Background: Human semen contains high concentrations of fructose, zinc (Zn) and copper (Cu) in bound and ionic forms for Zn and Cu. The presence of abnormal levels of fructose and those trace elements may affect spermatogenesis with regard to production, maturation, motility and fertilizing capacity of the spermatozoa.Objective: To evaluate the levels of fructose, Zn and Cu in seminal plasma in different groups of male infertility and to correlate their concentrations with various sperm parameters.Methods: The concentrations of fructose, Zn and Cu were measured in 114 semen samples from normozoospermic, oligozoospermic, astheno-zoospermic, and azoospermic men using the electrothermal-atomic absorption spectrometry for Zn and Cu determination. The concentration of fructose in seminal plasma was determined with a spectrophotometric method, using the resorcinol method.Results: Results of the present study showed that there was an inverse relationship between fructose levels and sperm count. The mean value of seminal plasma fructose concentrations was significantly increased (p ≤ 0.001) in the three groups of infertile male subjects (azoospermia, asthenozoospermia and oligozoospermia) than in fertile males. The mean value of seminal plasma Zn concentrations was significantly decreased (p ≤ 0.001) in the three groups of infertile male subjects (azoospermia, asthenozoospermia and oligozoospermia) than in fertile males. A good correlation in a positive direction was noted between the sperm count and seminal plasma Zn concentration. There was significant decrease in seminal plasma Cu concentration between asthenozoospermia and control groups (p ≤ 0.05) and insignificant increase in oligozoospermic patients.Conclusions: On the basis of the observations of the present study, seminal fructose, zinc and copper may contribute to fertility through their effects on various semen parameters.Key words:Male infertility, fructose, zinc, copper.
This work presents a novel technique for the detection of oil aging in electrical transformers using a single mode optical fiber sensor based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR). The aging of insulating oil is a critical issue in the maintenance and performance of electrical transformers, as it can lead to reduce insulation properties, increase risk of electrical breakdown, and decrease operational lifespan. Many parameters are calculated in this study in order to examine the efficiency of this sensor like sensitivity (S), signal to noise ratio (SNR), resolution (refractive index unit) and figure of merit (FOM) and the values are for figure of merit is 11.05, the signal to noise ratio is 20.3, the sensitivity is 6.63, and the resolution is 3
... Show MoreBackground: Suppression of quorum sensing (QS) that regulates many virulence factors, including antimicrobial resistance, in bacteria may subject the pathogenic microbes to the harmful consequences of the antibiotics, increasing their susceptibility to such drugs. Aim: The current study aimed to make an aqueous crude extract from the soil Proteus mirabilis isolate with the use of the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) technique for its analysis, and then, study the impact of the extract on clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Methods: Preparation of crude extracts from P. mirabilis (both organic and aqueous), which were then analyzed by GC-MS to detect the bioactive ingredients. Furthermore, the extract’s capability to i
... Show MoreThe Khabour reservoir, Ordovician, Lower Paleozoic, Akkas gas field which is considered one of the main sandstone reservoirs in the west of Iraq. Researchers face difficulties in recognizing sandstone reservoirs since they are virtually always tight and heterogeneous. This paper is associated with the geological modeling of a gas-bearing reservoir that containing condensate appears while production when bottom hole pressure declines below the dew point. By defining the lithology and evaluating the petrophysical parameters of this complicated reservoir, a geological model for the reservoir is being built by using CMG BUILDER software (GEM tool) to create a static model. The petrophysical properties of a reservoir were computed using
... Show MoreMost companies use social media data for business. Sentiment analysis automatically gathers analyses and summarizes this type of data. Managing unstructured social media data is difficult. Noisy data is a challenge to sentiment analysis. Since over 50% of the sentiment analysis process is data pre-processing, processing big social media data is challenging too. If pre-processing is carried out correctly, data accuracy may improve. Also, sentiment analysis workflow is highly dependent. Because no pre-processing technique works well in all situations or with all data sources, choosing the most important ones is crucial. Prioritization is an excellent technique for choosing the most important ones. As one of many Multi-Criteria Decision Mak
... Show MoreThe research aims to identify the effect of teaching according to the augmented reality on the technique of the visual thinking skills among scientific fifth-grade students in a biology course. In order to achieve the goal of the research, the researcher adopted the experimental approach with the partial set of the two equal groups with the dimensional test of visual thinking skills, The research population represented all the scientific students of the fifth grade for morning government schools affiliated to the General Directorate of Education of Baghdad / Karkh II, alshakerin preparatory for boys was chosen intentionally, in which two groups were chosen for this study, one group is chosen randomly as the control group via lottery, whe
... Show MoreThis paper compare the accurecy of HF propagation prediction programs for HF circuits links between Iraq and different points world wide during August 2018 when solar cycle 24 (start 2009 end 2020) is at minimun activity and also find out the best communication mode used. The prediction programs like Voice of America Coverage Analysis Program (VOACAP) and ITU Recommendation RS 533 (REC533 ) had been used to generat HF circuit link parameters like Maximum Usable Frequency ( MUF) and Frequency of Transsmision (FOT) .Depending on the predicted parameters (data) , real radio contacts had been done using a radio transceiver from Icom model IC 7100 with 100W RF
... Show MoreThis paper aimed to investigate the effect of the height-to-length ratio of unreinforced masonry (URM) walls when loaded by a vertical load. The finite element (FE) method was implemented for modeling and analysis of URM wall. In this paper, ABAQUS, FE software with implicit solver was used to model and analysis URM walls subjected to a vertical load. In order to ensure the validity of Detailed Micro Model (DMM) in predicting the behavior of URM walls under vertical load, the results of the proposed model are compared with experimental results. Load-displacement relationship of the proposed numerical model is found of a good agreement with that of the published experimental results. Evidence shows that load-displacement curve obtained fro
... Show MoreAbstract: Background: Staphylococcus aureus is Gram-positive bacteria that lives as a normal flora in living organisms but can be pathogenic to humans. Although a relatively unspectacular, nonmotile coccoid bacterium, S. aureus is a dangerous human pathogen in both community-acquired and nosocomial infections. Due to the increasing emergence of new strains of this antibiotic-resistant bacteria, it has become essential to approach different methods to control this pathogen. One of these methods is the antimicrobial photodynamic inactivation process using a low-level laser, in this paper, the Photodynamic effects of Rose Bengal and LLLL on the virulence factors of S.aureus were evaluated.