Shear-promoted drug encapsulation into red blood cells: a CFD model and μ-PIV analysis

The present work focuses on the main parameters that influence shear-promoted encapsulation of drugs into erythrocytes. A CFD model was built to investigate the fluid dynamics of a suspension of particles flowing in a commercial micro channel. Micro Particle Image Velocimetry (μ-PIV) allowed to take into account for the real properties of the red blood cell (RBC), thus having a deeper understanding of the process. Coupling these results with an analytical diffusion model, suitable working conditions were defined for different values of haematocrit

Advances in Micro- and Nanomechanics

This book focuses on recent advances in both theoretical and experimental studies of material behaviour at the micro- and nano-scales. Special attention is given to experimental studies of nanofilms, nanoparticles and nanocomposites as well as tooth defects. Various experimental techniques were used. Magneto- and thermoelastic coupling were considered, as were nonlocal models of thin structures

An assessment of the health status by non-specific stress indicators in early farming populations from central and southern Africa

The adoption of an agricultural lifestyle had profound implications for nutritional ecology, health and behaviour of human populations. The goal of this project was to generate information about the health status and disease patterns of early farming populations from central and southern Africa. Skeletal material was obtained from various 'Iron Age' sites in South Africa, Ingombe Ilede from Zambia, and Sanga and Katoto from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Palaeopathological analyses was done through the examination of non-specific stress indicators that included cribra orbitalia/porotic hyperostosis, Harris lines, linear enamel hypoplasias, subperiosteal bone lesions and dental diseases. The evidence from palaeopathology indicated that the environments played a major role in causing differences observed at micro-scale level. It is suggested that the health problems of these agricultural peoples are a result of their sedentary lifestyle and aggregation, which promoted maintenance and spread of infectious diseases; as well as high carbohydrate diets and dependence on a few main foodstuffs that affected their iron levels. The individuals from the forest region were less healthy than those in the dry or wet savanna zones. Also, the impact of the stress experienced by these societies was not sufficient to cause stunted growth and thus did not affect their terminal heights. The complex relationship between the environment, socio-cultural factors and biology has shown that subsistence economy only influences a fraction of human behaviour, health and well being. The results of this study argue that generalisations about prehistoric farming peoples cannot be made, until further research work is done

Visual strategies underpinning social cognition in traumatic brain injury

Impairments in social cognition after traumatic brain injury (TBI) are well documented but poorly understood (McDonald, 2013). Deficits in emotion perception, particularly facial affect recognition, are frequently reported in the literature (Babbage et al., 2011; Knox & Douglas, 2009), as well as mentalizing impairments and difficulty in understanding sincere and sarcastic exchanges (Channon, Pellijeff & Rule, 2005). To fully understand social impairments, both low-level and high-level processes must be explored. Few studies have focused on low-level perceptual processes in regards to facial affect recognition after TBI, and those that do typically use static social stimuli which lack ecological validity (Alves, 2013). This thesis employed eyetracking technology to explore the visual strategies underpinning the processing of contemporary static and dynamic social cognition tasks in a group of 18 TBI participants and 18 age, gender and education matched controls. The group affected by TBI scored significantly lower on the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC; Dziobek, et al., 2006), the Amsterdam Dynamic Facial Expression Set (ADFES; van der Schalk, Hawk, Fischer & Doosje, 2009), and The Assessment of Social Inference Test (McDonald et al., 2003). These findings suggest that, across a range of reliable assessments, individuals with TBI displayed significant social cognition deficits, including emotion perception and theory of mind, thus presenting strong evidence that social cognition is altered post-TBI. Impairments were not related to low-level visual processing as measured through eye-tracking metrics. This important insight suggests that social cognition changes post-TBI is likely associated with impairments in higher-level cognitive functioning. Interestingly, the group with TBI did display some aberrant fixation patterns in response to one static and one dynamic task but gaze patterns were similar between the groups on the remaining tasks. These non-uniform results warrant further exploration of low-level alterations post-TBI. Findings are discussed in reference to academic and clinical implications

Applications of Medical Physics

Applications of Medical Physics” is a Special Issue of Applied Sciences that has collected original research manuscripts describing cutting-edge physics developments in medicine and their translational applications. Reviews providing updates on the latest progresses in this field are also included. The collection includes a total of 20 contributions by authors from 9 different countries, which cover several areas of medical physics, spanning from radiation therapy, nuclear medicine, radiology, dosimetry, radiation protection, and radiobiology