s. omidi

Nowadays, infertility is one of the significant concerns of the World Health Organization (WHO), contributing to a large portion of its annual expenditure. Recent studies reveal that approximately 15% of couples worldwide (more than 50 million couples) encounter infertility problems that are caused by defects in the male or female fertility factors. Although medical advancements have successfully helped a lot of couples with their infertility by assisted reproductive technologies (ART), sperm selection, a crucial stage in ART, has remained challenging. Microfluidic devices are systems that control the movement of minute amounts of fluid using channels in micrometer dimensions, which have a wide range of applications, especially in medicine. This technology can help to enhancethe quality of sorted sperm and be applied to boost our knowledge of sperm behavior and effects of different sperm selection mechanisms within the ART. Here, the efficiency of a microfluidic device having an application in the separation of motile sperm was studied using computational fluid dynamics method and its two-phase-flow module. Laminar flow and Level-set modules were used in this simulation. The mentioned device has three input and three output channels, two channels for sample media and one for buffer. Furthermore, it has a main separation channel, which width becomes wider gradually from the beginning to the end. Thus, output channels have wider width. After simulation, the results were validated using the results of previous experimental and simulation works in this matter. Afterward, to increase the device’s efficiency, the width of the output channel used for the buffer is being altered which prevents the wasting of the motile sperm in buffer. Simulation has shown that increasing the buffer output’s width by 4 times of input fluids channel’s width would cause decreasing the volume fraction of buffer in sample’s outlet to 1%. Therefore, this geometry is presented as the appropriate geometry for separation of motile sperm. In further studies, it is suggested that the last device be manufactured and studied to be validated its efficiency by experiment.

Water resources are often exposed to pollutants related to urban waste disposal. This study aimed to determine the quality of water sources around the landfill of Langrod City in 2021.

This cross-sectional study selected two springs upstream, two water sources (well and spring) downstream of the landfill site, and a river (with two sampling stations) near the landfill site as the studied water sources. Sampling and analysis of physical (temperature, turbidity and TSS), chemical (pH, EC, TDS, BOD5, COD, nitrate, sulfate and heavy metals) and microbial (coliform and E.coli) parameters of water quality and soil samples of the region with Standard methods were performed. The data were analyzed by comparison with Iranian standards, Schuler and Wilcox indices.

In all water samples, the turbidity was more than the desired level, and the concentration of all chemical parameters was lower than MCL in the Iranian standard for drinking and irrigation. In the downstream well of the landfill, the total concentration of nitrite and nitrate measured compared to the recommended values in drinking water was almost four times the Iranian standard. The number of coliform and E. coli in all water sources was higher than the permissible limit of Iran's standard for drinking. The quality of all water samples, based on the Schuler diagram (drinking), was acceptable to good, and according to the Wilcox index, except for the downstream river of the landfill, they were in the medium salty category and were relatively suitable for agriculture.

The quality of water sources upstream and downstream of the Langrod urban waste landfill site was similar, and the water quality of the river downstream of the landfill was high salty and suitable for agriculture with the necessary considerations (drainage).

In this study, soil hydraulic conductivity function was modeled based on fractal geometry and capillary tube models. The proposed model is expressed as a function of the pore diameter, apparent flow path length, pore fractal dimension and tortuosity fractal dimension. In this study, the relationships concerning calculation of the pore fractal dimension and tortuosity fractal dimension for unsaturated flow was presented as a function of the soil water content. The advantage of this model is lack of empirical constants. Van Genuchten soil water retention curve was used to calculate the pore diameters. In this research, the model was evaluated by using 40 soil samples with 11 different soil textures covering sandy, loam, and clay from the UNSODA database. Results of comparison of unsaturated hydraulic conductivity estimated with fractal model presented in this study and the reported amounts of Van Genuchten model showed that the root mean square error (RMSE) of van Genuchten model was less than the fractal model, while the ratio of geometric mean error (GME) and standard deviation error of fractal geometry model was less than the van Genuchten model. Van Genuchten model had the highest coefficients of variation, with the exception of RMSE parameters. In terms of GMER and GSDER, fractal model was more reliable than the van Genuchten model.

The effect of Cucurbita pepo extract and 17β-estradiol(E2) on HPG axis was investigated in male Three spot gourami. The purpose of this research was evaluated effect of Cucurbita pepo on sex steroids level and measurement of blood calcium and also changes of liver tissue. Therefore, 100specimen of immature male fish with mean weight (2.5±0.5g) were evaluated in 10 treatments. The fishes in different groups were treated with Cucurbita pepo extract and the E2 separately. (10, 20, 30,50mg/Kg body weight).There was two groups as controls. Control I received 20µL methanol and control II was intact. After 20 days experimental, fishes were dissected. To measure the steroid hormones and calcium ion, tissue fluids were separated and the level of estradiol, testosterone and calcium ion analyzed. Results showed that level of sex steroid and Ca+2,for Cucurbita pepo extract in treatments I and II were 1.1,0.83,19.73 , for treatment III were 1.34,1.4,20.65 , for treatment IV were 1.8,1.68,22.86 and level of sex steroid and Ca+2, for (E2) in treatment V were 0.88,2.55,24.43and VI treatment was 0.91,3.54,27.15 and for treatment VII were 0.97,4.41,30.80, for treatment VIII were 1.08,6.45,35.32 in comparison with control group(0.78,0.52,16.46)that were significant (P<0.05). These results showed that treatments IV and VIII were more affected by level steroids and Ca +2 ions in male Three spot gourami. The overall conclusion is that extract of Cucurbita pepo could possibly induce sexual maturity in male Three spot gourami.

Fusarium head blight (FHB) is one of the most destructive diseases of wheat causing significant reduction in grain yield and quality. Development of resistant varieties is an effective, economical and enviromentally safe way to control FHB disease. A major QTL (quantitative trait locus) for Fusarium head blight resistance, Qfhs.ndsu-3BS, derived from cv. Sumai 3, has been identified and verified by several research groups via molecular marker analysis. The resistant cv. Sumai 3 was crossed to susceptible cv. Falat, then three backcrosses were followed by one self-fertilization. Three simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers, Xgwm 389, Xgwm493, Xgwm533, were used for marker assisted selection (MAS) in BC1 and BC2 generations.The probability of linkage between markers and Qfhs.ndsu-3BS was calculated using a binomial probability function based on the assumption that a molecular marker at a specific distance from Qfhs.ndsu-3BS in the population would carry the donor-parent allel as a function of the distance between marker and QTL and the number of backcrosses/selfs used in deriving the population. Microsatelite locus Xgwm 493 was significantly associated with Qfhs.ndsu-3BS.