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Car ownership is a major driver of household travel behavior and has a marked impact on transport demand, energy consumption, emission levels and land use. However, just how curbside parking regulations (i.e. paid parking) affects car ownership remains unclear. Here, we employ a two-way fixed effect model using panel data and difference-in-differences estimations to determine the causal impact of changes in parking regulations and the specific impact of the extension of a city-wide parking policy in Barcelona. Our results suggest that the introduction of paid parking to reduce non-resident/visitor demand has a positive impact on resident car ownership levels. Our welfare analysis suggests that the welfare loss derived from the residents' parking subsidy and their likely increase in car usage can easily offset the benefits derived from visitor-trip deterrence. This being the case, the tradeoff between efficiency and acceptability requires careful consideration.

Theoretical research on cooperation between public and private partners in infrastructure projects suggests that they can be a tool for preventing white elephants. However, various case studies suggest that actual outcomes are largely dependent on the effective transfer of operational risk to the private partner. This paper explores policy and planning dysfunction, and the idea that private entities that participate in public-private partnerships (PPPs) with no substantial risk transfer, and under heavily subsidized schemes, may engage in lobbying and exert pressure to develop white elephant projects.

Theoretical insights into the cooperation between public and private partners (PPPs) suggest that they can be an effective tool for preventing 'white elephant' type projects. However, various case studies have shown that this belief is largely dependent on the effective transfer of operational risk to the private partner, and on the application of user-pay funding. This paper goes one step further and explores the idea that private partners that participate in PPPs with no substantial risk transfer – and under heavily subsidized schemes – can act as lobbies, exerting pressure to develop white elephants.

Neuroinflammation is a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD). We sought to study the glial derangement in AD using diverse experimental models and human brain tissue. Besides classical pro-inflammatory cytokines, we analyzed chitinase 3 like 1 (CHI3L1 or YKL40) and triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2 (TREM2) that are increasingly being associated with astrogliosis and microgliosis in AD, respectively. The SAMP8 mouse model of accelerated aging and AD traits showed elevated pro-inflammatory cytokines and activated microglia phenotype. Furthermore, 6-month-old SAMP8 showed an exacerbated inflammatory response to peripheral lipopolysaccharide in the hippocampus and null responsiveness at the advanced age (for this strain) of 12 months. ; This research was funded by Spanish MINECO and European Regional Development Fund, grant number SAF2016- 77703; Spanish MCINN, grant number PID2019-106285RB; Catalan Autonomous Government AGAUR, grant number 2017-SGR-106; Competitiveness Operational Programme 2014-2020, C-Reactive protein therapy for stroke-associated dementia, ID P_37_674, MySMIS code: 103432, contract 51/05.09.2016; and the CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya. RCo was supported by a post-doctoral research contract of the Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain. AL (PERIS SLT008/18/00061) received funding from Departament de Salut de la Generalitat de Catalunya. We acknowledge support of the publication fee by the CSIC Open Access Publication Support Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI).

Background: Progressive cognitive decline is the most relevant clinical symptom of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, the rate of cognitive decline is highly variable between patients. Synaptic deficits are the neuropathological event most correlated with cognitive impairment in AD. Considering the important role of microRNAs (miRNAs) in regulating synaptic plasticity, our objective was to identify the plasma miRNAs associated with the rate of cognitive decline in patients with mild AD. Methods: We analyzed 754 plasma miRNAs from 19 women diagnosed with mild AD using TaqMan low-density array cards. The patients were grouped based on the rate of decline in the MMSE score after 2 years [<4 points (N = 11) and ≥4 points (N = 8)]. The differentially expressed miRNAs between the two groups were validated in an independent cohort of men and women (N = 53) with mild AD using RT-qPCR. Results: In the discovery cohort, 17 miRNAs were differentially expressed according to the fold change between patients with faster declines in cognition and those with slower declines. miR-342-5p demonstrated differential expression between the groups and a good correlation with the rate of cognitive decline in the validation cohort (r = −0.28; p = 0.026). This miRNA had a lower expression level in patients who suffered from more severe decline than in those who were cognitively more stable after 2 years (p = 0.049). Conclusion: Lower levels of miR-342-5p in plasma were associated with faster cognitive decline in patients with mild AD after 2 years of follow-up. ; Generalitat of Catalonia, Department of Health (PERIS 2019 SLT008/18/00050) and "Fundació La Marató TV3" (464/C/2014) to GP-R. IRBLleida is a CERCA Programme/Generalitat of Catalonia. FD was supported by Agency for Management of University and Research Grants and European Social Fund (FIB100153). AL received funding from Generalitat of Catalonia, Department of Health (PERIS 2016-2020 SLT008/18/00061) and Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation – Instituto de Salud Carlos III and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER), European Union ("A way to build Europe") (PI19/00449).

© 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) ; We investigated the genetic role of sortilin (SORT1) in frontotemporal dementia (FTD). SORT1 is the neuronal receptor for granulin, encoded by the progranulin gene (GRN), a major causal gene for inherited FTD. In Belgian cohorts of 636 FTD patients and 1066 unaffected control individuals, we identified 5 patient-only nonsynonymous rare variants in SORT1. Rare variant burden analysis showed a significant increase in rare coding variants in patients compared to control individuals (p = 0.04), particularly in the β-propeller domain (p = 0.04), with 2 rare variants located in the predicted binding site for GRN (p = 0.001). We extended these observations by analyzing 3 independent patient/control cohorts sampled in Spain, Italy, and Portugal by partners of the European Early-Onset Dementia Consortium, together with 1155 FTD patients and 1161 control persons. An additional 7 patient-only nonsynonymous variants were observed in SORT1 in European patients. Meta-analysis of the rare nonsynonymous variants in the Belgian and European patient/control cohorts revealed a significant enrichment in FTD patients (p = 0.006), establishing SORT1 as a genetic risk factor for FTD. ; The research was funded in part by the Belgian Science Policy Office Interuniversity Attraction Poles program; the Flemish government initiated Methusalem excellence program and Impulse Program on Networks for Dementia Research; the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), the Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology Flanders (IWT) and the University of Antwerp Research Fund; Belgium. SP received a PhD fellowship of the FWO and EW of the IWT. RG, LB, and GB (IRCCS Fatebenefratelli, Brescia, Italy) were supported by Ricerca Corrente, Italian Ministry of Health. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Altres ajuts: The sponsors of the study had no role in study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, or writing of the report. The research was funded in part by the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development, and demonstration under grant agreement 305299 (AgedBrainSYSBIO), the Belgian Science Policy Office Interuniversity Attraction Poles program, the Alzheimer Research Foundation (SAO-FRA), the Flemish government-initiated Flanders Impulse Program on Networks for Dementia Research (VIND), the Flemish government-initiated Methusalem Excellence Program, the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), the VIB Technology Fund, the University of Antwerp Research Fund, Belgium; European Regional Development Fund, the Italian Ministry of Health (Ricerca Corrente and RF-2010-2319722), and the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Pistoia e Pescia grant (2014.0365). ; Premature termination codon (PTC) mutations in the ATP-Binding Cassette, Sub-Family A, Member 7 gene (ABCA7) have recently been identified as intermediate-to-high penetrant risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer's disease (LOAD). High variability, however, is observed in downstream ABCA7 mRNA and protein expression, disease penetrance, and onset age, indicative of unknown modifying factors. Here, we investigated the prevalence and disease penetrance of ABCA7 PTC mutations in a large early onset AD (EOAD)-control cohort, and examined the effect on transcript level with comprehensive third-generation long-read sequencing. We characterized the ABCA7 coding sequence with next-generation sequencing in 928 EOAD patients and 980 matched control individuals. With MetaSKAT rare variant association analysis, we observed a fivefold enrichment (p = 0.0004) of PTC mutations in EOAD patients (3%) versus controls (0.6%). Ten novel PTC mutations were only observed in patients, and PTC mutation carriers in general had an increased familial AD load. In addition, we observed nominal risk reducing trends for three common ...