactured Damper.
After definition of structural parameters of a manufactured damper (its stiffness and its damping) it can be used as a structural element that can be added to a mathematica
Room temperature ionic liquids show potential as an alternative to conventional organic membrane solvents mainly due to their properties of low vapour pressure, low volatility and they are often stable. In the present work, the technical feasibilities of room temperature ionic liquids as bulk liquid membranes for phenol removal were investigated experimentally. In this research several hydrophobic ionic liquids were synthesized at laboratory. These ionic liquids include (1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bis (trifluoromethylsulfonyl) imide[Bmim][NTf2], 1-Hexyl-3-methylimidazolium bis (trifluoromethylsulfonyl) imide[Hmim][NTf2], 1-octyl-3-methylimidazolium bis (trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide[Omim][NTf2],1‐butyl
... Show MoreThe plant Papaver rhoeas ,which belongs to family Papaveraceae and known as common poppy is wildly grown in Iraq .It was used in traditional medicine in wide range of diseases including inflammation, diarrhea, sleep disorders, treatment of cough, analgesia, and also to reduce the withdrawal signs of opioid addiction.
The project provide the first comprehensive research done in Iraq to study the phytochemical and the methods of extraction and separation of alkaloids from Papaver rhoeas wildly grown in Iraq .The plant was harvested in April 2019 from Zurbatiya is an Iraqi town located at the northeast of Waist province in Iraq.The collected plant was washed thoroughly, dries under shade, and grounding in a mechani
... Show MoreA new spectrophotometric method has been developed for the assay of olanzapine (OLN.) in pure and dosage forms. The method is based on the diazocoupling of (OLN.) with diazotized p-nitroaniline in alkaline medium to form a stable brown colored water-soluble azo dye with a maximum absorption at 405 nm. The variables that affect the completion of reaction have been carefully optimized. Beer’s law is obeyed over the concentration range of (0.5-45.0 μg.mL-1) with a molar absorptivity of 1.5777×104 L.mol-1.cm-1. The limit of detection was 0.3148 μg.mL-1 and Sandell’s sensitivity value was 0.0198 μg.cm-2. The propose
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