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
An innovative desalination method called electrosorption or capacitive deionization (CDI) has significant benefits for wastewater treatment. This process is performed by using a carbon fiber electrode as a working electrode to remove hexavalent chromium ions from an aqueous solution. The pH, NaCl concentration, and cell voltage were optimized using the Box-Behnken experimental design (BDD) in response surface methodology (RSM) to study the effects and interactions of selected variables. To attain the relationship between the process variables and chromium removal, the experimental data were subjected to an analysis of variance and fitted with a quadratic model. The optimum conditions to remove Cr(VI) ions were: pH of 2, a cell voltage of 4.
... Show MoreMarkov chains are an application of stochastic models in operation research, helping the analysis and optimization of processes with random events and transitions. The method that will be deployed to obtain the transient solution to a Markov chain problem is an important part of this process. The present paper introduces a novel Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE) approach to solve the Markov chain problem. The probability distribution of a continuous-time Markov chain with an infinitesimal generator at a given time is considered, which is a resulting solution of the Chapman-Kolmogorov differential equation. This study presents a one-step second-derivative method with better accuracy in solving the first-order Initial Value Problem
... Show MoreThe study aimed to evaluate the level of MMP‑2 in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients in comparison with that in remission status, and healthy subjects, and to find its correlation with hematologic parameters. This study included sixty newly diagnosed AML patients. Remission status was assessed after induction chemotherapy. The overall survival (OS) was determined after 6 months. The plasma MMP‑2 level was measured at diagnosis by enzyme immunoassay. Twenty‑eight healthy individuals were recruited as a control group. Plasma MMP‑2 was higher in AML patients than in healthy individuals (P = 0.005). The level of MMP‑2 was much higher in the M5 subtype than in the other subtypes (P = 0.0001). There was no statistically significant d
... Show MoreThe study problem is about the role of Shaqra University in building the mental image of the Kingdom’s 2030 vision among its female students. The study aims to examine the university’s role in providing information about the Kingdom’s 2030 vision, its role in shaping the vision’s image, the university’s role in the behavioral aspect of the vision, along with studying the extent of differences in answers of the sample individuals towards the study themes attributed to the personal variables. The researcher adopted the descriptive survey method. A sample of (1399) female students was used to achieve the study objectives. The results showed that university’s role in building the mental image of the Kingdom’s 2030 vision, among
... Show MoreCommercial, industrial, and military activity, largely in the 19th and 20th centuries, have led to environmental pollution that can threaten human health and ecosystem function, liquid gas petroleum (LPG) products are the major sources of energy for industry and daily life that cause environmental contamination during various stages of production, transportation, refining and use. Screening of bacterial isolate by using clear zone techniques and biomass and optical density. Results revealed that isolate Burkholdaria cepatia showed a high ability for hydrocarbons biodegradation and this isolate identified depending on morphological cultural, gram stain, microscopic features, biochemical tests, and VITEK2 compact. In this study,
... Show MoreThe disposal of textile effluents to the surface water bodies represents the critical issue especially these effluents can have negative impacts on such bodies due to the presence of dyes in their composition. Biological remediation methods like constructed wetlands are more cost-effective and environmental friendly technique in comparison with traditional methods. The ability of vertical subsurface flow constructed wetlands units for treating of simulated wastewater polluted with Congo red dye has been studied in this work. The units were packed with waterworks sludge bed that either be unplanted or planted with Phragmites australis and Typha domingensis. The efficacy of present units was evaluated by monitoring of DO, Temperature, COD
... Show MoreThe study aims to identify the educational research obstacles as perceived by the faculty members at the universities of south in the west bank. As for study population, it included all (60) faculty-member in the colleges of education (bait lahem, alahliyah, al-khalil, and al-Quds almaftoha). To collect study data, the researcher used a questionnaire that consisted of (43) item; it has categorized into seven-domains: academic working conditions, academic management, resources and information, faculty members, publication, planning, and funding educational research. The findings revealed that Educational research obstacles were high with an average of (4, 39), no significant differences among sample averages and stander deviations on the
... Show MoreIn this study used three methods such as Williamson-hall, size-strain Plot, and Halder-Wagner to analysis x-ray diffraction lines to determine the crystallite size and the lattice strain of the nickel oxide nanoparticles and then compare the results of these methods with two other methods. The results were calculated for each of these methods to the crystallite size are (0.42554) nm, (1.04462) nm, and (3.60880) nm, and lattice strain are (0.56603), (1.11978), and (0.64606) respectively were compared with the result of Scherrer method (0.29598) nm,(0.34245),and the Modified Scherrer (0.97497). The difference in calculated results Observed for each of these methods in this study.