Effect of Endurance Exercise on Antioxidant Enzyme Activities and Lipid Peroxidation in the Heart of the Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetic Rats

Introduction: Oxidative stress can promote the development of complications of diabetes. Moderate exercise improves cardiac antioxidant status in diabetic animals. The current study aimed to investigate the effect of 8 week endurance exercise training on some heart antioxidant enzyme activities and lipid peroxidation of heart tissue in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. Methods: To this end, 30 male Wistar rats were randomly divided into 3 groups: the healthy control group (C), diabetic control group (DC) and trained diabetic group (TD). Animals in TD group were exercised on a treadmill 4 days a week for 8 weeks. After 8 weeks, superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and catalase (CAT) activities and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels were measured in heart tissues. The data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA (p<0.05). Results: The CAT and GPx activities of the heart tissue in DC group were found to be significantly higher (p=0.000) in compared with C group, whereas SOD activity was not found significantly different among the experimental groups. Also, heart GPx activity in TD group was significantly lower (p=0.000) than that of DC group, while CAT activity was not affected by endurance training. After 8-week endurance exercise (TD group), the MDA levels of heart tissue were significantly higher (respectively p<0.017 and p=0.000) than C and DC groups. Conclusion: The results of the present study have demonstrated that due to decreased GPx activities and MDA levels, endurance exercise may make the heart tissue more susceptible to oxidative stress

Fatigue life estimation for different notched specimens based on the volumetric approach

In this paper, the effects of notch radius for different notched specimens has been studied on the values of stress concentration factor, notch strength reduction factor, and fatigue life duration of the specimens. The material which has been selected for this investigation is Al 2024T3 . Volumetric approach has been applied to obtain the values of notch strength reduction factor and results have been compared with those obtained from the Neuber and Peterson methods. Load controlled fatigue tests of mentioned specimens have been conducted on the 250kN servo-hydraulic Zwick/Amsler fatigue testing machine with the frequency of 10Hz. The fatigue lives of the specimens have also been predicted based on the available smooth S-N curve of Al2024-T3 and also the amounts of notch strength reduction factor which have been obtained from volumetric, Neuber and Peterson methods. The values of stress and strain around the notch roots are required to predict the fatigue life of notched specimens, so Ansys finite element code has been used and non-linear analyses have been performed to obtain the stress and strain distributions around the notches. The plastic deformations of the material have been simulated using multi-linear kinematic hardening and cyclic stress-strain relation. The work here shows that the volumetric approach does a very good job for predicting the fatigue life of the notched specimens

The effects of sheet spacing on the fatigue life of spot­welded joints

While investigating the fatigue strength of spot-welded joints, the effects of sheet spacing or gap amounts between sheet joints may be considered as one of the most important parameters on the fatigue life duration of the joints. The main goal of the present work is to study the influence of sheet spacing on the fatigue life of 5083-O aluminium alloy spot welded tensile-shear joints. The amounts of sheet spacing are the average values over three measurements of photograph observation of the cut-off surfaces from the nugget centre of the spot-welded joints. The amounts of gap distances between spot weld sheet joints for three different electrode clamping force levels were 0.09mm, 0.11mm and 0.13mm, respectively. The values of notch strength reduction factors have been obtained at all levels of applied loads based on volumetric approach. The fatigue lives of spot welded joints have been obtained according to the volumetric method using the notch strength reduction factors and the available smooth S-N curve of 5083-O aluminium alloy sheets. The results based on the volumetric approach have been compared with the experimental fatigue test data and there is good agreement between numerical predictions and experimental results

Analysis of the hydrodynamic torque effects on large size butterfly valves and comparing results with AWWA C504 standard recommendations

This paper is closed access.Butterfly valves are widely used in various industries such as water distribution, sewage, oil and gas plants. The hydrodynamic torque applied on the butterfly valve disk is one of the most important factors which should be considered in their design and application. Although several methods have been used to calculate the total torque on these valves, most of them are based on hydrostatic analysis and ignore the hydrodynamic effect which has a major role to determine the torque of the large-size valves. For finding the dynamic-valvetorque, some empirical formulas and methods have been proposed; for example in AWWA C504 standard, a relationship for calculating the dynamic torque has been given and its variation versus disk angle has been stated. However, the use of these empirical relationships is restricted due to the conditions defined in the standards. In this paper, the dynamic-valve-torque has been calculated for a large butterfly valve under different conditions and also at the different opening angles of the valve disk. For this purpose a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method has been used. The results have been compared with those given in the AWWA C504 standard recommendations. Moreover, the effects of the disk shape and its deformation, surface roughness, upstream/downstream pressure variation and disk-offset value have been studied

Respiratory inflammation and infections in high‐performance athletes

Upper respiratory illness is the most common reason for non-injury-related presentation to a sports medicine clinic, accounting for 35-65% of illness presentations. Recurrent or persistent respiratory illness can have a negative impact on health and performance of athletes undertaking high levels of strenuous exercise. The cause of upper respiratory symptoms (URS) in athletes can be uncertain but the majority of cases are related to common respiratory viruses, viral reactivation, allergic responses to aeroallergens and exercise-related trauma to the integrity of respiratory epithelial membranes. Bacterial respiratory infections are uncommon in athletes. Undiagnosed or inappropriately treated asthma and/or allergy are common findings in clinical assessments of elite athletes experiencing recurrent URS. High-performance athletes with recurrent episodes of URS should undergo a thorough clinical assessment to exclude underlying treatable conditions of respiratory inflammation. Identifying athletes at risk of recurrent URS is important in order to prescribe preventative clinical, training and lifestyle strategies. Monitoring secretion rates and falling concentrations of salivary IgA can identify athletes at risk of URS. Therapeutic interventions are limited by the uncertainty of the underlying cause of inflammation. Topical anti-inflammatory sprays can be beneficial for some athletes. Dietary supplementation with bovine colostrum, probiotics and selected antioxidants can reduce the incidence or severity of URS in some athletes. Preliminary studies on athletes prone to URS indicate a genetic predisposition to a pro-inflammatory response and a dysregulated anti-inflammatory cytokine response to intense exercise as a possible mechanism of respiratory inflammation. This review focuses on respiratory infections and inflammation in elite/professional athletes