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In times when digitized and blended learning paradigms are getting more profuse, the COVID-19 pandemic substantially changed the dynamics of this program, forcing all the courses to migrate to virtual modality. This study highlights the biological engineering courses at the University of the Republic (Universidad de la República) in Uruguay pertaining to the adaptations to virtual learning environments during the COVID-19 pandemic and analyzing its impact through the courses taught in the virtual setting.

Global education has seen a significant paradigm shift over the last few years, changing from a specialized approach to a broader transdisciplinary approach. Especially in life sciences, different fields of specializations have started to share a common space in the area of applied research and development. Based on this transdisciplinary approach, the Biological Engineering program was designed at the University of the Republic (Universidad de la República), Uruguay.

The new challenges posed by the virtual modality on the pedagogical areas like course design, teaching methodologies and evaluations and logistical aspects like laboratory-setting have sparked a considerable change in different aspects of the courses. However, despite the changes to virtual modality in this year, the student-performance showed an overall improvement compared to the last year.

With the changing direction of pedagogy and research in biological engineering across the world, it is quintessential to adapt university courses to the same, promoting an environment where the scientific and engineering disciplines merge and the learning methodologies lead to a dynamic and adaptive ubiquitous learning environment.

This paper aims to propose an integrated bionic optimal design system to assist engineers in bionic design tasks. In this age of ecological awareness and sustainability, engineers are increasingly applying bionics to their product designs. A recent surge of research on bionics has presented new opportunities and challenges. To deal with these challenges, an integrated design system equipped with the capabilities of conducting biologically inspired design, solving technical contradictions, optimizing design parameters and verifying design effectiveness is required.

This study proposes a two-level analysis to help decision makers conduct multi-faceted observation and assessment on conceptual bionic design. The contradictions incurred when transferring biological principals to engineering design are solved using BioTRIZ, and the conceptual design is then created. This study conducts computer-aided engineering analysis, incorporating the Taguchi method and TOPSIS method, to obtain the optimal design of bionic products.

The proposed design process focuses on improving the product structure instead of changing the materials, and thus, the authors are able to put the goals of saving energy, environmental protection and sustainability into practice.

Through the design and analysis processes, the authors prove that their designed bionic-fan can effectively enhance operational efficiency and reduce the aerodynamic noise. The system can provide a practical tool for engineers intending to accomplish complete designs and verifications using bionics.

Most existing design methodologies that have attempted to combine biology with engineering design have fallen short in their level of thoroughness. This study proposes a complete bionic design system by integrating the processes of bionic-inspired design, optimization and verification.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the wide range of biomimetic sensor technology and innovations.

The reader is introduced to biomimetic sensors, their types, their advantages and how they are different from traditional sensors. Background information is also provided regarding sensor design, inspiration and innovation.

There are two approaches to sensor design, which lead to diverse advantages and innovations. Classification of biomimetic sensors indicated which natural senses are underutilized by sensor designers and researchers.

The paper provides information of value for those seeking innovative sensor designs and research information for those who want to research in this area.

In the past decade, three-dimensional (3D) printing has gained attention in areas such as medicine, engineering, manufacturing art and most recently in education. In biomedical, the development of a wide range of biomaterials has catalysed the considerable role of 3D printing (3DP), where it functions as synthetic frameworks in the form of scaffolds, constructs or matrices. The purpose of this paper is to present the state-of-the-art literature coverage of 3DP applications in tissue engineering (such as customized scaffoldings and organs, and regenerative medicine).

This review focusses on various 3DP techniques and biomaterials for tissue engineering (TE) applications. The literature reviewed in the manuscript has been collected from various journal search engines including Google Scholar, Research Gate, Academia, PubMed, Scopus, EMBASE, Cochrane Library and Web of Science. The keywords that have been selected for the searches were 3 D printing, tissue engineering, scaffoldings, organs, regenerative medicine, biomaterials, standards, applications and future directions. Further, the sub-classifications of the keyword, wherever possible, have been used as sectioned/sub-sectioned in the manuscript.

3DP techniques have many applications in biomedical and TE (B-TE), as covered in the literature. Customized structures for B-TE applications are easy and cost-effective to manufacture through 3DP, whereas on many occasions, conventional technologies generally become incompatible. For this, this new class of manufacturing must be explored to further capabilities for many potential applications.

This review paper presents a comprehensive study of the various types of 3DP technologies in the light of their possible B-TE application as well as provides a future roadmap.

This paper aims at showing that the finite element method is the most important numerical tool to analyse bio‐solids or bio‐fluids because of the constitutive complexity and unusual clinical input data and requirements involved. These features are absolutely mandatory and modify the mentality of an expert of FEM when he wants to contribute really to the progress of medical practice in their several forms, from biological basis to the surgical assistance. In this context, a clear view of the hierarchic importance of the phenomena involved is necessary to reply correctly to medical operators and to choose the right level of scale. While a scholarly culture of FEM and relative developments have to appeal the attention of biomedical engineers, at the same time their attention mainly is focused on the problem to solve, which must be validated clinically and experimentally. So while convergence remain a typical goal of the analyst, accuracy must be compared with the medical sensitivity. To do this, some physical conditions, less important in other application fields, as the boundary conditions, must be modelled in order to avoid that any model refinement gives unappreciable precision while tends to disregard what a clinician or a surgeon is able to understand and to use in the context of his professional practice. Setting up correct boundary conditions is an emblematic topic because it concerns a typical approach of computational methods applied to biomedical engineering which must consider two separate scale into analysis or a design approach. When a district of the body is to be analysed, the main goal should be to define correctly the subdomain that the district represents with respect to the whole and then to analyse other subdomains inside, at a level more and more micro, as into a system of Chinese boxes. When a medical device is to be designed a systemic view must be acquired. In this paper, we will start from this underlying feature concerning just FEM applications of a knee design carried out by the research staff of the Laboratory of Biological Structure Mechanics. Then other uses of FEM will be described as analysis fragments through problems studied by the authors and referenced in bibliography.

The authors investigate the relationship between the structure and the functioning of scientific and technical (S&T) personnel and the quality research and development (R&D) performance output of laboratories functioning under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India. The purpose of this paper is to examine how rapid economic and social changes and the demand for better accountability are addressed by public R&D institutions in a specific developing economy.

The authors use the functions performed by the S&T personnel as indicators of their tacit knowledge. The authors use data from 27 different CSIR laboratories to analyze the specific functions carried out by knowledge workers (S&T personnel) in order to gauge the internal strengths and weaknesses of individual laboratories in different functional areas. The authors use the following measures to tap the quality R&D performance of these laboratories – number of Indian patents filed and granted, number of foreign patents filed and granted, and the number of published papers figuring among the top 50 CSIR publications in specific research areas over an extended period of 11 years (2003-2004 to 2013-2014).

The findings show that there is no readymade formula for identifying improvements in quality performance by a research laboratory, given a particular set of S&T worker profile in terms of the six functions defined in the study. The top-performing laboratories have excellent patent as well as publication record reinforcing the point that innovation encompasses both basic and applied research with success depending upon strategically emphasizing the different components of the innovation process.

The scope of the present research work is limited by the choice of the quality R&D performance measures adopted in the study that could be further expanded to better tap the social accountability of these public-funded institutions. In addition, inclusion of all CSIR laboratories in the study framework would add value to the study findings. The research highlights the importance of tacit knowledge management and organizational learning as central features of strategic organization development for technology practices incorporating R&D work, the support of pilot plants, experimental field stations, and engineering and design units.

The paper has particular implications for the leadership and management of public R&D organizations and public policy formulation for innovation in an emerging developing economy context.

This study extends the extant literature by drawing upon the role of tacit knowledge and organizational learning to inform the empirical research on managing public R&D and the innovations that result from it, in a particular emerging economy context, that is, India.

Tissue engineering has gained wide acceptance since its discovery due to its potential for replacing diseased and injured human tissues and organs. Biotextiles composed of textile fibrous structures can be designed and engineered to achieve specific performances demanded by various tissue engineering applications. Several key factors, such as the selection of cells, the material and form of the scaffold, and the regulation of cell growth and proliferation, govern the effective use of biotextiles for tissue engineering end uses. This paper examines the current techniques used in the field of tissue engineering and explains how the disciplines of polymer chemistry, fibre science, and textile technology and engineering have a unique role to play when combined with molecular biology, biochemistry, and biotechnology to design and develop novel biotextile scaffolds for tissue engineering applications.

Tissue engineering (TE) involves biological, medical and engineering expertise and a current engineering challenge is to provide good TE scaffolds. These highly porous 3D scaffolds primarily serve as temporal holding devices for cells that facilitate structural and functional tissue unit formation of the newly transplanted cells. One method used successfully to produce scaffolds is that of rapid prototyping. Selective laser sintering (SLS) is one such versatile method that is able to process many types of polymeric materials and good stability of its products. The purpose of this paper is to present modeling of the heat transfer process, to understand the sintering phenomena that are experienced by powder particles in the SLS powder bed during the sintering process. With the understanding of sintering process obtained through the theoretical modeling, experimental process of biomaterials in SLS could be directed towards the appropriate sintering window, so as not to cause unintentional degradation to the biomaterials.

SLS uses a laser as a heat source to sinter parts. A theoretical study based on heat transfer phenomena during SLS process was carried out. The study identified the significant biomaterial and laser beam properties that were critical to the sintering result. The material properties were thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, surface reflectivity and absorption coefficient.

The influential laser beam properties were laser power and scan speed, which were machine parameters that can be controlled by users. The identification of the important parameters has ensured that favorable sintering conditions can be achieved.

The selection of biopolymer influences the manner in which energy is absorbed by the powder bed during the SLS process. In this paper, the modeling and investigative work was validated by poly(vinyl alcohol) which is a biomaterial that has been used for many biomedical and pharmaceutical purposes.

The paper can be the foundation for extension to other types of biomaterials including biopolymers, bioceramics and biocomposites.

The formulation of the theory for heat transfer phenomena during the SLS process is of significant value to any studies in using SLS for biomedical applications.

The purpose of this paper is to review the current status of additive manufacturing (AM) used for tissue engineering (TE) scaffold. AM processes are identified as an effective method for fabricating geometrically complex objects directly from computer models or three-dimensional digital representations. The use of AM technologies in the field of TE has grown rapidly in the past 10 years.

The processes, materials, precision, applications of different AM technologies and their modified versions used for TE scaffold are presented. Additionally, future directions of AM used for TE scaffold are also discussed.

There are two principal routes for the fabrication of scaffolds by AM: direct and indirect routes. According to the working principle, the AM technologies used for TE scaffold can be generally classified into: laser-based; nozzle-based; and hybrid. Although a number of materials and fabrication techniques have been developed, each AM technique is a process based on the unique property of the raw materials applied. The fabrication of TE scaffolds faces a variety of challenges, such as expanding the range of materials, improving precision and adapting to complex scaffold structures.

This review presents the latest research regarding AM used for TE scaffold. The information available in this paper helps researchers, scholars and graduate students to get a quick overview on the recent research of AM used for TE scaffold and identify new research directions for AM in TE.

This paper aims to present the development of an electrospinning-based rapid prototyping (ESRP) technique for the fabrication of patterned scaffolds from fine fiber.

This ESRP technique unifies rapid prototyping (RP) and electrospinning to obtain the ability of RP to create a controllable pattern and of electrospinning to create a continuous fine fiber. The technique follows RP process of fused deposition modeling, but instead of using extrusion process for fiber creation, electrospinning is applied to generate a continuous fiber from a liquid solution. A machine prototype has been constructed and used in the experiments to evaluate the technique.

Three different lay-down patterns: 0°/90°, 45°/135° and 45° twists were used in the experiments. According to the experimental results, stacks of patterned layers could be created with the ESRP technique, and the fabrication process was repeatable and reproducible. However, the existing machine vibration influenced the fiber size and the ability to control straightness and gap size. Also, incomplete solidification of the fibers prior to being deposited obstructed the control of layer thickness. Improvement on vibration suppression and fiber solidification will strengthen the capability of this ESRP technique.

This research is currently limited to the introduction of the ESRP technique, to the development of the machine prototype, to the demonstration of its capability and to the evaluation of the structural properties of the fabricated patterned scaffolds. Further studies are required for better control of the patterned scaffolds and for investigation of mechanical and biological properties.

This unification of the two processes allows not only the fabrication of controllable patterned scaffolds but also the fabrication of both woven and non-woven layers of fibers to be done on one machine.