Evaluation of Safety of Stewart’s Wood Fern (Dryopteris stewartii) and Its Anti-Hyperglycemic Potential in Alloxan-Induced Diabetic Mice

Diabetes has become a critical challenge to the global health concerns. Cytotoxicity and development of resistance against available drugs for management of diabetes have shifted the focus of global scientific researchers from synthetic to herbal medications. Therefore, the current study was conducted to investigate the possible anti-hyperglycemic potential of Dryopteris stewartii using Swiss albino mice. To evaluate any possible toxic effect of the plant, acute oral toxicity test was performed while the anti-diabetic effects of aqueous and ethanol extracts at 500 mg/kg, positive, negative and normal control were assessed simultaneously. The anti-diabetic study revealed that aqueous extract has higher anti-diabetic potential than ethanol extract while lowered blood glucose level at second week reaching 150 mg/dL, exerting stronger anti-diabetic effects, compared to ethanol extract (190 mg/dL). Oral glucose tolerance findings revealed that aqueous extract decreased blood glucose level by −0.41-fold, compared to ethanol extract showing a decrease by only −0.29-folds. The histopathological evaluation of liver and pancreas of all groups revealed normal cell architecture with no morphological abnormalities. These results suggested the possible use of D. stewartii as anti-diabetic herbal drug in near future. However, these recommendations are conditioned by deep mechanistic studies.     

Improvement of the acoustic and mechanical properties of sponge ethylene propylene diene rubber/carbon nanotube composites crosslinked by subsequent sulfur and electron beam irradiation

In this research, sponge ethylene propylene diene rubber (EPDM) nanocomposites based on functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (f-MWCNTs) and foaming agent azodicarbonamide (AZD) were successfully fabricated as potential acoustic-absorbing foams. Two crosslinking systems were utilized for stabilizing the foam structure and improving its properties by subsequent sulfur and electron beam irradiation at 50 kGy as a fixed dose. The impacts of the concentration of AZD, f-MWCNTs and crosslinking systems on acoustic and physico-mechanical properties were investigated. The results manifested that the optimum foaming content was 3 phr. The acoustic data exhibited satisfactory enhancement in the sound absorption coefficient (α) for irradiated foam nanocomposites compared to unirradiated nanocomposites. This was attributed to the barrier effect of f-MWCNTs in reducing the pore size of the foam, leading to an increase in the tortuous path in the foam matrix that stifled the sound waves from transferring into the bulk. Likewise, the compression properties were also improved. However, tensile stress and strain at break values for irradiated foams relatively decreased. The data obtained revealed an excellent possibility of using these EPDM foam nanocomposites for potential applications such as acoustic panels and airborne sound insulation. © 2022 Society of Industrial Chemistry.     

Thermodynamic Parameters of Non-isothermal Degradation of a New Family of Organometallic Dendrimer with Isoconversional Methods

Journal of Inorganic and Organometallic Polymers and Materials - The objective of this work is to obtain the thermodynamic parameters (the changes in enthalpy, Gibbs free energy, and entropy) of...