Light-Based 3D Printing of Gelatin-Based Biomaterial Inks to Create a Physiologically Relevant In Vitro Fish Intestinal Model

To provide prominent accessibility of fishmeal to the European population, the currently available, time- and cost-extensive feeding trials, which evaluate fish feed, should be replaced. The current paper reports on the development of a novel 3D culture platform, mimicking the microenvironment of the intestinal mucosa in vitro. The key requirements of the model include sufficient permeability for nutrients and medium-size marker molecules (equilibrium within 24 h), suitable mechanical properties (G' < 10 kPa), and close morphological similarity to the intestinal architecture. To enable processability with light-based 3D printing, a gelatin-methacryloyl-aminoethyl-methacrylate-based biomaterial ink is developed and combined with Tween 20 as porogen to ensure sufficient permeability. To assess the permeability properties of the hydrogels, a static diffusion setup is utilized, indicating that the hydrogel constructs are permeable for a medium size marker molecule (FITC-dextran 4 kg mol⁻¹). Moreover, the mechanical evaluation through rheology evidence a physiologically relevant scaffold stiffness (G' = 4.83 ± 0.78 kPa). Digital light processing-based 3D printing of porogen-containing hydrogels results in the creation of constructs exhibiting a physiologically relevant microarchitecture as evidenced through cryo-scanning electron microscopy. Finally, the combination of the scaffolds with a novel rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) intestinal epithelial cell line (RTdi-MI) evidence scaffold biocompatibility.     

H/D Exchange Processes in Flavonoids: Kinetics and Mechanistic Investigations

Several classes of flavonoids, such as anthocyanins, flavonols, flavanols, and flavones, undergo a slow H/D exchange on aromatic ring A, leading to full deuteration at positions C(6) and C(8). Within the flavanol class, H-C(6) and H-C(8) of catechin and epicatechin are slowly exchanged in D₂O to the corresponding deuterated analogues. Even quercetin, a relevant flavonol representative, shows the same behaviour in a D₂O/DMSOd₆ 1:1 solution. Detailed kinetic measurements of these H/D exchange processes are here reported by exploiting the time-dependent changes of their peak areas in the ¹H-NMR spectra taken at different temperatures. A unifying reaction mechanism is also proposed based on our detailed kinetic observations, even taking into account pH and solvent effects. Molecular modelling and QM calculations were also carried out to shed more light on several molecular details of the proposed mechanism.     

Navier–Stokes simulations in gappy PIV data

Velocity measurements conducted with particle image velocimetry (PIV) often exhibit regions where the flow motion cannot be evaluated. The principal reasons for this are the absence of seeding particles or limited optical access for illumination or imaging. Additional causes can be laser light reflections and unwanted out-of-focus effects. As a consequence, the velocity field measured with PIV contains regions where no velocity information is available, that is gaps. This work investigates the suitability of using the unsteady incompressible Navier–Stokes equations to obtain accurate estimates of the local transient velocity field in small gaps; the present approach applies to time-resolved two-dimensional experiments of incompressible flows. The numerics are based on a finite volume discretization with partitioned time-stepping to solve the governing equations. The measured velocity distribution at the gap boundary is taken as time-varying boundary condition, and an approximate initial condition inside the gap is obtained via low-order spatial interpolation of the velocity at the boundaries. The influence of this I.C. is seen to diminish over time, as information is convected through the gap. Due to the form of the equations, no initial or boundary conditions on the pressure are required. The approach is evaluated by a time-resolved experiment where the true solution is known a priori. The results are compared with a boundary interpolation approach. Finally, an application of the technique to an experiment with a gap of complex shape is presented.     

Ab-initio molecular dynamics and hybrid explicit-implicit solvation model for aqueous and nonaqueous solvents: GFP chromophore in water and methanol solution as case study

Solute–solvent interactions are proxies for understanding how the electronic density of a chromophore interacts with the environment in a more exhaustive way. The subtle balance between polarization, electrostatic, and non-bonded interactions need to be accurately described to obtain good agreement between simulations and experiments. First principles approaches providing accurate configurational sampling through molecular dynamics may be a suitable choice to describe solvent effects on solute chemical–physical properties and spectroscopic features, such as optical absorption of dyes. In this context, accurate energy potentials, obtained by hybrid implicit/explicit solvation methods along with employing nonperiodic boundary conditions, are required to represent bulk solvent around a large solute–solvent cluster. In this work, a novel strategy to simulate methanol solutions is proposed combining ab initio molecular dynamics, a hybrid implicit/explicit flexible solvent model, nonperiodic boundary conditions, and time dependent density functional theory. As case study, the robustness of the proposed protocol has been gauged by investigating the microsolvation and electronic absorption of the anionic green fluorescent protein chromophore in methanol and aqueous solution. Satisfactory results are obtained, reproducing the microsolvation layout of the chromophore and, as a consequence, the experimental trends shown by the optical absorption in different solvents.     

Cryogenics and Einstein Telescope

The dominant noises which limit the present sensitivity of the gravitational wave detectors are the thermal noise of the suspended mirrors and the shot noise. For the third generation of gravitational wave detectors as the Einstein Telescope (ET), the reduction of the shot noise implies to increase the power stored in the detector at 1 MW level and, at the same time, to compensate the huge optic distortion due to induced thermal lensing. At low temperature it is possible to reduce both these effects. However, lowering the temperature of the test masses without injecting vibration noise from the cooling system is a technological challenge. We review here the thermal noise impact on the ultimate ET sensitivity limit and we discuss possible cryogenic configurations to cool the mirror.     

CW laser-induced photothermal conversion and shape transformation of gold nanodogbones in hydrated chitosan films

We investigate the photothermal conversion and transformation of gold nanoparticles with an initial dogbone shape after dispersion in hydrated chitosan films, which is a representative model of biological tissue, and excitation by a CW diode laser for 1 min. Gold nanodogbones are observed to undergo a distinct modification above a sharp threshold of ~11 W cm⁻² and 110 °C. Surprisingly, the very same modification is achieved up to at least 36 W cm⁻² and 250 °C. We use an analytical model derived from Gans theory to associate the change in color of the films with the change in shape statistics of these gold nanoparticles. This model proves both convenient and dependable. We interpret the photothermal transformation as a rearrangement of particles with a dogbone shape and an aspect ratio of 4.1 into rods with an aspect ratio of 2.5, where material from the end lobes of the dogbones may relocate to the waists of the rods. In turn, additional transitions to stable gold nanospheres may exhibit fairly slower kinetics.     

Two techniques for PIV-based aeroacoustic prediction and their application to a rod-airfoil experiment

In this paper, we discuss techniques by which the aeroacoustic properties of the turbulent flow in a rod-airfoil benchmark experiment can be inferred from time-resolved PIV measurement. While acoustic measurements can be made directly using microphones, the proposed techniques provide a means to directly link acoustic waves with specific flow events, which is invaluable in devising noise mitigation strategies. The approaches are possible thanks to recent improvements in digital and camera technology that can provide time-resolved measurements in air flows, necessary for the determination of unsteady flow quantities related to aeroacoustic production. Both techniques are based on Curle’s acoustic analogy, where one is based on Lagrangian determination of the required quantities, while the other requires all flow quantities to be converted into Fourier modes. Application of both techniques yields results that are in reasonable agreement with microphone noise measurements for the rod-airfoil experiment.     

Arbitrage valuation and bounds for sinking-fund bonds with multiple sinking-fund dates

The paper tackles the problem of pricing, under interest-rate risk, a default-free sinking-fund bond which allows its issuer to recurrently retire part of the issue by (a) a lottery call at par, or (b) an open market repurchase. By directly modelling zero-coupon bonds as diffusions driven by a single-dimensional Brownian motion, a pricing formula is supplied for the sinking-fund bond based on a backward induction procedure which exploits, at each step, the martingale approach to the valuation of contingent-claims. With more than one sinking-fund date, however, the pricing formula is not in closed form, not even for simple parametrizations of the process for zerocoupon bonds, so that a numerical approach is needed. Since the computational complexity increases exponentially with the number of sinking-fund dates, arbitrage-based lower and upper bounds are provided for the sinking-fund bond price. The computation of these bounds is almost effortless when zero-coupon bonds are as described by Cox, Ingersoll and Ross. Numerical comparisons between the price of the sinking-fund bond obtained via Monte Carlo simulation and these lower and upper bounds are illustrated for different choices of parameters.