Male reproductive complications of diabetes mellitus and possible medicinal plant remedies: a review

Objective: Male reproductive dysfunction and subsequent infertility are major complications that are becoming increasingly associated with Diabetes Mellitus (DM). Due to frequent failure in treatment with orthodox antidiabetic drugs, there has been a massive shift of attention to alternative therapies. The antidiabetic potential of a large number of medicinal plants have been investigated both in-vitro and in experimental animal models. These specific plants were predominantly used because of the antioxidant capacity of their bioactive phytoconstituents. This review focuses on reproductive dysfunctions commonly suffered by male diabetic patients and medicinal plants that have been tested and reported for their roles in ameliorating such dysfunctions.Method: All original journal articles and reviews cited on PubMed between 2005 and 2015 in English language were considered for this review.Results and conclusion: This review reestablished the fact that male infertility is a common complication of poorly managed diabetes mellitus. It also highlighted the fact that the numerous challenges associated with the use of orthodox drugs in management of the disease makes medicinal plant therapy inevitable. However, the full potentials of these medicinal plants at correcting reproductive complications of the disease are still to be realized and more specific studies are required in this field for improved therapeutic outcomes.Keywords: Diabetes, Complications, Medicinal Plants, Erectile dysfunction, Remedie

Finite element analysis of cracking and delamination of concrete beam due to steel corrosion

This paper presents the analytical results to investigate cracking and delamination of concrete beam due to steel corrosion. A series of concrete beams were idealised as two dimensional models via their cross section and analysed using the finite element software – LUSAS. The corrosion of steel bars was simulated using a radial expansion. The FE results show that cracking of beam section due to steel corrosion can be clarified into four types, i.e., Internal Cracking, Internal Penetration, External Cracking (HS) and External Cracking (VB). The amount of corrosion in term of radial expansion required to causes Internal Cracking, Internal Penetration, External Cracking (HS) and External Cracking (VB) varies almost linearly with bar diameter d, bar clear distance s and concrete cover c, respectively. If the ratio s/c was less than the critical value of about 2.2, the delamination of concrete cover could occur before the cracks can be visualised on the concrete surface, which does concern engineers

Dwarfing gene Rht18 from tetraploid wheat responds to exogenous GA₃ in hexaploid wheat

Rht18, derived from Triticum durum (tetraploid) wheat, is classified as a gibberellic acid (GA)-responsive dwarfing gene. Prior to this study, the responses of Rht18 to exogenous GA on agronomic traits in hexaploid wheat were still unknown. The response of Rht18 to exogenous GA3 on coleoptile length, plant height, yield components and other agronomic traits were investigated using F4:5 and F5:6 hexaploid dwarf lines with Rht18 derived from two crosses between the tetraploid donor Icaro and tall Chinese winter wheat cultivars, Xifeng 20 and Jinmai 47. Applications of exogenous GA3 significantly increased coleoptile length in both lines and their tall parents. Plant height was significantly increased by 21.3 and 10.7% in the GA3-treated dwarf lines of Xifeng 20 and Jinmai 47, respectively. Compared to the untreated dwarf lines, the partitioning of dry matter to ears at anthesis was significantly decreased while the partitioning of dry matter to stems was significantly increased in the GA3-treated dwarf lines. There were no obvious changes in plant height and dry matter partitioning in the GA3-treated tall parents. Exogenous GA3 significantly decreased grain number spike–1 while it increased 1000-kernel weight in both the dwarf lines and tall parents. Thus, applications of exogenous GA3 restored plant height and other agronomic traits of Rht18 dwarf lines to the levels of the tall parents. This study indicated that Rht18 dwarf mutants are GA-deficient lines with impaired GA biosynthesis

The nonlinear analysis of an innovative slit reinforced concrete water tower in seismic regions

Water towers are widely used in our society as one of water distribution facilities within water network systems. In the event of a severe earthquake, however, a single plastic hinge that occurs in a water tower could cause its total collapse before nonlinear resources of the rest of the tower remains fully utilised. This research presents an innovative technique for the assembly of a water tower using the slits in its reinforced concrete shaft for the purpose of mitigating the seismic response. Slit shafts were designed to have four slits at 90 degree intervals along the full height of the shafts. The shaft parts were connected to each other at the bottom, top and every five meters with coupling beams. The slit width was used as a variable in this study which varied between 50 mm and 2000 mm. The nonlinear seismic performance of the proposed slit towers was analysed by means of a finite element approach with respect to soil types defined in Eurocode 8 and seismic behaviour were compared to the solid water tower. A detailed observation of the compression and tension stress distributions with respect to the slit width was performed. The obtained analytical results revealed that slit width in the reinforced concrete tower affect the failure mode and stiffness of a water tower significantly. With an appropriate design, the conversion of a solid water tower into a slit tower can significantly increase its ductility under seismic action without significantly compromising its bearing capacity. The results showed that contours of tension and compression stress intensity in shafts, which could lead to a failure of water towers, highly depended on the slit width. In the solid water tower, the stress concentration dominated at the base of the shaft, however in the narrow slit water towers the stresses were equally distributed along the height of the shafts. Also, the stresses were mostly concentrated at the top of the shafts in the wide slit water towers. Conclusively, the results provided useful information regarding the compression stress distribution along the slit shafts in the water towers which can be used in obtaining an optimum slit shaft design for different soil types

Real spin glasses relax slowly in the shade of hierarchical trees

The Parisi solution of the mean-field spin glass has been widely accepted and celebrated. Its marginal stability in 3d and its complexity however raised the question of its relevance to real spin glasses. This paper gives a short overview of the important experimental results which could be understood within the mean-field solution. The existence of a true phase transition and the particular behaviour of the susceptibility below the freezing temperature, predicted by the theory, are clearly confirmed by the experimental results. The behaviour of the complex order parameter and of the Fluctuation Dissipation ratio are in good agreement with results of spontaneous noise measurements. The very particular ultrametric symmetry, the key feature of the theory, provided us with a simple description of the rejuvenation and memory effects observed in experiment. Finally, going a step beyond mean-field, the paper shortly discusses new analyses in terms of correlated domains characterized by their length scales, as well as new experiments on superspin glasses which compare well with recent theoretical simulations.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of "Wandering with Curiosity in Complex Landscapes", a scientific conference in honour of Giorgio Parisi for his 60th birthday, Roma, September 8-10 2008 (submitted for the special issue of the Journal of Statistical Physics, 2009

Exclusive semileptonic rare decays B−>(B ->_ (K,K^*) \ell^+ \ell^- in supersymmetric theories

The invariant mass spectrum, forward-backward asymmetry, and lepton polarizations of the exclusive processes $B\to K(K^*)\ell^+ \ell^-, \ell=\mu, \tau$ are analyzed under supersymmetric context. Special attention is paid to the effects of neutral Higgs bosons (NHBs). Our analysis shows that the branching ratio of the process \bkm can be quite largely modified by the effects of neutral Higgs bosons and the forward-backward asymmetry would not vanish. For the process \bksm, the lepton transverse polarization is quite sensitive to the effects of NHBs, while the invariant mass spectrum, forward-backward asymmetry, and lepton longitudinal polarization are not. For both \bkt and \bkst, the effects of NHBs are quite significant. The partial decay widths of these processes are also analyzed, and our analysis manifest that even taking into account the theoretical uncertainties in calculating weak form factors, the effects of NHBs could make SUSY shown up.Comment: Several references are added, typo are correcte

Evaluation of Neonatal Brain Development Using Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse Imaging (ARFI)

We applied acoustic radiation force impulse imaging (ARFI) for examination of the brains of 41 neonatal infants of different gestational ages. We used a new technical index, Virtual Touch tissue quantification (VTQ), to evaluate elastic properties of the brain tissues. Different brain tissues demonstrated different values of this index. The greater the gestational age, the higher the VTQ value. We conclude that ARFI provides a new quantitative index to evaluate the level of neonatal brain development and increases the objectivity and reliability of clinical analysis. The method is noninvasive, safe, simple, convenient, and can be extensively applied in clinics.Досліджували результати візуалізації впливу силових імпульсів акустичного випромінювання (ARFI), вивчаючи головний мозок 41 новонародженого з різними термінами гестації. Ми використовували новий технічний індекс Virtual Touch Quantification (VTQ) для оцінки еластичних властивостей тканин мозку. У різних тканин мозку значення даного індексу були відмінними. Ми дійшли висновку, що методика ARFI дозволяє отримати новий кількісний показник для оцінки ступеню розвитку неонатального мозку; це збільшує об’єктивність та надійність клінічних аналізів. Метод є неінвазивним, безпечним, простим та зручним і може знайти широке застосування в клініці

Partial Wave Analysis of J/ψ→γ(K+K−π+π−)J/\psi \to \gamma (K^+K^-\pi^+\pi^-)

BES data on $J/\psi \to \gamma (K^+K^-\pi^+\pi^-)$ are presented. The $K^*\bar K^*$ contribution peaks strongly near threshold. It is fitted with a broad $0^{-+}$ resonance with mass $M = 1800 \pm 100$ MeV, width $\Gamma = 500 \pm 200$ MeV. A broad $2^{++}$ resonance peaking at 2020 MeV is also required with width $\sim 500$ MeV. There is further evidence for a $2^{-+}$ component peaking at 2.55 GeV. The non-$K^*\bar K^*$ contribution is close to phase space; it peaks at 2.6 GeV and is very different from $K^{*}\bar{K^{*}}$.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, 1 table, Submitted to PL

Plasma Wakefield Acceleration with a Modulated Proton Bunch

The plasma wakefield amplitudes which could be achieved via the modulation of a long proton bunch are investigated. We find that in the limit of long bunches compared to the plasma wavelength, the strength of the accelerating fields is directly proportional to the number of particles in the drive bunch and inversely proportional to the square of the transverse bunch size. The scaling laws were tested and verified in detailed simulations using parameters of existing proton accelerators, and large electric fields were achieved, reaching 1 GV/m for LHC bunches. Energy gains for test electrons beyond 6 TeV were found in this case.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure