Food, design, users: how to design food interaction modes

Food is becoming a design material: its use and consumption along with the entire related scenario have changed. Food, in particular, is no longer of interest only to cooks and pastry chefs but also to designers, of food and otherwise. The design of the new "material-food" creates new sensory worlds: as a result, the taste is analysed as a new and unexpected experience. At the same time, food handling is another crucial aspect that has acquired growing importance: what is the consumer’s behaviour like when handling the food product? In other words, what are the ways and places of interaction between “this material” and the consumer? It is clear that interaction modes with food are changing according to its “usage context” and its presentation form (extruded, expanded, sandwich, mesh, granules, etc.). These presentation forms are directly linked to food ingredients and are often mediated by the presence of a packaging, which determines the user's first interaction with the food. An example is given by a study of a chocolate bar that is illustrated in this paper. The chocolate can be eaten at home as a dessert or on a ski slope as an energising snack, but at the same time it can appear in different ways: as a multilayer when joined with cookies, as a moulded material in the case of cream chocolate or as a composite material when the chocolate bar contains nuts. Starting from the mode of interaction and consumption that should be satisfied, a classification of the possible presentation forms of a chocolate bar can be carried out. Consequently, on the basis of this classification, innovative interactions modes of the food with its packaging and the final user should be devised. As a result, according to the different interaction modes that should be achieved, the chocolate bar can become the object of the design process and therefore its design can be approached by following the design process usually adopted for a product. Moreover, on these assumptions, should the real or virtual material libraries, generally considered by designers as a useful research and knowledge tool in relation to material innovations, enlarge the field of action with the inclusion of a section dedicated to food? Should the material libraries include a cabinet as a section dedicated to food and its presentation forms? The paper aims at describing the results collected so far by this research focused on “food as a design material”

Determinants of inappropriate acute pain management in old people unable to communicate verbally in the emergency department

Objectives: Poor pain management is relevant among individuals unable to communicate verbally (UCV). Analgesia may be due to three determinants: patients' status, physician's characteristics and pain etiology. Our aim is to investigate the association between prescription of ED pain treatment and these determinants. Materials and Methods: An observational prospective study including UCV patients was conducted. Severity of pain was evaluated by ALGOPLUS Scale and a score P â¥Â 2 out of 5 on the pain scale was retained as the threshold for the presence of acute pain in elderly UCV patients. Results: Our data showed that only 31,9% of UCV patients received a pharmacological treatment. The presence of the caregiver would influence the rate of therapy administration [OR 6,19 (95% CI 2,6â14,75)]. The presence of leg pain [OR 0,32 (95% CI 0,12â0,86)] and head pain [OR 0,29 (95% CI 0,10â0,84)] were less likely associated to receive analgesia. Pain related to trauma [OR 4.82 (95% CI 1.17 to 19.78)] and youngest physicians [OR 1.08 (95% CI 1.001 to 1.18)] were variables associated with the administration of drugs opiates. Discussion: Older UCV patients presenting to the ED with pain are at high risk of inadequate analgesia. Providers should always suspect presence of pain and an increasing need for behavioural pain evaluation is necessary for a complete assessment. Conclusions: Presence of a caregiver influences a more appropriate pain management in these patients. Staff training on pain management could result in better assessment, treatment, and interaction with caregivers. Keywords: Emergency department, Pain, Oligoanalgesi

Dna studies: Latest spectroscopic and structural approaches

This review looks at the different approaches, techniques, and materials devoted to DNA studies. In the past few decades, DNA nanotechnology, micro-fabrication, imaging, and spectro-scopies have been tailored and combined for a broad range of medical-oriented applications. The continuous advancements in miniaturization of the devices, as well as the continuous need to study biological material structures and interactions, down to single molecules, have increase the interdisciplinarity of emerging technologies. In the following paragraphs, we will focus on recent sensing approaches, with a particular effort attributed to cutting-edge techniques for structural and mechanical studies of nucleic acids

Micro/nanopatterned superhydrophobic surfaces fabrication for biomolecules and biomaterials manipulation and analysis

Superhydrophobic surfaces display an extraordinary repulsion to water and water-based solutions. This effect emerges from the interplay of intrinsic hydrophobicity of the surface and its morphology. These surfaces have been established for a long time and have been studied for decades. The increasing interest in recent years has been focused towards applications in many different fields and, in particular, biomedical applications. In this paper, we review the progress achieved in the last years in the fabrication of regularly patterned superhydrophobic surfaces in many different materials and their exploitation for the manipulation and characterization of biomaterial, with particular emphasis on the issues affecting the yields of the fabrication processes and the quality of the manufactured devices

Small non-coding RNA profiling in plasma extracellular vesicles of bladder cancer patients by next-generation sequencing: Expression levels of miR-126-3p and piR-5936 increase with higher histologic grades

Bladder cancer (BC) is the tenth most frequent cancer worldwide. Due to the need for recurrent cystoscopies and the lack of non-invasive biomarkers, BC is associated with a high management burden. In this respect, small non-coding RNAs (sncRNAs) have been investigated in urine as possible biomarkers for BC, but in plasma their potential has not yet been defined. The expression levels of sncRNAs contained in plasma extracellular vesicles (EVs) from 47 men with BC and 46 healthy controls were assessed by next-generation sequencing. The sncRNA profiles were compared with urinary profiles from the same subjects. miR-4508 resulted downregulated in plasma EVs of muscle-invasive BC patients, compared to controls (adj-p = 0.04). In World Health Organization (WHO) grade 3 (G3) BC, miR-126-3p was upregulated both in plasma EVs and urine, when compared to controls (for both, adj-p < 0.05). Interestingly, two sncRNAs were associated with the risk class: miR-4508 with a downward trend going from controls to high risk BC, and piR-hsa-5936 with an upward trend (adj-p = 0.04 and adj-p = 0.05, respectively). Additionally, BC cases with low expression of miR-185-5p and miR-106a-5p or high expression of miR-10b-5p showed shorter survival (adj-p = 0.0013, adj-p = 0.039 and adj-p = 0.047, respectively). SncRNAs from plasma EVs could be diagnostic biomarkers for BC, especially in advanced grade