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
In this work chemical vapor deposition method (CVD) for the production of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been improved by the addition of S. Steel mesh container (SSMC) inside which the catalyst (Fe/Al2O3) was placed. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) investigation method used to study nanotubes produced, showed that high yield of two types of (CNTs) obtained, single wall carbon nanotube (SWCNTs) with diameter and length of less than 50nm and several micrometers respectively and nanocoil tubes with a diameter and length of less than 100nm and several micrometers respectively. The chemical analysis of (CNTs) reveals that the main component is carbon (94%) and a little amount of Al (0.32%), Fe (2.22%) the reminder is oxygen. It was also fou
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This work aims to analyze a three-dimensional discrete-time biological system, a prey-predator model with a constant harvesting amount. The stage structure lies in the predator species. This analysis is done by finding all possible equilibria and investigating their stability. In order to get an optimal harvesting strategy, we suppose that harvesting is to be a non-constant rate. Finally, numerical simulations are given to confirm the outcome of mathematical analysis.
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Background: Lung cancer is responsible for the most
cancer deaths in both men and women throughout the
world. Deaths from lung cancer (160,440 in 2004,
according to the National Cancer Institute) exceed the
number of deaths from four other major cancers combined
(breast, colon, pancreatic and prostate).
Objective: To assess the behavior and the approaches of
lung cancer in a sample of Iraqi patients.
Methods: This descriptive retrospective study was
performed using the records of 390 patients proved to have
lung cancer that had attending the Thoracic Surgery
Department of Surgical Specialties Hospital-Medical City
\Baghdad for the period from January, 1st
, 2001 to
December, 31st
,2002.
Res
Undoubtedly, rutting in asphalt concrete pavement is considered a major dilemma in terms of pavement performance and safety faced by road users as well as the road authorities. Rutting is a bowl-shaped depression in the wheel paths that develop gradually with the increasing number of load applications. Heavy axle loadings besides the high pavement summer temperature enhance the problem of rutting. According to the AASHTO design equation for flexible pavements, a 1.1 in rut depth will reduce the present serviceability index of relatively new pavement, having no other distress, from 4.2 to 2.5. With this amount of drop in serviceability, the entire life of the pavement in effect has been lost. Therefore, it is crucial to look at the mechani
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Wellbore instability is a significant problem faced during drilling operations and causes loss of circulation, caving, stuck pipe, and well kick or blowout. These problems take extra time to treat and increase the Nonproductive Time (NPT). This paper aims to review the factors that influence the stability of wellbores and know the methods that have been reached to reduce them. Based on a current survey, the factors that affect the stability of the wellbore are far-field stress, rock mechanical properties, natural fractures, pore pressure, wellbore trajectory, drilling fluid chemicals, mobile formations, naturally over-pressured shale collapse, mud weight, temperature, and time. Also, the most suitable ways to reduce well
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Public relations are amongst the social sciences that rely on scientific methods in achieving new knowledge or resolving existing problems by means of its scientific researches that are often applied and require a classification in terms of their results’ analysis. It also requires subtle statistical processes whether in constructing their material or in analyzing and interpreting their results.
This research seeks to identify the relation between public relations and statistics, and the significance a researcher or practitioner in the domain of public relations should assign to statistics being one of the important criteria in identifying the accuracy and object
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ABSTRACT
Naproxen(NPX) imprinted liquid electrodes of polymers are built using polymerization precipitation. The molecularly imprinted (MIP) and non imprinted (NIP) polymers were synthesized using NPX as a template. In the polymerization precipitation involved, styrene(STY) was used as monomer, N,N-methylenediacrylamide (N,N-MDAM) as a cross-linker and benzoyl peroxide (BPO) as an initiator. The molecularly imprinted membranes and the non-imprinted membranes were prepared using acetophenone(AOPH) and di octylphathalate(DOP)as plasticizers in PVC matrix. The slopes and detection limits of the liquid electrodes ranged from)-18.1,-17.72 (mV/decade and )4.0 x 10-
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