Background: Lead (pb )is suspected to be one of the endocrine disruptors. People are exposed to high levelsof it in the environment through several ways .In the last years there was an evidence that it affects semenquality. The aim of the study is to assess the level of lead in the blood of male patients and correlate it with theseminal fluid parameters and hormonal levels.Methods: Fifty three infertile male patients, attending the infertility clinic in Baghdad Teaching Hospital fromFebruary 2016 till June 2016, participated in this study. Detailed history was taken and careful examinationwas done. Semen was collected from the patients and analyzed. Blood was withdrawn for hormonal and leadanalysis.Results: There was an increase in blood lead level with increasing age and duration of infertility which has asignificant negative correlation with sperm count and hormonal levels (LH and FSH), but it was not significantconcerning sperm morphology.There was no statistical significance between smokers and non- smokers regarding lead level and between thosewith primary and secondary infertility although it was higher in smokers and in patients with primary infertility.Conclusion: Blood lead level affects male fertility since it has a negative impact on semen parametersincluding sperm count, in addition to the hormonal disturbance in those patients bringing LH and FSH towardslow levels. Smoking on the other hand had been found to increase lead level in blood.
Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic’s development has presented significant societal and economic challenges. The carriers of COVID-19 transmission have also been identified as asymptomatic infected people. Yet, most epidemic models do not consider their impact when accounting for the disease’s indirect transmission. This study suggested and investigated a mathematical model replicating the spread of coronavirus disease among asymptomatic infected people. A study was conducted on every aspect of the system’s solution. The equilibrium points and the basic reproduction number were computed. The endemic equilibrium point and the disease-free equilibrium point had both undergone local stability analyses. A geometric technique was used
... Show MorePhotonic crystal fiber interferometers are used in many sensing applications. In this work, an in-reflection photonic crystal fiber (PCF) based on Mach-Zehnder (micro-holes collapsing) (MZ) interferometer, which exhibits high sensitivity to different volatile organic compounds (VOCs), without the needing of any permeable material. The interferometer is robust, compact, and consists of a stub photonic crystal fiber of large-mode area, photonic crystal fiber spliced to standard single mode fiber (SMF) (corning-28), this splicing occurs with optimized splice loss 0.19 dB In the splice regions the voids of the holey fiber are completely collapsed, which allows the excitation and recombination of core and cladding modes. The device reflection
... Show MoreThe thermal performance of three solar collectors with 3, 6 mm and without perforation absorber plate was assessed experimentally. The experimental tests were implemented in Baghdad during the January and February 2017. Five values of airflow rates range between 0.01 – 0.1 m3/s were used through the test with a constant airflow rate during the test day. The variation of the following parameters air temperature difference, useful energy, absorber plate temperature, and collector efficiency was recorded every 15 minutes. The experimental data reports that the increases the number of absorber plate perforations with a small diameter is more efficient rather than increasing the hole diameter of the absorber plate with decr
... Show MoreWater/oil emulsion is considered as the most refractory mixture to separate because of the interference of the two immiscible liquids, water and oil. This research presents a study of dewatering of water / kerosene emulsion using hydrocyclone. The effects of factors such as: feed flow rate (3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 L/min), inlet water concentration of the emulsion (5%, 7.5%, 10%, 12.5%, and 15% by volume), and split ratio (0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, and 0.9) on the separation efficiency and pressure drop were studied. Dimensional analysis using Pi theorem was applied for the first time to model the hydrocyclone based on the experimental data. It was shown that the maximum separation efficiency; at split ratio 0.1, was 94.3% at 10% co
... Show MoreA sensitive, accurate, and affordable colorimetric method was developed for assaying prednisolone (PRZ) in various medicinal forms. The procedure involves the oxidation of PRZ by ferric ions, followed by complexation of the resulting ferrous ions with ferricyanide to produce a greenish-blue product. Common complexation conditions were thoroughly investigated. The mole ratio of FeCl₃·6H₂O to K₃Fe(CN)₆ was 8:1. The proposed mechanism of complexation was suggested and considered. Various parameters were optimized, including the reduction of the colorimetric reaction temperature to 50°C and the duration of heating and analysis to 20-30 minutes. The calibration curve was linear over the range of 1-60 µg/mL. The limit of detection (LOD
... Show MoreVitamin D receptor (VDR) is a nuclear transcription factor that controls gene expression. Its impaired expression was found to be related to different diseases. VDR also acts as a regulator of different pathways including differentiation, inflammation, calcium and phosphate absorption, etc. but there is no sufficient knowledge about the regulation of the gene itself. Therefore, a better understanding of the genetic and epigenetic factors regulating the VDR may facilitate the improvement of strategies for the prevention and treatment of diseases associated with dysregulation of VDR. In the present investigation, a set of databases and methods were used to identify putative functional elements in the VDR locus. Histone modifications, CpG I
... Show MoreA newly developed analytical method was conducted for the determination of Ketotifen fumarate (KTF) in pharmaceuticals drugs via quenching of continuous fluorescence of 9(10H)-Acridone (ACD). The method was applied using flow injection system of a new homemade ISNAG fluorimeter with fluorescence measurements at ± 90◦ via 2×4 solar cell. The calibration graph was linear in the range of 1-45 mmol/L, with correlation coefficient r = 0.9762 and the limit of detection 29.785 µg/sample from the stepwise dilution for the minimum concentration in the linear dynamic ranged of the calibration graph. The method was successfully applied to the determination of Ketotifen fumarate in two different pharma
... Show MoreThis paper presents numerical and experimental stress analyses to evaluate the contact and bending stresses on the teeth of spiral bevel gear drive. Finite Element Method has been adopted as a numerical technique which accomplished basically by using ANSYS software package. The experimental stress analysis has been achieved by using a gear tooth model made of Castolite material which has photoelastic properties. The main goal of this research is detecting the maximum tooth stresses to avoid the severe areas that caused tooth failure and to increase the working life for this type of gear drives.