Users self-assessment of a daily moisturizing of the skin with natural ingredientes

The cosmetic industry keeps growing, constantly pursuing to satisfy consumers' desire for beauty. Nowadays, sustainability awareness is gaining relevance in the cosmetic sector. The increasing market trend in favour of green cosmetic products, which use ingredients from natural inputs, portrays the ecological and social weight of consumer choices when using products that contribute to nature in a sustainable way. This study aims to analyze the user self-assessment effectiveness of a cream formulation for daily moisturizing of the skin, with natural ingredients, including bee products, local plant material of the region of Trás-Os-Montes, and vegetable oils. Twenty-two individuals aged between 24 and 74 years were included in the product's effectiveness study. The pre-use self-assessment shows that most of volunteers presented mixed skin type (at least three in five individuals). For dry skin individuals (one in five individuals), skin jerking and the rapid absorption of the products are the main issues. The assessment of product efficacy was measured based on a post-use questionnaire. The results obtained for nonplacebo users in the assessments are presented in Figure 1. The product exhibits positive performance for all the attributes under assessment. For products efficacy the highlight is for hydration and skin smoothness. For products attributes, ease application scores the maximum of 3.3 points. Different, wrinkles reduction and fragrance present less favourable results. When asked about the willingness to buy the product only one in four users respond negatively, mainly because of the strong fragrance of the preservative agent product. Users willing to buy/recommending the product to a friend mention the satisfactory results obtained, hydration performance and natural product as the determinant for that decision. The users willing to buy the product consider to do it at an average price of 10€ for a 50ml package.The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) for financial support by national funds FCT/MCTES to CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Consumers behavior and perceptions regarding natural cosmetic products

In the last decades, the increasing concerns related with sustainability and the emergence of ethical concerns related to the production and consumption of cosmetics, as well as, the verification of the adverse effects of chemical additives present in cosmetics for human health and the environment, have driven the growth of green cosmetics. Natural substances, derived from plants, animals or other organisms are increasingly popular as ingredients in cosmetics for being considered by consumers as safety alternatives to synthetic cosmetics. This work aims to analyze the habits and perceptions of consumers regarding natural cosmetics products. A cross-sectional study was carried out based on a sample of 222 individuals’ ages between 18 and 74 years old. Respondents were mainly female (75%), young urban adults, employed, with higher education. Most of the respondents use cosmetics daily, and considers them important (48%) or essential (34%), particularly the hygiene and skin care products. The median amount of monthly spend on cosmetic products are of 20 €. Super and hypermarkets (34.5%), and pharmacies and parapharmacies (31%) are the most relevant places for buying cosmetic products although the internet (8%) and catalogues sales (7%) are also significant. The importance of internet is also present has source of information about the products (40%), seconded by beauty professionals (27%). The great majority of the respondents uses natural cosmetic products, although not often organic ones. Despite the respondents’ considerable familiarity with natural cosmetic products, results display some misconceptions about these products still present in consumers’ minds.The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) for financial support by national funds FCT/MCTES to CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pre-Production and Quality Assurance of the Mu2e Calorimeter Silicon Photomultipliers

The Mu2e electromagnetic calorimeter has to provide precise information on energy, time and position for $\sim$100 MeV electrons. It is composed of 1348 un-doped CsI crystals, each coupled to two large area Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs). A modular and custom SiPM layout consisting of a 3$\times$2 array of 6$\times$6 mm$^2$ UV-extended monolithic SiPMs has been developed to fulfill the Mu2e calorimeter requirements and a pre-production of 150 prototypes has been procured by three international firms (Hamamatsu, SensL and Advansid). A detailed quality assurance process has been carried out on this first batch of photosensors: the breakdown voltage, the gain, the quenching time, the dark current and the Photon Detection Efficiency (PDE) have been determined for each monolithic cell of each SiPMs array. One sample for each vendor has been exposed to a neutron fluency up to $\sim$8.5~$\times$~10$^{11}$ 1 MeV (Si) eq. n/cm$^{2}$ and a linear increase of the dark current up to tens of mA has been observed. Others 5 samples for each vendor have undergone an accelerated aging in order to verify a Mean Time To Failure (MTTF) higher than $\sim$10$^{6}$ hours.Comment: NDIP 2017 - New Developments In Photodetection, 3-7 July 2017, Tours (France

A high-throughput microfluidic assay to study neurite response to growth factor gradients

Studying neurite guidance by diffusible or substrate bound gradients is challenging with current techniques. In this study, we present the design, fabrication and utility of a microfluidic device to study neurite guidance under chemogradients. Experimental and computational studies demonstrated the establishment of a steep gradient of guidance cue within 30 min and stable for up to 48 h. The gradient was found to be insensitive to external perturbations such as media change and movement of device. The effects of netrin-1 (0.1–10 µg mL−1) and brain pulp (0.1 µL mL−1) were evaluated for their chemoattractive potential on neurite turning, while slit-2 (62.5 or 250 ng mL−1) was studied for its chemorepellant properties. Hippocampal or dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons were seeded into a micro-channel and packed onto the surface of a 3D collagen gel. Neurites grew into the matrix in three dimensions, and a gradient of guidance cue was created orthogonal to the direction of neurite growth to impact guidance. The average turning angle of each neurite was measured and averaged across multiple devices cultured under similar conditions to quantify the effect of guidance cue gradient. Significant positive turning towards gradient was measured in the presence of brain pulp and netrin-1 (1 µg mL−1), relative to control cultures which received no external guidance cue (p < 0.001). Netrin-1 released from transfected fibroblasts had the most positive turning effect of all the chemoattractive cues tested (p < 0.001). Slit-2 exhibited strong chemorepellant characteristics on both hippocampal and DRG neurite guidance at 250 ng mL−1 concentration. Slit-2 also showed similar behavior on DRG neuron invasion into 3D collagen gel (p < 0.01 relative to control cultures). Taken together, the results suggest the utility of this microfluidic device to generate stable chemogradients for studying neurobiology, cell migration and proliferation, matrix remodeling and co-cultures with other cell lines, with potential applications in cancer biology, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.Seoul R&BD Support Center (program PA090930

Steady and Stable: Numerical Investigations of Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations

Excerpt: Mathematics is a language which can describe patterns in everyday life as well as abstract concepts existing only in our minds. Patterns exist in data, functions, and sets constructed around a common theme, but the most tangible patterns are visual. Visual demonstrations can help undergraduate students connect to abstract concepts in advanced mathematical courses. The study of partial differential equations, in particular, benefits from numerical analysis and simulation