Publications

PEGDA drug delivery devices (PDDD) have potential for the treatment of chronic vitreoretinal diseases, surpassing the ocular barriers, and sustaining the drug release. In vivo models are the most used to analyze the potential of PDDD. However, there are cellular biomarkers that can be analyzed in vitro to prevent non desired effects in preclinical studies. Here, we analyzed the acute cell response in vitro in terms of cell viability, cytotoxicity, apoptosis, and necrosis in cells exposed to PDDD.

This paper analyzes the assessment of engineering professors of different na- tionalities and universities regarding the use of virtual reality (VR) technolo- gies in the classroom. In particular, the existence of gaps in these evaluations by ownership (private or public) of the university where each professor teaches is analyzed, both within the complete sample of participants and within the subsets formed when they are differentiated by gender, age, and time of teaching experience. For this purpose, a questionnaire has been designed and validated with 22 inquiries that have been dispersed in six scales, corre- sponding to six different dimensions that affect the didactic use of VR. The questionnaire has been distributed to a set of 279 university professors from different Engineering schools and countries. The results, which have been analyzed quantitatively, both descriptive and inferential, indicate that en- gineering teachers give high evaluations to VR as a didactic tool, but show a certain lack of knowledge and specific training regarding its use. Furthermore, there is a gap between private and public universities, where private university professors express overall higher evaluations of VR than public university professors.

The increasing use of reality-virtuality technologies (RVTs, which encompass virtual, augmented, and mixed reality) in different fields over the last decade is a phenomenon for which materials science and engineering (MSE) is no exception. To obtain an overview of the implementation of RVTs in MSE, this team conducted a systematic search of the scientific literature published since 2010 addressing the use of RVTs in MSE. Forty-one relevant papers were selected and analyzed in depth to reach several conclusions, including: (i) most of the works (67.3%) are focused on the MSE area of materials structure, processing, and properties, which implies that there are great possibilities for research in other MSE areas; (ii) most of the works (86.8%) are aimed exclusively at education or research, which means that there are many fields outside of the university in which the use of RVT tools has not been developed and evaluated; (iii) the most used technology is virtual reality (85.1%), which means that there are many research possibilities focused on augmented and mixed reality. Researchers can find in the present work examples of the use of RVTs in MSE as well as other relevant information useful to open new lines of research and ideas that can contribute to their current and future work.

The rapid advance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in recent times and the current pandemic caused by COVID-19 have profoundly transformed society and the economy in most of the world. The education sector has benefited from this ICT-driven revolution, which has provided and expanded multiple new tools and teaching methods that did not exist just a few decades ago. In light of this technological change, virtual laboratories (VLs) based on the use of virtual reality (VR) have emerged, which are increasingly used to facilitate the teaching–learning process in a wide range of train- ing activities, both academic and professional types. The set of advantages offered by this type of VL, the main of which are listed in this article, has made its use increasingly common as support for engineering classes at universities. This paper presents a study involving 420 engineering students from Spanish and Portuguese universities and associated analyses on the assessment of different parameters in various VLs designed by the authors. The results obtained indicate that, in general, VR-based VLs are widely accepted and demanded by students, who likewise consider real laboratories (RLs) necessary in face-to-face teach- ing. In the current post-COVID-19 educational scenario, VLs and RLs will coexist within the new hybrid models that combine face-to-face and online teaching and learning.

New and efficient drug delivery to the posterior part of the eye is a growing health necessity worldwide. Current treatment of eye diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), relies on repeated intravitreal injections of drug-containing solutions. Such a drug delivery has major drawbacks including short drug life, significant medical service, and high medi- cal cost. In this study, we explored a new approach to controlled drug delivery by introducing unique porous implants. Our computational modeling contained key physiological and anatomical traits. Incompressible flow in a porous media field, including the sclera, choroid, and retina layers, is governed by Darcy law and the time evolution of the drug concentration was solved via three convection–diffusion equations in the three layers, respectively. The computational model was validated by established results from independent studies and experimental data. Simulations of the IgG1 Fab drug delivery to the posterior eye were performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the porous implants for controlled delivery. Overall, our results indicate that drug therapeutic levels in the posterior eye sustain for eight weeks similarly to those using intravitreal injection. We first evaluated the effects of the porous implants on the drug delivery in the posterior layers. Subsequent simulations were carried out with varying porosity values in a porous episcleral implant. We found that the time evolution of drug concentra- tion is distinctively correlated to drug source location and pore size. A correlation between porosity and fluid properties for selected porous implants was revealed for the first time in this study.

Since its emergence in the 1960s, the use of virtual reality (VR) has grown progressively. This wide dissemination of VR has allowed its application in an increasing number of disciplines, including education. It is well known that virtual laboratories (VLs), which base their use in VR technology, are very useful tools in both university and professional training. In this article, the main advantages and disadvantages of the use of modern VLs in teaching are analyzed. In addition, the design and development process that must be followed to appropriately create these VLs is described in detail, as well as a small-scale study of the perception that university teachers have about the use of VR in education. Lastly, the reasons why the implementation of VR is not currently as broad as it would be expected, given its proven potential in different fields, are discussed.

The increasing presence of virtual reality learning environments (VRLEs) in university classrooms makes it necessary to study what factors influence the effectiveness of this type of teaching tool. In particular, when planning to use a VRLE in class to support the classes, a careful design of the application to achieve a high level of efficiency at the formative level must be carried out. This article discusses key aspects that need to be taken into account during the design of a VRLE that have been determined to be increasingly important for students to achieve a higher level of meaningful learning (and, thanks to it, the knowledge acquired through the use of the VRLE will last in their memory for a longer time) and also feel a greater motivation to use it to: (i) adapt both the level of interactivity as well as the way the VRLE conducts the student through the virtual experiment; and (ii) maintain a look and a handling mode of the VRLE similar to other virtual environments that exist at the present time (e.g. video games). The study carried out and described in this article highlights the effectiveness of using in certain cases a step-by-step guidance protocol to improve long-term learning of concepts under study. In addition, the importance of using modern development tools to achieve a high level of motivation among students is emphasized.