Search

Background: Serum estradiol level is a controversial prognostic factor in the outcome of labial adhesion. The aim of this study was to evaluate serum estradiol levels and topical estrogen response in patients with labial adhesion.Methods: A prospective interventional study was conducted among girls with labial adhesion that referred to Pediatrics clinic in Taleghani University Hospital, Gorgan city, Iran in 2011. One hundred patients entered the study. The diagnosis was conducted by clinical examination of vestibule area. Inclusion criteria were, three months to eight years old prepuberty girls, no ambiguous genitalia, lack of vulvovaginitis symptoms, labial adhesion more than twenty five percent, no history of previous topical estrogen treatment since two weeks ago and previous incomplete treatment. The patients who did not use proper amount and duration of drug and also with adverse drug reactions during treatment period were excluded from the study. Results: The maximum frequency of labial adhesion was in the group of less than one year old. The minimum frequency of labial adhesion was in the 7-8 years old group. Eighty six patients had complete or partial remission. No evidence of an improvement was observed in fourteen children. Severity of adhesions did not worsen in our patients. Serum estradiol levels were lower in patients who had a positive response to treatment. There were significant differences in serum estradiol levels between full or relative improvement with no improvement groups (P=0.044).Conclusion: Findings of this study showed that the labial adhesion patients with low serum estradiol level had better treatment response after using topical estrogen.

In this paper a new four-parameter lifetime distribution named "the Exponentiated gompertz-poisson (E-GP) distribution" has been suggested that it has a decreasing, increasing, bathtub-shaped and inverse bathtub-shape for modeling lifetime data. The Exponentiated gompertzpoisson has applications in survival, reliability modeling, lifetime and queuing problems. Firstly, the mathematical and statistical characteristics of the proposed distribution are presented, and then the applications of the new distribution are studied using the real data set. Its first moment about origin and moments about mean have been obtained and expressions for skewness, kurtosis have been given. Various mathematical and statistical properties of the proposed distribution have been discussed. Estimation of its parameter has been discussed using the method of maximum likelihood. In the end, two applications of the new distribution have been discussed with two real lifetime data sets. The results also confirmed the suitability of the presented models for real data collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Korean red ginseng ( KRG) may be a beneficial adjuvant along with ciprofloxacin to ameliorate devastating effects of epididymo-orchitis ( EO) on male fertility. This study intends to assay the effects of KRG and ciprofloxacin on sperm quality and spermatogenic cells apoptosis in EO rats. We divided 54 adult rats into nine groups ( n = 6 rats per group): control ( CO), sham-operated ( SH), EO (E); ciprofloxacin (C), EO-ciprofloxacin ( EC), KRG (G), EO- KRG ( EG), ciprofloxacin- KRG ( CG) and EO-ciprofloxacin- KRG ( ECG). We administered ciprofloxacin and KRG 48 hr after the Escherichia coli (E. coli) injection for 10 days. Bilateral orchiectomy was performed after one sperm cycle (14 days) following the last treatment with ciprofloxacin and KRG. Total and progressive motility of E, C and EC groups decreased. However, motility is improved in CG and ECG in comparison with these groups. The E group induced negative changes in the architecture of testes tissue and dramatic increase in apoptosis indices. Interestingly, co-administration of ciprofloxacin and KRG has dramatically improved Miller's and Johnsen's scores and decreased the apoptosis indices of animals in the ECG group. Combined treatment of ciprofloxacin and KRG may improve the quality of spermatozoa and attenuated apoptosis indices in the ECG group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. The exact mechanism, by which spinal cord injury (SCI) leads to a male subfertility is not well-known. Present study was conducted to determine the mechanisms that lead to the elevated end-product cytokines and inflammasomes in the testes of an SCI rat model. Moreover, we evaluated the inflammasome components following SCI in testis over a defined time periods.

Objectives. Adverse effects of obesity, which is caused by an imbalance between the energy intake and expenditure, on the male reproductive system have been reported. Considering the anti-obesity effect of Glycyrrhiza Glabra (GC), we conducted this study to elucidate whether it can ameliorate the sperm parameters.

Students' understanding of foundational concepts in fundamental courses is important as it is a pre-requirement for proceeding to any advanced and specific courses in any degree programme. Despite high passing rates in most universities, students actually do not really have a good understanding of the course content, especially in fundamental courses. This paper aims to discuss how the pre-test of basic knowledge in mathematics and physics learnt during pre-university or matriculation level can be used to determine and predict student achievement in the fundamental courses of the two subjects. The pre-test questions were distributed to the first-year students at the beginning of semester one (1) of their study at the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. In this study, two fundamental courses were selected from first- and second-year programmes, namely, Static & Dynamic (KH 1044) and Fluid Mechanics (KH 2134), respectively. A total of 35 students from the test sample of 43 students successfully obtained the pre-test scores of over 40%, while only one student scored more than 80%. However, students who did well in the pre-test did not necessarily obtain good results in the final examination of both fundamental courses and vice versa. Therefore, necessary action or improvement to the teaching and learning process of the identified courses need to be taken to ensure that students have deep understanding of the subjects before they proceed to the advanced courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses descriptive data to assess students' perceptions about the differences between the two programmes offered by the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering (JKAS). The programmes offered are Civil and Structural Engineering (CSE) and Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE). Confusion about the name may be the key issue affecting programme selection by prospective students in their application for placement in the department, thus curtailing their keenness to join the department out of fear of choosing the wrong programme. A total of 95 respondents consisting of new intake students of Semester 1 Year 1 of the 2014-2015 session engaged in the questionnaire survey process conducted in this research. Data obtained were analysed using the percentage of the score on a Microsoft Excel 2010 spreadsheet. The results showed that the students may have understood and may have had some basic knowledge about the field of study and the syllabus offered designed exclusively for each programme. Therefore, from the perspective of the students, efforts aimed at rebranding the programme names were not necessary. However, there were some existing courses that were identified and proposed for rebranding as their names were misleading for the students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]