The most important Iranian medicinal plants with immunomodulatory property according to traditional medicine and modern research findings

nnate immunity is the body's first line of defense against different pathogenic agents. Macrophages and neutrophils are two main cells that contribute significantly to innate and acquired immune responses, and important effector cells to destroy harmful agents. Function of these cells can be modulated by natural and synthetic compounds. Nowadays, the immunomodulatory effects of herbal plants is a hot research issue worldwide as a good candidate to strengthen immune system. The aim of this review article is to report the most important medicinal plants of Iran with immunomodulatory effect. The search terms including immunomodulatory, medicinal plants, and Iran were used to search for relevant articles in some national databases such as Scientific Information Databases, and Google Scholar search engine. Thyme, Pennyroyal, Garlic, Echinaceae and Olive were found to be traditionally used to strengthen the immune system of the body. Aloe (Aloe barbadensis), Palm (Phoenix ductylifera), Fennel (Foeniculum Vulgare) and Cumin seed (Cuminum cyminum) have been reported to have immunomodulatory effects according to scientific research

Symmetries of SU(2) Skyrmion in Hamiltonian and Lagrangian approaches

We apply the Batalin-Fradkin-Tyutin (BFT) method to the SU(2) Skyrmion to study the full symmetry structure of the model at the first class Hamiltonian level. On the other hand, we also analyze the symmetry structure of the action having the WZ term, which corresponds to this Hamiltonian, in the framework of the Lagrangian approach. Furthermore, following the BFV formalism we derive the BRST invariant gauge fixed Lagrangian from the above extended action.Comment: 14 pages, final revised version, to appear in Mod. Phys. Lett.

Silybum marianum: Beyond Hepatoprotection.

Silybum marianum is a medicinal plant that has long been used as hepatoprotective remedy. It has been used for the treatment of numerous liver disorders characterized by functional impairment or degenerative necrosis. Its hepatoprotective activity is unique and acts in different ways, including antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities, cell permeability regulator and membrane stabilizer, stimulation of liver regeneration and inhibition of deposition in collagen fibers, which may lead to cirrhosis. Most of documented data with Silybum marianum are about liver disorders; however, recently several beneficial properties on a wide variety of other disorders such as renal protection, hypolipidemic and anti-atherosclerosis activities, cardiovascular protection, prevention of insulin resistance, especially in cirrhotic patients, cancer, and Alzheimer prevention. It is also used as a food remedy. This review article aims to present different aspects of Silybum marianum, especially the data in recently published articles about its effects on different diseases, apart from presenting the aspects of its hepatoprotection

Scheduling optimization of parallel linear algebra algorithms using Supervised Learning

Linear algebra algorithms are used widely in a variety of domains, e.g machine learning, numerical physics and video games graphics. For all these applications, loop-level parallelism is required to achieve high performance. However, finding the optimal way to schedule the workload between threads is a non-trivial problem because it depends on the structure of the algorithm being parallelized and the hardware the executable is run on. In the realm of Asynchronous Many Task runtime systems, a key aspect of the scheduling problem is predicting the proper chunk-size, where the chunk-size is defined as the number of iterations of a for-loop assigned to a thread as one task. In this paper, we study the applications of supervised learning models to predict the chunk-size which yields maximum performance on multiple parallel linear algebra operations using the HPX backend of Blaze's linear algebra library. More precisely, we generate our training and tests sets by measuring performance of the application with different chunk-sizes for multiple linear algebra operations; vector-addition, matrix-vector-multiplication, matrix-matrix addition and matrix-matrix-multiplication. We compare the use of logistic regression, neural networks and decision trees with a newly developed decision tree based model in order to predict the optimal value for chunk-size. Our results show that classical decision trees and our custom decision tree model are able to forecast a chunk-size which results in good performance for the linear algebra operations.Comment: Accepted at HPCML1

Application of ZnO-Fe3O4 nanocomposite on the removal of azo dye from aqueous solutions: Kinetics and equilibrium studies

In this study, zinc oxide was immobilized on magnetite nanoparticles by chemical method and it was used as an adsorbent to remove reactive black 5 (RB5) dye from aqueous solution. The removal efficiency of RB5 was studied as the function of adsorbent dosage, pH, initial RB5 concentration, H2O 2, and ionic strength (sodium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate, sodium sulfate, and sodium chloride). Removal efficiency of RB5 by ZnO-Fe 3O4 was greater than that by ZnO and Fe3O 4 in similar conditions. Maximum adsorption of ZnO-Fe 3O4 was obtained at neutral pH, and adsorption capacity was estimated to be 22.1 mg/g. Adsorption kinetic study revealed that the pseudo-second-order model better described the removal rate than the pseudo-first-order model. Adsorption isotherm was analyzed by both Langmuir and Freundlich equations, and results showed that it was better described by the Langmuir equation. The removal efficiency of RB5 was increased with increasing initial H2O2 concentrations from 2 to 5 mM but was decreased above 5 mM. The adsorption capacities of RB5 was increased in the presence of NaCl but was greatly decreased in the presence of bicarbonate, carbonate, and sulfate ion. Adsorption activity of RB5 by ZnO-Fe 3O4 composite was maintained even after five successive cycles, suggesting a promising adsorbent for wastewater-contaminated organic dyes. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014

Genetic characterization of Vimba vimba persa (Pallas, 1814) in southern parts of the Caspian Sea using microsatellite markers

Population genetic structure of Vimba vimba persa was investigated using microsatellite markers from 40 regions along the Iranian coastline of the Southern Caspian Sea (Anzali lagoon and Havigh River in Gilan province, BabolRoud River in Mazandaran province and GorganRoud River in Golestan province). Genomic DNA from 121 specimens was extracted from fin tissue by the Phenol-Chlorophorm method and PCR reaction was accomplished with 17 microsatellite primers, out of 17 microsatellite primers 13 loci were amplified, in which 10 of them were amplified with reasonable polymorphism and 3 were monomorphism. A total of 302 alleles were identified on average 7.55. Observed and expected heterozygosity averages were 0.80 and 0.77 respectively. Most cases significantly deviated from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (p≤0.01). The estimation of Fst (p≤0.01) revealed significant population structuring and an estimation of the four population of Vimba vimba persa was identified in the Caspian Sea in which restocking of these species should be considered

The Impact of Leisure Constraints on Physical Activity Among Parent - Adolescent Dyads

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