This study sought to determine malformation caused by Ochratoxin-A (OTA) on mouse embryos. Twenty adult female white Swiss mice (mus msculus) were divided into four groups, with five females per group, and with one male placed with two females in a cage. Avaginal plug was observed in the early morning and the day of mating was considered as day of pregnancy followed by the first day of pregnancy. Three sub lethal concentrations of OTA were applied to the respective groups (other than the control), 1mg/kg, 2mg/kg and 4mg/kg. The animals were given 0.1 ml per 10 gm body weight per concentration of OTA once a day during days 7-14 of pregnancy. The control group animals were given distilled water. The pregnant mice were dissected, and the embryos were extracted in order to identify the effects of the OTA. Number of parameters were studied including, difference in body weight of the mice before mating and after the end of the experiment, the weights and lengths of embryo, as well as a study of embryo malformation. The study shows no significant differences in the mean body weight of the pregnant mice in the 1 mg/kg group, compared to control group. A significant (P<0.01) decrease in the body weight of the treated mice was observed in the 2mg/kg and the 4mg/kg groups. As for the weight of the embryos, there was a significant (P<0.01) decrease in the body weight of the embryos in the mothers treated with OTA in the 1 mg/kg and 2 mg/kg treatment groups. The embryos of the 4mg/kg group of pregnant mice could not be recorded since they had been resorbed into their mothers uteri. Similarly, the results of the study showed a significant difference in the mean length of the embryos bodies in the 1mg/kg and 2mg/kg groups, compared with the non-treated control group. Many malformations induced in the embryos in those groups where it was possible to examine the embryos 1mg/kg and 2mg/kg compared to control mouse embryos, included loss of tail, lack of eyes, cleft lip and exencephaly, as well as spina bifida, curvature of the trunk and there were also reduction defects of the limbs. The study concluded that OTA have teratogenic effects on mice embryos
In data mining and machine learning methods, it is traditionally assumed that training data, test data, and the data that will be processed in the future, should have the same feature space distribution. This is a condition that will not happen in the real world. In order to overcome this challenge, domain adaptation-based methods are used. One of the existing challenges in domain adaptation-based methods is to select the most efficient features so that they can also show the most efficiency in the destination database. In this paper, a new feature selection method based on deep reinforcement learning is proposed. In the proposed method, in order to select the best and most appropriate features, the essential policies
... Show MoreDrought is a complex phenomenon that has severe impacts on the environment. Vegetation and its conditions are very sensitive to drought effects. This study aimed to monitor and assess the drought severity and its relationships to some ecological variables in ten districts of Erbil Governorate (Kurdistan Region), Iraq, throughout 20 years (1998-2017). The results revealed that droughts frequently hit Erbil throughout the study period. The Landsat time-series- based on Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) significantly correlated with precipitation, Digital Elevation Model (DEM), and latitude. Extreme VCI-based drought area percentages were recorded in 1999, 2000, 2008, and 2011 by 43.4%, 67.9%, 43.3%, and 40.0%, respe
... Show MoreRecently, Human Activity Recognition (HAR) has been a popular research field due to wide spread of sensor devices. Embedded sensors in smartwatch and smartphone enabled applications to use sensors in activity recognition with challenges for example, support of elderly’s daily life . In the aim of recognizing and analyzing human activity many approaches have been implemented in researches. Most articles published on human activity recognition used a multi -sensors based methods where a number of sensors were tied on different positions on a human body which are not suitable for many users. Currently, a smartphone and smart watch device combine different types of sensors which present a new area for analysi
... Show MoreCrime is a threat to any nation’s security administration and jurisdiction. Therefore, crime analysis becomes increasingly important because it assigns the time and place based on the collected spatial and temporal data. However, old techniques, such as paperwork, investigative judges, and statistical analysis, are not efficient enough to predict the accurate time and location where the crime had taken place. But when machine learning and data mining methods were deployed in crime analysis, crime analysis and predication accuracy increased dramatically. In this study, various types of criminal analysis and prediction using several machine learning and data mining techniques, based o
Urban agriculture is one of the important urban uses of land in cities since the inception of cities and civilizations, but the great expansion of cities in the world during the twentieth century and the beginning of the twentieth century and the increase in the number of urban residents compared to the rural population has led to a decline in this use in favor of other uses.
This decline in agricultural and green land areas in cities has negatively affected the environment, natural life and biological diversity in cities in addition to the great impact on the climate and the increase in temperatures and the negative impact on the economic side, since urban agriculture is an important pillar of the economy, especially
... Show MoreIn computer vision, visual object tracking is a significant task for monitoring
applications. Tracking of object type is a matching trouble. In object tracking, one
main difficulty is to select features and build models which are convenient for
distinguishing and tracing the target. The suggested system for continuous features
descriptor and matching in video has three steps. Firstly, apply wavelet transform on
image using Haar filter. Secondly interest points were detected from wavelet image
using features from accelerated segment test (FAST) corner detection. Thirdly those
points were descripted using Speeded Up Robust Features (SURF). The algorithm
of Speeded Up Robust Features (SURF) has been employed and impl
This research aims to underscore the significance of women's emotional intelligence in enhancing the effectiveness of the Board of Directors, a crucial component of internal governance, particularly during crises. Despite strides made in recent decades in appointing women to senior roles in government, business, and education, challenges persist in improving women's leadership opportunities, especially in developing countries. The study utilizes statistical methods, including Pearson's correlation, to analyze the relationships between variables within a sample of banks listed on the Iraqi securities market, comparing periods before and during the COVID-19 pandemic (2019 and 2020). The goal is to measure the impact of female emotiona
... Show MoreThe objective of this study is to highlight the skills of office managers and it's impact on the effectiveness of time management in the institutes and faculties of middle technical university and a group of cognitive and practical aims. The managers skills forms mthe modern trend and the main source to provide organizations with highly skilled managers with distinctive performance and because of the sharp changes in the environment which today's organizations works in it , business organizations generally and managers especially realise the importance of time management and it's role in achieving competitive advantage . The problem of this study raised from this point which reflect the extent of departments managers realisation
... Show MoreNano TiO2 thin films on glass substrates were prepared at a constant temperature of (373 K) and base vacuum (10-3 mbar), by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) using Nd:YAG laser at 1064 nm wavelength. The effects of different laser energies between (700-1000)mJ on the properties of TiO2 films was investigated. TiO2 thin films were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements have shown that the polycrystalline TiO2 prepared at laser energy 1000 mJ. Preparation also includes optical transmittance and absorption measurements as well as measuring the uniformity of the surface of these films. Optimum parameters have been identified for the growth of high-quality TiO2 films
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