Extracellular Vesicles in Alzheimer’s Disease: Friends or Foes? Focus on Aβ-Vesicle Interaction

The intercellular transfer of amyloid-β (Aβ) and tau proteins has received increasing attention in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Among other transfer modes, Aβ and tau dissemination has been suggested to occur through release of Extracellular Vesicles (EVs), which may facilitate delivery of pathogenic proteins over large distances. Recent evidence indicates that EVs carry on their surface, specific molecules which bind to extracellular Aβ, opening the possibility that EVs may also influence Aβ assembly and synaptotoxicity. In this review we focus on studies which investigated the impact of EVs in Aβ-mediated neurodegeneration and showed either detrimental or protective role for EVs in the pathology.     

Effect of Decarburization on the Residual Stresses Produced by Shot Peening in Automotive Leaf Springs

The shot peening is used in the leaf springs manufacturing process for producing a compressive residual stress field (CRSF) at and near the surface that improves the fatigue resistance. The resulting CRSF is influenced by the surface ferrite thickness associated with the decarburization. Hence, this work aims to extend the knowledge on the influence of the decarburization on the CRSF for the given shot peening conditions. A study on the laboratory scale was conducted for an SAE 5160 steel grade used in the automotive industry. Next, specimens with different decarburization depths were treated using industrial shot peening, and the resulting CRSF was characterized. The CRSF was found to be influenced by the decarburization depth. It is assumed that the elastic deformation mechanism is predominant at low decarburization depths, followed by a zone in which both the elastic and plastic deformation have competing mechanisms that contribute to the CRSF, and at higher decarburization depths, the dominant mechanism is plastic deformation. The values for σ_srs and σ_mcrs decrease as the decarburized depth increases, and suitable CRSFs were obtained below a decarburization depth of 120 µm in industrial leaves. Furthermore, the prediction based on expressions correlating the measured variables was good in these leaves.     

Software SOLEEC Applied for Parabolic Trough Solar Collector Designing

The present work describes software SOLEEC （copyright 03-2012-070510302900-01 Mexico）, a numerical tool for PTC （parabolic trough collector） designing. Software SOLEEC is divided into two main parts. The first one allows solar resource assessment for a specific place on the Earth. The computation and assessment can be done for a specific day on the year, for one specific month and the monthly averages along the year. The last one gives annual charts such as： solar constant, Earth declination, insolation hours, and sunrise and sunset hours. The second part has four different execution options for PTC designing, that is, using options one and two user can get five different designs based on receiver outer diameter evaluating solar radiation data along the full year or only one solar radiation value （monthly）, on the other hand options three and four were developed to compute the thermal evaluation for an operating collector for twelve solar radiation values （annually） or a specific month computation, respectively.     

An Evolutionary Perspective on Water Governance: From Understanding to Transformation

Many water related problems can be attributed to governance failure at multiple levels of governance rather than to the resource base itself. At the same time our knowledge on water governance systems and conditions for success of water governance reform is still quite limited. Water governance is a fast growing field of scholarly expertise which has largely developed over the past 10 to 15 years. This paper summarizes the development of the field over the past decade(s). On one hand it addresses the current state of understanding of factors that determine the success of water governance systems. On the other hand it has a strong emphasis on processes of transformation and change in water governance as governing the transformation of water governance is the key challenge in moving towards more sustainable water governance and management.     

Modeling of bioethanol production in unconventional bioreactor assisted by electromagnetic field

The aim of this paper was to estimate fermentation kinetic parameters to develop a mathematical model of the bioethanol production under magnetic field effect. Thus, a non‐structured mathematical model was developed considering three non‐lineal kinetic models typically known as Levenspiel, Aiba, Jerusalimsky, which take into account inhibitory effects of the high product concentration on yeasts. The non‐lineal differential equations system solution was carried out by MatLab software using the Runge–Kutta fourth‐order multivariable method. This method was improved through a replication scheme coupled with Newton–Raphson method modified with a damping Broyden parameter. Experimental data on substrate consumption, biomass formation and ethanol production were collected at magnetic field intensities (H) of 414, 796 and 1216 A/cm during 16 h of fermentation. Consequently, the adjusted model for biomass, consumed substrate and bioethanol produced allowed us to correlate fermentation kinetic parameters with the magnetic field. The best result was observed when Jerusalimsky model modified with a magnetic field parameter was considered, because the RMSD order and R‐square correlation coefficient were around 10^?3 and higher than 0.95, respectively. These results are important to understand the phenomenological behavior of this unconventional bioprocess and be helpful to further sensibility analysis and scale up of the bioethanol production assisted by electromagnetic field. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Synthesis and processability into textile structures of radiopaque,biodegradable polyesters and poly(ester‐urethanes)

Radiopaque biodegradable polymers have been synthesized by ring‐opening polymerization of l /dl ‐lactide and caprolactone with the iodine‐containing starter molecule 2,2‐bis(hydroxymethyl)propane‐1,3‐diyl bis(2,3,5‐triiodobenzoate) followed by chain elongation with a diacid chloride or diisocyanates. The resulting polyesters and poly(ester‐urethanes) exhibited a radiopacity of 60?124% relative to an aluminium sample of the same thickness. The polymers were processed into monofilament fibres by melt‐spinning and into fibre meshes by electrospinning. All polymers were biodegradable in simulated body fluid medium under in vitro conditions and showed an excellent in vitro cytocompatibility even after several months of hydrolytic degradation. A current drawback is the relatively low tensile strength of the polymer monofilaments, which needs to be improved for applications as textile structures. Nevertheless, the new radiopaque and biodegradable polymers are promising candidates in fields of application where radiopacity of implants is an important parameter.