ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Estrogens has traditionally been known as the female hormone, but this idea has been challenged in early 1990’s and an essential physiological role for estrogen in male fertility was identified. Phytoestrogens are naturally occurring non-steroidal plant chemicals that can act like the female hormone estrogen. The herbs ( anise alfalfa and vervain ) chosen in this study contain phytoestrogens. OBJECTIVE: Previous studies demonstrated controversy of the effects of phytoestrogens on the rat testes .Hence, the present investigation was undertaken to investigate the influence of typical dose of herbs containing phytoestrogen on the rat testis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-four apparently normal mature male rats were divided into four groups of 6 animals each. The first "control" group received only 4ml of distilled water as a placebo. The second group received 40mg/kg of anise seed; the third group received 53.3 mg/kg of dried herb of vervain and the fourth group received 400 mg /kg of alfalfa seeds. All experimental groups received the doses through orogastric tube daily for fourteen days. Testicular histology was evaluated by light and enzyme histochemistry. Plasma FSH and testosterone concentrations were taken to support our results. RESULTS: Histological examination of anise, alfalfa and vervain – treated groups showed an increase in the height of germinal epithelia. There was marked lipoprotein lipase activity in the whole of the interstitial tissue which is more in amount in experimental groups than that in control group. Acid phosphatase granules were infiltered the seminiferous epithelia mildly in control group , moderately in anise and vervain groups and markedly in alfalfa group. The number of interstitial cells showing marked acid phosphatase activity was higher in all experimental groups than that in control group. Alkaline phosphatase exhibited intense activity in the boundary tissue of the seminiferous tubules in testes of control and experimental groups but it appeared thicker in the latter. CONCLUSION: The low dose and short duration of treatment used in our study made these phytoestrogen – containing herbs to have a stimulatory effect on leydig cell steroidogenesis. This study also demonstrated that aniseed being the most potent of the three herbs followed by alfalfa in stimulating testosterone synthesis. This is possibly attributed to the coumarin constituent of aniseed and alfalfa. KEY WORDS: phytoestrogen-containing herbs, testis, acid phosphatase, alkaline phosphatase, lipoprotein lipase
The predatory bush crickets Saga ephippigera Fischer Von Waldheim, 1846 is the largest Iraqi orthopterans and one of the most active and successful predators in the Kurdistan region. The nymphs and adults prey on all the stages of various species of insects. Twelve adult specimens were collected from Erbil Province during May 2018 and June 2021. Morphological structures of the adult insects were described and illustrated in details; important taxonomic characteristics of body regions with their appendages were chosen; and the results indicated the importance of morphological characteristics which confirmed the identification of this species correctly.
The objective of this research is to analyze the relationship between the Factors of critical success and sustainable competitive advantage, and I have tested Search Company Mu'tasim General Contracting, through applied on a sample of (90) manager, engineer and project manager, spread over sections and the company's projects surveyed. has been selected sector construction industry as one of the sectors vital and important that play a major role in the advancement of Iraq's infrastructure under the current circumstances, which epresent a set of Projects are Mu'tasim General Contracting construction imple
... Show MoreThe study aimed to reveal the obstacles of administrative creativity among the leaders of secondary schools (the curriculum system) in the northern border region, which relate to the obstacles (organizational, motivational, and psychological). In addition, to identify the most important statistical differences between the responses of the members of the study sample, which attribute to the variables (educational qualification, year’s Administrative expertise). To achieve the goal of the study, the researcher used the descriptive analytical approach, and to verify the validity of the tool, it has presented to several referees and faculty members in the educational field. The validity of the internal consistency was also calculated for t
... Show MoreThe studies on the antiviral compound chalcone in vitro in both tissue and organ culture systems against rubella virus glass that this compound relatively non toxic to the cell culture and organ culture of the concentration of 8 ug/ml or less, chalcone have significantly antiviral activity against rubella virus in tissue culture and organ culture. We find that a concentration of 0.03ug/ml or more inhibit the IOOTCID50 of rubella virus. The therapeutic index (TI) used in this study to evaluate the drug, the (TI) which is the ratio of the dose of drug which is just toxic (Maximum tolerated dose) to the dose which is just effective (Minimum effective dose). If this index is one or less it not possible to use the drug under the conditions outli
... Show MoreThis research aims to identify the impact of the reciprocal reading strategy on developing the innovative reading skills of fifth-grade secondary school students/ scientific branch. To achieve the goal of the research, an achievement test to measure the academic achievement of fifth-grade secondary school students in Arabic language grammar was prepared, a sample of (60) female students from the secondary school of Al- Bawaba Al-Sharkey for Girls in Baghdad were chosen for the academic year (2019-2020). For the purpose of applying the experiment, the test was applied on a pilot sample consisting of (30) students from the same research community. The researcher herself had taught the three
... Show MoreVirtual reality, VR, offers many benefits to technical education, including the delivery of information through multiple active channels, the addressing of different learning styles, and experiential-based learning. This paper presents work performed by the authors to apply VR to engineering education, in three broad project areas: virtual robotic learning, virtual mechatronics laboratory, and a virtual manufacturing platform. The first area provides guided exploration of domains otherwise inaccessible, such as the robotic cell components, robotic kinematics and work envelope. The second promotes mechatronics learning and guidance for new mechatronics engineers when dealing with robots in a safe and interactive manner. And the thir
... Show MoreNonlinear time series analysis is one of the most complex problems ; especially the nonlinear autoregressive with exogenous variable (NARX) .Then ; the problem of model identification and the correct orders determination considered the most important problem in the analysis of time series . In this paper , we proposed splines estimation method for model identification , then we used three criterions for the correct orders determination. Where ; proposed method used to estimate the additive splines for model identification , And the rank determination depends on the additive property to avoid the problem of curse dimensionally . The proposed method is one of the nonparametric methods , and the simulation results give a
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This study aims to identify the reality of using electronic applications in teaching language skills to people with mild intellectual disabilities from the mothers’ perspective. A descriptive approach was used. The electronic questionnaires were administered to the study sample, 122 responses were received from mothers of the students with mild intellectual disability in Hafer Al-Baten schools. The response average rate was 94%. The results showed that there are statistically significant differences that are related to the variant of monthly income as for the barriers to using electronic applications in such schools, whereas there were no differences regarding the variant of monthly income regarding t
... Show MoreThe relative strength index (RSI) is one of the best known technical analysis indicators; it provides the speculators by prior signals about the future stock’s prices, and because the speculations in shares of companies which listed in the Iraq Stock Exchange have a high degree of risk, like risk of shares prices felling, so the speculators became committed to use some methods to reduce these risks, and one of these methods is the technical analysis by using the relative strength index (RSI) which enable the speculators of choosing the right time for buy and sell the stocks and the right time to enter or leave the market by using the historical rice data. And from here the problem of the research formulated as “Is the using of
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