Temperature and comfort monitoring systems for humans

PhDThermoregulation system and human body responses, both physiological (i.e. skin and core temperature) and psychological (thermal sensation and thermal comfort), have been of considerable interest to researchers. However, while reactions to extreme conditions are well understood and explained, there is a considerable knowledge gap for mild temperature range adaptation. Previous research focused on the whole body response, while local analysis is more appropriate for a new generation of intelligent thermal control systems such as needed in planes. Furthermore majority of previous studies were carried out predominantly on mannequins or with subjects placed in highly controlled lab chambers, hence adaptations in normal shared spaces is not investigated in sufficient depth. In addition, no study investigated infants’ temperature adaptation. This thesis describes the comprehensive study of the human temperature distribution in selected areas, both for adults and infants under the age of 2. Furthermore, variation of core and local skin temperature, thermal sensation and level of comfort due to long periods of inactivity were also investigated in adults. These studies have set the basis for the development of temperature monitoring systems. The first monitoring system specific to children under 2 provides fever detection based on skin temperature measurement. It was developed for a Spanish textile company (AITEX), and it is a patent under consideration. The second system monitors level of comfort and thermal sensation of adults in indoor environments. The system is based on pre-existing statistical studies and Fanger’s steady-state model. It adapts to the individual while analysing real time skin temperature distribution, and identifie

Peer assessment of individual contribution in group work: a student perspective

With group work increasing in popularity at universities, students no longer feel it is acceptable to be awarded the same group mark. This presents a significant challenge in awarding an individual mark which reflects unequivocally the time and effort a student has invested in a group project. To address this challenge, a tool to evaluate individual peer assessed contribution (IPAC) has been developed at University College London (UCL). The aim of this paper is to report on the perceptions of students regarding their experience of peer assessment in group work, since these perceptions are key to ensuring that a tool, such as IPAC, is accepted and used effectively by staff and students alike. The views of 133 students were acquired through anonymous surveys and focus groups ranging from first year undergraduate to doctoral students across 12 different departments. Results showed that 92% of students are in favour of peer assessment with a positive trend to using the IPAC tool. Receiving constructive feedback was considered imperative amongst respondents, which in turn should identify clearly the points of error; highlight explicitly the areas for improvement; and thus reflect accurately the mark being awarded. The attributes that students valued to be important when assessing their teammates were, in decreasing order of priority, attendance at meetings, listening and communication, actual contribution to the project deliverables, quality of the work produced, personal circumstances, and finally time management and organization skills. The detailed analysis and conclusions drawn from this study are the focus of this paper

Characterization of bespoke force sensors for tailored applications

Bespoke force sensors made with active polymer composites are inexpensive, thin and flexible, hence popular in wearable electronics, however their wider application is limited due to the lack of literature studying their voltage response related errors. We present the voltage response characterization of bespoke force sensors made with an active polymer composite, silver coated fabric, stainless steel thread and silver epoxy. Characterization of the effects of static and dynamic loading was completed with a mechanical testing machine. Static tests consisted of loading and unloading at 0.01, 0.1, 0.5 and 1 N/s, and drift tests for 120 minutes up to 10 N every 1 N. Dynamic tests consisted of a sinusoidal load of 5 N ± 1 N applied at 0.05, 0.1 and 0.5 Hz for 60 minutes. The force-voltage relationships were modelled using an exponential function. Maximum mean drift error was observed when applying different static loads for 120 minutes each. Drift error is minimal at 5 s (<1%)and at 60 (< 5%) minutes with loads under 1 N. Maximum hysteresis of 18% was observed at a 1 N/s loading rate. The maximum drift error after one hour of dynamic loading was observed at 0.5 Hz and is minimal (-0.00004%). The cost of fabricating these sensors is very low compared with commercially available options. These sensors can be fabricated in any shape and size with the added advantage of being able to set the location of the electronic connections as desired

Therapeutic interventions for countering Leishmaniasis and Chagas's disease: from traditional sources to nanotechnological systems

The incidence of neglected diseases in tropical countries, such as Leishmaniasis and Chagass disease, is attributed to a set of biological and ecological factors associated with the socioeconomic context of developing countries and with a significant burden to health care systems. Both Leishmaniasis and Chagass disease are caused by different protozoa and develop diverse symptoms, which depend on the specific species infecting man. Currently available drugs to treat these disorders have limited therapeutic outcomes, frequently due to microorganisms drug resistance. In recent years, significant efforts have been made towards the development of innovative drug delivery systems aiming to improve bioavailability and pharmacokinetic profiles of classical drug therapy. This paper discusses the key facts of Leishmaniasis and Chagass disease, the currently available pharmacological therapies and the new drug delivery systems for conventional drugs.This research was funded by the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT/MCT) and from European Funds (PRODER/COMPETE) under the project references M-ERA-NET/0004/2015 (PAIRED) and UID/AGR/04033/2019 (CITAB), co-financed by FEDER, under the Partnership Agreement PT2020.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Stress shielding and bone resorption of press-fit polyether-ether-ketone (PEEK) hip prosthesis: a sawbone model study

Stress shielding secondary to bone resorption is one of the main causes of aseptic loosening, which limits the lifespan of the hip prostheses and increases the rates of revision surgery. This study proposes a low stiffness polyether-ether-ketone (PEEK) hip prostheses, produced by fused deposition modelling to minimize the stress difference after the hip replacement. The stress shielding effect and the potential bone resorption of the PEEK implant was investigated through both experimental tests and FE simulation. A generic Ti6Al4V implant was incorporated in this study to allow fair comparison as control group. Attributed to the low stiffness, the proposed PEEK implant showed a more natural stress distribution, less stress shielding (by 104%), and loss in bone mass (by 72%) compared with the Ti6Al4V implant. The stiffness of the Ti6Al4V and the PEEK implant were measured through compression tests to be 2.76 kN/mm and 0.276 kN/mm. The factor of safety for the PEEK implant in both static and dynamic loading scenarios were obtained through simulation. Most of the regions in the PEEK implant were tested to be safe (FoS larger than 1) in terms of representing daily activities (2300 N), while the medial neck and distal restriction point of the implant attracts large von Mises stress 82 MPa and 76 MPa, respectively, and, thus, may possibly fail during intensive activities by yield and fatigue. Overall, considering the reduction in stress shielding and bone resorption in cortical bone, PEEK could be a promising material for the patient-specific femoral implants

Mono- and dicationic DABCO/Quinuclidine composed nanomaterials for the loading of steroidal drug: 32 factorial design and physicochemical characterization

Oil-in-water nanoemulsions (NEs) are considered a suitable nanotechnological approach to improve the eye-related bioavailability of lipophilic drugs. The potential of cationic NEs is prominent due to the electrostatic interaction that occurs between the positively charged droplets with the negatively charged mucins present in the tear film. This interaction offers prolonged NEs residence at the ocular surface, increasing the drug absorption. Triamcinolone acetonide (TA) is one of the first pharmacologic strategies applied as an intravitreal injection in the treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Newly synthesized quaternary derivatives of 1,4-diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane (DABCO) and quinuclidine surfactants have been screened with the purpose to select the best compound to formulate long-term stable NEs that combine the best physicochemical properties for the loading of TA intended for ocular administration.This work was funded by the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) from the Ministry of Science and Technology (MCTES), European Social Fund (FSE) of EU, for the scholar ship SFRH/BD/130555/2017 granted to A. R. Fernandes, and for the projects UIDB/04469/2020 (CEB strategic fund) and UIDB/04033/2020 (CITAB), co-funded by European Funds (PRODER/COMPETE) and FEDER, under the Partnership Agreement PT2020.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Retinal drug delivery: rethinking outcomes for the efficient replication of retinal behavior

The retina is a highly organized structure that is considered to be "an approachable part of the brain." It is attracting the interest of development scientists, as it provides a model neurovascular system. Over the last few years, we have been witnessing significant development in the knowledge of the mechanisms that induce the shape of the retinal vascular system, as well as knowledge of disease processes that lead to retina degeneration. Knowledge and understanding of how our vision works are crucial to creating a hardware-adaptive computational model that can replicate retinal behavior. The neuronal system is nonlinear and very intricate. It is thus instrumental to have a clear view of the neurophysiological and neuroanatomic processes and to take into account the underlying principles that govern the process of hardware transformation to produce an appropriate model that can be mapped to a physical device. The mechanistic and integrated computational models have enormous potential toward helping to understand disease mechanisms and to explain the associations identified in large model-free data sets. The approach used is modulated and based on different models of drug administration, including the geometry of the eye. This work aimed to review the recently used mathematical models to map a directed retinal network.The authors acknowledge the financial support received from the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT/MCT) and the European Funds (PRODER/COMPETE) for the project UIDB/04469/2020 (strategic fund), co-financed by FEDER, under the Partnership Agreement PT2020. The authors also acknowledge FAPESP – São Paulo Research Foundation, for the financial support for the publication of the article.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Chemical abundance gradients from open clusters in the Milky Way disk: results from the APOGEE survey

Metallicity gradients provide strong constraints for understanding the chemical evolution of the Galaxy. We report on radial abundance gradients of Fe, Ni, Ca, Si, and Mg obtained from a sample of 304 red-giant members of 29 disk open clusters, mostly concentrated at galactocentric distances between ~8 - 15 kpc, but including two open clusters in the outer disk. The observations are from the APOGEE survey. The chemical abundances were derived automatically by the ASPCAP pipeline and these are part of the SDSS III Data Release 12. The gradients, obtained from least squares fits to the data, are relatively flat, with slopes ranging from -0.026 to -0.033 dex/kpc for the alpha-elements [O/H], [Ca/H], [Si/H] and [Mg/H] and -0.035 dex/kpc and -0.040 dex/kpc for [Fe/H] and [Ni/H], respectively. Our results are not at odds with the possibility that metallicity ([Fe/H]) gradients are steeper in the inner disk (R_GC ~7 - 12 kpc) and flatter towards the outer disk. The open cluster sample studied spans a significant range in age. When breaking the sample into age bins, there is some indication that the younger open cluster population in our sample (log age < 8.7) has a flatter metallicity gradient when compared with the gradients obtained from older open clusters.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, To appear in Astronomische Nachrichten, special issue "Reconstruction the Milky Way's History: Spectroscopic surveys, Asteroseismology and Chemo-dynamical models", Guest Editors C. Chiappini, J. Montalb\'an, and M. Steffen, AN 2016 (in press)

DABCO-customized nanoemulsions: characterization, cell viability and genotoxicity in retinal pigmented epithelium and microglia cells

Quaternary derivatives of 1,4-diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane (DABCO) and of quinuclidine surfactants were used to develop oil-in-water nanoemulsions with the purpose of selecting the best long-term stable nanoemulsion for the ocular administration of triamcinolone acetonide (TA). The combination of the best physicochemical properties (i.e., mean droplet size, polydispersity index, zeta potential, osmolality, viscoelastic properties, surface tension) was considered, together with the cell viability assays in ARPE-19 and HMC3 cell lines. Surfactants with cationic properties have been used to tailor the nanoemulsions surface for site-specific delivery of drugs to the ocular structure for the delivery of TA. They are tailored for the eye because they have cationic properties that interact with the anionic surface of the eye.Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) from the Ministry of Science and Technology (MCTES), European Social Fund (FSE) of the EU, for the scholarship SFRH/BD/130555/2017 granted to A. R. Fernandes, and for the projects UIDB/04469/2020 (CEB strategic fund) and UIDB/04033/2020 (CITAB), co-funded by European Funds (PRODER/COMPETE) and FEDER, under the Partnership Agreement PT2020info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Revisión de políticas de vivienda en contextos de vulnerabilidad socio-residencial: cinco barrios de Barcelona

El concepto de vulnerabilidad socio-residencial guarda una relación de doble sentido con la política de vivienda¿. La intervención pública en materia de vivienda se erige como herramienta para contrarrestarla, siendo a su vez el principal mecanismo que la consolida. El presente artículo pretende operacionalizar las dimensiones de la vulnerabilidad socio-residencial y analizar la política de vivienda en el Estado español. Se propone una revisión bibliográfica y una estrategia de análisis cualitativo de cinco barrios catalogados como vulnerables en la ciudad de Barcelona. Como resultado, se determina cómo algunos aspectos de la política de vivienda (binomio de la tenencia en propiedad e impulso productivista, gasto público insuficiente y fiscalidad regresiva, producción deficiente de vivienda protegida) generan estructuralmente segregación, degradación del parque y exclusión residencial, y se exploran vías alternativas para su superación, vinculadas al fortalecimiento de la administración, la reducción de costes y la potenciación del alquiler social.Postprint (published version