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The Jeans analysis is studied in the first post-Newtonian limit. In other words, the relativistic effects on the local gravitational instability are considered for systems where characteristic velocity of the system and corresponding gravitational field are higher than what permitted in Newtonian limit. The dispersion relation for propagation of small perturbations is found in the post-Newtonian approximation using two different techniques. A new Jeans mass is derived and compared to the standard Jeans mass. In this limit, the relativistic effects make the new Jeans mass to be smaller than the Newtonian Jeans mass. Furthermore, the fractional difference between these two masses increases when temperature/pressure of the system increases. Interestingly, in this limit pressure can help the gravitational instability instead of preventing it. Finally the results are applied to high temperature astrophysical systems and the possibility of local fragmentations in some relativistic systems is investigated.

Arsenic (As) is a widespread environmental contaminant present around the world in both organic and inorganic forms. Oxidative stress is postulated as the main mechanism for As-induced toxicity. This study was planned to examine the protective effect of acetyl-L-carnitine (ALC) on As-induced oxidative damage in male rats. Animals were randomly divided into four groups of control (saline), sodium arsenite (NaAsO2, 20 mg/kg), ALC (300 mg/kg), and NaAsO2 plus ALC. Animals were dosed orally for 28 successive days. Blood and tissue samples including kidney, brain, liver, heart, and lung were collected on the 28th day and evaluated for oxidative damage and histological changes. NaAsO2 exposure caused a significant lipid peroxidation as evidenced by elevation in thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARS). The activity of antioxidant enzymes such as glutathione-S-transferase (GST), catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), as well as sulfhydryl group content (SH group) was significantly suppressed in various organs following NaAsO2 treatment (P < 0.05). Furthermore, NaAsO2 administration increased serum values of alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), and bilirubin. Our findings revealed that co-administration of ALC and NaAsO2 significantly suppressed the oxidative damage induced by NaAsO2. Tissue histological studies have confirmed the biochemical findings and provided evidence for the beneficial role of ALC. The results concluded that ALC attenuated NaAsO2-induced toxicity, and this protective effect may result from the ability of ALC in maintaining oxidant-antioxidant balance.

BackgroundSepsis is a debilitating systemic disease and described as a severe and irregular systemic inflammatory reaction syndrome (SIRS) against infection. We employed CLP (Cecal Ligation and Puncture) model in rats to investigate anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects of phloretin, as a natural antioxidant agent, and its protective effect on liver tissue damage caused by sepsis.MethodsMale Wistar albino rats were randomly divided into three groups: sham group, CLP induced sepsis group and phloretin treated CLP group. Sepsis was induced by CLP method. 50 mmol/kg Phloretin was administered intraperitoneally in two equal doses immediately after surgery.ResultsIt was observed that blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) levels were dramatically increased in the CLP induced sepsis group (43.88 ± 1.905 mg/dl, 37.63 ± 1.92, respectively) when compared to the sham group. Moreover, tissue Glutathione (GSH) and liver nuclear factor ĸB (NF-ĸB p65) transcription factor values were higher in CLP induced sepsis group. This elevation was considerably reduced in the phloretin treated CLP group. No significant differences were observed in serum creatinine and creatinine phosphokinase levels.ConclusionsThe present study suggested that phloretin, as a natural protective agent, act against tissue damages introduced following the experimental sepsis induced model, likely caused by free oxygen radicals.

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In this paper, we study the Jeans analysis in the context of energy-momentum-squared gravity (EMSG). More specifically we find the new Jeans mass for non-rotating infinite mediums as the smallest mass scale for local perturbations that can be stable against its own gravity. Furthermore, for rotating mediums, specifically for rotating thin disks in the context of EMSG, we find a new Toomre-like criterion for the local gravitational stability. Finally, the results are applied to a hyper-massive neutron star, as an astrophysical system. Using a simplified toy model we have shown that, for a positive (negative) value of the EMSG parameter α, the system is stable (unstable) in a wide range of α. On the other hand, no observational evidence has been reported on the existence of local fragmentation in HMNS. Naturally, this means that EMSG with positive α is more acceptable from the physical point of view.

Abstract-High cohesion as a desirable principle in software design has an incredible impact on software reuse, maintenance and support. In service-oriented architecture (SOA), the focus of services on single business functionality is defined as conceptual cohesion. Current metrics for measuring service cohesion reflect mostly the structural aspect of cohesion and therefore cannot be utilized to measure conceptual cohesion of services. Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), on the other hand, is an information retrieval technique and is widely used to measure the degree of similarity between a set of text based documents. In this paper, a metric namely SCD is proposed that measure the conceptual cohesion of services based on LSI technique. This metric consider both service functionality and operation sequence to measure the conceptual cohesion. An evaluation of the metric based on a set of cohesion principles and comparison with the previously proposed metrics are also provided.

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