Chrysin-Loaded Microemulsion: Formulation Design, Evaluation and Antihyperalgesic Activity in Mice

Chrysin is a bioactive flavonoid found in pollens, passion flowers, honey, royal jelly, and propolis, which is commonly used as an ingredient in natural food supplements and is primarily re-sponsible for their pharmacological properties. A transparent chrysin-loaded microemulsion (CS-ME) prepared through a ternary phase diagram was evaluated for use as an antihyperalgesic formulation. It was formulated with 40% Labrasol\uae (surfactant), 5% isopropyl myristate (oil phase) and 55% water (aqueous phase) and classified as an oil-in-water (O/W) microsized system (74.4 \ub1 15.8 nm). Its negative Zeta potential ( 1216.1 \ub1 1.9 mV) was confirmed by polarized light microscopy and dynamic light scattering analysis. In vitro studies in Franz-type static diffusion cells showed that chrysin release from CS-ME followed zero-order kinetics. Oral administration of CS-ME in mice resulted in a statistically significantly reduction (p < 0.05) in carrageenan-induced mechanical hyperalgesia compared to the control group. Treatment with CS-ME also showed anti-inflammatory activity by significantly decreasing the TNF-\u3b1 level (p < 0.01) and increasing that of IL-10 (p < 0.05) compared to the control group. These results suggest that the proposed microsystem is a promising vector for the release of chrysin, being able to improve its capacity to modulate inflammatory and nociceptive responses

Purple grape juice improves performance of recreational runners, but the effect is genotype dependent: a double blind, randomized, controlled trial.

We examined the influence of superoxide dismutase 3 (SOD3) Arg213Gly and Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated ?-Receptor (PPAR?) 7G/C polymorphisms to a single dose of purple grape juice supplementation on timeto-exhaustion running test, redox balance and muscle damage in recreational runners

Hedging weather risk on aggregated and individual farm-level - Pitfalls of aggregation biases on the evaluation of weather index-based insurance

Purpose – Since the 1990s, there has been a discussion about the use of weather index-based insurance, also called weather derivatives, as a new instrument to hedge against volumetric risks in agriculture. It particularly differs from other insurance schemes by pay-offs being related to objectively measurable weather variables. Due to the absence of individual farm yield time series, the hedging effectiveness of weather index-based insurance is often estimated on the basis of aggregated farmdata.The authors expect that there are differences in the hedging effectiveness of insurance on the aggregated level and on the individual farm-level. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the magnitude of bias which occurs if the hedging effectiveness of weather index-based insurance is estimated on aggregated yield data. Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on yield time series from individual farms in central Germany and weather data provided by the German Meteorological Service. Insurance is structured as put-option on a cumulated precipitation index. The analysis includes the estimation of the hedging effectiveness of insurance on aggregated level and on individual farm-level. The hedging effectiveness is measured non-parametrically regarding the relative reduction of the standard deviation and the value at risk of wheat revenues. Findings – Findings indicate that the hedging effectiveness of a weather index-based insurance estimated on aggregated level is considerably higher than the realizable hedging effectiveness on the individual farm-level. This refers to: hedging effectiveness estimated on the aggregated level is higher than the mean of realized hedging effectiveness on the individual farm-level and almost every evaluated individual farm in the analysis realizes a lower hedging effectiveness than estimated on the aggregated level of the study area. Nevertheless, weather index-based insurance designed on the aggregated level can lead to a notable risk reduction for individual farms. Originality/value – To the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first that analyzes the influence of crop yield aggregation with regard to the hedging effectiveness of weather index-based insurance

Copper (I) Oxide (Cu2O) based back contact for p-i-n CdTe solar cells

In this paper a promising solution for the notorious problem of manufacturing a stable low ohmic back contact of a CdTe thin film superstrate solar cell is presented without using elemental copper. Instead we have used a Cu2O layer inserted between the CdTe absorber and metal contact (Au). In contrast to the barrier free band alignment gained by using the transitivity rules, XPS measurements show a barrier in the valence band of the Cu2O layers directly after deposition, which results in a low performing JV curve. The contact can be improved by a short thermal treatment resulting in efficiencies superior to copper based contacts for standard CdS/CdTe hetero junction solar cells prepared on commercial glass/FTO substrates. By replacing the CdS window layer with a CdS:O buffer layer efficiencies of >15% could be achieved