The effect of 12 weeks Anethum graveolens (dill) on metabolic markers in patients with metabolic syndrome; A randomized double blind controlled trial

Background: The clustering of metabolic abnormalities defined as metabolic syndrome is now both a public health and a clinical problem .While interest in herbal medicine has greatly increased, lack of human evidence to support efficacies shown in animals does exist. This clinical trial study designed to investigate whether herbal medicine, Anethum graveolens (dill) extract, could improve metabolic components in patients with metabolic syndrome. Methods: A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial using a parallel design was conducted. 24 subjects who had metabolic syndrome diagnostic criteria (update of ATP III) were randomly assigned to either dill extract (n = 12) or placebo (n = 12) for 3 months. Results: Across lipid component of metabolic syndrome, no significant differences in triglyceride (TG) concentration and high density lipoprotein cholesterol were seen between the two groups. However TG improved significantly from baseline (257.0 vs. 201.5p = 0.01) with dill treatment but such a significant effect was not observed in placebo group. Moreover, no significant differences in waist circumference, blood pressure and fasting blood sugar were seen between two groups after 3 months follow up period. Conclusion: In this small clinical trial in patients with metabolic syndrome, 12 weeks of dill extract treatment had a beneficial effect in terms of reducing TG from baseline. However dill treatment was not associated with a significant improvement in metabolic syndrome related markers compared to control group. Larger studies might be required to prove the efficacy and safety of long-Term administration of dill to resolve metabolic syndrome components. © 2012 Mansouri et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

Finding Collisions in a Quantum World: Quantum Black-Box Separation of Collision-Resistance and One-Wayness

Since the celebrated work of Impagliazzo and Rudich (STOC 1989), a number of black-box impossibility results have been established. However, these works only ruled out classical black-box reductions among cryptographic primitives. Therefore it may be possible to overcome these impossibility results by using quantum reductions. To exclude such a possibility, we have to extend these impossibility results to the quantum setting. In this paper, we study black-box impossibility in the quantum setting. We first formalize a quantum counterpart of fully-black-box reduction following the formalization by Reingold, Trevisan and Vadhan (TCC 2004). Then we prove that there is no quantum fully-black-box reduction from collision-resistant hash functions to one-way permutations (or even trapdoor permutations). We take both of classical and quantum implementations of primitives into account. This is an extension to the quantum setting of the work of Simon (Eurocrypt 1998) who showed a similar result in the classical setting

Evaluation of sesamum gum as an excipient in matrix tablets

In developing countries modern medicines are often beyond the affordability of the majority of the population. This is due to the reliance on expensive imported raw materials despite the abundance of natural resources which could provide an equivalent or even an improved function. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential of sesamum gum (SG) extracted from the leaves of Sesamum radiatum (readily cultivated in sub-Saharan Africa) as a matrix former. Directly compressed matrix tablets were prepared from the extract and compared with similar matrices of HPMC (K4M) using theophylline as a model water soluble drug. The compaction, swelling, erosion and drug release from the matrices were studied in deionized water, 0.1 N HCl (pH 1.2) and phosphate buffer (pH 6.8) using USP apparatus II. The data from the swelling, erosion and drug release studies were also fitted into the respective mathematical models. Results showed that the matrices underwent a combination of swelling and erosion, with the swelling action being controlled by the rate of hydration in the medium. SG also controlled the release of theophylline similar to the HPMC and therefore may have use as an alternative excipient in regions where Sesamum radiatum can be easily cultivated

Mobile app stores from the user's perspectives

YesThe use of smartphones has become more prevalent in light of the boom in Internet services and Web 2.0 applications. Mobile stores (e.g., Apple’s App Store and Google Play) have been increasingly used by mobile users worldwide to download or purchase different kinds of applications. This has prompted mobile app practitioners to reconsider their mobile app stores in terms of design, features and functions in order to maintain their customers’ loyalty. Due to the lack of research on this context, this study aims to identify factors that may affect users’ satisfaction and continued intention toward using mobile stores. The proposed model includes various factors derived from information systems literature (i.e., usefulness, ease of use, perceived cost, privacy and security concerns) in addition to the dimensions of mobile interactivity (i.e. active control, mobility, and responsiveness). The study sets out 13 hypotheses that include mediating relationships (e.g., perceived usefulness mediates the influence of ease of use, active control, responsiveness and mobility; perceived ease of use mediates the influence of active control). As well as outlining the proposed research method, the research contributions, limitations and future research recommendations are also addressed

Are Physicians Good Candidates For Recommending Diet?

Background: Primary prevention status and goals in 2010 are promoting healthy weight and eating habits and dietary ma­nipula­tion considered in all reports to be the cornerstone of prevention and management of chronic diseases. Since in de­velop­ing countries physicians are in the front line of responding patients' questions regarding their diet, we decided to evalu­ate their necessary nutritional knowledge for accomplishing this mission and to identify consideration for improving the paucity of nutrition education and the nutrition literacy in medical training program, we did the same education in medi­cal students.Methods: Applied nutritional knowledge of 150 general, specialist and sub specialist physicians and 202 medical students was evaluated by structured self administrative questionnaire. Eighteen questions which could be self completed in less than 5 minutes were filled by each subject. Results: The percentage of physicians who gave dietary recommendations to their patients was 73% but the mean correct re­sponds to questions were 3.73±2.15 and 5.87±2.14 out of 14 questions in physicians and medical students respectively. Conclusions: Our data show deficient applied nutritional knowledge of physicians is one of   the main problems of hospital mal­nu­trition. As the same results were shown in medical students, this can not be due to forgetting what was learned but can be related to the quality of nutrition training. &nbsp

RE-SWOT: From User Feedback to Requirements via Competitor Analysis

App store reviews are a rich source for analysts to elicit requirements from user feedback, for they describe bugs to be fixed, requested features, and possible improvements. Product development teams need new techniques that help them make real-time decisions based on user feedback. [Question/Problem] Researchers have proposed natural language processing (NLP) techniques for extracting and organizing requirements-relevant knowledge from the reviews for one specific app. However, no attention has been paid to studying whether and how requirements can be identified from competing products. [Principal ideas/results] We propose RE-SWOT, a tool-supported method for eliciting requirements from app store reviews through competitor analysis. RE-SWOT combines NLP algorithms with information visualization techniques. We evaluate the usefulness of RE-SWOT with expert product managers from three mobile app companies. [Contribution] Our preliminary results show that competitor analysis is a promising path for research that has direct impact on the requirements engineering practice in modern app development companies

RE-SWOT: From User Feedback to Requirements via Competitor Analysis

App store reviews are a rich source for analysts to elicit requirements from user feedback, for they describe bugs to be fixed, requested features, and possible improvements. Product development teams need new techniques that help them make real-time decisions based on user feedback. [Question/Problem] Researchers have proposed natural language processing (NLP) techniques for extracting and organizing requirements-relevant knowledge from the reviews for one specific app. However, no attention has been paid to studying whether and how requirements can be identified from competing products. [Principal ideas/results] We propose RE-SWOT, a tool-supported method for eliciting requirements from app store reviews through competitor analysis. RE-SWOT combines NLP algorithms with information visualization techniques. We evaluate the usefulness of RE-SWOT with expert product managers from three mobile app companies. [Contribution] Our preliminary results show that competitor analysis is a promising path for research that has direct impact on the requirements engineering practice in modern app development companies