The CSU: Bavaria’s seemingly eternal governing party will win again in September

Germany will hold federal elections on 22 September. As part of EUROPP’s coverage of the elections, Amir Abedi writes on Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU), which will also be competing in state elections on 15 September. Despite being in government in Bavaria almost continuously since the end of the Second World War, the CSU experienced a drop in support in the last state elections in 2008. However current opinion polls show that the party is well placed to once again gain single party control of Bavaria’s state parliament, and a resurgent CSU could well play a major role in helping to swing the federal elections in favour of Angela Merkel and the CDU/CSU

The role of men in recurrent miscarriage; a Narrative Review

Background and Method: Recurrent Pregnancy Loss (RPL) is defined as the occurrence of two or more consecutive miscarriages within the first 20 weeks of pregnancy. The key challenge remains to be what it is that has to be done with couples experiencing RPL. Infections, endocrine disturbances, a suboptimal uterine environment, advanced maternal age, and genetic influences are some of the factors which may increase the chances of RPL occurrence. Despite all medical and research efforts, approximately 40 percent of RPL cases are categorized as unexplained. This is while amongst all the various factors which may lead to such condition, fathers’ genetic influences have often been ignored in the past. In fact, parental chromosomal anomalies, gene mutations such as the microdeletion of chromosome Y, and/or some polymorphism of HLA-G have shown to contribute and lead to miscarriage.Result: Furthermore, high levels of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) can cause DNA damage in spermatozoa. Meantime, sperm DNA damage has been closely linked with indicators such as fertilization, embryo quality, implantation, spontaneous abortion, congenital malformations, and childhood diseases. Sperm Chromatin Structure Assay (SCSA) is a test to measure DNA fragmentation. Moreover, the other SCSA parameter that needs to be considered is high DNA stainability (HDS). It is worth mentioning that HDS is associated with frequency of aneuploidy in spermatozoa. In addition, high HDS can be associated with an increased risk of early abortion in IVF and ICSI cycles.Conclusion: Additionally, increasing paternal age and varicocele can increase the risk of miscarriage. Advanced Paternal Age (APA) can also increase the relative risk of offspring neurocognitive defects. In saying that, the microsurgical varicocelectomy effectively increases the odds of natural pregnancy, the rate of high-quality embryos, and the success rate of in vitro fertilization

Cosmological perturbations in gravitational energy-momentum complex

Starting from the energy-momentum of matter and gravitational field in the framework of General Relativity and Teleparallel Gravity, we obtain the energy-momentum complex in flat FRW spacetime. We show that the complex vanishes at background level considering the various prescriptions, that is the Einstein, M{\o}ller, Landau-Lifshitz and Bergmann ones. On the other hand, at level of linear cosmological perturbations, the energy-momentum complex is different from zero and coincides in the various prescriptions. Finally, we evaluate the gravitational energy for different cosmological epochs governed by non-relativistic matter, radiation, inflationary scalar fields and cosmological constant.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

Determination of Effect of Oral Vitamin D to Improve Ventilatory Threshold in Healthy Young Adults with Vitamin D Deficiency

Background: Many studies have shown a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in different communities. Due to multiple roles of vitamin D in the body, this study was aimed to determine the effect of oral vitamin D3 on ventilatory threshold-1 in a condition of vitamin D deficiency.Materials and Methods: Recent study performed on 25 healthy young adults with the serum levels of 25 Hydroxyvitamin D3 lower than 20 ng/ml, had referred to the sports medicine clinic of Taleghani Hospital of Tehran, in a one-year period (2016-2017). After primary evaluation, baseline ventilatory threshold-1 were determined by cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET). Then persons were treated with 50,000 IU/week of oral vitamin D3 for 8 weeks, and one week after the completion of treatment, ventilator threshold-1 was measured again, similar to the beginning conditions of the study, and its changes were studied.Results: The mean baseline ventilatory threshold-1 of participants before any intervention was 22.46 ± 6.45 (ml/kg/min), and after 8 weeks of treatment by 50000 IU/week of oral vitamin D3, increased to 26.79 ± 5.33 (ml/kg/min) at the end of study, which there was a statistically significant increase in ventilatory threshold-1 (p<0.001).Conclusion: Recent study showed that proper treatment of the vitamin D deficiency, improves ventilatory threshold-1 in healthy young adults

Evaluation of antibacterial activity of ethanol extracts of some medicinal plants against Listeria monocytogenes

چکیده: زمینه و هدف: باکتری لیستریا مونوسیتوژنز (Listeria monocytogenes) می تواند عامل بسیاری از موارد اسپورادیک و اپیدمیک بیماری در انسان باشد که معمولاً از طریق مواد غذایی منتقل می شود. میزان بالای مرگ و میر ناشی از ابتلا به لیستریوز باعث نگرانی در صنایع غذایی و سازمان های نظارتی شده است. با توجه به حضور گونه های گیاهی متعدد در ایران، ‌با انجام مطالعات ضد میکروبی بر روی تعدادی از گیاهان دارویی کشور، احتمالاً می توان به ترکیبات با ارزشی در این زمینه دست یافت. بدین منظور در مطالعه حاضر خواص ضد لیستریایی تعدادی از گیاهان دارویی بررسی گردید. روش بررسی: در این مطالعه تجربی گیاهان آویشن (Thymus vulgris L.)، اکالیپتوس (Eucalyptus globulus)، بابونه (Matricaria recutita L.)، رزماری (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) و مریم گلی (Salvia officinalis L.) جهت مطالعه انتخاب گردیدند. پس از جمع آوری و تهیه گیاهان و بررسی های گیاه شناسی و فارماکوگنوزی، عصاره هیدروالکلی گیاهان مورد نظر با روش پرکولاسیون تهیه و اثرات ضد میکروبی این گیاهان با استفاده از روش انتشار دیسک (Disc Diffusion Method) و همچنین تعیین حداقل غلظت ممانعت کننده از رشد میکروب (MIC =Minimum Inhibitory Concentration) و حداقل غلظت کشندگی باکتری (MBC=Minimum Bactericidal Concentration) با استفاده از روش رقت لوله ای (Macro Dilution Method) بر علیه دو سروتیپ 4a و 4b باکتری لیستریا مونوسیتوژنز انجام شد. آمپی سیلین (µg/disc 10) به عنوان ماده ضد میکروبی مرجع بکار رفت. یافته ها: نتایج بدست آمده نشان داد که تنها عصاره هیدروالکلی اکالیپتوس در هر دو روش رقت لوله ای و انتشار دیسک، دارای اثرات ضد باکتریایی بر روی لیستریا مونوسیتوژنز بود. حداقل غلظت مهار کنندگی عصاره اکالیپتوس بر روی باکتری لیستریا مونوسیتوژن µg/ml 25/31 و حداقل غلظت کشندگی عصاره این گیاه µg/ml 500 بود و تفاوت معنی داری بین حساسیت دو سروتیپ لیستریا مونوسیتوژنز مشاهده نشد. از عصاره هیدروالکلی دیگر گیاهان مورد آزمایش در این تحقیق، ‌هیچ گونه اثرات ضد میکروبی بر روی هر دو سروتیپ باکتری مشاهده نگردید. نتیجه گیری: عصاره اکالیپتوس می تواند به عنوان ترکیب ضد لیستریایی مطرح شود. استفاده از اسانس این گیاه در غلظت های بالاتر و روش های دیگر عصاره گیری اثرات ضد لیستریایی اکالیپتوس را روشن تر خواهد کرد