Clinical Applications of Visual Plasmonic Colorimetric Sensing

This article belongs to the Special Issue Luminescent/Colorimetric Probes and Sensors[EN] Colorimetric analysis has become of great importance in recent years to improve the operationalization of plasmonic-based biosensors. The unique properties of nanomaterials have enabled the development of a variety of plasmonics applications on the basis of the colorimetric sensing provided by metal nanoparticles. In particular, the extinction of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) in the visible range has permitted the exploitation of LSPR colorimetric-based biosensors as powerful tools for clinical diagnostics and drug monitoring. This review summarizes recent progress in the biochemical monitoring of clinical biomarkers by ultrasensitive plasmonic colorimetric strategies according to the distance- or the morphology/size-dependent sensing modes. The potential of colorimetric nanosensors as point of care devices from the perspective of naked-eye detection is comprehensively discussed for a broad range of analytes including pharmaceuticals, proteins, carbohydrates, nucleic acids, bacteria, and viruses such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The practical suitability of plasmonic-based colorimetric assays for the rapid visual readout in biological samples, considering current challenges and future perspectives, is also reviewed.S

Low-Fouling Substrates for Plasmonic Sensing of Circulating Biomarkers in Biological Fluids

The monitoring of biomarkers in body fluids provides valuable prognostic information regarding disease onset and progression. Most biosensing approaches use noninvasive screening tools and are conducted in order to improve early clinical diagnosis. However, biofouling of the sensing surface may disturb the quantification of circulating biomarkers in complex biological fluids. Thus, there is a great need for antifouling interfaces to be designed in order to reduce nonspecific adsorption and prevent inactivation of biological receptors and loss of sensitivity. To address these limitations and enable their application in clinical practice, a variety of plasmonic platforms have been recently developed for biomarker analysis in easily accessible biological fluids. This review presents an overview of the latest advances in the design of antifouling strategies for the detection of clinically relevant biomarkers on the basis of the characteristics of biological samples. The impact of nanoplasmonic biosensors as point-of-care devices has been examined for a wide range of biomarkers associated with cancer, inflammatory, infectious and neurodegenerative diseases. Clinical applications in readily obtainable biofluids such as blood, saliva, urine, tears and cerebrospinal and synovial fluids, covering almost the whole range of plasmonic applications, from surface plasmon resonance (SPR) to surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), are also discussed.SIThe author would like to acknowledge technical support from the Institute of Food Science and Technology (ICTAL) of the University of León

Psychosocial needs of family caregivers of cancer patients

The purpose of this study was to examine caregivers\u27 psychosocial needs in order to develop supportive programs and implement proper interventions intending to improve their quality of life and quality of care for their loved one\u27s affected by cancer

Urban Sound Planning - An attempt to bridge the gap

Cities are constantly between transition and adaptation, where current urban development needs a consistent strategic solution capable of understanding and including the relationships between urban form, environment and urban life. Awareness of the quality of the urban environment is leading the vision on the resilience and sustainability of the built environment, highlighting the importance of a multidisciplinary urban framework. One of the main concerns is the negative impact of outdoor noise due to road traffic. Europe and other parts of the world are experiencing a chronic traffic congestion problem and the environmental impact is overwhelming, where it is estimated that traffic-related noise (including road, rail and air traffic) in Western Europe causes the loss of at least one million years of healthy life each year, where the dominating source is road traffic. The aim of this thesis is to overcome negative aspects arising from a late intervention by including urban sound planning as an opportunity for the built environment. This means including the experience and wellbeing of users, avoiding poor patches in the urban configuration and economical burden. The present work is committed to the development of tools to control, communicate and design the sound environment on a level beyond today\u27s solutions, capable of being included in the early stages of the planning process through a holistic approach. The document is seen as a contribution to both professional practice and academic fields. In this sense, this thesis is an attempt to bridge the gap between future urban practice and the current situation in cities regarding the sound environment, through the role of sound urban planning. This is materialised from a variety of tools and approaches aimed at different spatial scales, times in planning, problems and opportunities, and fields of knowledge and contexts. First, the study goes through the urban sound planning idea and its opportunities and strategies. Thereafter, an overview highlights the threats and opportunities of urban sound planning implementation. Therefrom, the study goes into more detail about the strategies to address urban sound planning. As a starting point, the importance of the quiet side and the implementation of an engineering method as a powerful tool in urban development is investigated, obtaining accurate results in relation to measurements. In an attempt to study time variations of traffic within cities and their relevance with respect to noise emission (normally overlooked in current noise mapping calculations), a microscopic road traffic modelling tool is developed, giving useful output for noise level predictions as function of time. Time-pattern analysis opens the possibility of testing traffic configurations and exploring a wide variety of results in the form of descriptors such as statistical indicators, calm periods and noise events, and outcomes such as difference and contribution maps. The study extends to the evaluation of the effects of spatial heterogeneity (considered a key strategy to increase liveability of spaces) on the environmental performance and resilience capacity of the transportation system. For instance, the study of noise pollution and its economic impact gives ideas on the urban transformation possibilities when anticipatory and trans-disciplinary processes are pursued. The last study looks at the understanding and relevance of the sound environment in the use of common space. The intention is to identify suitable activities when certain sound environments and spatial characteristics are present (and vice versa), in an attempt to provide opportunities in the anticipatory design of public spaces. The studies presented use real case scenarios as a test bench not only for implementation, but mainly for the development of tools. The resulting tools developed in the thesis are: SWOT analysis of urban sound planning approach; Qside implementation model; Dynamic traffic noise assessment; Analysis matrix of indicators regarding urban form (diversity), transportation and the sound environment, studying the performance and resilience capacity; and Questionnaire about the study of common public spaces, activities and the sound environment

Report on argumentation and teacher education in Europe

This document will ultimately form part of a comprehensive package of materials for teacher education and professional development in argumentation. The initial deliverable from Kaunas University of Technology described the rhetorical basis of argumentation theory for pre‐ and in‐service teachers, whilst this state of the art report sets out the current and rather unsatisfactory status of argumentation in curricula, initial teacher training/education and teacher professional development, across the fifteen S‐TEAM partner countries. We believe that this is a representative sample and that the report can be taken as a reliable snapshot of the situation in Europe generally

Influence of the biquadratic interlayer coupling in the specific heat of Fibonacci magnetic multilayers

A theoretical study of the specific heat C(T) as a function of temperature in Fibonacci magnetic superlattices is presented. We consider quasiperiodic structures composed of ferromagnetic films, each described by the Heisenberg model, with biquadratic and bilinear coupling between them. We have taken the ratios between the biquadratic and bilinear exchange terms according to experimental data recently measured for different regions of their regime. Although some previous properties of the spin wave specific heat are also reproduced here, new features appear in this case, the most important of them being an interesting broken-symmetry related to the interlayer biquadratic term.Comment: 13 pages, 4 ps figures, Submitted to Physica

Engaging elementary school pre-service teachers in modeling a socioscientific issue as a way to help them appreciate the social aspects of science

Socioscientific issues are ill-structured problems that involve moral, ethical, and financial aspects, and lack clear-cut solutions. Teaching socioscientific issues necessarily puts a demand on teachers to draw on knowledge stemming from other domains, and to also appreciate, and present to the students the societal aspects of science. For new teachers, and those who have not tried integrating complex social issues into their instruction, SSI-based teaching may seem too great a hurdle to overcome. The afforementioned ought to call for teacher educators to focus on the pedagogical challenges of teaching socioscientific issues. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore whether, and how engaging elementary pre-service teachers in critical discussions of socioscientific issues, can change their views of science, and science teaching, and help them design lessons which include the social aspects of science. A sequence of activities to engage pre-service teachers with modeling a socioscientific issue was implemented with 20 participants, over seven weeks. Findings show that elementary pre-service teachers do not include social aspects of science in their initial reflections, but engaging with a socioscientific issue helps change their views of science, and science teaching. However, when they are asked to design lesson plans that include social aspects of science, most of the pre-service teachers are not able to do so. Implications include designing teacher training programs that support teachers in their transition from understanding the social aspects of science, to designers of learning activities that promote social aspects of science through the use of socioscientific issuesS

Trabajar la naturaleza de la ciencia en la formación inicial del profesorado planificando una investigación

En aquest article es presenta una activitat de laboratori per treballar aspectes de la naturalesa de la ciència des de la participació de l'alumnat en les pràctiques científiques, en particular, la construcció del coneixement científic a través de la planificació d'una investigació. L'activitat es realitza en la formació inicial de mestres i consisteix a respondre, ordenar i donar un nom a vuit targetes que contenen preguntes relacionades amb les tasques implicades en la planificació d'una investigació. S'examina: 1) el contingut de les respostes a les preguntes; 2) l'ordre de les preguntes a l'hora de dur a terme la planificació, i 3) el nom atribuït a cada pregunta.This paper presents a laboratory task that enables learning about nature of science through students’ engagement in scientific practices, in particular, about scientific knowledge construction through planning an investigation. The task is carried out in primary teacher education and it requires participants to answer, order and label eight cards containing questions about actions involved in planning an investigation. We examine: 1) the content of answers; 2) the order of questions when planning, and 3) the name given to each question.En este artículo se presenta una actividad de laboratorio para trabajar aspectos de la naturaleza de la ciencia desde la participación del alumnado en las prácticas científicas, en particular, la construcción del conocimiento científico a través de la planificación de una investigación. La actividad se realiza en la formación inicial de maestros y consiste en responder, ordenar y dar un nombre a ocho tarjetas que contienen preguntas relacionadas con las tareas implicadas en la planificación de una investigación. Se examina: 1) el contenido de las respuestas a las preguntas; 2) el orden de las preguntas a la hora de llevar a cabo la planificación, y 3) el nombre atribuido a cada pregunta

Plasmonic Biosensors for Single-Molecule Biomedical Analysis

Review[EN] The rapid spread of epidemic diseases (i.e., coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)) has contributed to focus global attention on the diagnosis of medical conditions by ultrasensitive detection methods. To overcome this challenge, increasing efforts have been driven towards the development of single-molecule analytical platforms. In this context, recent progress in plasmonic biosensing has enabled the design of novel detection strategies capable of targeting individual molecules while evaluating their binding affinity and biological interactions. This review compiles the latest advances in plasmonic technologies for monitoring clinically relevant biomarkers at the single-molecule level. Functional applications are discussed according to plasmonic sensing modes based on either nanoapertures or nanoparticle approaches. A special focus was devoted to new analytical developments involving a wide variety of analytes (e.g., proteins, living cells, nucleic acids and viruses). The utility of plasmonic-based single-molecule analysis for personalized medicine, considering technological limitations and future prospects, is also overviewedS