Advanced therapies which combine cells with biomaterial-based carriers are recognized as an emerging and powerful method to treat challenging diseases, such as spinal cord injury (SCI). By enhancing transplanted cell survival and grafting, biomimetic hydrogels can be properly engineered to encapsulate cells and locate them at the injured site in a minimally invasive way. In this work, chitosan (CS) based hydrogels were developed to host mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), since their paracrine action can therapeutically enhance the SC regeneration, limiting the formation of a glial scar and reducing cell death at the injured site. An injectable and highly permeable CS-based hydrogel was fabricated having a rapid gelation upon temperature increase from 0 to 37 °C. CS was selected as former material both for its high biocompatibility that guarantees the proper environment for MSCs survival and for its ability to provide anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant cues. MSCs were mixed with the hydrogel solution prior to gelation. MSC viability was not affected by the CS hydrogel and encapsulated MSCs were able to release MSC-vesicles as well as to maintain their anti-oxidant features. Finally, preliminary in vivo tests on SCI mice revealed good handling of the CS solution loading MSCs during implantation and high encapsulated MSCs survival after 7 days.

As eluded in previous studies, with special reference to those carried out in the European framework, some innovative high-speed aircraft configurations have now the potential to assure an economically viable high-speed aircraft fleet. They make use of unexploited flight routes in the stratosphere, offering a solution to the presently congested flight paths while ensuring a minimum environmental impact in terms of emitted noise and green-house gasses, particularly during stratospheric cruise. Only a dedicated multi-disciplinary integrated design approach could realize this, by considering airframe architectures embedding the propulsion systems as well as meticulously integrating crucial subsystems. In this context, starting from an in-depth investigation of the current status of the activities, the STRATOFLY project has been funded by the European Commission, under the framework of Horizon 2020 plan, with the aim of assessing the potential of this type of high-speed transport vehicle to reach Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6 by 2035, with respect to key technological, societal and economical aspects. Main issues are related to thermal and structural integrity, low-emissions combined propulsion cycles, subsystems design and integration, including smart energy management, environmental aspects impacting climate change, noise emissions and social acceptance, and economic viability accounting for safety and human factors. This paper aims at summarizing the main challenges and goals of the STRATOFLY project, highlighting the steps forward with respect to the past European Projects and underlying the next planned goals.

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Several well-established best practices and reliable tools have been developed along the years to support aircraft conceptual and preliminary design. In this context, one of the most widely used tool is the Matching Chart (MC), a graphical representation of the different performance requirements (curves representing the thrust-to-weight ratio (T/W) requirement as function of the wing loading (W/S)) for each mission phase. The exploitation of this tool allows the identification of a feasible design space as well as the definition of a reference vehicle configuration in terms of maximum thrust, maximum take-off weight, and wing surface since the very beginning of the design process. Although the tool was originally developed for conventional aircraft, several extensions and updates of the mathematical models have been proposed over the years to widen its application to innovative configurations. Following this trend, this paper presents a further evolution of the MC model to support the conceptual design of high-speed transportation systems, encompassing supersonic and hypersonic flight vehicles. At this purpose, this paper reports and discusses the updates of the methodology laying behind the generation of the MC for high-speed transportation. Eventually, the results of the validation of the updated methodology and tool are reported, using as case study, the STRATOFLY MR3 vehicle configuration, a Mach 8 antipodal civil transportation system, currently under development within the H2020 STRATOFLY project.

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