Background: Human semen contains high concentrations of fructose, zinc (Zn) and copper (Cu) in bound and ionic forms for Zn and Cu. The presence of abnormal levels of fructose and those trace elements may affect spermatogenesis with regard to production, maturation, motility and fertilizing capacity of the spermatozoa.Objective: To evaluate the levels of fructose, Zn and Cu in seminal plasma in different groups of male infertility and to correlate their concentrations with various sperm parameters.Methods: The concentrations of fructose, Zn and Cu were measured in 114 semen samples from normozoospermic, oligozoospermic, astheno-zoospermic, and azoospermic men using the electrothermal-atomic absorption spectrometry for Zn and Cu determinatio

Hydrated lime has been recognized as an effective additive used to improve asphalt concrete properties in pavement applications. However, further work is still needed to quantify the effect of hydrated lime on asphaltic concrete performance under varied weather, temperature, and environmental conditions and in the application of different pavement courses. A research project was conducted using hydrated lime to modify the asphalt concretes used for the applications of wearing (surface), leveling (binder), and base courses. A previous publication reported the experimental study on the resistance to Marshall stability and the volumetric properties, the resilient modulus, and permanent deformation at three different weather temperatures. This

Significant advances in horizontal well drilling technology have been made in recent years. The conventional productivity equations for single phase flowing at steady state conditions have been used and solved using Microsoft Excel for various reservoir properties and different horizontal well lengths.
The deviation between the actual field data, and that obtained by the software based on conventional equations have been adjusted to introduce some parameters inserted in the conventional equation.
The new formula for calculating flow efficiency was derived and applied with the best proposed values of coefficients ψ=0.7 and ω= 1.4. The simulated results fitted the field data.
Various reservoir and field parameters including late

The main idea of this paper is to define other types of a fuzzy local function and study the advantages and differences between them in addition to discussing some definitions of finding new fuzzy topologies. Also in this research, a new type of fuzzy closure has been defined, where the relation between the new type and different types of fuzzy local function has been studied

Four new species of Thrips (Thripidae) Chirothrips imperatus sp. nov.; Frankliniella megacephala sp. nov.; Retithrips bagdadensis sp. nov; Taeniothrips tigridis sp. Nov.; from middle of Iraq, are described and illustrated with their hosts.

An attempt was made to determine the insect parasites of cockroaches in Iraq. As a result of this survey three species of Hymenoptera representing two separate families, which have been reared from ootheca of cockroaches were recovered. These were: Evania dimidiata Fabricius, Evania appendigaster (Linnaeus) (Evaniidae) and Anastatus longicornis sp. n. (Eupelmidae) which described here as a new species from Iraq.

Nineteen thrips species recorded in center of Iraq during 1999-2001, four of them was recorded by El-Haidari & Daoud, 1967; Thrips tabaci Lindeman, Retithrips syriacus (Mayet), Parascolothrips prieseri Mound, Anaphthrips sudanensis Trybom. Fifteen species are recorded for the first time in Iraq, Thrips meridionalis (Priesner), Microcephalothrips abdominals (Crawford), Scolothrips pallidus (Beach), Scolothrips sexmaculatus (Pergande), Scritothrips mangiferae Priesner, Frankliniella schultzie Trybom, Frankliniella unicolor Morgan, Frankliniella Tritici Bagnall, Retithrips aegypticus Marchal, Retithrips javanicus

This study investigates consecutive reaction assisted by pervaporation for the first time. It studies the saponification of diethyladipate DA with sodium hydroxide NaOH solution synchronous with separating ethanol from the reaction mixture through an aqueous – organic membrane. The effect of time on some variables such as: permeated ethanol concentration EtOH wt%, separation factor (α), concentration of NaOH solution CB in the reaction medium and the conversion of DA to monoethyladipate (the intermediate product) was studied. It was shown that EtOH wt% and the conversion increased with increasing time unlike CB but (α) showed the existence of maximum value during the time of experiment. The process of reaction assisted by pervaporation

In this paper we define and study new generalizations of continuous functions namely, -weakly (resp., w-closure, w-strongly) continuous and the main properties are studies: (a) If f : X®Y is w-weakly (resp., w-closure, w-strongly) continuous, then for any AÌX and any BÌY the restrictions fïA : A®Y and fB : f -1(B)®B are w-weakly (resp., w-closure, w-strongly) continuous. (b) Comparison between deferent forms of generalizations of continuous functions. (c) Relationship between compositions of deferent forms of generalizations of continuous functions. Moreover, we expanded the above generalizations and namely almost w-weakly (resp., w-closure, w-strongly) continuous functions and we state and prove several results concerning it.