Plants and plant products in treatment of ulcerative colitis

Trabalho Final de Mestrado Integrado, Ciências Farmacêuticas, 2022, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Farmácia.A doença inflamatória intestinal (DII) é uma das doenças graves que influenciam a saúde e a qualidade de vida de milhões de pessoas em todo o mundo. É dividida em duas principais doenças Crónicas: colite ulcerosa (CU) e doença de Crohn (DC). A etiologia da DII ainda não é conhecida. No entanto, diferentes estudos mostraram que esta é afetada por fatores imunológicos, genéticos e ambientais. Tanto a CU como a DC são caracterizadas por inflamação crónica do trato gastrointestinal. Na CU, a inflamação começa distalmente no reto e estende-se proximalmente ao cólon; a DC pode afetar todo o trato gastrointestinal, da boca ao ânus. Com foco na CU, o Canadá tem a maior incidência e prevalência, seguido pelos EUA, países escandinavos, Finlândia, Reino Unido e Austrália. A terapia convencional da CU consiste em aminossalicilatos, corticosteroides e imunomoduladores. Devido aos seus imensos efeitos adversos e elevado custo, essas opções terapêuticas não são suficientemente bem-sucedidas e levam ao insucesso do tratamento após algum tempo. Acredita-se que os produtos à base de plantas e plantas medicinais sejam uma importante alternativa para o tratamento desta condição. Este estudo tem como objetivo rever a literatura sobre plantas e produtos vegetais que podem desempenhar um papel no tratamento da colite ulcerosa. Inclui os últimos 20 anos, concentrando-se mais na literatura de 2010 a 2021. Foram publicados muitos estudos experimentais in vivo/vitro e ensaios clínicos de plantas de produtos vegetais. Apesar de alguns dos mecanismos de ação das plantas estudadas serem conhecidos. Ainda assim, plantas e produtos vegetais têm resultados significativos em casos de colite experimental ou de ensaios clínicos, cujo mecanismo de ação permanece desconhecido ou merece maiores especificações. O resultado desta revisão de literatura está organizado em três divisões principais: plantas e produtos vegetais que melhoram a colite experimental, algumas formulações à base de plantas e plantas e produtos vegetais em ensaios clínicos. Existem vários resultados e benefícios obtidos em cada uma dessas categorias. É de salientar a formulação à base de plantas KM1608, derivada de Zingiber officinale, Terminalia chebula e Aucklandia lappa. Esta formulação à base de plantas na dose de 600 mg/kg resultou em melhores parâmetros para muitos índices usados para avaliar a colite experimental induzida por TNBS em comparação com 5-ASA e prednisolona. Portanto, estudos futuros devem concentrar-se mais na terapia de múltiplos alvos, uma vez que apenas uma terapia alvo nestas doenças complexas não obteve sucesso. É necessário mais investimento na investigação neste campo para obter resultados satisfatórios para construir uma guideline de tratamento mais segura e bem sucedida para a colite ulcerosa.Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is one of the serious diseases influencing millions of people`s health and quality of life worldwide. It is divided into two main chronic diseases: ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD). The etiology of IBD is not known yet. However, different studies have shown that it's affected by immunological, genetic, and environmental factors. Both UC and CD are characterized by chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. In UC, inflammation starts distally in the rectum and extends proximally to the colon; the CD can affect the entire gastrointestinal tract from the mouth to the anus. Focusing on UC, Canada has the highest incidence and prevalence, followed by the USA, Scandinavian countries, Finland, the UK, and Australia. Conventional therapy of UC consists of aminosalicylates, corticosteroids, and immunomodulators. Due to their immense adverse effects and high cost, these therapeutical options are not successful enough and lead to a failure in treatment after some time. Medicinal plants and plants product is believed to be an important alternative to treat this condition. This study aims to review the literature on plants and plant products that can play a role in treating ulcerative colitis. It includes the last 20 years, concentrating more on literature from 2010 to 2021. Many published experimental studies in vivo/vitro and clinical trials of plants and plant products have been recorded. Despite some of the mechanisms of action of the plants studied are known. Still, plants and plant products have significant outcomes in experimental colitis or clinical trial cases, whose mechanism of action remains unknown or deserves further specifications. The finding of this literature review is organized into three main divisions: plants and plant products that ameliorate experimental colitis, some herbal formulations, and plants and plants products in clinical trials. There are various outcomes and benefits obtained in each of these categories. To be distinguished is KM1608 herbal formulation, derived from Zingiber officinale, Terminalia chebula, and Aucklandia lappa. This herbal formulation at a 600 mg/kg dose resulted in better parameters for many indices used to evaluate TNBS-induced experimental colitis compared with 5-ASA and prednisolone. Hence future studies should focus more on multiple target therapy since just one target therapy in these complex diseases has failed to succeed. Further investment in more research in this field is needed to obtain satisfactory results to build a safer and more successful treatment guideline for ulcerative colitis

Placement of Concrete in Hydropower Structures According To Climatic Conditions in Albania

Concrete - 100 years ago a new building material and today regarded as indispensable - camejust in time to be used from the very beginning of the hydropower era in the World, aroundthe turn of the century. It soon became the preferred material for construction of dams andpower-houses, although the performance with regard to durability proved to be poor in many cases, giving rise for concern. Most prone to damage were dams at mountain sites, exposed toharsh climatic conditions. The problem was obviously one of lack of know-how in the field of concrete technology. An important factor in mix design is the ratio between water and binder.As long as only binder is cement, the term w/c ratio cannot be misunder-stood. With theincreasing use of pozzolana as binder in addition to the cement, the term w/b ration is now widely used. The term w/c ration as used in literature shall be interpreted to include pozzolana

Investigation of hydraulic regime at middle part of the Loire River in context of floods and low flow events

Significant variability characterizes natural streams in space and time that describe hydraulic regime of the entire stream. In this paper, the importance of investigation and assessment of hydraulic system in the context of management of surface water resources is discussed. The objective of this study is to investigate hydraulic regime in the middle part of Loire River located in France. Loire River basin is the largest river basin in France and origin of many potential flood events. Investigation of a hydraulic regime of the Loire River is conducted using traditional hydraulic simulation model HEC-RAS. Hydraulic modeling of the river is carried out by considering two different datasets (i.e. flood and low flow events). A certain number of hydraulic structures, which have the significant effect on the hydraulic regime of the river, is considered as well. Through Froude number computation, it is noticed that middle part of the Loire River demonstrates subcritical regime. Accurate calibration and validation of the model are performed by changing Manning coefficient along the riverbed. Computation carried out for both data sets; show that there are no big differences between observed and simulated water levels, results obtained are satisfactory. Therefore, to get more accurate information about the hydraulic regime at the middle part at of Loire River, the further simulation needs to be done by considering an additional dataset of floods and low flow events

Risk assessment from floodings in the rivers of Albania

Flooding is a natural phenomenon in Albania. The floods are flashy and flood - waters occupy the flood plain; in the biggest rivers, close to the river mouth area, these waters inundate the flood plain for several weeks.Attempts have been made to alleviate flood situation in Albania by building protective dykes and creating upstream storage. Although many of these measures have been beneficial, they also served toencourage further encroachment upon river floodplains, thereby raising the potential for flood damage.Actually, more than half of the Albanian population lives very close to the rivermouth areas, where the riskof flooding is higher. The structural solution is only a partial one; the only long - term solution consists ofkeeping flood-vulnerable development and uses out of the flood plain. In order to evaluate the flood potential,a statistical study in national scale was carried out. The peak discharges for different return periods are computed using statistical method and a map of the flood potential for the country is designed. Those constructions had a relevant protective role during the flooding of the winter 1970-71. Non structural measures consist of measures undertaken for flood warning or flood forecasting or different studies likeflood-mapping, estimation of inundation risk and inundation zones and possible damages etc

Geotechnical Analysis of Hill’s Slopes Areas in Heritage Town of Berati, Albania

In this paper are treated briefly the geotechnical analysis of hills slopes areas in the heritage town of Berati, Albania. From engineering geological mapping on scale 1:10 000 and geotechnical investigations carried out in urban area of Berati town was found that two zones are threated from landslides phenomenon. The first one is located in center part, whereas the second in northeast part of Berati urban area. Mass movements occurred in the studied area are present in rocks topple, rocks fall and earth slide types. Rock falls and topple occur on steep slopes of fractured lime-stone rock, whereas the earth slides are found on medium-steep slopes that are built from soils and weathered flysch rocks. From mass movements occurrences many buildings and urban roads are demolished, thus endangering human life. In these conditions a detailed engineering geological study was undertaken to determine landslide distributions and recognize the stable and unstable areas. Also, based on these studies suggestions and recommendations are given for urban development and remedial measures

Assessment of Sediment Transport in the Devolli River

Devolli river is one of the biggest rivers of Albania which is characterized by large stream flow but also during the full stream flow it bring a lot of sediments and this paper consists precisely to calculation rough of sediments transport of this river.It is important to recognizethat present conditions in the Devoll valley are not necessarily the original natural conditions.Deforestation has been reported to be a major problem in Albania (e.g. and based on personalcommunication with stakeholders in the Prespa and Skadar regions, cf. The erosion woundsmay be caused by years of cutting down trees for firewood. If so, then hydropowerdevelopment may assist in reducing the present high erosion rates in this country by reducingthe pressure on trees for firewood, although long time is probably needed before stable hillslopes can be established. However, there may also be other reasons for loss of vegetation thathydropower will probably not assist in reducing: Shuka et al. (2008) referred to degradation oforiginal vegetation cover in the Albanian parts of the catchment area of Lake Prespa, and suggested that the main causes were traditional farming of livestock, uncontrolled grazing andfires. Clearly, the variations are very high. Variations are higher after May 1st than before this date; this may be due to the steady high water discharges in the beginning of the year, whichwill give less variation in loads (cf lower panel). It should be noted that a single high concentration will have a major impact on the calculated total load transport, especially if the water discharge is also high at the same time

Investigation of Average Shear Stress in Natural Stream

Average shear stress is an important parameter for prediction of sediment transport,bank protection and other river engineering problems in natural streams. For this purposevelocity measurements were taken on Kızılırmak River sub branch, named Sarimsakli streamand Barsama station in center of Turkey. Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter (ADV) was used forthis purpose at six different periods and flow conditions. Nikuradse's equivalent sandroughnesses (ks) for each vertical along the wetted perimeter were determined using measuredvelocity distributions. Shear velocity (u*) and shear stress (meas) were determined thenaverage values were calculated for each flow condition. The commonly used one-dimensionalmean boundary shear stress equation at cross-section was re-arranged according to entropyparameter M and it reflects the real flow condition in natural stream

Sill role effect on the flow characteristics (Experimental and Regression Model analytical)

This study investigates the effects of gate openings and different sill widths on the sluice gate’s energy dissipation and discharge coefficient (Cd). The physical model of the sills includes rectangular sills of different dimensions. The results show that the gate opening size is inversely related to the Cd for a gate without a sill. In addition, increasing the gate opening size for a given discharge decreases the relative energy dissipation, and increasing the Froude number increases the relative energy dissipation. The results also show that the Cd and relative energy dissipation decrease when the width of the sill is decreased, thus increasing the total area of the flux flowing through the sluice gate and vice versa. According to the experimental results, the relative energy dissipation and the Cd of the sluice gate are larger for all sill widths than without the sill. Finally, non-linear polynomial relationships are presented based on dimensionless parameters for predicting the relative energy dissipation and outflow coefficient

Assessment of riverbank filtration performance for climatic change and a growing population

Data availability statement The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/Supplementary Material; further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding authors.Copyright © 2023 Abd-Elaty, Kuriqi, Ganayem, Ahmed, Saleh and Garrote. Riverbank filtration (RBF) consists of green drinking water production in many regions and is used as a pre-treatment phase. This study investigates the performance of the RBF in the Nile delta, Egypt, for climate change and population growth scenarios of 2030, 2040, and 2050. This study presents a new method for predicting the sharing of riverbanks considering three cases: i) the river stage controlling the water levels in the river, ii) increasing RBF pumping, and iii) changing the groundwater levels. This last scenario is achieved by changing the general head in the MODFLOW model. The results showed that RBF sharing (RBFS) is a proportion of the river leakage inflow, in which the decrease of the river stage due to the influence of climate change reduced the river leakage inflow and RBFS. In addition, increasing RBF pumping, decreasing RBF pumping, and lowering the groundwater levels due to the increase in the future drinking water pumping for the population growth increased the river leakage inflow and RBFS. Finally, combining the three cases decreased RBFS in the coming years of 2030, 2040, and 2050, respectively, due to more groundwater sharing than the river inflow. The results show that the water budget is a good tool to investigate RBFS compared with MT3D results. This technique can reduce the cost of water quality collection and analysis; moreover, it will help with the estimation of RBF and save time compared with solute transport modeling.AK is grateful for the Foundation for Science and Technology’s support through funding UIDB/04625/2020 from the research unit CERIS