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Background Boldenone (BOL) (Equigan) is a synthetic anabolic steroid used mainly by veterinarians to treat and promote horses’ growth. Recently, body builders have started to use it to enhance their physical performance and muscle growth. Equigan is known to induce testicular injury and reduce fertility in males. Current treatments for reduced fertility are very costly. As alternatives, people are investigating naturally occurring bioactive compounds in plants such as curcumin. Objective This study was conducted to evaluate the prophylactic antioxidant effects of nanoencapsulated curcumin (NEC) on BOL-induced testicular toxicity and oxidative stress in male albino rats. Materials and methods NEC was prepared using a novel freeze-drying method. For their characterization, ultraviolet–visible spectrophotometry, transmission electron microscopy, and dynamic light scattering were used. Four groups of male rats were used: the first group served as control, the second group received NEC (100 mg/kg orally, once daily), the third group received BOL (5 mg/kg intramascular, once weekly) for 60 days, and BOL and NEC were concurrently administered in the fourth group. Blood was withdrawn from the rats’ retro-orbital veins 24 h after treatment. Animals were euthanized immediately; the epididymal sperm reserve was separated. Then, one testis from each rat was kept at −80°C for determination of oxidative stress indices, and the other was fixed in 10% formalin solution for histopathological investigation. Results and conclusion Treatment with BOL resulted in significant reproductive damage caused by increased levels of malondialdehyde and nitric oxide and decreased levels of superoxide dismutase and reduced glutathione. Downregulation of the levels of serum testosterone and reduction in semen quantity, sperm count, and motility were also detected in the BOL group. Histopathological examinations showed severe degenerative changes in the testes. Immunohistochemical examination indicated severe reduction in the proliferating cell nuclear antigen-positive spermatogonia in the BOL-treated group as compared with the control. Coadministration of NEC with BOL effectively reduces BOL-induced testicular damage and oxidative stress in male albino rats.

Low latency, energy efficiency, massive connectivity, and high data rate are the main characteristics that academia and industry are seeking for 5 G. The majority of the recent studies were dedicated to solving the delay issue by leveraging the edge computing concept while other studies directed its efforts towards realizing a green cloud by minimizing the energy consumption in the cloud. Multi-access edge computing (MEC) emerged in the past decade as a promising solution for the determined millisecond-scale latency in 5 G networks. In this paper, we present an active queue management-based green cloud model (AGCM), an energy-efficient cloud model to reduce energy waste at both the cloud and mobile devices and the latency by relieving the congestion in the cloud. We also propose a hand-off strategy with MEC to acquire the potential gain and investigate its impact on the cloud's fundamental constraints. We tested our proposed models with simulation showing considerable improvement for the latency, energy consumption, and throughput.

To evaluate the effect of surface treatments and flash-free adhesive on the shear bond strength of ceramic orthodontic brackets bonded to materials used for the fabrication of CAD/CAM provisional crowns. Specimens (n = 160) from each provisional material (CAD-Temp and C-Temp) were categorized into four groups according to the surface treatment methods: C (no surface treatment), HP (37% H3PO4), DB (mechanical roughening by diamond bur), and SB (mechanical roughening by blasting). Maxillary central incisor ceramic brackets (Clarity™ Advanced ceramic brackets, 3 M Unitek) were bonded to the conditioned provisional materials according to the used adhesive system (n = 20), APC PLUS or APC flash-free. All specimens were evaluated for shear bond strength testing (SBS) and the adhesive remnant index (ARI). Data were analyzed using Kruskal–Wallis and Mann–Whitney U tests. C-Temp significantly recorded higher SBS than CAD-Temp (24.0 and 16.0 MPa, respectively) (p

Objectives Selection of crown material should be based on patient bone status. Therefore three different crown materials (in-ceram – porcelain fused to metal crowns – Acrylic) were investigated in this study. Methods A 3D finite element model was constructed under Finite element package environment for the upper first premolar. Different loading conditions (vertical and oblique) form 18 case studies were analyzed for comparison. Results According to FEA results, changing crown material altered stresses and deformation values on cortical and spongy bones. Whereas linear static analysis results showed similar distributions, and safe values of stresses and deformations, that generated on all parts of the studied system. Conclusions Using softer (lower rigidity) crown material reduces the stresses generated on the jaw bone (cortical and spongy), that it absorbs more energy from the applied load, and transfers less energy to the following parts of the system (implant–abutment complex and bones).

Pyridine derivatives acting as guest species can be oxidized by the three-dimensional polymeric host [(Me 3 Pb) 3 Fe(CN) 6 ] ∞ forming yellow to brown or red colored CT complexes depending on the degree of charge transfer. The donor molecules can be intercalated within the cavity of the polymeric host in a 1/1 ratio after completion of the reaction. The CT complexes are weak semiconductors under the experimental conditions used.