Neck injuries and pathologies are widespread and cause disability. Clinicians use different tools to measure the cervical spine’ mobility to diagnose different disorders. There are many reliable assessment methods for this purpose, but their benefits have not been deeply investigated and compared, as well as their measurement results. This review aims to summarise the advantages, accuracy, and reliability, of measurement tools and devices used in studies or trails related to the neck and cervical spine evaluation, to evidence the use of inertial sensors and compare them, to highlight the best assessment systems and their characteristics. A literature review has been performed in a range of five years, to obtain information about cervical spine evaluation. Studies that met the established inclusion criteria were selected and classified according their pathology studied, objectives and methodologies followed when evaluating the cervical spine functionality. Studies were described chronologically highlighting the tools employed, where the motion capture systems and cervical range of motion devices stood out as the most used and reliable methods. Cervical spine assessment studies employing systems with inertial sensors as an accurate method, is not evidenced in the sample. However, they are widely tested and different studies validate these systems for their clinical area use, obtaining high reliability and repeatability. Thereby, this review argues that inertial sensors have proven to be a portable, and easy to use tool for the evaluation of neck and its related pathologies, with a great accuracy level.

Bio-nanotechnology has emerged as an efficient and competitive methodology for the production of added-value nanomaterials (NMs). This review article gathers knowledge gleaned from the literature regarding the biosynthesis of sulfur-based chalcogenide nanoparticles (S-NPs), such as CdS, ZnS and PbS NPs, using various biological resources, namely bacteria, fungi including yeast, algae, plant extracts, single biomolecules, and viruses. In addition, this work sheds light onto the hypothetical mechanistic aspects, and discusses the impact of varying the experimental parameters, such as the employed bio-entity, time, pH, and biomass concentration, on the obtained S-NPs and, consequently, on their properties. Furthermore, various bio-applications of these NMs are described. Finally, key elements regarding the whole process are summed up and some hints are provided to overcome encountered bottlenecks towards the improved and scalable production of biogenic S-NPs.

In this study, an analyze of frontal and lateral rollover collisions of a double-decker bus is carried out in accordance with Regulations 66 and 29 of the United Nations Economic Commission of Europe (UN/ECE), and the Ecuadorian Standardization Service Institute (INEN) with its normative 1323:2009. The INEN is on charge of regulating the approval of buses for Ecuadorian transportation passengers. The constant improvement of the active and passive safety of buses about accidents is currently a great social impact topic. In this context, the presented article analyzes the collision of a double-decker bus by applying the finite element method (FEM), in which is submitted to different collision scenarios such as, frontal impact and lateral overturning. In order to study the effects of different types of structure accidents which the regulations does not specific for this kind of vehicles. The obtained results allows to have different considerations at the design moment. Este estudio presenta un análisis de colisiones de impacto frontal y volcamiento lateral de un autobús de dos pisos, conforme al Reglamento 66 y 29 de la Comisión Económica de las Naciones Unidas para Europa (UN/ECE), y el Servicio Ecuatoriano de Normalización (INEN) con su normativa 1323:2009, encargado de regular los autobuses para el transporte de pasajeros en el Ecuador. En la actualidad la mejora constante de la seguridad activa y pasiva de los autobuses con respecto a los accidentes es un tema de gran impacto social. En este contexto se analiza la colisión de un autobús de dos pisos aplicando el método de elementos finitos (MEF), el cual es sometido a diferentes escenarios de colisión como es de un impacto frontal y un volcamiento lateral, con la finalidad de estudiar los efectos de un accidente de este tipo de estructuras donde la normativa no es específica para esta clase de vehículos. Los resultados obtenidos permiten tener en cuenta consideraciones importantes al momento del diseño de estos elementos.