LAM Test: A New Cognitive Marker for Early Detection in Preclinical Alzheimer's Disease.

Background: With the arrival of disease-modifying treatments, it is mandatory to find new cognitive markers that are sensitive to Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology in preclinical stages.

Objective: To determine the utility of a newly developed Learning and Associative Memory face test: LAM test. This study examined the relationship between AD cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers and performance on LAM test, and assessed its potential clinical applicability to detect subtle changes in cognitively healthy subjects at risk for AD.

Identification of hypermucoviscous Klebsiella pneumoniae K1, K2, K54 and K57 capsular serotypes by Raman spectroscopy.

Antimicrobial resistance poses a significant challenge in modern medicine, affecting public health. Klebsiella pneumoniae infections compound this issue due to their broad range of infections and the emergence of multiple antibiotic resistance mechanisms. Efficient detection of its capsular serotypes is crucial for immediate patient treatment, epidemiological tracking and outbreak containment.

Non-Contact Thermal and Acoustic Sensors with Embedded Artificial Intelligence for Point-of-Care Diagnostics.

This work involves exploring non-invasive sensor technologies for data collection and preprocessing, specifically focusing on novel thermal calibration methods and assessing low-cost infrared radiation sensors for facial temperature analysis. Additionally, it investigates innovative approaches to analyzing acoustic signals for quantifying coughing episodes. The research integrates diverse data capture technologies to analyze them collectively, considering their temporal evolution and physical attributes, aiming to extract statistically significant relationships among various variables for valuable insights.

Design and Verification of Integrated Circuitry for Real-Time Frailty Monitoring.

In this study, a new wireless electronic circuitry to analyze weight distribution was designed and incorporated into a chair to gather data related to common human postures (sitting and standing up). These common actions have a significant impact on various motor capabilities, including gait parameters, fall risk, and information on sarcopenia. The quality of these actions lacks an absolute measurement, and currently, there is no qualitative and objective metric for it.

Advanced Light Source Technologies for Photodynamic Therapy of Skin Cancer Lesions.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is an increasingly popular dermatological treatment not only used for life-threatening skin conditions and other tumors but also for cosmetic purposes. PDT has negligible effects on underlying functional structures, enabling tissue regeneration feasibility. PDT uses a photosensitizer (PS) and visible light to create cytotoxic reactive oxygen species, which can damage cellular organelles and trigger cell death.

Polarisation-independent ultrafast laser selective etching processing in fused silica.

In fused silica, ultrafast laser assisted etching enables high chemical etching rates (>300 μm h) by setting a light polarisation linear and perpendicular to the beam writing direction. However, for many non-planar surfaces and 3D structures, dynamic polarisation control is difficult or not yet possible to implement. In this contribution, we identify a laser inscription regime in which high etching rates are accomplished independently of the light polarisation.

Automatic classification of Candida species using Raman spectroscopy and machine learning.

One of the problems that most affect hospitals is infections by pathogenic microorganisms. Rapid identification and adequate, timely treatment can avoid fatal consequences and the development of antibiotic resistance, so it is crucial to use fast, reliable, and not too laborious techniques to obtain quick results. Raman spectroscopy has proven to be a powerful tool for molecular analysis, meeting these requirements better than traditional techniques.

Photonic Microfluidic Technologies for Phytoplankton Research.

Phytoplankton is a crucial component for the correct functioning of different ecosystems, climate regulation and carbon reduction. Being at least a quarter of the biomass of the world's vegetation, they produce approximately 50% of atmospheric O2 and remove nearly a third of the anthropogenic carbon released into the atmosphere through photosynthesis. In addition, they support directly or indirectly all the animals of the ocean and freshwater ecosystems, being the base of the food web.

A Dual-Wavelength Fiber Laser Sensor with Temperature and Strain Discrimination.

This work presents a dual-wavelength C-band erbium-doped fiber laser assisted by an artificial backscatter reflector. This fiber-based reflector, inscribed by femtosecond laser direct writing, was fabricated into a single mode fiber with a length of 32 mm. The dual-wavelength laser obtained, centered at 1527.

Enhanced refractometer for aqueous solutions based on perfluorinated polymer optical fibres.

The use of the new CYTOP (Cyclized Transparent Optical Polymer) fibres for the inscription of optical structures and the detection of different parameters has started to gain importance in the past decade. This work presents the design, simulation and manufacture of a CYTOP-based surrounding refractive index sensor for aqueous solutions, given its high sensitivity in the range 1.315 - 1.

Recent Advances in Biomedical Photonic Sensors: A Focus on Optical-Fibre-Based Sensing.

In this invited review, we provide an overview of the recent advances in biomedical photonic sensors within the last five years. This review is focused on works using optical-fibre technology, employing diverse optical fibres, sensing techniques, and configurations applied in several medical fields. We identified technical innovations and advancements with increased implementations of optical-fibre sensors, multiparameter sensors, and control systems in real applications.

Photodynamic Therapy: A Compendium of Latest Reviews.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a promising therapy against cancer. Even though it has been investigated for more than 100 years, scientific publications have grown exponentially in the last two decades. For this reason, we present a brief compendium of reviews of the last two decades classified under different topics, namely, overviews, reviews about specific cancers, and meta-analyses of photosensitisers, PDT mechanisms, dosimetry, and light sources.

Light Technology for Efficient and Effective Photodynamic Therapy: A Critical Review.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a cancer treatment with strong potential over well-established standard therapies in certain cases. Non-ionising radiation, localisation, possible repeated treatments, and stimulation of immunological response are some of the main beneficial features of PDT. Despite the great potential, its application remains challenging.

Early diagnosis of frailty: Technological and non-intrusive devices for clinical detection.

This work analyses different concepts for frailty diagnosis based on affordable standard technology such as smartphones or wearable devices. The goal is to provide ideas that go beyond classical diagnostic tools such as magnetic resonance imaging or tomography, thus changing the paradigm; enabling the detection of frailty without expensive facilities, in an ecological way for both patients and medical staff and even with continuous monitoring. Fried's five-point phenotype model of frailty along with a model based on trials and several classical physical tests were used for device classification.

Automatic Ankle Angle Detection by Integrated RGB and Depth Camera System.

Depth cameras are developing widely. One of their main virtues is that, based on their data and by applying machine learning algorithms and techniques, it is possible to perform body tracking and make an accurate three-dimensional representation of body movement. Specifically, this paper will use the Kinect v2 device, which incorporates a random forest algorithm for 25 joints detection in the human body.

Liquid level sensor based on dynamic Fabry-Perot interferometers in processed capillary fiber.

In this work, a novel optical fiber sensor capable of measuring both the liquid level and its refractive index is designed, manufactured and demonstrated through simulations and experimentally. For this, a silica capillary hollow-core fiber is used. The fiber, with a sensing length of 1.

Optical Fiber Sensors by Direct Laser Processing: A Review.

The consolidation of laser micro/nano processing technologies has led to a continuous increase in the complexity of optical fiber sensors. This new avenue offers novel possibilities for advanced sensing in a wide set of application sectors and, especially in the industrial and medical fields. In this review, the most important transducing structures carried out by laser processing in optical fiber are shown.

Reflection-based lab-in-fiber sensor integrated in a surgical needle for biomedical applications.

Recently, lab-in-fiber (LIF) sensors have offered a new paradigm in many different scenarios, such as optofluidics, due to their ability to integrate different multiphysics sensor elements in a small space. In this Letter, the design and manufacture of a multiparameter sensing device is proposed, through the combination of an in-fiber air microcavity and a plane-by-plane fiber Bragg grating (FBG). The reflection-based sensor, with a length of less than 300 µm, is located at the end of a single-mode fiber and integrated into a surgical needle for exploitation in biomedical applications.

Virtual FBGs Using Saturable Absorbers for Sensing with Fiber Lasers.

The spectral narrowing of Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs) introduced by unpumped Er-doped fiber (EDF) was analyzed for fiber lasers (FL). Owing to spatial hole burning (SHB), the spectral response of a virtual FBG can be employed for narrowing the band pass filter employed to determine the lasing wavelength of laser cavities. A common FL was mounted to analyze the spectral stability of the method, and a FL sensor for strain and temperature measurements was experimentally characterized to determine the stability of the narrowing effect achieved by the unpumped EDF, which acts as a virtual FBG.

Low-cost fiber specklegram sensor for noncontact continuous patient monitoring.

Different low-cost approaches based on fiber specklegram sensors are employed to measure the physiological activity of patients lying in bed. This study is conducted over 20 volunteers to measure the movement and heart rate (HR) using two different sensor designs placed at two different bed locations. Three different processing methods are developed and tested in order to extract useful information from the measured data.

Normalization of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy spectra using a plastic optical fiber light collector and acoustic sensor device.

To estimate the acoustic plasma energy in laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) experiments, a light collecting and acoustic sensing device based on a coil of plastic optical fiber (POF) is proposed. The speckle perturbation induced by the plasma acoustic energy was monitored using a CCD camera placed at the end of a coil of multimode POF and processed with an intraimage contrast ratio method. The results were successfully verified with the acoustic energy measured by a reference microphone.