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
Background: Colorectal cancer is a high risk disease with rapidly progression medical problems and high mortality rate. Tissue polypeptide specific antigen can be classified as biomarker candidates in colorectal cancer and other kinds of cancer. Vascular endothelial-derived growth factor has a curial role in the formation of new blood vessels. DNA methylation may decrease invasiveness of cancer.
Objectives: This study was designed to measure the potential role of some serological biomarkers in the progression of colorectal cancer as well as their relations to P53 expression, global 5-methylcytosine.
Patients and Methods: This study involved of 60 patients with colorectal ca
... Show More
Nowadays, the rapid development of multi-media technology and digital images transmission by the Internet leads the digital images to be exposed to several attacks in the transmission process. Therefore, protection of digital images become increasingly important.
To this end, an image encryption method that adopts Rivest Cipher (RC4) and Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) encoding to increase the secrecy and randomness of the image without affecting its quality is proposed. The Means Square Error (MSE), Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Coefficient Correlation (CC) and histogram analysis are used as an evaluation metrics to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. The results indicate that the proposed method is secure ag
... Show MoreBrucellosis is one of the five common bacterial zoonoses in the world caused by
organisms belonging to the genus Brucella. Immune recognition of bacterial
infection may contribute to cytokine, as well as antibody production that are
characteristic of innate and adaptive responses. In this study, the presence of
attenuated live Brucella melitenses Rev1 bacteria or its DNA induced the immune
system to produce IFN-γ and anti-ds DNA antibody. In respect to IFN-γ released,
the B. melitensis Rev 1 attenuated live vaccine was able to stimulate the immune
system more than the DNA (P≤0.05). Such finding could be attributed to the whole
attenuated bacteria that have immunogenic factors other than the DNA like cell wall<
In this study, 20 patients were selected having renal failure .10 patients were hemo& 10 peritoneal dialysis procedure. Patients had been given r HuEPO subcutaneous with supplement of Iron dextran after di alysis . Hemoglobin Hb concentration Hematocrit(Hct),serum I ron ,total Iron binding capacity, transferrin saturation percent Ts%
& Serum ferritin were measured. Non significant chan
... Show MoreNonlinear regression models are important tools for solving optimization problems. As traditional techniques would fail to reach satisfactory solutions for the parameter estimation problem. Hence, in this paper, the BAT algorithm to estimate the parameters of Nonlinear Regression models is used . The simulation study is considered to investigate the performance of the proposed algorithm with the maximum likelihood (MLE) and Least square (LS) methods. The results show that the Bat algorithm provides accurate estimation and it is satisfactory for the parameter estimation of the nonlinear regression models than MLE and LS methods depend on Mean Square error.
(3)
In this paper, we made comparison among different parametric ,nonparametric and semiparametric estimators for partial linear regression model users parametric represented by ols and nonparametric methods represented by cubic smoothing spline estimator and Nadaraya-Watson estimator, we study three nonparametric regression models and samples sizes n=40,60,100,variances used σ2=0.5,1,1.5 the results for the first model show that N.W estimator for partial linear regression model(PLM) is the best followed the cubic smoothing spline estimator for (PLM),and the results of the second and the third model show that the best estimator is C.S.S.followed by N.W estimator for (PLM) ,the
... Show More
Digital Elevation Model (DEM) is one of the developed techniques for relief representation. The definition of a DEM construction is the modeling technique of earth surface from existing data. DEM plays a role as one of the fundamental information requirement that has been generally utilized in GIS data structures. The main aim of this research is to present a methodology for assessing DEMs generation methods. The DEMs data will be extracted from open source data e.g. Google Earth. The tested data will be compared with data produced from formal institutions such as General Directorate of Surveying. The study area has been chosen in south of Iraq (Al-Gharraf / Dhi Qar governorate. The methods of DEMs creation are kri
... Show More
(1)
Digital Elevation Model (DEM) is one of the developed techniques for relief representation. The definition of a DEM construction is the modeling technique of earth surface from existing data. DEM plays a role as one of the fundamental information requirement that has been generally utilized in GIS data structures. The main aim of this research is to present a methodology for assessing DEMs generation methods. The DEMs data will be extracted from open source data e.g. Google Earth. The tested data will be compared with data produced from formal institutions such as General Directorate of Surveying. The study area has been chosen in south of Iraq (Al-Gharraf / Dhi Qar governorate. The methods of DEMs creation are kriging, IDW (inver
... Show More
(1)
The optimum balance values for different coefficient of spherical aberration (third and fifth degree also focal shift) were studied, the optical system includes different apertures (circle, ellipse, square and triangle) using point spread function (PSF). By using (Marechal) method; the minimum value of mean square of variance in wave front was founded, so we can get the maximum of central intensity according to (Strehl) criterion.
This work presents a design for a pressure swing adsorption process (PSA) to separate oxygen from air with approximately 95% purity, suitable for different numbers of columns and arrangements. The product refill PSA process was found to perform 33% better (weight of zeolite required or productivity) than the pressure equalization process. The design is based on the adsorption equilibrium of a binary mixture of O2 and N2 for two of the most commonly used adsorbents, 5A & 13X, and extension from a single column approach. Zeolite 13X was found to perform 6% better than zeolite 5A. The most effective variables were determined to be the adsorption step time and the operational pressure. Increasing the adsorption step
... Show More