This study sought to determine malformation caused by Ochratoxin-A (OTA) on mouse embryos. Twenty adult female white Swiss mice (mus msculus) were divided into four groups, with five females per group, and with one male placed with two females in a cage. Avaginal plug was observed in the early morning and the day of mating was considered as day of pregnancy followed by the first day of pregnancy. Three sub lethal concentrations of OTA were applied to the respective groups (other than the control), 1mg/kg, 2mg/kg and 4mg/kg. The animals were given 0.1 ml per 10 gm body weight per concentration of OTA once a day during days 7-14 of pregnancy. The control group animals were given distilled water. The pregnant mice were dissected, and the embryos were extracted in order to identify the effects of the OTA. Number of parameters were studied including, difference in body weight of the mice before mating and after the end of the experiment, the weights and lengths of embryo, as well as a study of embryo malformation. The study shows no significant differences in the mean body weight of the pregnant mice in the 1 mg/kg group, compared to control group. A significant (P<0.01) decrease in the body weight of the treated mice was observed in the 2mg/kg and the 4mg/kg groups. As for the weight of the embryos, there was a significant (P<0.01) decrease in the body weight of the embryos in the mothers treated with OTA in the 1 mg/kg and 2 mg/kg treatment groups. The embryos of the 4mg/kg group of pregnant mice could not be recorded since they had been resorbed into their mothers uteri. Similarly, the results of the study showed a significant difference in the mean length of the embryos bodies in the 1mg/kg and 2mg/kg groups, compared with the non-treated control group. Many malformations induced in the embryos in those groups where it was possible to examine the embryos 1mg/kg and 2mg/kg compared to control mouse embryos, included loss of tail, lack of eyes, cleft lip and exencephaly, as well as spina bifida, curvature of the trunk and there were also reduction defects of the limbs. The study concluded that OTA have teratogenic effects on mice embryos
Twenty five samples out of sixty wound swabs taken from burn patients were identified as P. aeruginosabacteria by conventional methods. Antibiotics susceptibility tests were performed against thirteen antibiotics. P. aeruginosa samples were treated with 0.5 mg/ml of Safranin O solution then irradiated with 532nm Q-switched Nd:YAG laser at four energy densities (0.324, 0.704, 1.380, and 1.831 J/cm2) for different times of 5, 8 and 11 minutes with 5Hz repetition rate. The viability, susceptibility to antibiotic and production of pyocyanin were determined before and after irradiation. The results showed that the number of CFU/ml of P. aeruginosa decreased with increasing the dose of irradiation. Complete killing of cells was observed at 1.8
... Show MoreMany of the Iraqi agricultural researches are used spraying technique to add chemical products including pesticides and growth regulators. Various studies were performed to study the effect of these substances at different concentrations to improve plant production. In order to adopt specific criteria of spraying researches and to replicate them easily, it is a necessary to mention all information related to the spraying processes and regulations for improving sprayer’s performance by increasing the amount of pesticide deposited on the target. The current study aims to survey Iraqi researches in details and analyse them randomly. Also, to highlight on the importance of information applied in sprayi
<p>In combinatorial testing development, the fabrication of covering arrays is the key challenge by the multiple aspects that influence it. A wide range of combinatorial problems can be solved using metaheuristic and greedy techniques. Combining the greedy technique utilizing a metaheuristic search technique like hill climbing (HC), can produce feasible results for combinatorial tests. Methods based on metaheuristics are used to deal with tuples that may be left after redundancy using greedy strategies; then the result utilization is assured to be near-optimal using a metaheuristic algorithm. As a result, the use of both greedy and HC algorithms in a single test generation system is a good candidate if constructed correctly. T
... Show MoreSeveral specimens of the avocet, Recurvirostra avocetta L. are found infected with
Himantocestus gigantivcus sp. nov. ( Cestoda , Diploposthidae) . This cestode is related to H.
blanksoni Ukoli 1965 but easily differentiated from it in having longer and wider strobila,
larger size of testes but lesser in number, cirrus situated in the middle of mature segment
histead of anterior third and slightly posterior to the middle in gravid segment instead of the
middle , ovary and vitelline gland are larger , and the uterus has more branches.
A robust video-bitrate adaptive scheme at client-aspect plays a significant role in keeping a good quality of video streaming technology experience. Video quality affects the amount of time the video has turned off playing due to the unfilled buffer state. Therefore to maintain a video streaming continuously with smooth bandwidth fluctuation, a video buffer structure based on adapting the video bitrate is considered in this work. Initially, the video buffer structure is formulated as an optimal control-theoretic problem that combines both video bitrate and video buffer feedback signals. While protecting the video buffer occupancy from exceeding the limited operating level can provide continuous video str
... Show MoreIn this paper, a compact multiband printed dipole antenna is presented as a candidate for use in wireless communication applications. The proposed fractal antenna design is based on the second level tent transformation. The space-filling property of this fractal geometry permits producing longer lengths in a more compact size. Theoretical performance of this antenna has been calculated using the commercially available software IE3D from Zeland Software Inc. This electromagnetic simulator is based on the method of moments (MoM). The proposed dipole antenna has been found to possess a considerable size reduction compared with the conventional printed or wire dipole antenna designed at the same design frequency and using the same substrate
... Show MoreThis study is unique in this field. It represents a mix of three branches of technology: photometry, spectroscopy, and image processing. The work treats the image by treating each pixel in the image based on its color, where the color means a specific wavelength on the RGB line; therefore, any image will have many wavelengths from all its pixels. The results of the study are specific and identify the elements on the nucleus’s surface of a comet, not only the details but also their mapping on the nucleus. The work considered 12 elements in two comets (Temple 1 and 67P/Churyumoy-Gerasimenko). The elements have strong emission lines in the visible range, which were recognized by our MATLAB program in the treatment of the image. The percen
... Show MoreIn the recent years the research on the activated carbon preparation from agro-waste and byproducts have been increased due to their potency for agro-waste elimination. This paper presents a literature review on the synthesis of activated carbon from agro-waste using microwave irradiation method for heating. The applicable approach is highlighted, as well as the effects of activation conditions including carbonization temperature, retention period, and impregnation ratio. The review reveals that the agricultural wastes heated using a chemical process and microwave energy can produce activated carbon with a surface area that is significantly higher than that using the conventional heating method.
In this paper, we investigate the connection between the hierarchical models and the power prior distribution in quantile regression (QReg). Under specific quantile, we develop an expression for the power parameter ( ) to calibrate the power prior distribution for quantile regression to a corresponding hierarchical model. In addition, we estimate the relation between the and the quantile level via hierarchical model. Our proposed methodology is illustrated with real data example.
This work, deals with Kumaraswamy distribution. Kumaraswamy (1976, 1978) showed well known probability distribution functions such as the normal, beta and log-normal but in (1980) Kumaraswamy developed a more general probability density function for double bounded random processes, which is known as Kumaraswamy’s distribution. Classical maximum likelihood and Bayes methods estimator are used to estimate the unknown shape parameter (b). Reliability function are obtained using symmetric loss functions by using three types of informative priors two single priors and one double prior. In addition, a comparison is made for the performance of these estimators with respect to the numerical solution which are found using expansion method. The
... Show More