Studies on the factors that improve the outcome of IVF-ET

The overall purpose of this thesis was to identify factors which influence the outcome of IVF treatment and which might be amenable to modification in order to improve pregnancy rates following this form of treatment. To this end I performed a historical review of the advances that have been made in reproductive treatment since before the birth of Louise Brown in 1978, and a retrospective analysis of the result of a single IVF unit over a 6 year period from 1999 to 2005. This identified a number of factors on which IVF pregnancy rates depend.I found that there is a decrease in the pregnancy and implantation rates and an increase in the abortion rates with a consequent decrease in the live birth rate with an increase in the female age. The data demonstrated that the pregnancy, implantation, abortion, and live birth rates for female age 20-25 years was 42%, 21.95%, 37.5%, and 26.3% respectively. For the age of 26-30 years the comparative figures were 44.5%, 27.4%,12.34%, and 39%, for the age of 31-35 years 35.7%, 22%,16%, and 29.9%, for the age of 36-39 years 27%, 13.9%, 22.7%, and 20.5% and for patients who were 40 years and above 17%, 7.4%, 27.3%, and 12.9%. (P0.05) for the abortion rate. In addition, I found that there is a decrease in the pregnancy rate with increasing age of the male partner although this did not reach a statistically significant level. For male patients whose age was between 20-30 years the pregnancy rate was 42.7% compared with 37.8% if they were between 31-44 years and 31.6% if they were 45 years or above (P >0.05).I found that the outcome of IVF-ET is affected by the number of embryos transferred, and whether the embryos are fresh or cryopreserved. The data showed that the pregnancy and implantation rates for single embryo transfer were 16.9%; for double embryo transfer were 37.3% and 23.22% respectively, and for triple embryo transfer 27.12% and 11.64% respectively. In addition, I found that the difference in the twin and triplet rates were 0% and 0% respectively for single embryo transfer, 24.5 and 0.02% respectively for double embryo transfer, and 26.8% and 1.5% respectively for triple embryo transfer. The differences in pregnancy and implantation rates between the transfer of two fresh and two frozen embryos were 37.3% versus 27.3% (P>0.05) and 23.22% versus 16.36% (P>0.05).The outcome of IVF-ET was also found to be affected by the grade and cleaving rate of embryos. The differences in the pregnancy and implantation rates between the transfer of high-grade and low grade embryos were 61.4% versus 11.5%, and 35.8% versus 6.96% (P0.05, live birth rates 26.5% versus 32.25%, P>0.05.Finally, I found that abortion rates were higher and consequently live birth rates were lower with increasing age of recipient. The abortion and live birth rates according to the recipient age were 18.75%, 30.95% respectively for recipients less than 35 years, 28.57%,26.31% respectively for those 36-39 years and 31.56%, 23.21% respectively for those 40 years and above, P>0.05. In addition, I found that the outcome is better when egg recipient patients have ovarian function as compared with egg recipient patients with no ovarian function, and the pregnancy rate was 41.3% for the first group and 29.62% for the second group, P>0.05. Egg sharing patients were found to have lower pregnancy and implantation rates while the live birth rate of egg sharing is virtually the same as standard IVF patients. The difference in the pregnancy, implantation, abortion, and live birth rates between the two groups was (35.52% versus 40.7%), (18.3% versus 25.61%), (9% versus 20.46%), and (32.25% versus 32.29%). Hence, egg sharing has no detrimental effect on the outcome for egg sharing patients.The only factor amenable to modification for each and every couple was identified as the technique of embryo transfer. Hence, I undertook a literature search to identify the effects of the technique that might be relevant. I also used time-lapsed ultrasound video imaging of the uterus as a means of identifying those cycles that might have a favourable or unfavourable outcome as a result of a good or poor ET technique. My results show that exaggerated junctional zone contractions do indeed have a detrimental effect on the outcome of IVF-ET our data shows that the pregnancy rate for those who had less than 5 uterine contractions per 2 minutes as compared to the pregnancy rate for patients who had more than 5 uterine contractions per 2 minutes was 29.7% versus 0% respectively p=0.026, but an easy embryo transfer did not appear to change the character or the frequency of junctional zone contractions

Whole-Liver Decellularization: Advances and Insights into Current Understanding

Whole-liver decellularization comprises the removal of the antigenic cellular content, while maintaining intact 3D extracellular matrix architecture and the complex native vascular cues. As a result, it challenges the classical hurdles of xenotransplantation and hypothetically allows the production of bioengineered human-size liver constructs. The associated technique and understanding of the determinants of successful application evolved rapidly during the last decade. In this chapter, the authors offer a comprehensive walk-through, starting from the simplicity of the concept to the complexity of clinical application. Avoiding repetition, the chapter covers the fundamentals and advances of decellularization, recellularization, ex vivo perfusion culture, and sterilization techniques. The interplay between the main pivots of whole-liver decellularization, namely intrinsic matrix potentials, immune response, and vasculature is described. An effort was made to dissect the hurdles facing the whole-liver decellularization approach and to highlight the gaps in current literature. The authors also offer insights about some critical concepts including intra-scaffold flow dynamics, gradient zonation, critical cell mass/density, mechano-sensitivity, substrate modifications, nondestructive analysis, and the surgeon’s perspective, together with the discussion of published in vivo trials and large-scale production parameters

Language Anxiety among Jordanian Postgraduate Students at Yarmouk University

This research is designed to investigate language anxiety among Jordanian master's students of English language at Yarmouk University. It is directed by two research questions: To what extent do selected variables age, socio-economic status, and speaking ability predict the language anxiety levels among Jordanian master's students at Yarmouk University? and which factors do students believe contribute to anxiety? This research used an adopted version by Aida (1994) of the FLCAS instrument proposed by Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope (1986) to measure anxiety levels. It is recommended that teachers, educators and educational policy makers pay more attention to the problems of foreign language anxiety, especially in speaking skills, and to tailor new innovative methodologies and strategies that can reduce anxiety levels. Keywords: Language Anxiety, Jordanian master's students, Quantitative Researc

The Causes of Writing Apprehension through Students’ Perspective

Although studies on the causes of writing apprehension on native learners of English have been done extensively, studies on English as foreign language (EFL) learners are scant. In fact, limited studies have examined writing apprehension experienced by EFL postgraduate learners, in particular written academic discourse. Therefore, the study focused on writing apprehension experienced by Jordanian EFL learners when writing their PhD thesis in Malaysia. The objective of the study was to explore the causes of writing apprehension among Jordanian PhD students at Universiti Utara Malaysia. In this qualitative case study, the researchers interviewed 21 Jordanian PhD students. Four main themes emerged pertaining to causes of writing apprehension which are Lack of knowledge in English structure, Negative attitude toward writing, Negative writing experience in the past, and Inadequate knowledge in academic writing. The study concluded that writing apprehension was a prevalent phenomenon among the students. The study contributes to the body of knowledge on writing apprehension related to the causes of writing apprehension. It highlights internal and external factors which contribute to writing apprehension

CONGRATULATION STRATEGIES OF JORDANIAN EFL POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS

This study investigates congratulation strategies used by Jordanian EFL postgraduate students. It also investigates the types of positive politeness strategies in the congratulation speech act. Data were collected using an adopted version of discourse completion test (DCT) by Dastjerdi and Nasri (2013). Data were encoded and analyzed based on the taxonomy of congratulation strategy proposed by Elwood (2004). Furthermore, data were analyzed based on a modified version of positive politeness strategies proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987). Findings revealed that the most frequently used strategies of congratulation were illocutionary force indicating devise (IFID), offer of good wishes, and expression of happiness. Regarding the positive politeness strategies, findings revealed that the most frequently used strategies by the participants were giving gift to listener, exaggeration, and ingroup identity marker. The study concludes with a discussion of important directions for future research such as including more participants with different social background. The results are expected to be useful information in cross-cultural comparison studies and other related areas

Quelques caractéristiques de l'évolution économique de l'Égypte depuis 1991

L'importance des facteurs extérieurs dans l'évolution de l'Égypte contemporaine se mesure bien à l'aune de sa dépendance économique. Après avoir connu un taux de croissance réelle du PIB de 9% par an entre 1974 et 1984, pour des raisons essentiellement externes, l'économie égyptienne a stagné en dépit d'une aide — principalement américaine — massive, et a abordé la décennie 1990 en état de banqueroute. Le changement radical de la situation financière intervenu en 1991, d'un déficit structurel..

Oral communication apprehension in English among Jordanian postgraduate students in Universiti Utara Malaysia

This research investigated oral communication apprehension among the Jordanian postgraduate students studying in Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM). It was directed by two main objectives: (1) to investigate the levels of Communication Apprehension among the Jordanian postgraduate students when communicating in English in UUM and (2) to investigate the relationship between programme, age and socioeconomic status and Communication Apprehension. The sampling of this study consisted of seventy Jordanian postgraduate students in UUM. The researcher used McCroskey‟s (1981) questionnaire, Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24) to measure communication apprehension levels in four different situations (groups, meetings, dyads and public speaking). The results of this study showed that the Jordanian postgraduate students had high levels of communication apprehension and there was a positive relationship between communication apprehension and age, programme, and socio-economic status

Experimental Evaluation Platform for Voice Transmission Over Internet of Things (VoIoTs)

Internet of Things (IoTs) is an example of the last advances in Information and Communication Technologies. In particular, with the revolutionary development of Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technologies, researchers largely focused on take benefits of integration embedded low-cost, low-power WSN technology in a various IoTs applications. Real-time voice transmission over IoTs is one interesting application that began to be explored by many researchers. Thus, this paper presents a performance study for transmission of voice over WSN (VoWSN) with and without presence of Internet. A framework using a Raspberry Pi3 (RPi3) and open source FFmpeg technology for processing, compressing and streaming voice to a remote computer is proposed, implemented and evaluated. The performance of the proposed framework is evaluated by studying its behavior utilizing three audio encoding algorithms: AC3, MP3 and OPUS with different sampling rates and a set of evaluation metrics such as :One-way delay, jitter, Bandwidth (B.W), CPU usage and packet losses

Developing and Validating Standards for Clinical learning Environment at Nursing Faculty

There is an increasing interest and concern regarding the role of the learning environment in undergraduate nursing education. Nursing continuously associates with the technical-manual component, while being liable for the care with health of persons and with retaining their quality of life. So, obtaining clinical abilities is an element involved in the learning program of nursing courses