Effect of chemical treatments and additives on properties of chicken feathers thermoplastic biocomposites

The valorization of chicken feathers (CFs) waste was researched in this work through the preparation of composites using ground chicken feathers as a filler (20 % v/v) and polypropylene (PP) or low-density polyethylene (LDPE) matrices. In order to improve the compatibility between CFs and the matrixes two different strategies were followed. First, by the chemical modification of the CFs by either acetylation or silanization and, second, by the addition of adhesion promoters like maleated polypropylene (MAPP) and maleatead polyethylene (MAPE). The effect of those treatments on the physical, mechanical and structural properties of the thermoplastic-CFs biocomposites, which are mainly related to the fibre–matrix compatibility, was analyzed. Results show that the addition of 20 % (vol/vol) of unmodified CFs to the thermoplastic matrices results in a significant decrease of the tensile strength associated to a weak interfacial adhesion was assessed by SEM. However, when the adhesion promoters were added to the mixture, a significant increase in the tensile strength was noticed, particularly when the composites were obtained by a process at 180 °C. On the contrary, acetylation and silane treatments of the CFs did not result in any practical improvement of the macroscopic properties of the biocompositesPostprint (author's final draft

Environmental impact of chicken feathers based polypropylene composites developed for automotive and stationary applications and comparison with glass-fibre analogues

In last decades, there has been an interest in using biogenic wastes and by-products as fillers or reinforcements to produce polymer composites. Hence, new composites materials based on a blend of biogenic chicken feathers (CFs) and polypropylene (PP) are proposed in this work and compared, from the environmental point of view, with currently used materials as neat PP and PP reinforced with glass-fibres (PP-GF). A Cradle-to-Grave Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was performed in order to compare the environmental impact of these three materials when being used either for automotive or stationary applications. The mechanical properties of each material were taken into account to calculate the equivalent mass of each industrial application and the use phase and end of life (EoL) were included in the LCA study. The results showed that, for automotive applications and for all the materials studied (PP-GF, PP-CFs and PP) the use phase has a great contribution to the environmental impact categories considered, proving that the new developed material based on CFs (PP-CFs) would be appropriate for stationary applications but not for mobile applications as automotive ones. In addition, the EoL scenario considered, i.e. incineration with energy recovery, has proven to provide extra environmental creditsOpen Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. This work was funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad. Project ref. MAT2015-65392-C2-1-R (MINECO/FEDER)Postprint (published version

JNK1 and JNK3: divergent functions in hippocampal metabolic-cognitive function

Background and aim: The appearance of alterations in normal metabolic activity has been increasingly considered a risk factor for the development of sporadic and late-onset neurodegenerative diseases. In this report, we induced chronic metabolic stress by feeding of a high-fat diet (HFD) in order to study its consequences in cognition. We also studied the effects of a loss of function of isoforms 1 and 3 of the c-Jun N-terminal Kinases (JNK), stress and cell death response elements. Methods: Animals were fed either with conventional chow or with HFD, from their weaning until their sacrifice at 9 months. Before sacrifice, body weight, intraperitoneal glucose and insulin tolerance test (IP-GTT and IP‑ITT) were performed to evaluate peripheral biometrics. Additionally, cognitive behavioral tests and analysis of spine density were performed to assess cognitive function. Molecular studies were carried out to confirm the effects of metabolic stressors in the hippocampus relative to cognitive loss. Results: Our studies demonstrated that HFD in Jnk3-/- lead to synergetic responses. Loss of function of JNK3 led to increased body weight, especially when exposed to an HFD and they had significantly decreased response to insulin. These mice also showed increased stress in the endoplasmic reticulum and diminished cognitive capacity. However, loss of function of JNK1 promoted normal or heightened energetic metabolism and preserved cognitive function even when chronically metabolically stressed. Conclusions: Downregulation of JNK3 does not seem to be a suitable target for the modulation of energetic-cognitive dysregulations while loss of function of JNK1 seems to promote a good metabolic-cognitive profile, just like resistance to the negative effects of chronic feeding with HFD.This work was supported by funds from the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (SAF2017-84283-R to AC), the Generalitat de Catalunya (2014SGR-525 to CA) and CIBERNED (Grant CB06/05/2004 to AC).S

Satisfacció envers els menjadors escolars: aspectes estructurals, funcionals i sensorials

Menjadors escolars; Avaluació; EstadístiquesSchool menus; Evaluation; StatisticsMenús escolares; Evaluación; EstadísticasEl menjador escolar és un espai on mengen habitualment molts infants i per saber el grau de satisfacció global, a més del compliment de les recomanacions per garantir la qualitat nutricional, és necessari conèixer la percepció organolèptica o sensorial dels menús per part dels alumnes, així com d’altres aspectes estructurals i funcionals del servei de menjador. Els objectius de l’estudi van ser determinar el grau de satisfacció dels alumnes i la seva associació amb aspectes estructurals i funcionals del menjador escolar i amb la qualitat sensorial dels menús així com conèixer els aspectes de millora proposats pels alumnes.El comedor escolar es un espacio donde comen habitualmente muchos niños y para saber el grado de satisfacción global, además del cumplimiento de las recomendaciones para garantizar la calidad nutricional, es necesario conocer la percepción organoléptica o sensorial de los menús por parte de los alumnos, así como otros aspectos estructurales y funcionales del servicio de comedor. Los objetivos del estudio fueron determinar el grado de satisfacción de los alumnos y su asociación con aspectos estructurales y funcionales del comedor escolar y con la calidad sensorial de los menús así como conocer los aspectos de mejora propuestos por los alumnos.The school dining room is a place where many children often eat and to know the degree of global satisfaction, in addition to complying with the recommendations to guarantee nutritional quality, it is necessary to know the organoleptic or sensory perception of the menus on the part of the students, as well as Other structural and functional aspects of the dining room service. The objectives of the study were to determine the degree of satisfaction of the students and their association with structural and functional aspects of the school dining room and with the sensory quality of the menus as well as know the aspects of improvement proposed by the students

Environmental impact assessment of sound absorbing nonwovens based on chicken feathers waste

Chicken feathers (CFs) are currently a biogenic solid waste generated on a large scale and around the world. Its valorization could provide a great opportunity to manufacture environmentally friendly materials and increase the profit of poultry processors. The aim of this study was to fabricate sound absorbing nonwoven materials using CFs wastes to evaluate both the environmental impact of their fabrication processes using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology and the acoustic performance and to compare the results with a conventional insulating material such as stone wool (SW). The study showed that it was possible to fabricate CFs-wool nonwovens incorporating up to 50% w/w of CFs. The new material showed similar acoustic properties to those of SW, even behaving better for frequencies below 2200¿Hz. LCA study showed that the environmental impacts decrease when the amount of CFs increases in those nonwoven materials containing CFs-wool, except for abiotic depletion and eutrophication impact categories. However, despite the synthetic nature of the SW, SW only presented worse environmental performance than the CFs based nonwoven materials for few impact categories (depletion of abiotic resources, human toxicity and photo-oxidant formation) due to the negative contribution caused by the incorporation of wool (W) into the nonwoven materialsPostprint (author's final draft

The Involvement of Peripheral and Brain Insulin Resistance in Late Onset Alzheimer's Dementia

Nowadays, Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a severe sociological and clinical problem. Since it was first described, there has been a constant increase in its incidence and, for now, there are no effective treatments since current approved medications have only shown short-term symptomatic benefits. Therefore, it is imperative to increase efforts in the search for molecules and non-pharmacological strategies that are capable of slowing or stopping the progress of the disease and, ideally, to reverse it. The amyloid cascade hypothesis based on the fundamental role of amyloid has been the central hypothesis in the last 30 years. However, since amyloid-directed treatments have shown no relevant beneficial results other theories have been postulated to explain the origin of the pathology. The brain is a highly metabolically active energy-consuming tissue in the human body. It has an almost complete dependence on the metabolism of glucose and uses most of its energy for synaptic transmission. Thus, alterations on the utilization or availability of glucose may be cause for the appearance of neurodegenerative pathologies like AD. In this review article, the hypothesis known as Type 3 Diabetes (T3D) will be evaluated by summarizing some of the data that has been reported in recent years. According to published research, the adherence over time to low saturated fatty acids diets in the context of the Mediterranean diet would reduce the inflammatory levels in brain, with a decrease in the pro-inflammatory glial activation and mitochondrial oxidative stress. In this situation, the insulin receptor pathway would be able to fine tune the mitochondrial biogenesis in neuronal cells, regulation the adenosine triphosphate/adenosine diphosphate intracellular balance, and becoming a key factor involved in the preservation of the synaptic connexions and neuronal plasticity. In addition, new targets and strategies for the treatment of AD will be considered in this review for their potential as new pharmacological or non-pharmacological approaches

Memantine for the treatment of dementia. A review on its current and future applications

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the presence in the brain of extracellular amyloid-β protein (Aβ) and intracellular neurofibrillary tangles composed of hyperphosphorylated tau protein. The N-Methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDAR), ionotropic glutamate receptor, are essential for processes like learning and memory. An excessive activation of NMDARs has been associated with neuronal loss. The discovery of extrasynaptic NMDARs provided a rational and physiological explanation between physiological and excitotoxic actions of glutamate. Memantine (MEM), an antagonist of extrasynaptic NMDAR, is currently used for the treatment of AD jointly with acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. It has been demonstrated that MEM preferentially prevents the excessive continuous extrasynaptic NMDAR disease activation and therefore prevents neuronal cell death induced by excitotoxicity without disrupting physiological synaptic activity. The problem is that MEM has shown no clear positive effects in clinical applications while, in preclinical stages, had very promising results. The data in preclinical studies suggests that MEM has a positive impact on improving AD brain neuropathology, as well as in preventing Aβ production, aggregation, or downstream neurotoxic consequences, in part through the blockade of extrasynaptic NMDAR. Thus, the focus of this review is primarily to discuss the efficacy of MEM in preclinical models of AD, consider possible combinations of this drug with others, and then evaluate possible reasons for its lack of efficacy in clinical trials. Finally, applications in other pathologies are also considered

Es retroalimentación lo que cuenta

Conferència a càrrec de Mariano Fernández Enguita de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, comentada i replicada per Martí Casadesús Fa, director de l'AQU Catalunya (Agencia de la Calidad Universitaria) i Gemma Espigares, coordinadora del Consell d'Estudiants Universitaris de Catalunya durant el període 2011-1

Conseqüències de la definició de drets de propietat a la data economy: un estudi de l’aplicació del teorema de Coase

Treball de Fi de Grau en Economia. Curs 2022-2023Tutora: María Gundín CastroEl present treball té com a principal objectiu proposar solucions per abordar les externalitats negatives que es produeixen a la Data Economy com les ingerències en la privacitat dels usuaris o l’increment dels riscos en la seguretat digital. Aquestes externalitats generen pèrdues econòmiques i ineficiències en el mercat que han de ser corregides. Agafant com a base el Teorema de Coase, exposem tres solucions alternatives basades en l’atribució de drets de propietat sobre les dades personals: la solució de mercat, la solució d’empresa i la solució de Govern; on s’estudien en detall els avantatges i desavantatges de cada alternativa. Finalment, com a alternativa a l’aplicació del Teorema de Coase a la Data Economy, també analitzem la posible implementació d’un impost pigouvià a les empreses generadores de les externalitats negatives. Finalment, es conclou que les millors alternatives són les solucions d’empresa i de Govern del Teorema de Coase

Satisfacció envers els menjadors escolars: aspectes estructurals, funcionals i sensorials

Menjadors escolars; Avaluació; EstadístiquesSchool menus; Evaluation; StatisticsMenús escolares; Evaluación; EstadísticasEl menjador escolar és un espai on mengen habitualment molts infants i per saber el grau de satisfacció global, a més del compliment de les recomanacions per garantir la qualitat nutricional, és necessari conèixer la percepció organolèptica o sensorial dels menús per part dels alumnes, així com d’altres aspectes estructurals i funcionals del servei de menjador. Els objectius de l’estudi van ser determinar el grau de satisfacció dels alumnes i la seva associació amb aspectes estructurals i funcionals del menjador escolar i amb la qualitat sensorial dels menús així com conèixer els aspectes de millora proposats pels alumnes.El comedor escolar es un espacio donde comen habitualmente muchos niños y para saber el grado de satisfacción global, además del cumplimiento de las recomendaciones para garantizar la calidad nutricional, es necesario conocer la percepción organoléptica o sensorial de los menús por parte de los alumnos, así como otros aspectos estructurales y funcionales del servicio de comedor. Los objetivos del estudio fueron determinar el grado de satisfacción de los alumnos y su asociación con aspectos estructurales y funcionales del comedor escolar y con la calidad sensorial de los menús así como conocer los aspectos de mejora propuestos por los alumnos.The school dining room is a place where many children often eat and to know the degree of global satisfaction, in addition to complying with the recommendations to guarantee nutritional quality, it is necessary to know the organoleptic or sensory perception of the menus on the part of the students, as well as Other structural and functional aspects of the dining room service. The objectives of the study were to determine the degree of satisfaction of the students and their association with structural and functional aspects of the school dining room and with the sensory quality of the menus as well as know the aspects of improvement proposed by the students