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
Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were carried out in order to investigate the binding mode of axillaridine-A at the active site of human acetylcholinesterase (AChE) enzyme. 2.0 nanosecond of MD simulations was made for the protein and the complex to dynamically explore the active site and the behavior of the ligand at the peripheral AChE binding site. These calculations for the enzyme alone showed that the active site of AChE is located at the bottom of a deep and narrow cavity whose surface is lined with rings of aromatic residues and Tyr72 is almost perpendicular to the Trp286 ring and forms a stable - interaction. The size of the active site of the complex decreases with time due to increase the interaction. Axillaridine-A forms
... Show MoreThe field of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is the process of converting an image of text into a machine-readable text format. The classification of Arabic manuscripts in general is part of this field. In recent years, the processing of Arabian image databases by deep learning architectures has experienced a remarkable development. However, this remains insufficient to satisfy the enormous wealth of Arabic manuscripts. In this research, a deep learning architecture is used to address the issue of classifying Arabic letters written by hand. The method based on a convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture as a self-extractor and classifier. Considering the nature of the dataset images (binary images), the contours of the alphabet
... Show MorePolyethersulfone (PES) ultrafiltration membrane blending NaX zeolite crystals as a hydrophilic additive was examined for zinc (II) and lead ions Pb (II) removal from aqueous solutions. The effect of NaX zeolite content on the permeation flux and removal efficiency was studied. The results showed that adding zeolite to the polymer matrix enhanced the permeation flux. The permeation flux of all the zeolite/PES matrix membranes was higher than the pristine membrane. No significant improvement was observed in the removal of Zn (II) ions using all prepared membranes as the removal percentage did not raise above 29.2%. However, the removal percentage of Pb (II) ions was enhanced to 97% using a membrane containing 0.9%wt. zeolite. Also, it was
... Show MoreThe research aims at the identity of the accounting information and its characteristics, and then to study the possibility of using accounting information in rationalizing the decisions of capital expenditure. The study relied upon the descriptive analytical approach it is suitable to the nature of this study, the hypotheses of the study were tested by using a number of statistical methods by relying on statistical package program (SPSS), and the research concluded that the companies listed in Khartoum Stock Exchange using accounting information in the comparison between investment alternatives available and estimating the number of years required to recover of the investment cost, the challenges that cause weakness in using the
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Focused research aims to provide a framework cognitive analytical nature of real estate investments and how they evaluated in the light of the assessment tools of modern theory of real options, and the possibility to rely on that theory in the detection of the true value of projects, real estate investments that would maximize the value of the investment decision taken, and the analysis of those projects that arise in the real estate markets and environments is the organization, which she was to make sure cases and high-risk, compared with entrances techniques, discounted cash flow (net present value). Based on the assumption lies in the possibility of the application of the implic
... Show MoreThe experiment was conducted to study the effect of leaves extract of Salvia sclarea , Rosmarinus officinalis and Thymus vulgaris with 10% and 30% concentration on germination of seeds and growth of seedlings . The effect of these extracts on infection percentage of seeds decay and surface growth of Rhizoctonia solani . The results showed that the three extracts effected significantly to reduced percentage of seeds germination, acceleration of germination , promoter indicator , infection percentage of seeds decay and surface growth of R. solani especially in 30% concentration .
In this work, the effect of ceramic coating on performance, exhaust gas temperature and gases emissions of diesel engine operated on diesel fuel and biodiesel blends was investigated. A conventional four stroke, direct injected, single cylinder, diesel engine was tested at constant speed and at different load conditions using diesel fuel and biodiesel blends. The inlet and exhaust valves, the head of piston and cylinder head of the engine were coated by ceramic materials. Ceramic layers were made of (210-240) μm of Al2O3 and (30-60) μm of 4NiCr5Al as a bond coat for inlet and exhaust valves and (350-400) μm of YSZ and (50-100) μm of 4NiCr5Al as a bond coat for head of piston and (280-320) μm of Sic and (40-80) μm of 4NiCr5Al as a b
... Show MoreIn order to evaluate the performance of introduced varieties of maize and test them under different levels of plant density, and to determine which of the introduced varieties give a high yield and at what plant density, a field experiment was carried out at Station A in the Department of Field Crops- College of Agricultural Engineering Sciences - University of Baghdad- Jadiriyah, for the fall season 2021, the RCBD design was used with four replications, in a split plot arrangement, the three plant densities (50.000, 70.000, and 90.000 Plant s ha-1) were the main plates, while the varieties represented the secondary factor, which is six varieties of maize, class 2 = 5783 DKC, Class 3 = 6315 DKC, Class 4= 6590 DKC, whic
... Show MoreThe cervical cancer considered as the fourth female prevalent disease worldwide, it was once the most extensively recognized female cancer two in many low-income countries. Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV) exhibits broader tropism and can cause infection in most of the human body organs. Although, human cytomegalovirus HCMV is not yet considered an oncogenic virus, there is increased evidences of HCMV infection implication in malignant diseases of different cancer types. The present study aims to evaluate the effect of CMV infection on the development of HPV16 positive cervical cancinoma. The current retrospective study enrolled a number of paraffinized cervical cancer tissues .included 30 cervical carcinomatous tissues and 10 biopsies from an
... Show MoreAnalyze the relationship between genetic variations in the MTHFR gene at SNPs (rs1801131 and rs1801133) and the therapy outcomes for Iraqi patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The study was conducted on a cohort of 95 RA Iraqi patients. Based on their treatment response, the cohort was divided into two groups: the responder (47 patients) and the nonresponder (48 patients), identified after at least three months of methotrexate (MTX) treatment. A polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR–RFLP) technique was employed to analyze the MTHFR variations, specifically at rs1801133 and rs1801131. Overall, rs1801131 followed both codominant and dominate models, in which in