Free radicals and oxidative damage caused by them have being suggested to be involved in the pathogenesis of migraine. These may result from distorted equilibrium of pro-oxidant/anti-oxidant system that continuously generates and detoxifies oxidants during normal aerobic metabolism. Escape of such system from equilibrium leads to damage of cellular elements with the depletion of cellular stores of anti-oxidants material such as glutathione and vitamin E. Therefore, free radical scavengers (vitamin E or melatonin) seems to be of potential benefit as prophylactic anti-migraine therapy by neutralizing free radicals overproduction and possibly preventing formation of highly toxic intermediates (such as nitric oxide). In addition of being powerful antioxidant, melatonin was shown to possess promising effects in modulating severity, frequency and duration of migraine attacks. For this reason the present study was conducted to investigate the involvement of changed anti-oxidant defense (measured as total antioxidant status “TASâ€) during migraine attack and the possible modulation of such status by classical anti-migraine therapy (ergotamine), antioxidants (vitamin E and melatonin) and their combination. 23 normal subjects and 21 migraine patients with age range of (17-45) years were enrolled in the study. Patients were diagnosed according to neurologist decision to have migraine with and without aura. Migraine patients were divided into three treatment groups; first group treated with ergotamine alone, second group with ergotamine /vitamin E and third group with ergotamine /melatonin. All groups were advised to take their treatments during attacks. Blood samples were drawn from migraine patients and normal subjects before initiation of therapy and after pain has been relived (from migraine patients only) for the investigation of TAS . The results of the study showed that TAS was significantly lower in migraine patients in comparison to control healthy subjects (P<0.05) with a percent reduction ranged from 35.46% to 43.97%. However, there is no significant difference in the level of TAS among migraine patients (P>0.05). Treatment with ergotamine raised significantly the level of TAS by 157%. The addition of vitamin E or melatonin greatly raised TAS by 179% and 176% respectively. The addition of vitamin E to ergotamine showed superior effect to that when melatonin was added. The greater reduction in TAS seen in this study among migraine patients in comparison to control healthy subjects suggests the presence of generalized decrease in antioxidant defense elements. Elevation of TAS by all treatments was very clear. In conclusion the decrease in TAS can be implicated in the pathophysiology of migraine and enhancement of antioxidant system can add a beneficial effect for the management of migraine headache with the use of antioxidants (vitamin E or melatonin) with classical anti-migraine drug.
The presence of antibiotic residues such as ciprofloxacin (CIPR) in an aqueous environment is dangerous when their concentrations exceed the allowable. Therefore, eliminating these residues from the wastewater becomes an essential issue to prevent their harm. In this work, the potential of efficient adsorption of ciprofloxacin antibiotics was studied using eco-friendly ZSM-5 nanocrystals‑carbon composite (NZC). An inexpensive effective natural binder made of the sucrose-citric acid mixture was used for preparing NZC. The characterization methods revealed the successful preparation of NZC with a favorable surface area of 103.739 m2/g, and unique morphology and functional groups. Investigating the ability of NZC for adsorbing CIPR antibioti
... Show MoreThe dynamic behavior of laced reinforced concrete (LRC) T‐beams could give high‐energy absorption capabilities without significantly affecting the cost, which was offered through a combination of high strength and ductile response. In this paper, LRC T‐beams, composed of inclined continuous reinforcement on each side of the beam, were investigated to maintain high deformations as predicted in blast resistance. The beams were tested under four‐point loading to create pure bending zones and obtain the ultimate flexural capacities. Transverse reinforcement using lacing reinforcement and conventional vertical stirrups were compared in terms of deformation, strain, and toughness changes of the tes
Transmission lines are generally subjected to faults, so it is advantageous to determine these faults as quickly as possible. This study uses an Artificial Neural Network technique to locate a fault as soon as it happens on the Doukan-Erbil of 132kv double Transmission lines network. CYME 7.1-Programming/Simulink utilized simulation to model the suggested network. A multilayer perceptron feed-forward artificial neural network with a back propagation learning algorithm is used for the intelligence locator's training, testing, assessment, and validation. Voltages and currents were applied as inputs during the neural network's training. The pre-fault and post-fault values determined the scaled values. The neural network's p
... Show MoreToxic substances have been released into water supplies in recent decades because of fast industrialization and population growth. Fenton electrochemical process has been addressed to treat wastewater which is very popular because of its high efficiency and straightforward design. One of the advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) is electro-Fenton (EF) process, and electrode material significantly affects its performance. Nickel foam was chosen as the source of electro-generated hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) due to its good characteristics. In the present study, the main goals were to explore the effects of operation parameters (FeSO4 concentration, current density, and electrolysis time) on the catalytic perform
... Show MoreVarious simple and complicated models have been utilized to simulate the stress-strain behavior of the soil. These models are used in Finite Element Modeling (FEM) for geotechnical engineering applications and analysis of dynamic soil-structure interaction problems. These models either can't adequately describe some features, such as the strain-softening of dense sand, or they require several parameters that are difficult to gather by conventional laboratory testing. Furthermore, soils are not completely linearly elastic and perfectly plastic for the whole range of loads. Soil behavior is quite difficult to comprehend and exhibits a variety of behaviors under various circumstances. As a result, a more realistic constitutive model is
... Show MoreMany additives are used to improve the performance of cables in terms of increasing their flame retardancy, thermal stability, thermal conductivity, and other characteristics. Unfortunately, most of these additives contain heavy metals. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to introduce a material representing a new generation of environmentally friendly heavy metal-free stabilizers for cable grade poly(vinyl chloride) that can compete with traditional materials in terms of performance and distinctive properties. This unique additive is Oxydtron, a synthetic silicate or simply nanocement. The tests performed are rheological properties represented by a capillary rheometry analysis, limiting o
In this article, a numerical method integrated with statistical data simulation technique is introduced to solve a nonlinear system of ordinary differential equations with multiple random variable coefficients. The utilization of Monte Carlo simulation with central divided difference formula of finite difference (FD) method is repeated n times to simulate values of the variable coefficients as random sampling instead being limited as real values with respect to time. The mean of the n final solutions via this integrated technique, named in short as mean Monte Carlo finite difference (MMCFD) method, represents the final solution of the system. This method is proposed for the first time to calculate the numerical solution obtained fo
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