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Nowadays, environmental protection and consequently soil conservation have been considered in the criminal policy of different legal systems. To recognizing the criminal policy of three Iran, Iraq, and United Arab Emirates Countries in soil conservation in the form of a case study and analytical-descriptive method, the current study tried to investigate the Positive Law to identify the political criminal reaction of these three countries in confrontation with harmful behaviors to soil. First, damages to the soil and then Positive Law and the taken criminal policy in each field have been investigated to clarify government’s approaches to the environment in general and to the soil in particular, considering that the center of attention of criminal policy is environmental protection as a fundamental value or it is dependent on human and his interest. Recognizing these components substantively and the responsibility of the criminal policy of these three countries to the criminal phenomenon (including crime and deviation) in terms of form specify their criminal policy position in the categorization of big criminal policy systems; finally, this study showed that human-oriented approach to environment has overcome ecological protection balance and considering cognitive model, the criminal policy of all three countries is near to liberal government-society in the field of soil conservation.

In recent years, the focus of the functional connectivity community has shifted from stationary approaches to the ones that include temporal dynamics. Especially, non-invasive electrophysiological data (magnetoencephalography/electroencephalography (MEG/EEG)) with high temporal resolution and good spatial coverage have made it possible to measure the fast alterations in the neural activity in the brain during ongoing cognition. In this article, we analyze dynamic brain reconfiguration using MEG images collected from subjects during the rest and the cognitive tasks. Our proposed topological data analysis method, called Mapper, produces biomarkers that differentiate cognitive tasks without prior spatial and temporal collapse of the data. The suggested method provides an interactive visualization of the rapid fluctuations in electrophysiological data during motor and cognitive tasks; hence, it has the potential to extract clinically relevant information at an individual level without temporal and spatial collapse.

Abstract Background: The sperm DNA fragmentation index (DFI) is one of the men's reproductive health criteria that affects assisted reproductive technique outcomes. Efforts in obtaining high-quality mature sperms seem to be necessary. Advanced sperm selection techniques (including physiological intracytoplasmic sperm injection [PICSI], zeta potential, microfluidic, etc.) have gained popularity in this regard. Objective: The study aimed to compare the efficacy of zeta potential and PICSI sperm selection in obtaining sperms with better DNA integrity. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 48 couples were enrolled where the male partner had increased sperm DFI in his ejaculated sample and the female was in normal reproductive health. For each male partner, the semen sample was processed with zeta potential and PICSI techniques, then the sperm DFI of neat semen was compared to zeta and PICSI samples by the sperm chromatin dispersion test. Results: Data showed that both the zeta potential and PICSI technique decreased sperm DFI in comparison with the neat semen sample (p < 0.001 for both). In addition, there was a statistically significant difference in sperm DFI between the PICSI and zeta potential samples (p < 0.01). Conclusion: The current study showed that both zeta potential and PICSI could result in sperm with a lower DFI. However, PICSI seems to be superior to zeta potential in this regard.

Objectives: In recent years, smoking water pipes or hookah has increased among adolescents in most countries. Although there is evidence in support of the negative effects of this type of smoking on human health, such as the increased risk of lung disease, little is known about the potential effects of hookah smoking on the male reproductive system, especially on the molecular aspects of sperm. Patients and methods: This cross-sectional study examined sperm DNA fragmentation index, protamine 1 and 2 (PRM1 and PRM2 ) genes expression, and oxidant status in normozoospermic hookah smokers in comparison with non-smoker controls. Results: Our results showed significantly higher rates of DNA fragmentation, protamine deficiency, and abnormal chromatin condensation in the spermatozoa of hookah smokers ( P

Abstract Background: Asthenozoospermia is one of the etiologies for male factor infertility. It was shown that any abnormality in protamines genes, reduction of protamines transcript and protamines deficiency may play a key role in asthenozoospermia. Objective: The aim of the current study was the evaluation of protamine-1 and 2 genes (PRM1 and PRM2) polymorphisms in asthenozoospermic men. Materials and Methods: In this case-control study, the samples were corresponded to asthenozoospermic specimens of infertile men. The normozoospermic samples were considered as the control group. DNA sequence amplification was performed using four PRM1 and PRM2 primers, designed from 5' to 3' flank regions. The human PRM1 and PRM2 gene sequences were screened in search of potential mutations in highly prevalent polymorphism regions in asthenozoospermia versus normozoospermia. Results: Totally, nine highly prevalent polymorphism regions between the forward and reverse primers were screened. Three of them corresponded to PRM1 and six to PRM2. The most prevalent polymorphism regions in PRM1 were related to 102G>T (rs35576928), 49C>T (rs140477029) and 139C>A (rs737008). In the PRM2, 6 highly prevalent polymorphisms regions were screened, including 248C>T (rs779337774), 401G>A (rs545828790), 288C>T (rs115686767), 288G>C (rs201933708), 373C>A (rs2070923), and 298G>C (rs1646022). The allele frequencies of three upper mentioned single nucleotide polymorphisms in asthenozoospermic men including 373C>A, 298G>C and 139C>A was higher than the control group. Conclusion: Our findings indicated that the frequency of some altered genotypes in asthenozospermia was slightly higher than control group. We proposed more extensive studies to be sure that; these genotypes can precisely be related to diagnosis of asthenozoospermia, as the molecular markers.

The aim was to survey the impact of normal and high doses of paracetamol consumption on sperm parameters and DNA integrity in mice. A total of 36 adult male mice were divided into three groups: mice of group A served as control fed on basal diet, group B received normal dosage of Paracetamol (66 mg kg/day) and basal diet, group C received high dosage of Paracetamol (100 mg kg/day) and basal diet for 35, 70 and 105 days. The cauda epididymitis of each mouse was dissected and placed in 1 ml of pre-warm Ham’s F10 culture medium for 20 min. The swim-out spermatozoa were analyzed for count, motility, morphology and viability. Sperm chromatin quality was evaluated by chromomycin A3 staining (CMA3), aniline blue staining and sperm chromatin dispersion test (SCD). The results showed that almost all of the sperm parameters significantly decrease following consumption of normal and high dosage of Paracetamol in three periods of experiments in mice (p

Background: Methamphetamine (MA) was shown to have harmful effects on male reproductive system. Objective: To investigate probable effects of daily administration of MA on sperm parameters and chromatin/DNA integrity in mouse. Material and Methods: Thirty-five NMRI male mice were divided into five groups including low, medium, and high dosage groups which were injected intraperitoneally with 4, 8 and 15 mg/kg/day for 35 days, respectively. Normal saline was injected in sham group and no medications were used in control group. Then, the mice were killed and caudal epididymis of each animal was cut and placed in Ham’s F10 medium for sperm retrieval. To evaluate sperm chromatin abnormalities, the aniline blue, toluidine blue and chromomycine A3 were used. For sperm DNA integrity and apoptosis, the acridine orange, sperm chromatin dispersion, and TUNEL assay were applied. For sperm morphology, Papanicolaou staining was done Results: Normal morphology and progressive motility of spermatozoa decreased in medium and high dosage groups in comparison with the control group (p=0.035). There was a significant increase in rate of aniline blue, toluidine blue, and chromomycine A3 positive spermatozoa in high dosage group. In a similar manner, there was an increase in rates of acridine orange, TUNEL and sperm chromatin dispersion positive sperm cells in high dosage group with respect to others. Conclusion: MA abuse in a dose-dependent manner could have detrimental effects on male reproductive indices including sperm parameters and sperm chromatin/DNA integrity in mice.

It is possible to reproduce the quantum features of quantum states, starting from a classical statistical theory and then limiting the amount of knowledge that an agent can have about an individual system [5, 18].These are so called epistemic restrictions. Such restrictions have been recently formulated in terms of the symplectic geometry of the corresponding classical theory [19]. The purpose of this note is to describe, using this symplectic framework, how to obtain a C*-algebraic formulation for the epistemically restricted theories. In the case of continuous variables, following the groupoid quantization recipe of E. Hawkins, we obtain a twisted group C*-algebra which is the usual Moyal quantization of a Poisson vector space [12].

Aim: The goal was to compare the effects of three different sperm preparation media on sperm motility, viability, and DNA integrity of semen samples from normozoospermic men. Methods: A total of 15 normozoospermic males were included in the study. The semen analysis (SA) was performed in accordance with the WHO guidelines (2010). After SA, each sample was divided into three aliquots, and swim-up was performed with three different sperm preparation media (Sperm Preparation Media, Origio, Denmark; Ham′s F10, Biochrome, Berlin, Germany; and VitaSperm TM , Innovative Biotech, Iran). Sperm motility, viability, and DNA fragmentation were evaluated at 0, 1, 2, and 24 h after swim-up. Results: There were no significant differences, at any time intervals, in the total sperm motility between the different sperm preparation media. However, the rate of progressive motility was significantly higher in spermatozoa prepared using the media from Origio in comparison with VitaSperm TM (P = 0.03), whereas no significant difference was found against Ham′s F10 medium. No significant differences in sperm viability were seen between the media products. However, 1 h after swim-up, the extent of sperm DNA fragmentation was lower in the medium from Origio versus VitaSperm TM (P = 0.02). Conclusions: The data showed that the quality of medium for preparation of semen samples from normozoospermic men significantly affects the performance of spermatozoa in assisted conception programs.

Background: Globozoospermia is a severe form of teratozoospermia (incidence < 0.1%) in infertile men that is characterized by round headed sperm and acrosomeless in semen. Objective: To compare the semen parameters, protamine deficiency, and apoptosis in ejaculated spermatozoa between globozoospermic and normozoospermic men. Materials and Methods: Thirty six semen samples were divided into two groups including 15 infertile men with total globozoospermic (> 90% round-headed sperm) and 21 healthy donors with normal spermograms as controls. Semen analysis was performed according to World Health Organization criteria (2010). Sperm protamine deficiency was assessed using Chromomycin A3 (CMA3) staining and the rate of apoptotic spermatozoa was evaluated with TUNEL assay. Results: Sperm concentration, motility, and normal morphology in globozoospermic men were significantly decreased compared with controls (p

Persistent homology, a topological data analysis (TDA) method, is applied to microarray data sets. Although there are a few papers referring to TDA methods in microarray analysis, the usage of persistent homology in the comparison of several weighted gene coexpression networks (WGCN) was not employed before to the very best of our knowledge. We calculate the persistent homology of weighted networks constructed from 38 Arabidopsis microarray data sets to test the relevance and the success of this approach in distinguishing the stress factors. We quantify multiscale topological features of each network using persistent homology and apply a hierarchical clustering algorithm to the distance matrix whose entries are pairwise bottleneck distance between the networks. The immunoresponses to different stress factors are distinguishable by our method. The networks of similar immunoresponses are found to be close with respect to bottleneck distance indicating the similar topological features of WGCNs. This computationally efficient technique analyzing networks provides a quick test for advanced studies.

The increasing availability of high temporal resolution neuroimaging data has increased the efforts to understand the dynamics of neural functions. Until recently, there are few studies on generative models supporting classification and prediction of neural systems compared to the description of the architecture. However, the requirement of collapsing data spatially and temporally in the state-of-the art methods to analyze functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalogram (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) data cause loss of important information. In this study, we addressed this issue using a topological data analysis (TDA) method, called Mapper, which visualizes evolving patterns of brain activity as a mathematical graph. Accordingly, we analyzed preprocessed MEG data of 83 subjects from Human Connectome Project (HCP) collected during working memory n-back task. We examined variation in the dynamics of the brain states with the Mapper graphs, and to determine how this variation relates to measures such as response time and performance. The application of the Mapper method to MEG data detected a novel neuroimaging marker that explained the performance of the participants along with the ground truth of response time. In addition, TDA enabled us to distinguish two task-positive brain activations during 0-back and 2-back tasks, which is hard to detect with the other pipelines that require collapsing the data in the spatial and temporal domain. Further, the Mapper graphs of the individuals also revealed one large group in the middle of the stimulus detecting the high engagement in the brain with fine temporal resolution, which could contribute to increase spatiotemporal resolution by merging different imaging modalities. Hence, our work provides another evidence to the effectiveness of the TDA methods for extracting subtle dynamic properties of high temporal resolution MEG data without the temporal and spatial collapse.

We apply the geometric quantization procedure via symplectic groupoids to the setting of epistemically-restricted toy theories formalized by Spekkens (Spekkens, 2016). In the continuous degrees of freedom, this produces the algebraic structure of quadrature quantum subtheories. In the odd-prime finite degrees of freedom, we obtain a functor from the Frobenius algebra of the toy theories to the Frobenius algebra of stabilizer quantum mechanics.

This study examined the impact of the exchange rate on non-hydrocarbon exports in Algeria. The main purpose of the research is to examine the relationship between the real effective exchange rate and the non-hydrocarbon export growth using the data of the Algerian economy. The data used are obtained from different sources: the real effective exchange rate is collected from International Financial Statistics published by the International Monetary Fund, while the non-hydrocarbon export growth is obtained from the Algeria Bank, and the gross domestic product variables are extracted from the official website of the World Bank. To conduct the study, the annual data for the three variables from 1980 to 2021 was considered; time series econometric techniques are used to check the existence of the relationship between variables. In the first step, the authors have performed the augmented Dickey-Fuller tests to check the stationarity of the three variables of interest. This test was computed for each variable with three models: the first model includes the constant term and the trend, the second model includes the constant term, and the third model was estimated without both the constant and the trend term. The stationary tests show that three variables (gross domestic product, the real effective exchange rate, and the non-hydrocarbon export growth) are integrated with order one, zero, and zero, respectively. In the second step, the exploration of the ARDL model between the three variables shows that the hypothesis that stipulates the existence of a significant relationship between the real effective exchange rate and the non-hydrocarbon export growth, on the one hand, is rejected, while the non-hydrocarbon export growth is, on the other hand, positively and statistically significantly correlated to the gross domestic product.

Sperm Morphology Analysis (SMA) is pivotal in diagnosing male infertility. However, manual analysis is subjective and time-intensive. Artificial intelligence presents automated alternatives, but hurdles like limited data and image quality constraints hinder its efficacy. These challenges impede Deep Learning (DL) models from grasping crucial sperm features. A solution enabling DL models to learn sample nuances, even with limited data, would be invaluable. This study proposes a Knowledge Distillation (KD) method to distinguish normal from abnormal sperm cells, leveraging the Modified Human Sperm Morphology Analysis dataset. Despite low-resolution, blurry images, our method yields relevant results. We exclusively utilize normal samples to train the model for anomaly detection, crucial in scenarios lacking abnormal data – a common issue in medical tasks. Our aim is to train an Anomaly Detection model using a dataset comprising unclear images and limited samples, without direct exposure to abnormal data. Our method achieves Receiver ROC/AUC scores of 70.4%, 87.6%, and 71.1% for head, vacuole, and acrosome, respectively, our method matches traditional DL model performance with less than 70% of the data. This less-supervised approach shows promise in advancing SMA despite data scarcity. Furthermore, KD enables model adaptability to edge devices in fertility clinics, requiring less processing power.