Clinical index is needed to predict the outcome of pregnancy after in vitro fertilization/intracytoplasmic sperm injection-embryo transfer (IVF/ICSI-ET) for infertile patients. Growth differentiation factor-8 (GDF-8), also known as myostatin, is one of transforming growth factor-â superfamily localized in antral follicles in normal and PCOS ovaries but its function in female reproductive system is still unknown. Aim of the study is to assess the correlation between levels of GDF8 in follicular fluid (FF) with outcomes of in vitro fertilization (IVF/ICSI) in women with and without PCOS. A prospective case control study was performed enrolling (40) patients with PCOS and (40) non-PCOS women (male infertility) undergoing IVF/ICSI. The collect

In this paper, investigates the biosynthesis of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) by biochemical method using Myrtus communis leaves extract as reducing agent and Chloroauric acid (HAuCl4) as precursors. X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and FTIR were used in addition to UV-visible spectroscopy (UV) in order to characterize the AuNPs. The biosynthesized AuNPs exhibited inhibitory effects on alpha amylase and alkaline phosphatase in sera of patient with type 2 Diabetes Miletus and the sera of healthy control subjects; the inhibition percentage with alpha amylase was 72 % and 45 % for patient and control group respectively. Oral consent obtained from the most of patients and healthy subjects before them being under

This paper analysed the effect of electronic internal auditing (EIA) based on the Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies (COBIT) framework. Organisations must implement an up-to-date accounting information system (AIS) capable of meeting their auditing requirements. Electronic audit risk (compliance assessment, control assurance, and risk assessment) is a development by Weidenmier and Ramamoorti (2006) to improve AIS. In order to fulfil the study’s objectives, a questionnaire was prepared and distributed to a sample comprising 120 employees. The employees were financial managers, internal auditors, and workers involved in the company’s information security departments in the General Company for Electricity D

Traffic management at road intersections is a complex requirement that has been an important topic of research and discussion. Solutions have been primarily focused on using vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs). Key issues in VANETs are high mobility, restriction of road setup, frequent topology variations, failed network links, and timely communication of data, which make the routing of packets to a particular destination problematic. To address these issues, a new dependable routing algorithm is proposed, which utilizes a wireless communication system between vehicles in urban vehicular networks. This routing is position-based, known as the maximum distance on-demand routing algorithm (MDORA). It aims to find an optimal route on a hop-by-ho

This paper is devoted to investigate the effect of internal curing technique on the properties of self-compacting concrete. In this study, self-compacting concrete is produced by using limestone powder as partial replacement by weight of cement with percentage of (5%), sand is partially replaced by volume with saturated fine lightweight aggregate which is thermostone aggregate as internal curing material in three percentages of (5%, 10%, 15%) for self-compacting concrete, and the use of two external curing conditions which are water and air. The experimental work was divided into three parts: in the first part, the workability tests of fresh self-compacting concrete were conducted. The second part included conducting compressive str

Optimizing the Access Point (AP) deployment has a great role in wireless applications due to the need for providing an efficient communication with low deployment costs. Quality of Service (QoS), is a major significant parameter and objective to be considered along with AP placement as well the overall deployment cost. This study proposes and investigates a multi-level optimization algorithm called Wireless Optimization Algorithm for Indoor Placement (WOAIP) based on Binary Particle Swarm Optimization (BPSO). WOAIP aims to obtain the optimum AP multi-floor placement with effective coverage that makes it more capable of supporting QoS and cost-effectiveness. Five pairs (coverage, AP deployment) of weights, signal thresholds and received s

In this work, a chemical optical fiber sensor based on Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) was designed and implemented using plastic optical fiber. The sensor is used for estimating refractive indices and concentrations of various chemical materials (methanol, distilled water, ethanol, kerosene) as well as for evaluating the performance parameters such as sensitivity, signal to noise ratio, resolution and the figure of merit of the fabricated sensor. It was found that the value of the sensitivity of the optical fiber-based SPR sensor, with 40 nm thick and 10 mm long Au metal film of exposed sensing region, was 3μm/RIU, while the SNR was 0.24, the figure of merit was 20, and the resolution was 0.00066. The sort of optical fiber utilized i

This study investigates the impact of varying glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) stirrup spacing on the performance of doubly GFRP-reinforced concrete beams. The research focuses on assessing the behavior of GFRP-reinforced concrete beams, including load-carrying capacity, cracking, and deformability. It explores the feasibility and effectiveness of GFRP bars as an alternative to traditional steel reinforcement in concrete structures. Six concrete beams with a cross-section of 300 mm (wide) × 250 mm (deep), simply supported on a 2100 mm span, were tested. The beams underwent four-point bending with two concentrated loads applied symmetrically at one-third of the span length, resulting in a shear span (a)-to-depth (h) ratio of 2.