Summary:
Background: the immune system differentiates between the endogenous and exogenous bodies that inter the body. The break-down of blood-testis barrier results in the production of antisperm antibodies. This may occur in the case of an infection to the prostate, seminal vesicle and epididymes. Antisperm antibodies (ASA) cause sperm agglutination and affect sperm motility, viability and sperm migration in the female reproductive tract. ASA also impair fertilization process. The objective of the present work was to study the effect of prednisolone on sperm motility index (SMI), viability and sperm penetration assay (SPA) in immunologically infertile men.
Materials and methods: The semen and serum samples of 140 infertile men were examined by microagglutination test and slide agglutination test to detect ASA and sperm agglutination. Semen fliud analysis was performed to report sperm motility index (SMI), sperm viability and hypo-osmotic swelling test (HOST). Sperm penetration assay was done to record sperm penetration rate (SPR), sperm decondensation rate (SDR) and sperm penetration index (SPI). Men with positive ASA were treated with prednisolone and considered as treated group Prednisolone was given orally in a dose of 5 mg three times daily for three months. The semen analysis, SMI HOST and SPA were performed before and after treatment with prednisolone. The number of semen samples in the treated group was 144 and in the control fertile group was 80. HOST-SPA positive semen was exposed to antisperm antibodies separation (ASAS) and invitro sperm activation prior to intra-uterine insemination.
Results: The SMI was significantly higher in the post-treated group compared to pretreated group (240 vs. 52.5, P<0.0l). The SPI in the control group was significantly higher than the post and pre-treated groups. The HOST and viability test results were significantly increased in the post-treated group compared to pre-treated group (73.42 vs. 48.56 and 71.36 vs, 50. 74 respectively, P<0.01). The sperm penetration rate, sperm decondensation rate and sperm penetration index were significantly increased in the post-treated vs. pre-treated groups (26.49 vs. 10.84, 10.91 vs. 3.47, P<0.05, 14.45 vs. 4.30, P<0.01 respectively). HOST-SPA positive semen was used for intra-uterine insemination (IUI). The semen was exposed to ASAS and in vitro activation prior to IUI and resulted in 42.86% pregnancy rate per cycle. The pregnancy was confirmed by the observation of gestation sac and viable fetal hear beet 5 weeks following IUI.
Conclusion: It was concluded from the results of the present study that treatment of immunological infertile men with prednisolone improves SMI, sperm viability and SPA results. The application of HOST-SPA positive semen for IUI resulted in successful pregnancy. The authors indicate that these viable spermatozoa with high fertilizable potential could be used for IVF and/or ICSI in immunologically infertile men.
A newly derivative of oxazolidin-5- one namely [2-(2-biphenyl-4-yl-imidazo [1,2-a] pyridine-3-yl)-3-(4-nitro-phenyl)-oxazolidin-5-one (BIPNO5)] was examined as an corrosion inhibitor for carbon steel surface. Quantum mechanical method of Density Functional Theory (DFT) with (B3LYP (6-311++G (2d, 2p)) level of theory was used to calculate the minimize structure, physical properties and inhibition chemical parameters, in vacuum and two solvents (DMSO and H2O), all at equilibrium geometry. The results indicated that the new derivative could adsorb on the surface of carbon steel through the heteroatom, showing that the new inhibitor has good corrosion inhibition performance.
Numerical study has been conducted to investigate the thermal performance enhancement of flat plate solar water collector by integrating the solar collector with metal foam blocks.The flow is assumed to be steady, incompressible and two dimensional in an inclined channel. The channel is provided with eight foam blocks manufactured form copper. The Brinkman-Forchheimer extended Darcy model is utilized to simulate the flow in the porous medium and the Navier-Stokes equation in the fluid region. The energy equation is used with local thermal equilibrium (LTE) assumption to simulate the thermofield inside the porous medium. The current investigation covers a range of solar radiation intensity at 09:00 AM, 12:00 PM, and 04:00
... Show MoreThe aim of this paper is to present the first record of ctenophore species Pleurobrachia pileus (O. F. Müller, 1776) in the coral reef as was recently found in Iraqi marine waters. The specimens were collected from two sites, the first was in Khor Abdullah during May 2015, and the second site was located in the pelagic water of the coral reef area, near the Al-Basrah deep sea crude oil marine loading terminal. Three samples were collected at this site during May 2015, February and March 2018 which showed that P. pileus were present at a densities of 3.0, 2.2 and 0.55 ind./ m3 respectively. The species can affect on the abundance of other zooplankton community through predation.
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Villages in most rural areas of the developing world, including Iraq, suffer from a deterioration in the urban structure in its various aspects, both in the lack of internal planning in terms of residential unit design which is not commensurate with the sustainable health life, in addition to the lack of infrastructure and community services networks As well as road networks linking them to neighboring urban centers, which was accompanied by the emergence of other problems, including the desire of the population to migrate to neighboring cities and the deterioration of economic activities due to lack of activation of economic development plans (Rural villages suffer from a lack of interest in urban development within the regional spatial
... Show MoreCircular thin walled structures have wide range of applications. This type of structure is generally exposed to different types of loads, but one of the most important types is a buckling. In this work, the phenomena of buckling was studied by using finite element analysis. The circular thin walled structure in this study is constructed from; cylindrical thin shell strengthen by longitudinal stringers, subjected to pure bending in one plane. In addition, Taguchi method was used to identify the optimum combination set of parameters for enhancement of the critical buckling load value, as well as to investigate the most effective parameter. The parameters that have been analyzed were; cylinder shell thickness, shape of stiffeners section an
... Show MoreThe red palm weevil Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier, 1790), which belongs to the family Curculionidae, order Coleoptera, is one of the most important palm pests, which leads to heavy losses in date palms. In the last few years, it has been recorded in Iraq, from Safwan city south of Iraq, where it was detected on date palm trees (Phoenix dactylifera L, Arecales: Arecaceae). In the current study, specimens of adult weevils were collected from infested date palms (Phoenix dactylifera), that showed signs of infection in Safwan district, south of Basra province. The results of the investigation showed the presence of phoretic mites associated with the red palm weevil Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier,
... Show MoreIn this study, a 3 mm thickness 7075-T6 aluminium alloy sheet was used in the friction stir welding process. Using the design of experiment to reduce the number of experiments and to obtain the optimum friction stir welding parameters by utilizing Taguchi technique based on the ultimate tensile test results. Orthogonal array of L9 (33) was used based on three numbers of the parameters and three levels for each parameter, where shoulder-workpiece interference depth (0.20, 0.25, and 0.3) mm, pin geometry (cylindrical thread flat end, cylindrical thread with 3 flat round end, cylindrical thread round end), and thread pitch (0.8, 1, and 1.2) mm) this technique executed by Minitab 17 software. The results showed th
... Show MoreIn this paper, an inexpensive, simple and well-accurate process of the generation of bimetallic silver Ag//gold Au core//shell is colloidal metal nanoparticles (MNPs). This is achieved via an atmospheric pressure non-thermal plasma glow discharge between two electrodes. One of these electrodes is a capillary tube placing over solution about (1 cm) that acts as the cathode, while the other electrode is a metal disk immersed in the solution and acts as an anode. Glow discharge process carried out at room temperature using a home-made cell with (6 KV) applied voltage and direct current (DC) about (1.8 mA) for different discharge periods. A wide range of bimetallic Ag//Au colloidal MNPs was rapidly synthesized as a result of non-thermal plas
... Show MoreA fixed callus weight of 150 mg was induced from immature embryos of three bread wheat Triticum aestivum L. genotypes (Tamos 2, El-izz and Mutant 1) cultured on nutrient medium {MS) containing Polyethylene glycol (PEG-6000) supplemented with concentrations (0.0, 3.0, 6.0, 9.0 or 12.0%) to evaluate their tolerance to water stress. Cultures were incubated in darkness at temperature of 25?1 ?C. Callus fresh and dry weights were recorded and soluble Carbohydrate and the amino acid Proline concentrations were determined. Results showed that there were significant differences in studied parameters among bread wheat genotypes of which Tamos 2 was higher in callus average fresh and dry weights which gave 353.33 and 38.46 mg/cultured tube respecti
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