Medicinal herbs in Iranian traditional medicine for learning and memory

Background: There are some factors such as age, stress and emotions that may lead to impaired learning, memory loss, amnesia, and dementia or threats like Schizophrenia and Alzheimer�s disease (AD). Traditional Iranian medicine (TIM) recommended some herbs and herbal preparations for treatment or prevention of CNS problems. In this study, the scientific evidences related to effectiveness of TIM herbal medicine on memory and learning will be reviewed. Materials and Methods: The scientific evidences of the plant efficacy were searched in electronic databases including Pub Med, Scopus, SID, Science Direct, and Google Scholar by keywords like memory, Alzheimer, amnesia, learning and scientific plant names from 1969 to 2014. Results: The finding of this study confirmed effectiveness of some of TIM medicinal plants on enhancing memory and learning or in treatment or prevention of amnesia and AD. Some of TIM plants like Melissa officinalis, Crocus sativus and Nigella sativa showed improving effect on memory in clinical trials. In some cases, the active principles responsible for efficacy of these plants on memory were also determined. Conclusion: Most of the studies on TIM plants were designed in animal models and a few herbs were evaluated in clinical trials on AD. Also, for some of the herbal medicine used in TIM, there are no or not enough studies to confirm their effectiveness on memory and learning. Therefore, further experimental and clinical studies are necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of these plants on memory and AD and also to determine the active components of them. © 2016, African Ethnomedicines Network. All Rights reserved

The Effects of a Virtual Disruption on Motor Control and Motor Adaptation Studied with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)

The main aim of this thesis was to explore the neural and behavioural responses underpinning upper-limb motor control in a novel (force-field) robot-mediated reaching task using a non-invasive brain stimulation method known as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). A new TMS-based network mapping technique was used to target different regions of the motor circuit (i.e. network nodes) using a ‘virtual disruption’ approach. Seven cortical regions including the left and right primary motor cortex (M1), the supplementary motor area (SMA), the left and right posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and the left and right dorsal pre-motor cortex (PMC) were targeted with TMS at nine different time points during the preparation phase of upper-limb reaching towards a north-west target (i.e. reaching away from the body). Both neural mechanisms (corticospinal excitability with left M1 stimulation) and kinematic (behavioural) responses such as, movement onset, movement offset, maximum velocity, movement duration, summed error (reaching errors quantified by the calculating the difference between the subject’s reaching trajectory and the ideal reaching trajectory) and maximum force were explored offline. When exploring the impact of TMS on each cortical region individually, the results demonstrated a behavioural effect on reaching responses because 1) TMS caused a significant disruption in reaching trajectories during motor adaptation compared to normal reaching (no force-field) at most time points and 2) TMS caused a significant delay in movement onset, particularly during motor adaptation. As well as exploring the effect of TMS on each region separately, it was important to determine the network of regions that may play a more functional role in novel reaching. Therefore a comparative analysis was performed between all stimulated regions for each kinematic parameter. The comparative analysis revealed a region specific relative influence on summed error. More specifically, the left M1 and left PPC were the principle structures that were involved in novel reaching because TMS to these structures resulted in significantly greater reaching trajectory errors. Based on this finding, it can be concluded that the left M1 and left PPC play a pivotal role in the preparation phase of upper-limb novel reaching compared to other regions in the motor network, including the right M1, SMA, left and right dPMC and right PPC. Overall, the findings from this project can not only help 1) refine our understanding of the mechanistic elements that operate during reaching and 2) gain an insight into the functional role of the different regions that are involved in novel reaching, but they also have a wide range of applications, ranging from brain machine interfaces (BMI) to neurocomputational models where data-based virtual lesions have been introduced into models of stroke patients

An innovative radiation hardened CAM architecture

An innovative Content Addressable Memory (CAM) cell with radiation hardened (RH) architecture is presented. The RH-CAM is designed using a commercial 28 nm CMOS technology. The circuit has been simulated in worst-case conditions, and the effects due to single particles have been analyzed by injecting a current pulse into a circuit node. The proposed architecture is suitable for real-time pattern recognition tasks in harsh environments, such as front-end electronics in the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and in space applications

Evaluation of anti-inflammatory and analgesic activity of the extract and fractions of Astragalus hamosus in animal models

The objective of this study was to evaluate the anti-inflammatory and analgesic activities of the hydro-alcoholic extract of the pods of Astragalus hamosus (HAAH), a plant used in Iranian traditional medicine, and antinociceptive effects of different fractions in animal models. The anti-inflammatory effect was evaluated by the rat paw edema induced by formalin. Also the analgesic effect was examined by the acetic-acid-induced writhing response and hot plate test. The analgesic effects of chloroform, hexane, ethyl acetate and aqueous fractions were evaluated by the hot-plate method. The hydroalcoholic extract of Astragalus hamosus could reduce the edema in a dose-dependent manner (P<0.05). In the acute phase, the result of 1000 mg/Kg and in the chronic phase, the result of 100 and 300 mg/Kg of the extract were more significant and comparable with the effect of sodium salicylate. Also application of different doses of HAAH had significant anti-nociceptive effects on both animal models. The findings showed that HAAH at doses of 700 and 1000 mg/Kg produced analgesic effects comparable to sodium salicylate. The hexane and ethyl acetate (but not the other fractions) showed significant analgesic activity in hot plate test, when compared to morphine. The results of this study demonstrated the anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects of HAAH extract and hexane and ethyl acetate fractions of the extract in animal models and justify traditional use of this plant in the treatment of pain and inflammatory conditions. More studies to clarify the active components are necessary. © 2015 by School of Pharmacy Shaheed Beheshti University of Medical Sciences and Health Services

Prevalence of Salmonella enteritidis and S. typhimurium in marketed meat in Shahrekord in 2014

زمینه و هدف: سالمونلا در انسان بیماری&zwnj; های مختلف مانند تب روده، حصبه و شبه حصبه، عفونت خون و مسمومیت&zwnj; های غذایی را ایجاد می &zwnj;کند. گوشت و شیرخام از مهم &zwnj;ترین منابع آلودگی انسان به سالمونلا می&zwnj; باشند. از این رو در این تحقیق به بررسی آلودگی سالمونلا تیفی موریوم و سالمونلا اینترتیدیس گوشت &zwnj;های قرمز و سفید خام در سطح شهرستان شهرکرد پرداخته شد. روش بررسی: در این مطالعه توصیفی- مقطعی، تعداد 360 نمونه شامل 98 نمونه گوشت گاو، 36 نمونه گوشت شتر، 75 نمونه گوشت گوسفند، 62 نمونه گوشت بز و 89 نمونه گوشت مرغ، از مراکز عرضه شهرستان شهرکرد جمع آوری و از نظر آلودگی به سالمونلا به روش کشت، آزمون &zwnj;های بیوشیمیایی و آزمون PCR مورد آزمایش قرار گرفتند. در ادامه سالمونلا تیفی موریوم و سالمونلا اینترتیدیس جدا شده از نظر ژن های حدت invA, rfbj, fliC, fljB, spV, sefA مورد بررسی قرار گرفتند. یافته ها: در این تحقیق در مجموع 54 نمونه از 360 نمونه به گونه های سالمونلا آلوده بودند. بیشترین آلودگی در گوشت مرغ (64/31) در نمونه&zwnj; گوشت گاو (26/13)، گوشت بز (06/8)، گوشت گوسفند (8) و گوشت شتر (5/5) مشاهده شد. از مجموع 54 جدایه سالمونلا، 24 ایزوله آلوده به سالمونلا تیفی موریوم و 20 ایزوله آلوده به سالمونلا اینترتیدیس و 10 ایزوله مربوط به سایر سروتیپ &zwnj;های سالمونلا بود. بررسی ژن های حدت ایزوله ها نشان داد تمام آن ها حامل ژن های مورد بررسی بودند. نتیجه گیری: نتایج حاصله بیانگر این است که درصد قابل توجهی از نمونه های گوشت&zwnj; های قرمز و سفید دارای آلودگی سالمونلایی هستند. از این رو لازم است با کنترل&zwnj;های بهداشتی و نظارت دقیق در کشتارگاه&zwnj; ها از میزان آلودگی گوشت کاسته شود

INTEGRATED CIRCUITS FOR HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS EXPERIMETNS

Integrated Circuits are used in most people\u2019s lives in the modern societies. An important branch of research and technology is focused on Integrated Circuit (IC) design, fabrication, and their efficient applications; moreover most of these activities are about commercial productions with applications in ambient environment. However the ICs play very important role in very advance research fields, as Astronomy or High Energy Physics experiments, with absolutely extreme environments which require very interdisciplinary research orientations and innovative solutions. For example, the Fast TracKer (FTK) electronic system, which is an important part of triggering system in ATLAS experiment at European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), in every second of experiment selects 200 interesting events among 40 millions of total events due to collision of accelerated protons. The FTK function is based on ICs which work as Content Addressable Memory (CAM). A CAM compares the income data with stored data and gives the addresses of matching data as an output. The amount of calculation in FTK system is out of capacity of commercial ICs even in very advanced technologies, therefore the development of innovative ICs is required. The high power consumption due to huge amount of calculation was an important limitation which is overcome by an innovative architecture of CAM in this dissertation. The environment of ICs application in astrophysics and High Energy Physics experiments is different from commercial ICs environment because of high amount of radiation. This fact started to get seriously attention after the first \u201cTelstar I\u201d satellite failure because of electronic damages due to radiation effects in space, and opened a new field of research mostly about radiation hard electronics. The multidisciplinary research in radiation hard electronic field is about radiation effects on semiconductors and ICs, deep understanding about the radiation in the extreme environments, finding alternative solutions to increase the radiation tolerance of electronic components, and development of new simulation method and test techniques. Chapter 2 of this dissertation is about the radiation effects on Silicon and ICs. Moreover, In this chapter, the terminologies of radiation effects on ICs are explained. In chapter 3, the space and high energy physics experiments environments, which are two main branches of radiation hard electronics research, are studied. The radiation tolerance in on-chip circuits is achieving by two kinds of methodology: Radiation Hardening By Process (RHBP) and Radiation Hardening By Design (RHBD). RHBP is achieved by changing the conventional fabrication process of commercial ICs. RHBP is very expensive so it is out of budget for academic research, and in most cases it is exclusive for military application, with very restricted rules which make the access of non-military organizations impossible. RHBD with conventional process is the approach of radiation hard IC design in this dissertation. RHBD at hardware level can be achieved in different ways: \u2022 System level RHBD: radiation hardening at system level is achieved by algorithms which are able to extract correct data using redundant information. \u2022Architecture level RHBD: some hardware architectures are able to prevent of lost data or mitigate the radiation effects on stored data without interfacing of software. Error Correction Code (ECC) circuits and Dual Interlocked storage CEll (DICE) architecture are two examples of RHBD at architecture level. \u2022 Circuit level RHBD: at circuit level, some structures are avoided or significantly reduced. For example, feedback loops with high gain are very sensitive to radiation effects. \u2022 Layout level RHBD: there are also different solutions in layout design level to increase the radiation tolerance of circuits. Specific shapes of transistor design, optimization of the physical distance between redundant data and efficient polarization of substrate are some techniques commonly used to increase significantly the radiation tolerance of ICs. An innovative radiation hard Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), designed in three versions, is presented in chapter 4. The radiation hardening is achieved by RHBD approach simultaneously at architecture, circuit and layout levels. Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) 65 nm is the technology of design and the prototype chip is fabricated at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). Chapter 5 is about the development of simulation models that can help to predict the radiation effect in the behavior of SRAM block. The setup system developed to characterize the radiation hard SRAM prototype chip is presented in Chapter 5. The setup system gives the possibility of testing the prototype exposed under radiation in a vacuum chamberand regular laboratory environment. Chapter 6 is about the contribution of this dissertation on FTK project and the conclusion of all research activities is shown in the final part of this dissertation. The research activities of this dissertation in supported by Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) as part of CHIPIX65 project and RD53 collaboration at CERN

The effect of orally consumed Lactuca sativa syrup on human milk volume and weight gain in the preterm infant:a randomized controlled clinical trial

Abstract Human milk feeding can support premature infants to thrive. Yet those with premature infants can be challenged in human milk production. Considering this, and the use of potentially harmful human milk enhancers, the present study was conducted with the aim of determining the effect of orally consumed Lactuca sativa (L. sativa) syrup (lettuce extract) on human milk volume and subsequent weight gain in the preterm infant. Extracts from lettuce and other plants such as silymarin are already evidenced to be safe for use during lactation and have other therapeutic effects in humans. Yet this is the first study of its kind. This parallel randomized clinical trial included lactating participants with their preterm infants who were born at < 32 weeks' gestation and admitted to an intensive care unit. Convenience sampling was used to recruit participants. Eligible participants were allocated to groups randomly: intervention (n = 47), placebo (n = 46), and control (n = 47). The intervention group received one tablespoon of Lactuca sativa (L. sativa) syrup, and the placebo group received one tablespoon of placebo syrup 3 times a day for 1 week. Those in the control group did not receive any herbal or chemical milk-enhancing compounds. Routine care was provided to all three groups. Participants recorded their milk volume for 7 days in a daily information recorder form. Infant weight was measured prior to the intervention, and on the third, fifth and seventh days of the intervention period. There was a statistically significant difference observed in the adjusted mean volume of milk on the fourth and fifth days between the intervention, placebo, and control groups (P < 0.05). The adjusted mean milk volume of those in the intervention group on the first day was significantly higher than those in the control group and those in the placebo group. On the second day, the adjusted mean milk volume of those in the intervention group was higher than in those from the control group; and on the fourth day it was higher than in those from both the control and placebo groups; on the fifth day it was higher than in those in the placebo group; on the sixth day it was higher than in those in the control group and on the seventh day it was higher than in those in the control group (P < 0.05). There was no statistically significant difference in terms of the mean changes (with or without adjustment) in the weight of preterm infants between any of the groups. Lactuca sativa (L. sativa) syrup increases the volume of human milk production and no specific side effects have been reported in its use. Therefore, Lactuca sativa syrup can be recommended for use as one of the compounds that increase human milk volume

The effect of Pimpinella Anisum herbal tea on human milk volume and weight gain in the preterm infant: a randomized controlled clinical trial

Abstract Background and aims Human milk supports pre-term infants to thrive. Yet human milk production can be inhibited when infants are born prematurely. Pimpinella Anisum has been evidenced to increase milk production and infant weight gain in previous animal studies. The present study aimed to determine the effect of Pimpinella Anisum herbal tea on human milk volume and preterm infant weight in human populations for the first time. Methods Human milk supports pre-term infants to thrive. Yet human milk production can be inhibited when infants are born prematurely. Pimpinella Anisum has been evidenced to increase milk production and infant weight gain in previous animal studies. The present study aimed to determine the effect of Pimpinella Anisum herbal tea on human milk volume and preterm infant weight in human populations for the first time. Results There was a statistically significant difference in terms of milk volume in the first, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh days between the three groups of intervention, placebo, and control (p < 0.05). On the first day, the mean volume of pumped milk in the intervention group was significantly higher than the control group (p = 0.008). On the second day, there was no statistically significant difference between groups. On the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh days, the mean volume of pumped milk in the intervention group was significantly higher than the placebo and control groups (p < 0.05). There was no statistically significant difference in terms of preterm infant weight on days 0, 3 and 7 between the three groups. Conclusion The use of Pimpinella Anisum or ‘Anise’ tea can increase the volume of human milk and since no specific side effects have been reported in its use, it may be incorporated easily, cheaply, and effectively in practice where appropriate to the benefit of preterm infant nutrition worldwide

Timespot1: A 28nm CMOS Pixel Read-Out ASIC for 4D Tracking at High Rates

We present the first characterization results of Timespot1, an ASIC designed in CMOS 28 nm technology, featuring a $32 \times 32$ pixel matrix with a pitch of $55 ~ \mu m$. Timespot1 is the first small-size prototype, conceived to readout fine-pitch pixels with single-hit time resolution below $50 ~ ps_\text{rms}$ and input rates of several hundreds of kilohertz per pixel. Such experimental conditions will be typical of the next generation of high-luminosity collider experiments, from the LHC run5 and beyond. Each pixel of the ASIC includes a charge amplifier, a discriminator, and a Time-to-Digital Converter with time resolution indicatively of $22.6 ~ ps_\text{rms}$ and maximum readout rates (per pixel) of $3 ~ MHz$. To respect system-level constraints, the timing performance has been obtained keeping the power budget per pixel below $40 ~ \mu W$. The ASIC has been tested and characterised in the laboratory concerning its performance in terms of time resolution, power budget and sustainable rates. The ASIC will be hybridized on a matched $32 \times 32$ pixel sensor matrix and will be tested under laser beam and Minimum Ionizing Particles in the laboratory and at test beams. In this paper we present a description of the ASIC operation and the first results obtained from characterization tests concerning its performance

Efficacy of Iranian traditional medicine in the treatment of epilepsy

Epilepsy is a brain disorder which affects about 50 million people worldwide. Ineffectiveness of the drugs in some cases and the serious side effects and chronic toxicity of the antiepileptic drugs lead to use of herbal medicine as a form of complementary and alternative medicine. In this review modern evidences for the efficacy of antiepileptic medicinal plants in Traditional Iranian Medicine (TIM) will be discussed. For this purpose electronic databases including PubMed, Scopus, Sciencedirect, and Google Scholar were searched for each of the antiepileptic plants during 1970-February 2013.Anticonvulsant effect of some of the medicinal plants mentioned in TIM like Anacyclus pyrethrum, Pimpinella anisum, Nigella sativa, and Ferula gummosa was studied with different models of seizure. Also for some of these plants like Nigella sativa or Piper longum the active constituent responsible for antiepileptic effect was isolated and studied. For some of the herbal medicine used in TIM such as Pistacia lentiscus gum (Mastaki), Bryonia alba (Fashra), Ferula persica (Sakbinaj), Ecballium elaterium (Ghesa-al Hemar), and Alpinia officinarum (Kholanjan) there is no or not enough studies to confirm their effectiveness in epilepsy. It is suggested that an evaluation of the effects of these plants on different epileptic models should be performed. © 2013 Mehri Abdollahi Fard and Asie Shojaii