Ethanolic extract of anise (Pimpinella anisum L.) attenuates morphine physical dependence in mice

Introduction: Previous studies revealed that anise (Pimpinella anisum L.) has several pharmacological effects including analgesic, antidepressant, anxiolytic, anti-inflammatory and antispasmodic activities. This study aimed to evaluate its effect on morphine physical dependence in mice. Methods: In this experimental study, 40 male NMRI mice (25-30 g) were randomly divided into 5 groups of 8. Control group received morphine and normal saline (10 mL/kg, i.p.) and other groups received diazepam (5 mg/kg) plus one of three doses of P. anisum (50,100 or 200 mg/kg, i.p.). Dependence was induced by administration of increasing doses (50-75 mg/kg, i.p.) of morphine. A time of 30 minutes after naloxone injection was considered for the critical period of the withdrawal syndrome. The number of jumps and scores of 0 to 3 were given for incidences of wet dog shakes, teeth chattering, climbing, writing, diarrhea, grooming, and rearing during a 30-minute period. Results: All doses of P. anisum (P<0.01) reduced the number of jumps. Additionally, all doses of the extract reduced the behaviors of grooming (P<0.05, P<0.01 and P<0.01, respectively) and writhing (P<0.05, P<0.001and P<0.001, respectively). None doses of the extract could reduce diarrhea (P>0.05). Climbing, rearing and wet dog shakes reduced only by the high dose of the extract (P<0.05). Teeth chattering reduced by 100 and 200 mg/kg of the extract (P<0.05). Conclusion: These results obviously show that P. anisum ethanolic extract is effective in suppression of morphine physical dependence and further studies are needed to find out the responsible constituents and also the exact mechanisms of actions

A systematic approach for modeling of waterflooding process in the presence of geological uncertainties in oil reservoirs

The final publication is available at Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compchemeng.2017.12.012 © 2018. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/In this paper, a systematic approach which is able to consider different types of geological uncertainty is presented to model the waterflooding process. The proposed scheme, which is based on control and system theories, enables the experts to apply suitable techniques to optimize the production. By using the developed methodology, a reasonable mapping between defined system inputs and outputs in frequency domain and around a specific operating point is established. In addition, a nominal model for the process as well as a lumped representation for uncertainty effects are provided. Based on the proposed modeling mechanism, reservoir management goals can be pursued in the presence of uncertainty by utilization of complicated control and optimization strategies. The developed algorithm has been simulated on 10th SPE-model#2. Observed results have shown that the introduced methodology is able to effectively model the dynamics of waterflooding process, while taking into account the assumed induced geological uncertainty