N of 1, two contemporary arm, randomised controlled clinical trial for bilateral epicondylitis: a new study design

Objective To investigate the use of a novel study design in analysis of bilateral elbow pain

Topographical and compositional gradient tubular scaffold for bone to tendon interface regeneration

The enthesis is an extremely specific region, localized at the tendon–bone interface (TBI) and made of a hybrid connection of fibrocartilage with minerals. The direct type of enthesis tissue is commonly subjected to full laceration, due to the stiffness gradient between the soft tissues and hard bone, and this often reoccurs after surgical reconstruction. For this purpose, the present work aimed to design and develop a tubular scaffold based on pullulan (PU) and chitosan (CH) and intended to enhance enthesis repair. The scaffold was designed with a topographical gradient of nanofibers, from random to aligned, and hydroxyapatite (HAP) nanoparticles along the tubular length. In particular, one part of the tubular scaffold was characterized by a structure similar to bone hard tissue, with a random mineralized fiber arrangement; while the other part was characterized by aligned fibers, without HAP doping. The tubular shape of the scaffold was also designed to be extemporarily loaded with chondroitin sulfate (CS), a glycosaminoglycan effective in wound healing, before the surgery. Micro CT analysis revealed that the scaffold was characterized by a continuous gradient, without interruptions from one end to the other. The gradient of the fiber arrangement was observed using SEM analysis, and it was still possible to observe the gradient when the scaffold had been hydrated for 6 days. In vitro studies demonstrated that human adipose stem cells (hASC) were able to grow and differentiate onto the scaffold, expressing the typical ECM production for tendon in the aligned zone, or bone tissue in the random mineralized part. CS resulted in a synergistic effect, favoring cell adhesion/proliferation on the scaffold surface. These results suggest that this tubular scaffold loaded with CS could be a powerful tool to support enthesis repair upon surgery.Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No. 81460

Smart Device for Biologically Enhanced Functional Regeneration of Osteo–Tendon Interface

The spontaneous healing of a tendon laceration results in the formation of scar tissue, which has lower functionality than the original tissue. Moreover, chronic non-healing tendon injuries frequently require surgical treatment. Several types of scaffolds have been developed using the tissue engineering approach, to complement surgical procedures and to enhance the healing process at the injured site. In this work, an electrospun hybrid tubular scaffold was designed to mimic tissue fibrous arrangement and extracellular matrix (ECM) composition, and to be extemporaneously loaded into the inner cavity with human platelet lysate (PL), with the aim of leading to complete post-surgery functional regeneration of the tissue for functional regeneration of the osteo–tendon interface. For this purpose, pullulan (P)/chitosan (CH) based polymer solutions were enriched with hydroxyapatite nanoparticles (HP) and electrospun. The nanofibers were collected vertically along the length of the scaffold to mimic the fascicle direction of the tendon tissue. The scaffold obtained showed tendon-like mechanical performance, depending on HP content and tube size. The PL proteins were able to cross the scaffold wall, and in vitro studies have demonstrated that tenocytes and osteoblasts are able to adhere to and proliferate onto the scaffold in the presence of PL; moreover, they were also able to produce either collagen or sialoproteins, respectively—important components of ECM. These results suggest that HP and PL have a synergic effect, endorsing PL-loaded HP-doped aligned tubular scaffolds as an effective strategy to support new tissue formation in tendon-to-bone interface regeneration

Silicon Photonics for Matrix Switching Applications: Ingredients and Recipes (Invited)

We present an overview of scalable silicon photonic switch matrices. We will describe many different building blocks that can be part of such a system, and the specific architecture proposed in European project IRIS

Physics for Primary School Teachers in Italy: Comparative Analysis in a Dedicated Survey

In Italy, a five-year university course “Scienze della formazione primaria”, which can be translated as Primary Education Degree Course (henceforth PEDC), is dedicated to train the future teachers of kindergarten and primary school (age range 3–11). The Italian project PLS-Physics (“Piano Lauree Scientifiche”), financed by the government and coordinated by J. Immè, has among its objectives the improvement of school-university cooperation, through a pre- and in-service teacher education. In this context, a group composed of PLS members (named PLS group 6, coordinated by M. Michelini) organized a national survey to gather information about the physics courses for PEDC in all the Italian universities. A picture of a living community that has chosen to confront and improve together has emerged. The aim of this study is to monitor the status of the art concerning the initial training of kindergarten and primary school teachers in Italy, as a first step for the creation of shared formative actions, also in a dialogue with the national government. The relation between teaching practice and physics education research has also been investigated

Integrated Reconfigurable Silicon Photonics Switch Matrix in IRIS Project: Technological Achievements and Experimental Results

This paper reports the performances of a silicon photonics optical switch matrix fabricated by using large scale 3D integration. The wavelength selective optical switch consists of a photonic integrated circuit (PIC), with 1398 circuit elements, interconnected in a 3D stack with its control electronic integrated circuit (EIC). Each PIC element can be trimmed or reconfigured by using metallic heaters. The EIC is designed to drive the heaters and to read the signal of monitor photodiodes integrated into the PIC. Small footprint and high energy efficiency are achieved in the PIC and the EIC. Automatic wavelength alignment of the optical circuits in the PIC to the ITU grid and fine temperature tuning of each photonic element to optimize the switch insertion losses are obtained by an optimization routine. A fully packaged switch with input/output fibers is tested both for optical and electrical characteristics as well as for the system performances. Fiber to fiber insertion losses of about 20 dB and channel isolation of -35 dB are achieved. BER characteristics at 25 Gbps are evaluated. Perspective applications of the optical switch in optical transport and intra-data center networks are discussed

A 3D photonic-electronic integrated transponder aggregator with 48×16 heater control cells

An electronic integrated circuit (EIC) and a silicon photonic integrated circuit (PIC) are three-dimensional (3D)- integrated. The EIC using the complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) part of STMicroelectronics’ BCD8sp 0.16μm technology controls all 768 switches in the PIC individually and monitors them with 84 transimpedance amplifiers (TIAs). A scalable analog-digital approach with a cell size of 100×100μm² for thermal control of optical ring resonator switch matrices is introduced. An electrical power consumption of 220mW for all electronic control circuits of the optical swi tch matrix is resulting in 5.5% of the power needed by a constant-voltage control approach

Integrated, scalable and reconfigurable silicon photonics based optical switch for colorless, directionless and contentionless operation

We demonstrate a BCD8sP electronic-photonic integrated device for low cost, low power, and mass-manufacturable optical switching. Our network on-chip has one thousand photonic components, each driven by a dedicated electronic control circuit. The architecture implements a transponder aggregator scheme that manages 12 200GHz-spaced wavelengths in 4 different directions and 8 add/drop ports. The 3D integration of the photonic and the electronic chips allows the complete system reconfiguration at microsecond regime. The packaged device shows a total insertion loss of-22dB, including input and output coupling, and a channel isolation better than 35dB, in a device with a chip area of less than 1cm2

Design and Implementation of an Integrated Reconfigurable Silicon Photonics Switch Matrix in IRIS Project

This paper aims to present the design and the achieved results on a CMOS electronic and photonic integrated device for low cost, low power, transparent, mass-manufacturable optical switching. An unprecedented number of integrated photonic components (more than 1000), each individually electronically controlled, allows for the realization of a transponder aggregator device which interconnects up to eight transponders to a four direction colorless-directionless-contentionless ROADM. Each direction supports 12 200-GHz spaced wavelengths, which can be independently added or dropped from the network. An electronic ASIC, 3-D integrated on top of the photonic chip, controls the switch fabrics to allow a complete and microsecond fast reconfigurability