On the hydrodynamics and heat convection of an impinging external flow upon a cylinder with transpiration and embedded in a porous medium

This paper extends the existing studies of heat convection by an external flow impinging upon a flat porous insert to that on a circular cylinder inside a porous medium. The surface of the cylinder is subject to constant temperature and can include uniform or non-uniform transpiration. These cylindrical configurations are introduced in the analyses of stagnation point flows in porous media for the first time. The equations governing steady transport of momentum and thermal energy in porous media are reduced to simpler nonlinear differential equations and subsequently solved numerically. This reveals the dimensionless velocity and temperature fields of the stagnation-point flow, as well as the Nusselt number and shear stress on the surface of the cylinder. The results show that transpiration on the surface of the cylinder and Reynolds number of the external flow dominate the fluid dynamics and heat transfer problems. In particular, non-uniform transpiration is shown to significantly affect the thermal and hydrodynamic responses of the system in the circumferential direction. However, the permeability and porosity of the porous medium are found to have relatively smaller influences

Detection of human papillomavirus DNA sequences in oral lesions using polymerase chain reaction

The purpose of the present study was to estimate the frequency of HPV DNA in four groups of oral lesions, including oral squamous cell carcinoma. Sixty paraffin-embedded oral tissue samples were examined for the presence of HPV DNAs using the PCR technique. These specimens were obtained from patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), leukoplakia, oral lichen planus (OLP), and pyogenic granuloma (PG). Consensus primers for L1 region (MY09 and MY11) and specific primers were used for detection of HPV DNA sequences in this study. we detected HPV DNA in 60% (9 out of 15) of OSCCs, 26.7% (4 out of 15) of leukoplakia, 13.3% (2 out of 15) of OLPs, and 6.7% (1 out of 15) of PGs. Statistical analysis showed that the prevalence of HPV in OSCC was significantly higher than other groups (P < 0.05). The frequency of HPV-16 and 18 detection in OSCC samples were 40% and 20%, respectively. The prevalence of these high risk HPVs was significantly higher in OSCC group (P < 0.05). The results of the present study show a successive increase of detection rate of HPV-16 and 18 DNAs from low level in samples of pyogenic granuloma and non-premalignant or questionably premalignant lesions of OLP to premalignant leukoplakia and to OSCC. © 2007 Tehran University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved

The most useful medicinal herbs to treat diabetes

Diabetes mellitus is a syndrome that is characterized by hyperglycemia, change in the metabolism of lipids, carbohydrates, and proteins, and in the long term, with eye, kidney, cardiovascular, and neurological complications. Plenty of plants from different regions of the world have been investigated for anti-diabetic effects. This review article was designed to report some of the most important medicinal plants with hypoglycemic properties according to reliable clinical and laboratory evidence, and also touched on the medicinal plants that are prescribed in Iranian traditional medicine, for the treatment of diabetes. The information in this review was obtained from the eligible articles retrieved using the search terms diabetes mellitus, medicinal plants, type 1 diabetes and medicinal plants, type 2 diabetes and medicinal plants, and the effect of extract and essential oil of medicinal plants affecting diabetized tissues in the human body indexed in databases such as Iran medex, Irandoc, ISI, PubMed, Scopus, SID, Magiran, Google Scholar, etc. Based on the results drawn in this review the plants, Urtica, Trigonella foenum-graecum, Allium sativum, Carthamus tinctorius, Ferula assa-foetida, Bauhinia, Gymnema sylvestre, Swertia, Combretum, Sarcopoterium, Liriope, Caesalpinia bonduc, Coccinia grandis, Syzygium cumini, Mangifera indica, Momordica charantia, Ocimum tenuiflorum, Pterocarpus, Tinospora cordifoli, Salvia officinalis, Panax, Cinnamomum verum, Abelmoschus moschatus, Vachellia nilotica, Achyranthes, Fabaceae, Mentha, Asphodelaceae, Andrographis paniculata L, Artemisia herba-alba, Artemisia dracunculus, Azadirachta indica, Caesalpinioideae, Pachira aquatic, Gongronema latifolium, Nigella Sativa, Tinospora cordifolia (guduchi), Chrysanthemum morifolium, Zingiber zerumbet, Symphytum, Cactaceae, Symplocos, Perilla frutescens, Terminalia chebula and Aloe vera are effective to controland treat diabetes

Comparative study on gonad development in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) reared in fresh and brackish water in the Yazd Province

Rainbow trout (Oncorhylichus mikiss) weidting 200±5 grams were used in this study to compare their gonad development in fresh and brackish water in Yazd Province. The culture period lasted 140 days from October to March 2003 during which time the temperature 03.8+0.6), pH (8.18±0.12) and dissolved oxygen (6.2+0.11) of fresh and brackish water were kept nearly constant. The salinity of fresh and brackish water was 0.4 -0.5 and 14.3-14.7ppt respectively. The fish were fed common commercial trout food (Chineh GFT2) based on temperature and biomass. Histological studies indicated that the gonad development is accelerated in brackish water where the males mature two month eal her than those reared in freshwater. The gonadosomatic index (G51) also affirmed the gonad development (P<0.05)

The most useful medicinal herbs to treat diabetes

Diabetes mellitus is a syndrome that is characterized by hyperglycemia, change in the metabolism of lipids, carbohydrates, and proteins, and in the long term, with eye, kidney, cardiovascular, and neurological complications. Plenty of plants from different regions of the world have been investigated for anti-diabetic effects. This review article was designed to report some of the most important medicinal plants with hypoglycemic properties according to reliable clinical and laboratory evidence, and also touched on the medicinal plants that are prescribed in Iranian traditional medicine, for the treatment of diabetes. The information in this review was obtained from the eligible articles retrieved using the search terms diabetes mellitus, medicinal plants, type 1 diabetes and medicinal plants, type 2 diabetes and medicinal plants, and the effect of extract and essential oil of medicinal plants affecting diabetized tissues in the human body indexed in databases such as Iran medex, Irandoc, ISI, PubMed, Scopus, SID, Magiran, Google Scholar, etc. Based on the results drawn in this review the plants, Urtica, Trigonella foenum-graecum, Allium sativum, Carthamus tinctorius, Ferula assa-foetida, Bauhinia, Gymnema sylvestre, Swertia, Combretum, Sarcopoterium, Liriope, Caesalpinia bonduc, Coccinia grandis, Syzygium cumini, Mangifera indica, Momordica charantia, Ocimum tenuiflorum, Pterocarpus, Tinospora cordifoli, Salvia officinalis, Panax, Cinnamomum verum, Abelmoschus moschatus, Vachellia nilotica, Achyranthes, Fabaceae, Mentha, Asphodelaceae, Andrographis paniculata L, Artemisia herba-alba, Artemisia dracunculus, Azadirachta indica, Caesalpinioideae, Pachira aquatic, Gongronema latifolium, Nigella Sativa, Tinospora cordifolia (guduchi), Chrysanthemum morifolium, Zingiber zerumbet, Symphytum, Cactaceae, Symplocos, Perilla frutescens, Terminalia chebula and Aloe vera are effective to controland treat diabetes

Feasibility of diffusion and probabilistic white matter analysis in patients implanted with a deep brain stimulator.

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson\u27s disease (PD) is an established advanced therapy that produces therapeutic effects through high frequency stimulation. Although this therapeutic option leads to improved clinical outcomes, the mechanisms of the underlying efficacy of this treatment are not well understood. Therefore, investigation of DBS and its postoperative effects on brain architecture is of great interest. Diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) is an advanced imaging technique, which has the ability to estimate the structure of white matter fibers; however, clinical application of DWI after DBS implantation is challenging due to the strong susceptibility artifacts caused by implanted devices. This study aims to evaluate the feasibility of generating meaningful white matter reconstructions after DBS implantation; and to subsequently quantify the degree to which these tracts are affected by post-operative device-related artifacts. DWI was safely performed before and after implanting electrodes for DBS in 9 PD patients. Differences within each subject between pre- and post-implantation FA, MD, and RD values for 123 regions of interest (ROIs) were calculated. While differences were noted globally, they were larger in regions directly affected by the artifact. White matter tracts were generated from each ROI with probabilistic tractography, revealing significant differences in the reconstruction of several white matter structures after DBS. Tracts pertinent to PD, such as regions of the substantia nigra and nigrostriatal tracts, were largely unaffected. The aim of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility and clinical applicability of acquiring and processing DWI post-operatively in PD patients after DBS implantation. The presence of global differences provides an impetus for acquiring DWI shortly after implantation to establish a new baseline against which longitudinal changes in brain connectivity in DBS patients can be compared. Understanding that post-operative fiber tracking in patients is feasible on a clinically-relevant scale has significant implications for increasing our current understanding of the pathophysiology of movement disorders, and may provide insights into better defining the pathophysiology and therapeutic effects of DBS

Strong duality in conic linear programming: facial reduction and extended duals

The facial reduction algorithm of Borwein and Wolkowicz and the extended dual of Ramana provide a strong dual for the conic linear program $$(P) \sup {<c, x> | Ax \leq_K b}$$ in the absence of any constraint qualification. The facial reduction algorithm solves a sequence of auxiliary optimization problems to obtain such a dual. Ramana's dual is applicable when (P) is a semidefinite program (SDP) and is an explicit SDP itself. Ramana, Tuncel, and Wolkowicz showed that these approaches are closely related; in particular, they proved the correctness of Ramana's dual using certificates from a facial reduction algorithm. Here we give a clear and self-contained exposition of facial reduction, of extended duals, and generalize Ramana's dual: -- we state a simple facial reduction algorithm and prove its correctness; and -- building on this algorithm we construct a family of extended duals when $K$ is a {\em nice} cone. This class of cones includes the semidefinite cone and other important cones.Comment: A previous version of this paper appeared as "A simple derivation of a facial reduction algorithm and extended dual systems", technical report, Columbia University, 2000, available from http://www.unc.edu/~pataki/papers/fr.pdf Jonfest, a conference in honor of Jonathan Borwein's 60th birthday, 201