4-Hydroxynonenal – major bioactive marker of lipid peroxidation

While oxidative stress is generally considered mostly as pathogenic component of stress and age associated diseases, reactive aldehydes such as 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal (HNE) are considered mostly as the end-products of lipid peroxidation, which act as a “second toxic messenger of free radicals”. However, findings of growth regulating activities of HNE that overlapped with the development of the first monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies specific for the HNE-protein adducts led to the introduction of qualitative and quantitative determinations of the HNE presence in various (patho)physiological processes and to the change of consideration of the aldehyde’s bioactivities from toxicity into cell signaling, growth regulation and hormesis.Thus, the progress in the fields of the redox signaling and broad bioactivities or reactive oxygen and nitrogen species changed our overall approach to oxidative stress and to consideration of HNE not only as toxic but more general as a “second messenger of free radicals” and the growth regulating factor. Moreover, findings of the HNE-protein adducts in various organs under physiological circumstances support the concept of “oxidative homeostasis”, which implies that oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation are not only pathological but also physiological processes. Accordingly, HNE could play important role in oxidative homeostasis, while complementary research approaches might reveal the relevance of the aldehydic-protein adducts as major bioactive markers of oxidative stress, lipid peroxidation and oxidative homeostasis.Keywords 4-Hydroxynonenal, lipid peroxidation, oxidative stress, pathophysiology, reactive aldehydes aling, growth regulation and hormesis.  

Relationships Between the Uterus Horns Length and Puberty Attaintment in Gilts

Intensive pig production represents one of the basic requirements in order to fulfill conditions necessary to achieve the effective reproduction or to timely provide sufficient number of good pregnant gilts in order to replace and repair the sow herd base. Reproductive efficiency of gilts and the gilt management is one of the primary factors of a successful production of piglets. This efficiency, among other things, expresses the number of pregnant gilts, desirable genetic traits, body weight, age at first estrus, the status of sexual maturity, longevity and a good general health. The aim of this study was to determine the correlation between length of uterus horns and the time of reaching puberty in gilts. The data used during the comparative analyses of morphological parameters were the length of uterus horns without weight, ligaments, cervices and ovaries. For the testing data 592 animals were used. The studies were conducted in warm and cool periods of the year. The animals were sacrificed at 210 days of age. On the basis of morphological structure of the ovary and the stage of sexual maturity the following has been determined: the animals before reaching puberty, animals with first and second estrus cycle. It was determined that the gilts that have made a second estrus cycle have greater significant difference (p<0.01) in length of uterus horns (172.90cm) compared to others. The results show that the female fattening gilts in relation to breeding gilts had significantly greater (p<0.01) length of uterus horns (131.31cm). According to the studies based on the season a statistically significant (p<0.01) difference in the length of uterus horns was determined. In first and second estrus cycle the higher percent of animals that have reached puberty was achieved in breeding gilts (38.38 and 39.47%)

Cap-and-trade and produce at least cost? Investigating firm behaviour in the EU ETS

A persistent concern in the literature on climate policy is that the emissions abatement, which is achieved via environmental regulation, has potentially adverse affects on firms' economic performance. I investigate this issue in the context of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) and the German manufacturing sector. My investigation uses confidential data from an administrative firm-level production census. As a measure of the economic performance, I estimate cost efficiencies and their determinants for narrowly defined industries with a stochastic cost frontier (SCF) analysis. In order to directly compare cost efficiencies across treatment groups, I use a stochastic meta frontier (SMF) analysis. I provide additional evidence of the causal impact of the EU ETS on various types of firms` costs with a difference-in-differences (DD) framework. My results indicate that the EU ETS regulation has resulted in a small but significant increase in costs across the German manufacturing sector. This increase is driven mostly by an increase in energy and capital costs. I demonstrate that the potential to increase cost efficiency exists for most industries in the German manufacturing sector. The analysis of the drivers of cost efficiency confirms that in most industries, exporting firms are more cost efficient than their counterparts. In contrast, the results show that innovating firms and firms that are regulated by the EU ETS are less cost efficient than unregulated firms

Antioxidants and Second Messengers of Free Radicals

The history of science can teach modern men that our understanding of life is to a great extent based on the accuracy of the analytical methods that we use and, on our readiness to oppose dogmatic opinions, which are based on outdated methods and black/white approaches to the major questions raised by mankind in the past. The recent decades have brought a lot of new insights into the fundamentals of the active principles of reactive oxygen species that are necessary for living cells, but which also cause dangerous pathophysiological processes. Accordingly, although they were previously considered to be the most undesired toxic compounds generated as the final products of the oxidative degradation of lipids, reactive aldehydes are now considered to play important roles both in health and in major diseases. Represented mostly by 4-hydroxynonenal (HNE), a substance discovered only fifty years ago, reactive aldehydes are the focus of research not only because of their toxicity but also because of their positive effects regulating the most important metabolic processes such as growth of living cells or the death of cells. Better understanding the interactions between reactive aldehydes and natural or synthetic antioxidant substances might eventually help us to better monitor, prevent and control modern diseases, thus building pillars for the development of the modern, multidisciplinary life sciences and integrative medicine of the 21st century

Carbon Pricing in Switzerland: A Fusion of Taxes, Command-and-Control, and Permit Markets

Like other European Nations, Switzerland has signed the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. Not being part of the European Union, however, it has pursued a different approach to climate policy than the rest of Europe. The cornerstone of Swiss climate policy is carbon pricing, but this comes in three versions that involve different actors and carry different price tags. In addition, a number of support schemes are in place, e.g., for the development of renewables and insulation of buildings. In this article, however, we focus on Swiss carbon pricing. Switzerland has one of the highest carbon taxes in place worldwide. Currently, this tax is CHF 96 per ton of CO 2 -equivalent. The tax is levied on fossil fuels as they cross the Swiss border. However, there are important exemptions. Importantly, the tax applies to combustion fuels but not to transportation fuels. There are ongoing discussions in the Swiss parliament about extending carbon pricing to the transport sector, which is responsible for a third of total greenhouse gas emissions in Switzerland, and which is the only sector where emissions have remained constant (FOEN, 2020). With the aim of protecting the interests energy-intensive firms, the Swiss government has introduced two programs that allow firms to be exempt from the CO 2 tax. The first was established in 2008 and can be described as a collaborative command-and-control instrument coupled with an abatement subsidy. To join the program, firms in energy-intensive industries subject themselves to a set of specific abatement measures and emissions targets that are developed in cooperation with energy experts. If a firm's emissions are below its target in a given year, it can sell the difference as "over-abatement" for a fixed fee. This program is known as "nonEHS" and currently includes around 1,200 firms. The second exemption program is an emissions trading scheme, which was introduced in 2013 and currently includes 53 plants. The system is called CH EHS and has been designed to link it with the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). Due to lengthy political negotiations, the linking of the systems was delayed for several years, but it finally took place on January 1, 2020. In this article, we describe the three competing carbon pricing programs that co-exist in Switzerland and the limited information that is available about their effects on emissions. We furthermore provide preliminary results about the relative effectiveness of the CH EHS and nonEHS programs based on our ongoing work

Are Emissions Trading Schemes Cost-effective?

The use of price instruments is often advocated by economists, based on their ability to bring about marginal abatement cost equalisation, and hence to achieve targets at least cost. We use the EU ETS as a case study and test this theoretical prediction. We parametrically estimate separate hyperbolic and enhanced hyperbolic distance functions for various industries of the German manufacturing sector and are therefore able to compute the shadow value of CO2 emissions. We are the first to provide firm-level estimates of the marginal cost of CO2 emissions using confidential administrative data for German manufacturing firms between 2005 and 2014. This allows for an unprecedented insight into the cost of the EU flagship climate policy for manufacturing firms. We are able to describe the evolution of the abatement costs over time and across industries, tracking the impact of changes in the policy design and its stringency on the behaviour of the firms in our panel. Our findings provide valuable information for policy makers in the European Union and beyond on the actual level of the costs imposed by climate change policy, and its distributional impacts across firms and industries

Adjuvant Cancer Biotherapy by Viscum Album Extract Isorel: Overview of Evidence Based Medicine Findings

Within the integrative medicine one of the most frequently used adjuvant cancer biotherapies is based on aqueous mistletoe (Viscum album) extracts. Tumor growth inhibition, stimulation of host immune response and improvement of the quality of life are the positive effects of mistletoe therapy described in several preclinical and clinical studies. However, cumulative results of the evidence based medicine findings on such treatments are rarely given. Therefore, this paper evaluates the evidence based findings describing effects of the Viscum album extract Isorel in cancer therapy with respect to the type of therapy, stage and type of illness. This study presents cumulated data for 74 patients with different types and stages of cancer treated by Viscum album extract as adjuvant treatment to different conventional therapies, mostly combined surgery and radiotherapy. The biotherapy effectiveness was evaluated according to the outcome as 1) no major therapeutic improvement (15% of patients), 2) prevention of tumor recurrence (47% of patients) and 3) regression of cancer (38% of patients). Notably, there was no obvious health worsening during the follow up period at all. Thus, the results obtained for conventional anticancer therapies combined with adjuvant biotherapy based on Viscum album extract seem to be beneficial for the majority of cancer patients (85%) without serious side effects