Ethnobotanical Study of Medicinal Plants Used by Kurd Tribe in Dehloran and Abdanan Districts,Ilam Province,Iran

This paper provides significant ethnobotanical information on pharmaceutical plant uses, where some degree of acculturation exists, so that there is urgency in recording such data. The aim of this work is to catalogue, document, and make known the uses of plants for folk medicine in Dehloran and Abdanan districts, Ilam Province, Iran. An analysis was made of the species used, parts of the plant employed, preparation methods, administration means, and the ailments treated in relation to pathological groups. A folk botanical survey was carried out from February 2007 to October 2009. The information was collected from 81 persons (60% men and 40% women) in 20 villages. The informants reported data on 122 species, belonging to 49 botanical families, were claimed as medicinal. This work is focused on human medicinal plant uses, which represent 95% of the pharmaceutical uses. The most commonly represented families were Asteraceae (37.5%), Lamiaceae (20.8%), Rosaceae (18.7%), Fabaceae (16.7%) and Apiaceae (14.6%). Some of the uses were found to be new when compared with published literature on ethnomedicine of Iran. The folk knowledge about medicinal plant use is still alive in the studied region, and a number of scarcely reported plant uses has been detected, some of them with promising phytotherapeutical applications. The results of the study reveal that some of species play an important role in primary healthcare system of these tribal communities.     

Effect of thymol and carvacrol on nutrient digestibility in rams fed high or low concentrate diets

Published data on the effects of essential oils (EO) on in vivo nutrient digestibility in sheep are contradictory. In 2 experiments, the effect of thymol and carvacrol on nutrient digestibility was studied in sheep fed with high (70%) or low (52%) concentrate diets, using incomplete Latin Square designs. The essential oils were mixed with the concentrate portion of the diet at the rate of 0.0, 0.3, or 0.6 g per kg dry matter (DM) diet. Supplementation of thymol had no significant effect on digestibility of dry matter (DM), organic matter (OM), crude protein (CP) and acid detergent fiber (ADF). The main effect of thymol on neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and ether extract (EE) digestibility and on nitrogen balance (NB) was significant (P<0.05), but within each level of dietary concentrate no significant differences were observed for these measurements. Overall, ruminal ammonia concentration was higher (P<0.05) in both HCD and LCD lambs receiving 0.3 mg thymol per kg diet. Supplementation of carvacrol had no significant effect on nutrient digestibility. The main effect of carvacrol on ruminal ammonia levels and NB was significant, but within each level of dietary concentrate no significant differences were observed in ammonia levels and NB. Inclusion of 0.3 g/kg diet DM of carvacrol or thyme was more effective than 0.6 g/kg diet DM in terms of NB but neither dose affected nutrient digestibility. Future research should determine the long-term effects of essential oils on digestibility and performance in sheep, before recommendation can be made for their use under practical husbandry conditions.Key Words: Carvacrol, Digestibility, Essential oils, Sheep, Thymol     

Androgen receptor gene and sex-specific Alzheimer's disease

Women are at a 2-fold risk of developing late-onset Alzheimer's disease (AD) (onset at 65 years of age or older) compared with men. During perimenopausal years, women undergo hormonal changes that are accompanied by metabolic, cardiovascular, and inflammatory changes. These all together have been suggested as risk factors for late-onset AD. However, not all perimenopausal women develop AD; we hypothesize that certain genetic factors might underlie the increased susceptibility for developing AD in postmenopausal women. We investigated the Androgen Receptor gene (AR) in a clinical cohort of male and female AD patients and normal control subjects by sequencing all coding exons and evaluating the length and distribution of the CAG repeat in exon 1. We could not establish a correlation between the repeat length, sex, and the disease status, nor did we identify possible pathogenic variants. AR is located on the X chromosome; to assess its role in AD, X-inactivation patterns will need to be studied to directly correlate the actual expressed repeat length to a possible sex-specific phenotypic effect.     

Is the IL-10 −819 Polymorphism Associated with Visceral Leishmaniasis?

Previous investigations demonstrated that immune responses play critical roles in the defense against visceral leishmaniasis (VL). A key regulator of immune responses is the cytokine, IL-10 and polymorphisms within its promoter which could alter its expression. Thus, the aim of this study was to examine the correlation between polymorphism at the ?819 position of the IL-10 gene and VL in a selected Iranian population. This cross-sectional study was performed on 100 patients with clinical presentation of VL and seropositive for the leishmania (group 1), 62 patients without clinical presentation but seropositive (group 2), and 128 healthy controls (group 3). The IL-10 ?819 polymorphism was evaluated using the PCR-RFLP technique. The anti-leishmania antibody titration was assessed using an immunofluorescence assay. Our results showed that the polymorphism at IL-10 ?819 (C/T) position was significantly associated with VL, and C/T genotype was significantly higher in VL patients when compared to groups 2 and 3 (p?<?0.001). However, the results demonstrated that the C and T alleles were not associated with VL (p?=?0.855). The data presented here confirm the results of previous reports that polymorphisms at the ?819 position of the IL-10 gene can influence susceptibility to VL suggesting that the C/T genotype may be considered as a risk factor for the disease.     

Simultaneous fault detection and control design for switched linear systems based on dynamic observer

The problem of simultaneous fault detection and control (SFDC) for linear continuous‐time switched systems is addressed in this paper. An H _∞ formulation of the SFDC problem using dynamic observer is presented. In essence, a single unit called detector/controller depending on the system modes is designed, where the detector is a dynamic observer, and the controller is a state feedback controller based on the dynamic observer. It is shown that the dynamic observer can be used effectively to tackle the drawbacks of the existing methods of SFDC design. Extended linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) characterization is used to reduce the conservativeness by introducing additional matrix variables, so as to eliminate the coupling of Lyapunov matrices with the system matrices. Indeed, the idea presented in this paper is based on average dwell time and conservatism reduction approaches and applying the advantages of dynamic observers, which leads to some sufficient conditions for solvability of the SFDC problem in terms of LMI feasibility conditions. Simulation results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed design methodology. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Combined turnover vastus lateralis and lateral gastrocnemius flaps as a salvage option for soft tissue reconstruction of the knee

Infection with subsequent wound breakdown and soft tissue deficit represents the most devastating complication after total knee arthroplasty. Although microsurgical reconstruction is increasingly being performed in this setting, several factors may preclude its use. We present a case of a 52-year-old female patient who presented with a complex right anterior knee wound resulting from a complicated clinical course following total knee arthroplasty. Initial reconstructive efforts included coverage with a superiorly based fasciocutaneous thigh flap as well as a medial gastrocnemius flap. Persistence of infection and necrosis of the distal aspect of the fasciocutaneous flap eventually required salvage by means of a vastus lateralis turnover muscle flap augmented by a lateral gastrocnemius muscle flap. The combination of these two fairly straightforward muscle flaps provided stable wound coverage with well-vascularized tissue without the use of sophisticated microsurgical expertise. Level of Evidence: V, therapeutic study