Background: The discriminative power of the classical WHO parameters in relation to male fertility is quite low, because they only address few aspects of sperm quality and function. This has led investigators to focus their attention on the male gamete and in particular its genome.Objective: To explore which of the sperm DNA damage parameters measured by comet assay are more reliable, and their relations with the standard semen parameters.Methods: Study was done on 40 infertile men selected from couples attending the Institute of Embryo Reasearch and Infertility Treatment at Al-Kadhimiya City/ Baghdad in the period between February 2009 and May 2009, with a history of infertility of ≥1 years; and 15 healthy volunteers of proven fertility serving as control. Samples were allowed to liquefy for at least 30 minutes at 37°C and then evaluated according to the guidelines of the World Health Organization, 1999. The single cell gel electrophoresis (comet) assay was studied in the ejaculated spermatozoa. The exclusion criteria were the presence of azoospermia and severe oligospermia. Results were compared with the standard semen characteristics (concentration, motility and morphology).Results: Compared to healthy volunteers, infertile patients had highly significantly higher values of comet parameters (P = 0.00001). In all infertile patients, comet extent did not correlate with any of the classical semen parameters; whereas, tail length (μm), % DNA in tail, tail moment and olive moment had all significant negative correlations with the standard parameters. Significant positive correlations were observed between the studied comet parameters, except for the comet extent which was not significantly correlated with tail length and % DNA in tail (P = 0.06, P = 0.7; respectively).Conclusion: Comet assay is a very useful technique in assessing sperm DNA damage. Comet tail parameters and comet extent, may clarify different aspects of DNA damage, and together give a better insight to the integrity of the male genome.Keywards: sperm, comet extent, % DNA in tail, tail moment and olive moment
The last decade has seen a variety of modifications of glass-ionomer cements (GICs), such as inclusion of bioactive glass particles and dispensing systems. Hence, the aim was to systematically evaluate effect of mixing modes and presence of reactive glass additives on the physical properties of several GICs.
The physical properties of eight commercial restorative GICs; Fuji IX GP Extra (C&H), KetacTM Fill Plus Applicap (C&H), Fuji II LC (C&H), Glass Carbomer Ce
Analyzing plantar pressure trajectories is crucial for assessing foot behavior in dynamic gait stability. We propose the identification of foot symmetry and the detection of deformities by analyzing the trajectories of the center of pressure (CoP) and peak pressure (PP). First, using a foot pressure mapping system, plantar pressure data are acquired during a normal gait cycle. After the data have been acquired, post processing extracts both the CoP and PP trajectories over the spatiotemporal domain of foot motion for each foot independently. For this purpose, we used the optical flow technique which accurately estimates the direction of foot motion. The extracted trajectories of each foot are then segmented into, the medial and lateral regi
... Show MoreThe study aimed to measure the phsycological tolerance and self-efficacy among the students of Baghdad university and knon the significant differences in psychological tolerance and self-efficacy according to the variables (Gender-Specialization)and the interaction between themas well as the study aimed to identify the strength and direction of the relationship between psychological tolerance and self-efficacy of the study sampleincluded asample of the current study(370) students from grades four ,the researcher used the measure of psychological tolerance and self-efficacy prepared by the researcher ,and the results showed that college students Generally have adegree of psychological tolerance and that there are statistically sig
... Show MoreThis work includes the synthesis of new ester compounds containing two 1,3,4-oxadiazole rings, 15a-c and 16a-c. This was done over seven steps, starting with p-acetamido-phenol 1 and 2-mercaptobenzoimidazole 2. The structure of the products was determined using FT-IR, 1H NMR, and mass spectroscopy. The evaluation of the antimicrobial activities of some prepared compounds was achieved against four types of bacteria (two types of gram-positive bacteria; Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtilis, and two types of gram-negative bacteria, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and E. Coli), as well as against one types of fungus (C. albino). The results show moderate activit against the study bacteria, and the theoretical analysis of the toxi
... Show MoreIn information security, fingerprint verification is one of the most common recent approaches for verifying human identity through a distinctive pattern. The verification process works by comparing a pair of fingerprint templates and identifying the similarity/matching among them. Several research studies have utilized different techniques for the matching process such as fuzzy vault and image filtering approaches. Yet, these approaches are still suffering from the imprecise articulation of the biometrics’ interesting patterns. The emergence of deep learning architectures such as the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) has been extensively used for image processing and object detection tasks and showed an outstanding performance compare
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