Acute effects of nandrolone decanoate on oxidative stress in isolated rat heart

Abuse of anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) produces side effects in different tissues, with oxidative stress linked to their pathophysiology, being involved in fibrosis, cellular proliferation, and tumorigenesis. The aim of this study was to examine the acute effects of nandrolone decanoate (ND) on oxidative stress in isolated rat heart. The hearts of male Wistar albino were excised and perfused according to the Langendorff technique at gradually increasing coronary perfusion pressures (40-120 cm H2O). The hearts were perfused with ND at doses of 1, 10 and 100 μM. Oxidative stress markers, including the index of lipid peroxidation (thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS)), nitric oxide (nitrites; NO2-), the superoxide anion radical (O2-) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) were measured in the coronary venous effluent. Our results showed that acute effects of ND do not promote the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Our finding pointed out that the highest concentration of ND may even possess some anti-oxidative potential, which should be examined further

Acetylcholinesterase as a potential target of acute neurotoxic effects of lindane in rats

Abstract. The aim of our study was to investigate the possible involvement of acetylcholinesterase (AchE) in mediating the early phase of acute lindane neurotoxicity in rats. Male Wistar rats (n = 48) were divided into following groups: 1. control, saline-treated group; 2. dimethylsulfoxidetreated group; 3. group that received lindane dissolved in dimethylsulfoxide, in a dose of 8 mg/kg intraperitoneally. Eight animals from each group were sacrificed 0.5 and 4 h after treatment and brain samples were prepared for further analysis. AchE activity (mitochondrial and synaptosomal fraction) was determined in cerebral cortex, thalamus, hippocampus and nc. caudatus spectrophotometrically. A significant increase in mitochondrial AchE activity was detected in cortex and nc. caudatus of lindane-treated animals 0.5 h after administration (p < 0.05). This rise was sustained in nc. caudatus within 4 h after treatment (p < 0.05). In contrast, activity of synaptosomal AchE fraction was significantly increased only in thalamus 4 h after lindane administration (p < 0.05). An increase in AchE activity may be involved in mediating acute neurotoxic effects of lindane, at least in some brain structures in rats

Adventures in Modeling Spaces: Close Encounters of the Semantic Web and MDA Kinds

Abstract. This paper presents the original idea of Modeling Spaces and its impact on understanding various modeling domains and their interconnections. The focus is given on the Semantic Web and Model-Driven Architecture technical spaces and modeling spaces they are built around – RDF(S) and MOF modeling spaces. It also clarifies their mutual relations and helps understand what is necessary to do to bridge them and acquire their interoperability.

AIS SIGSEMIS Bulletin 1(3) October 2004 Framework for Analyzing Ontology Development Tools

Nowadays, ontologies and ontological engineering span such diverse fields as qualitative modeling, language engineering, database design, information retrieval and extraction, knowledge management and organization, ontology-enhanced search, possibly the largest one, e-commerce (e.g., Amazon.com, Yahoo Shopping, etc.), and configuration [1]. The engineering part of developing ontologies comprises a complex set of activities tha

Anisotropy in Thermal and Electronic Properties of Single Crystal GeSe2 Obtained by the Photoacoustic Method

Anisotropy in the thermal and electronic properties for two directions of a thermal wave propagation in GeSe2 single crystal was investigated using the photoacoustic frequency transmission technique. First, the electric field of an incident polarized light beam was adjusted to be perpendicular to the "c" axis (El⊥c), and then parallel to it (El//c) . It is shown that there is an obvious difference in the PA amplitude and phase spectra of the same sample, for cases when El//c and El⊥c axis. The results for thermal diffusivity DT obtained by fitting procedure for these two orientations of the electric field with regard to the "c" axis, are calculated: DT//=1.1×10-2 and DT⊥=1.7×10-3 cm2/s, e.g. their ratio is 6.6. The electronic transport parameters are also given: the carrier ambipolar diffusion coefficient D//=1.5 cm2/s and D⊥=2.5 cm2/s