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 financial analysis of the published financial statements is the means that enables businessmen, financial institutions, financial analysts and others to conduct their studies and conclusions to obtain information that helps them in the decision-making process, including decisions related to investment. National in making the decision on the investment activity, for the period from 2012 to 2018, through the information provided by the annual financial statements, by selecting a set of indicators provided by the financial statements, namely (liquidity ratio, activity percentage, profitability ratios) to measure the extent of this ability Indicators in determining their role in making an investment decision.
In order to understand the effect of the number of piles (N), the history response of dynamic pile load in piled raft system and deflection time history of piled raft under repeated impact load applied on the center of piled raft resting on loose sand, laboratory model tests were conducted on small-scale models. The results of experimental work are found to be dynamic load increase with increase height of drop, the measured repeated dynamic load time history on the center of piled raft was close approximately to three a half sine wave shape with small duration in about (0.015 Sec). The maximum peak of impact loads occurs in pile and deflection time history occur after at the time of the peak repeated impact loads, dynamic pile load
... Show MoreSamples of Oxytricha falax were collected from Tigris River by 55µ. mesh net. Culturing of O. falax were cultivated in specific conditions (DO 3-5mg/l.; W.Temp. 24±1ºC; pH: 6.8-7.5).The effect of various furfural concentration 0, 20, 40, 80,100 and 124 ppm and toluene concentration 0, 15, 30, 34.2, 34.5 and 35 ppm after two periods of treatment (24 and 48 hr.) on the physiological parameters of O. falax ciliate were observed. This study showed that the lethal concentration of furfural was 124ppm and 80ppm after 24hr. and 48hr. from treatment which killed all the individual community respectively. Furthermore the treatment of O. falax individuals with different concentrations of toluene indicated that 34.5 ppm of it caused disappearance o
... Show MorePhenol is one of the worst-damaging organic pollutants, and it produces a variety of very poisonous organic intermediates, thus it is important to find efficient ways to eliminate it. One of the promising techniques is sonoelectrochemical processing. However, the type of electrodes, removal efficiency, and process cost are the biggest challenges. The main goal of the present study is to investigate the removal of phenol by a sonoelectrochemical process with different anodes, such as graphite, stainless steel, and titanium. The best anode performance was optimized by using the Taguchi approach with an L16 orthogonal array. the degradation of phenol sonoelectrochemically was investigated with three process parameters: current de
... Show MoreA polycrystalline PbxS1-x alloys with various Pb content ( 0.54 and 0.55) has been prepared successfully. The structure and composition of alloys are determined by X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) respectively. The X-ray diffraction results shows that the structure is polycrystalline with cubic structure, and there are strong peaks at the direction (200) and (111), the grain size varies between 20 and 82 nm. From AAS and XRF result, the concentrations of Pb content for these alloys were determined. The results show high accuracy and very close to the theoretical values. A photoconductive detector as a bulk has been fabricated by taking pieces of prepared alloys and polished chemic
... Show MoreThe Aaliji Formation in wells (BH.52, BH.90, BH.138, and BH.188) in Bai Hassan Oil Field in Low Folded Zone northern Iraq has been studied to recognize the palaeoenvironment and sequence stratigraphic development. The formation is bounded unconformably with the underlain Shiranish Formation and the overlain Jaddala Formation. The microfacies analysis and the nature of accumulation of both planktonic and benthonic foraminifera indicate the two microfacies associations; where the first one represents deep shelf environment, which is responsible for the deposition of the Planktonic Foraminiferal Lime Wackestone Microfacies and Planktonic Foraminiferal Lime Packstone Microfacies, while the second association represents the deep-sea environme
... Show MoreIn the present study, five derivatives have been designed to be synthesized as possible mutual prodrugs for 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) and non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to selectively deliver the drugs into the cancer cells. The synthesis of the target compounds were accomplished following multistep reaction procedures, the chemical reaction followed up and the purity of the products were checked by TLC. The structure of the final compounds and their intermediates were confirmed by their melting points, infrared spectroscopy and elemental microanalysis, the hydrolysis of compound III was studied using HPLC technique. According to the results mentioned above, compounds (I−V) can be good candidates as possible mutual prod
... Show MoreIntroduction: Cutaneous leishmaniasis is considered a parasitic contagion resulting from the flagellated parasite belonging to the genus of Leishmania. Also, cutaneous leishmaniasis is a zoonotic ailment transmitted through the bloodsucking sand-flies bite (belonging to the Phlebotomus genus). The disease's reservoirs included wild or semi-domesticated animals, in general rodents and dogs. Tissue inhibitor metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) is one of the extracellular matrix proteins that have a role in vessel wall degeneration and aneurysm development. In addition, it belongs to the zinc-dependent endopeptidases family that are involved in the degradation of connective tissues proteins which are included in vascular integrity maintenance. The Ge
... Show MoreOne of the recent significant but challenging research studies in computational biology and bioinformatics is to unveil protein complexes from protein-protein interaction networks (PPINs). However, the development of a reliable algorithm to detect more complexes with high quality is still ongoing in many studies. The main contribution of this paper is to improve the effectiveness of the well-known modularity density ( ) model when used as a single objective optimization function in the framework of the canonical evolutionary algorithm (EA). To this end, the design of the EA is modified with a gene ontology-based mutation operator, where the aim is to make a positive collaboration between the modularity density model and the proposed
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Magnetic abrasive finishing (MAF) is one of the advanced finishing processes, which produces a high level of surface quality and is primarily controlled by a magnetic field. This paper study the effect of the magnetic abrasive finishing system on the material removal rate (MRR) and surface roughness (Ra) in terms of magnetic abrasive finishing system for eight of input parameters, and three levels according to Taguchi array (L27) and using the regression model to analysis the output (results). These parameters are the (Poles geometry angle, Gap between the two magnetic poles, Grain size powder, Doze of the ferromagnetic abrasive powder, DC current, Workpiece velocity, Magnetic poles velocity, and Finishi
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