Hepatoprotective effect of Phytosome Curcumin against paracetamol-induced liver toxicity in mice

Curcuma longa, which contains curcumin as a major constituent, has been shown many pharmacological effects, but it is limited using in clinical due to low bioavailability. In this study, we developed a phytosome curcumin formulation and evaluated the hepatoprotective effect of phytosome curcumin on paracetamol induced liver damage in mice. Phytosome curcumin (equivalent to curcumin 100 and 200 mg/kg body weight) and curcumin (200 mg/kg body weight) were given by gastrically and toxicity was induced by paracetamol (500 mg/kg) during 7 days. On the final day animals were sacrificed and liver function markers (ALT, AST), hepatic antioxidants (SOD, CAT and GPx) and lipid peroxidation in liver homogenate were estimated. Our data showed that phytosome has stronger hepatoprotective effect compared to curcumin-free. Administration of phytosome curcumin effectively suppressed paracetamol-induced liver injury evidenced by a reduction of lipid peroxidation level, and elevated enzymatic antioxidant activities of superoxide dismutase, catalase, glutathione peroxidase in mice liver tissue. Our study suggests that phytosome curcumin has strong antioxidant activity and potential hepatoprotective effects

Corona based air-flow using parallel discharge electrodes

A novel air-flow generator based on the effect of ion wind has been developed by the simultaneous generation of both positive and negative ions using two electrodes of opposite polarity placed in parallel. Unlike the conventional unipolar-generators, this bipolar configuration creates an ion wind, which moves away from both electrodes and yields a very low net charge on the device. The electro-hydrodynamic behavior of air-flow has been experimentally and numerically studied. The velocity of ion wind reaches values up to 1.25 m/s using low discharge current 5 mu-A with the kinetic conversion efficiency of 0.65% and the released net charge of �30 fA, 8 orders of magnitude smaller compared with the discharge current. Due to easy scalability and low net charge, the present configuration is beneficial to applications with space constraints and/or where neutralized discharge process is required, such as inertial fluidic units, circulatory flow heat transfer, electrospun polymer nanofiber to overcome the intrinsically instability of the process, or the formation of low charged aerosol

A closed device to generate vortex flow using PZT

This paper reports for the first time a millimeter scale fully packaged device which generates a vortex flow of high velocity. The flow which is simply actuated by a PZT diaphragm circulates with a higher velocity after each actuating circle to form a vortex in a desired chamber. The design of such device is firstly conducted by a numerical analysis using OpenFOAM. Several numerical results are considered as the base of our experiment where a flow vortex is observed by a high speed camera. The present device is potential in various applications related to the inertial sensing, fluidic amplifier and micro/nano particle trapping and mixing

Angular rate sensing by circulatory vortex flow: design, simulation and experiment

A fully packaged convective vortex gyrometer actuated by a PZT diaphragm is reported. The flow circulates at higher velocity after each actuating circle to form a vortex in the desired chamber. The vortex is characterized by hotwire anemometry. The device is initially designed based on a numerical analysis whose results are used to set up the experiment. The angular rate sensing of the device is successfully tested using a turntable. The technique is a potential solution to various applications related to inertial sensing and fluidic amplifier

A circulatory ionic wind for inertial sensing application

A novel gyroscope using circulatory electro-hydrodynamics flow in a confined space is presented for the first time. The configuration of the new gyroscope includes three point-ring corona discharge actuators that generate ion flows in three separated sub-channels. The three ion flows then merge together when going through a nozzle of the main chamber entrance and create a jet flow. In the new configuration, the residual charge of ion wind flow is removed by a master-ring electrode located at one end of the main chamber. Under the effect of the angular speed of gyroscope, the jet flow is deflected and this deflection is sensed using hotwires. The results, which are consistently acquired by both the numerical simulation and experiment on our prototypes, demonstrate the repeatability and stability of the new approach. Since the ion wind can be generated by a minimum power, the present configuration-based device does not require any vibrating component. Thus, the device is robust, cost, and energy-effective

Study on point-to-ring corona based gyroscope

We present for the first time a novel gyroscope using circulatory electro-hydrodynamics flow in a confined space. Three point-ring corona actuator is to generate ionic flows in three separated channels and the ionic flows then merge together at a nozzle of the main chamber to create a jet flow. The residual charge of ion winds is removed by a master-ring electrode. By the effect of angular rate, the jet flow handled by a hotwire anemometry is deflected and sensed. Results by both experiment and numerical simulation consistently show good repeatability and stability of the new configuration-based device. Since ion wind is generated by a minimum power, the device does not require any vibrating component, thus the device is robust, low cost and energy consumption