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Introduction: Perinatal hypoxic-ischemic (HI) encephalopathy is defined as a neurological syndrome where the newborn suffers from acute ischemia and hypoxia during the perinatal period. New therapies are needed. The acylethanolamides, oleoylethanolamide (OEA) and palmitoylethanolamide (PEA), possess neuroprotective properties, and they could be effective against perinatal HI. These lipid mediators act through peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors subtype a (PPARa), or transient receptor potential vanilloid (TRPV), such as TRPV subtype 1 and 4. Materials and Methods: The objectives of this study were to discern: (1) the neuroprotective role of OEA and PEA in parietotemporal cortical neurons of newborn rats and mice subjected to hypoxia, and (2) the role of the receptors, PPARa, TRPV1, and TRPV4, in neuroprotective effects. Cell culture of cortical neurons and the lactate dehydrogenase assay was carried out. The role of receptors was discerned by using selective antagonist and agonist ligands, as well as knockout (KO) PPARa mice. Results: The findings indicate that OEA and PEA exert neuroprotective effects on cultured cortical neurons subjected to a hypoxic episode. These protective effects are not mediated by the receptors, PPARa, TRPV1, or TRPV4, because neither PPARa KO mice nor receptor ligands significantly modify OEA and PEA-induced effects. Blocking TRPV4 with RN1734 is neuroprotective per se, and cotreatment with OEA and PEA is able to enhance neuroprotective effects of the acylethanolamides. Since stimulating TRPV4 was devoid of effects on OEA and PEA-induced protective effects, effects of RN1734 cotreatment seem to be a consequence of additive actions. Conclusion: The lipid mediators, OEA and PEA, exert neuroprotective effects on cultured cortical neurons subjected to hypoxia. Coadministration of OEA or PEA, and the TRPV4 antagonist RN1734 is able to enhance neuroprotective effects. These in vitro results could be of utility for developing new therapeutic tools against perinatal HI. ; Supported by grants to E.F.E. and F.R.F. from Consejeria de Economia, Innovacion, Ciencia y Empleo, Junta de Andalucia, Spain (E.F.E., group BIO127; F.R.F., group BIO-339), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Ministerio de Economica y Competitividad (MINECO) and European Regional Development Funds-European Union (ERDF-EU) grants RTA-RD16/0017/0001 and Proyectos de Investigacion en Salud PI16/01698 to F.R.R. and E.F.E., and Fundacio´ ''La Marato´ de TV3'' (386/C/2011). P.G. and J.I.R. are research members of the CONICET (Argentina). E.B. is an associate professor of the Serra-Hunter Program from the Catalan Government. M.I.H. is a fellowship holder from ANPCyT (Argentina).

The process of accurately gauging lifetime improvements in organic photovoltaics (OPVs) or other similar emerging technologies, such as perovskites solar cells is still a major challenge. The presented work is part of a larger effort of developing a worldwide database of lifetimes that can help establishing reference baselines of stability performance for OPVs and other emerging PV technologies, which can then be utilized for pass-fail testing standards and predicting tools. The study constitutes scanning of literature articles related to stability data of OPVs, reported until mid-2015 and collecting the reported data into a database. A generic lifetime marker is utilized for rating the stability of various reported devices. The collected data is combined with an earlier developed and reported database, which was based on articles reported until mid-2013. The extended database is utilized for establishing the baselines of lifetime for OPVs tested under different conditions. The work also provides the recent progress in stability of unencapsulated OPVs with different architectures, as well as presents the updated diagram of the reported record lifetimes of OPVs. The presented work is another step forward towards the development of pass-fail testing standards and lifetime prediction tools for emerging PV technologies. ; This work has been supported by European Commission StableNextSol COST Action MP1307. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 609788 ...