Interactions of Engineered Nanoparticles with Organs Protected by Internal Biological Barriers

Engineered nanomaterials may exert adverse effects on human health which, in turn, may be linked to their propensity to cross biological barriers in the body. Here, we will discuss available evidence based on in vivo studies for interactions of commercially relevant nanoparticles with critical internal barriers. The internal barriers at focus of this review are the blood-brain barrier (BBB), protecting the brain, the blood-testis barrier (BTB), protecting the male germ line, and the placenta, protecting the developing fetus. The route of exposure (pulmonary, gastrointestinal, intravenous, intraperitoneal, dermal), and the portal of entry of nanoparticles into the body, is of critical importance. Different physico-chemical properties, not only size, may determine the ability of nanoparticles to breach biological barriers; the situation is further compounded by the formation of a so-called corona of biomolecules on the surface of nanoparticles, the composition of which may vary depending on the route of exposure and the “history” of the nanoparticles as they translocate from one biological compartment to another. The relevance of nanoparticle interactions with internal biological barriers for their impact on the organs protected by these barriers is discussed

Configurations of business model themes and strategies in small firms: a qualitative comparative analysis

Firms' strategies and business model themes (BMTs) entail choices that create a configuration of interdependent elements that ultimately affect a firm's performance. So far, extant studies on BMTs (i.e. novelty, efficiency, complementarity and lock-in) have neglected an explorative analysis of how configurations of BMTs and the choices of a firm's strategy (namely, the source of the competitive advantage and the market scope) are associated with a firm's performance in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). We address this limitation by analysing a sample of 96 small firms using a configurational approach. We identified four equifinal configurations leading to high performance and five equifinal configurations associated with low performance. Overall, our results suggest that in small firms, it is essential to combine a differentiation strategy with either consistent pairs of BMTs or the search for new avenues of value creation and capture, while featuring too many BMTs might be detrimental to their growth. Our study contributes to the scholarly debate about the relationship between business models and strategy

Wake redirection: Comparison of analytical, numerical and experimental models

This paper focuses on wake redirection techniques for wind farm control. Two control strategies are investigated: yaw misalignment and cyclic pitch control. First, analytical formulas are derived for both techniques, with the goal of providing a simple physical interpretation of the behavior of the two methods. Next, more realistic results are obtained by numerical simulations performed with CFD and by experiments conducted with scaled wind turbine models operating in a boundary layer wind tunnel. Comparing the analytical, numerical and experimental models allows for a cross-validation of the results and a better understanding of the two wake redirection techniques. Results indicate that yaw misalignment is more effective than cyclic pitch control in displacing the wake laterally, although the latter may have positive effects on wake recovery

Three-dimensional effects on cracked discs and plates under nominal Mode III loading

The existence of three-dimensional effects at cracks has been known for many years, but understanding has been limited, and for some situations still is. Understanding improved when the existence of corner point singularities and their implications became known. Increasingly powerful computers made it possible to investigate three-dimensional effects numerically in detail. Despite increased understanding, threedimensional effects are sometimes ignored in situations where they may be important. The purpose of the present contribution is to review the study carried out by the same authors in some recent investigations, in which a coupled fracture mode generated by anti-plane loading of a straight through-the-thickness crack in linear elastic discs and plates has been analysed by means of accurate 3D finite element (FE) models. The results obtained from the highly accurate finite element analyses have improved understanding of the behaviour of through cracked components under anti-plane loading. The influence of plate bending is increasingly important as the thickness decreases. It appears that a new field parameter, probably a singularity, is needed to describe the stresses at the free surfaces. Discussion on whether KIII tends to zero or infinity as a corner point is approached is futile because KIII is meaningless at a corner point. The intensity of the local stress and strain state through the thickness of the cracked components has been evaluated by using the strain energy density (SED) averaged over a control volume embracing the crack tip. The SED has been considered as a parameter able to control fracture in some previous contributions and can easily take into account also coupled three-dimensional effects. Calculation of the SED shows that the position of the maximum SED in the discs case is a function of the thickness. In the plates case instead the position of the maximum SED is independent of plate thickness, contrary to disc results

Physico-Chemical Properties Mediating Reproductive and Developmental Toxicity of Engineered Nanomaterials

With the increasing production of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) exploited in many consumer products, a wider number of people is expected to be exposed to such materials in the near future, both in occupational and environmentalsettings. This has raised concerns about the possible implications on public health. In particular, very recently the scientific community has focused on the effect that ENMs might exert on the reproductive apparatus and on embryonic development. Indications that ENMs might have adverse effects on cells of the germ line and on the developing embryos have been reported. In the present minireview we will perform a critical analysis of the published work on reproductive and developmental toxicity of the most commonly used nanoparticles with a major focus on mammalian models. We will place emphasis on the main physico-chemical characteristics that can affect NP behaviour in biological systems, i.e. presence of contaminants and nanoparticle destabilization, size, dosage, presence of functional groups, influence of the solvent used for their suspension in biological media, aggregation/agglomeration, intrinsic chemical composition and protein corona/opsonisation. The importance of this specific field of nanotoxicology is documented by the rapidly increasing number of published papers registered in the last three years, which might be a consequence of the growing concerns on the possible interference of ENMs with reproductive ability and pregnancy outcome, in a time in which reproductive age has increased and the possibility to bear children appears reduced

Computability with polynomial differential equations

In this paper, we show that there are Initial Value Problems de ned with polynomial ordinary di erential equations that can simulate univer- sal Turing machines in the presence of bounded noise. The polynomial ODE de ning the IVP is explicitly obtained and the simulation is per- formed in real time

A Study on the Active Induction Control of Upstream Wind Turbines for total power increases

In this study, the effect of active induction control of upstream wind turbines is investigated. Two scaled wind turbines having a rotor diameter of 1 m with a spacing of four times of the rotor diameter were used to experimentally validate the concept. Also, an in-house c code was used to simulate the same two wind turbines and see if the experimental observations can be obtained. From the experiment, approximately 0.81% increase of total power could be observed. Although the simulation results were not exactly the same as the experimental results but the shape was similar and the maximum power increase of 0.27% was predicted. Also from further simulation using NREL 5MW wind turbines instead of scaled wind turbines with realistic ambient turbulence intensity, it was found that the power increase could become more than 1%

Computational bounds on polynomial differential equations

In this paper we study from a computational perspective some prop-erties of the solutions of polynomial ordinary di erential equations. We consider elementary (in the sense of Analysis) discrete-time dynam-ical systems satisfying certain criteria of robustness. We show that those systems can be simulated with elementary and robust continuous-time dynamical systems which can be expanded into fully polynomial ordinary diferential equations with coe cients in Q[ ]. This sets a computational lower bound on polynomial ODEs since the former class is large enough to include the dynamics of arbitrary Turing machines. We also apply the previous methods to show that the problem of de-termining whether the maximal interval of defnition of an initial-value problem defned with polynomial ODEs is bounded or not is in general undecidable, even if the parameters of the system are computable and comparable and if the degree of the corresponding polynomial is at most 56. Combined with earlier results on the computability of solutions of poly-nomial ODEs, one can conclude that there is from a computational point of view a close connection between these systems and Turing machines

Sustainability perspectives: a new methodological approach for quantitative assessment

This paper proposes a new tool to assess sustainability and make the concept of sustainable development operational. It considers its multi-dimensional structure combining the information deriving from a selection of relevant sustainability indicators belonging to economic, social and environmental pillars. The main novelties of this approach are the modelling framework, a recursive-dynamic computable general equilibrium used to calculate the trend of all indicators over time throughout the world, and the aggregation methodology to reconcile them in one aggregate index to measure overall sustainability. The former allows capturing the sector and regional interactions and higher-order effects driven by background assumptions on relevant variables to depict future scenarios. The latter makes it possible to compare sustainability performances, under alternative scenarios, across countries and over time. Main results show that the current sustainability at world level differs from what the traditional measure of well-being, the GDP, depicts, highlighting the trade-offs among different components of sustainability. Moreover, in the next decade a slight decrease in world sustainability may occur, in spite of an expected increase in world domestic product. Finally, dedicated policies increase overall sustainability, showing that social and environmental benefits may be greater than the correlated economic costs

Enxertia em figueira Roxo de Valinhos por borbulhia e garfagem.

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