Introduction Electric bikes (e-bikes) may help in transport decarbonisation in European cities. To fully assess the market potential of e-bikes, further research is needed to understand users' preferences and the range of factors that can contribute to people to shift from car use to low carbon vehicles such as e-bikes. This paper is built on the Be4Schools R&D project implemented in the smart city of Águeda in Portugal. It comprised the former study in the country that examined the willingness of students (aged 15-21 years) to use e-bikes for daily trips to school and that gathered their preferences towards specific ICT related attributes. Methods The methodology comprised a mobility survey and a stated-choice experiment (SC). The SC experiment gathered 2232 observations for modelling which were able to provide the relevant attribute informa'on trade-off between car travel, route and ebike features (with or without specific ICT equipment).An extensive econometric analysis using was performed to assess the nature and extent of students' heterogeneity of preferences which also considered gender issues. The study aimed to contribute to the regional economic cluster on powered twowheels' industry & innovation.Results The absence of cycling infrastructures (segregated from main road) and the absence of cycle lanes in the road infrastructure were ranked as the first, second and third most important barriers, by 25.4% and 24.8% of the students, respectively.The importance of a dedicated cycling route to school (segregated from main traffic) revealed to be critical as the odds of choosing an e-bike was found to be 6.5 times higher in comparison with the "no cycling infrastructure" option, ceteris paribus. This finding is aligned with the fact that cyclists would need to be exposed to high levels of motorized traffic in main roads and to increased perceived risks.The market potential of e-bikes is likely to be higher if ICT features can be added to e-bikes as the odds of choosing an e-bike when it comes with the preferred ICT devices is 1.7 times higher than the opposed situation (e-bike without additional ICT devices). Conclusions Research results are interesting for mobility policies and industry as the possible integration of ICT equipment in ebikes may speed up the market uptake of this technology in smart cities. On the other hand, cycling infrastructures seem to be critical elements for increasing the demand for both conventional and e-bikes in the smart city of Águeda.

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Background Long‐term success of peritoneal dialysis relies on the integrity of the peritoneal membrane. This proof‐of‐concept study addressed the hypothesis that fibrosis is already present in the membrane at pre‐dialysis and that the membrane status is related to the individual's uraemic fingerprint. Methods A clinical‐mechanistic, transversal, single‐centre study was conducted. Pre‐dialysis peritoneal biopsies were scored considering the submesothelial compact zone thickness (STM), vasculopathy and inflammation. We investigated if the membrane status could be inferred from a panel of proteins (α‐Klotho, Galectin‐3, FGF21, FGF23, Tweak, TNFα and hsPCR) in blood. Results A total 58 incident patients aged 56 ± 15 years old were included, 31% female, 55% hypertension, 29% diabetic and 24% obese. Person‐to‐person STM was found to be highly variable and 38% of patients were fibrosis positive. Both α‐Klotho (Spearman r = −.7491, p < 0.001) and FGF21 (Spearman r = −.5102, p < 0.001) were negatively associated with STM. α‐Klotho, but not FGF21, was able to discriminate fibrosis from nonfibrosis with/without inflammation and vasculopathy. PLS models identified α‐Klotho as the protein most relevant for fibrosis. α‐Klotho was independently associated with fibrosis of the peritoneal membrane (OR = .991 (.896–.997), p = 0.002). Conclusion Before the start of dialysis in incident patients, some patients already present fibrosis of the peritoneal membrane and other patients do not. Our findings suggest that α‐Klotho may be implicated in fibrosis of the peritoneal membrane.