Search

Orthoses are commonly used for treating injuries to improve the quality of life of patients, with customized orthoses offering significant benefits. Additive manufacturing, especially fused deposition modelling, enhances these benefits by providing faster, more precise, and more comfortable orthoses. The present study evaluates nine polymeric materials printed in horizontal and vertical directions by assessing their performance through compressive, flexural, and tensile tests. Among all materials, polycarbonate, polylactic acid, and ULTEMTM 1010 showed the most promising results, not only because they had the highest mechanical values, but also due to their minimal or no difference in performance between printing directions, making them advantageous in orthoses fabrication. Based on this, a finite element model of an ankle–foot orthosis was developed to simulate the deformation, strain, and stress fields under static conditions. The findings aim to optimize material selection for orthotic fabrication, where ULTEMTM 1010 is presented as the material with improved performance and durability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the potential of youth transitions to explain and contextualize young people's engagements with politics. It starts with the discussion of the alleged detachment between young people and politics, recently challenged by research on alternative engagements and Do It Ourselves (DIO) politics (Pickard, Sarah. 2019. Politics, Protest and Young People. Political Participation and Dissent in the 21 Century Britain. London: Palgrave MacMillan. doi:). Then follows the discussion on the contributions which different currents on youth research have brought to the role of youth transitions in young people's engagements with politics. Youth transitions are afterwards defined as the strategic setting where intensive and plural engagements with politics may emerge if certain conditions are met. This is the context where a sense of place in the structural spectrum of inequality starts to develop and the correspondent agentic response blossoms, fostered by crucial encounters with significant others and the occurrence of critical moments. This account is brought by a qualitative approach based on the biographical records of a group of intensely mobilized young people, which retraces the individual processes of engagement made through transitions during education and from education to work, highlighting the contribution that transitional features may bring to the development of successful 'militant careers' (Filieulle, Olivier, Lilian Mathieu, and Cécile Péchu. 2009. Dictionnaire des Mouvements Sociaux. Presses de Sciences Po. doi:) and to incorporate contemporary young people's subjectivities in the political process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Silk proteins have been highlighted in the past decade for tissue engineering (TE) and skin regeneration due to their biocompatibility, biodegradability, and exceptional mechanical properties. While silk fibroin (SF) has high structural and mechanical stability with high potential as an external protective layer, traditionally discarded sericin (SS) has shown great potential as a natural-based hydrogel, promoting cell–cell interactions, making it an ideal material for direct wound contact. In this context, the present study proposes a new wound dressing approach by developing an SS/SF bilayer construct for full-thickness exudative wounds. The processing methodology implemented included an innovation element and the cryopreservation of the SS intrinsic secondary structure, followed by rehydration to produce a hydrogel layer, which was integrated with a salt-leached SF scaffold to produce a bilayer structure. In addition, a sterilization protocol was developed using supercritical technology (sCO2) to allow an industrial scale-up. The resulting bilayer material presented high porosity (>85%) and interconnectivity while promoting cell adhesion, proliferation, and infiltration of human dermal fibroblasts (HDFs). SS and SF exhibit distinct secondary structures, pore sizes, and swelling properties, opening new possibilities for dual-phased systems that accommodate the different needs of a wound during the healing process. The innovative SS hydrogel layer highlights the transformative potential of the proposed bilayer system for biomedical therapeutics and TE, offering insights into novel wound dressing fabrication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]