Biomedical Engineering or Biomedical Optics: Will the Real Discipline Please Stand Up?

This editorial reflects on the shape of biomedical engineering as a discipline, and its relation to biomedical optics.

Enseñanza universitaria de óptica y optometría: de la diplomatura al grado / Optometry university teaching: the new Optometric degree

Los nuevos estudios del Grado en Óptica y Optometría se empezaron a impartir en el año 2009 en la mayoría de las universidades españolas como resultado del proceso de convergencia europeo para armonizar las enseñanzas universitarias dentro del Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior (EEES). Una vez completado el primer ciclo de renovación de estos grados parece oportuno realizar un somero balance de los cambios que esta transformación ha aportado a estos estudios universitarios. El EEES opta por una formación basada en competencias empleando una metodología docente centrada en el alumno y en su aprendizaje, transformando cualitativa y cuantitativamente la formación de ópticos optometristas, que ha pasado de una diplomatura a un grado con 240 ECTS, lo que permite el acceso a programas de posgrado y doctorado. Junto con su inclusión dentro de la Ley de Organización de Profesiones Sanitarias (2003), este cambio representa probablemente la transformación más importante para esta profesión: se incluye por primera vez un listado de competencias para el grado y se destaca su carácter sanitario y la necesidad de incorporar metodologías docentes hasta ahora ajenas a esta titulación, como la realización obligatoria de prácticas externas. Esta transformación, lejos de haber concluido, supone un reto para adaptar los futuros grados a las metodologías docentes adecuadas para la formación de profesiones de la salud, incorporando técnicas como la docencia basada en competencias, research-based teaching, evaluación empleando el examen clínico objetivo estructurado (ECOE), u otras que permitirán garantizar una formación adecuada a los ópticos-optometristas del siglo XXI

Optometry programmes began to teach in 2009 in most of the Spanish universities as a result of European convergence process to harmonize university education within the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Once completed the fi rst cycle of renewal of these programmes seems appropriate to analyse major changes that this transformation has brought to these university programmes. EHEA proposes a competency-based education using a teaching methodology centered in students and their learning process, transforming qualitatively and quantitatively the Optometrists training, moving from a 3 years-diploma to a 4 years degree with 240 ECTS which allowed access to postgraduate and doctoral levels. Along with inclusion in the Spanish Law of health professions (2003), this change has probably been the most important transformation for this profession; including for the first time the description of the programme’s competencies, highlight their health care character and the need to include new teaching methodologies non previously used in these programmes as external placements (now compulsory). This transformation, far from having completed, is a challenge to future improvement in programmes including adequate teaching-methodologies to health-care professions training, involving techniques such as competency-based education, research-based teaching, assess with structured by objective examination (OSCE), or others that will ensure adequate training for 21st century optometrists

Knowledge and professional activities / Conocimiento y actividades profesionales

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A 1024-channel 6 mW/mm2 optical stimulator for in-vitro neuroscience experiments.

Recent optical stimulation technologies allow improved selectivity and have been widely used in neuroscience research. This paper presents an optical stimulator based on high power LEDs. It has 1024 channels and can produce flexible stimulation patterns in each frame, refreshed at above 20 Hz. To increase the light intensity, each LED has an optical package that directs the light into a small angle. To ensure the light of each LED can reach the lens, the LEDs have been specially placed and oriented to the lens. With these efforts, the achieved power efficiency (defined as the mount of LED light power passing through the lens divided by the LED total power consumption) is 5 × 10(-5). In our current prototype, an individual LED unit can source 60 mW electrical power, where the induced irradiance on neural tissues is 6 mW/mm(2) integrating from 460 nm to 480 nm. The light spot is tunable in size from 18 µm to 40 µm with an extra 5-10 µm separation for isolating two adjacent spots. Through both bench-top measurement and finite element simulation, we found the cross channel interference is below 10%. A customized software interface has been developed to control and program the stimulator operation.

An interdisciplinary learning experience in neuro-optics.

How can a Ph.D. student initially trained as a biologist take part in the development of a multineuronal recording method that requires cross interaction between physics, neurobiology and mathematics? Beyond student training in the laboratory, interdisciplinary research calls for a new style of academic training of young researchers. Here we present an innovative approach to graduate student academic training that fills the need for multidisciplinary knowledge and provides students, in addition, with a deeper understanding of the interdisciplinary approach to scientific research.

Projection-slice theorem: a compact notation.

The notation normally associated with the projection-slice theorem often presents difficulties for students of Fourier optics and digital image processing. Simple single-line forms of the theorem that are relatively easily interpreted can be obtained for n-dimensional functions by exploiting the convolution theorem and the rotation theorem of Fourier transform theory. The projection-slice theorem is presented in this form for two- and three-dimensional functions; generalization to higher dimensionality is briefly discussed.

From emblems to diagrams: Kepler's new pictorial language of scientific representation.

Kepler's treatise on optics of 1604 furnished, along with technical solutions to problems in medieval perspective, a mathematically-based visual language for the observation of nature. This language, based on Kepler's theory of retinal pictures, ascribed a new role to geometrical diagrams. This paper examines Kepler's pictorial language against the backdrop of alchemical emblems that flourished in and around the court of Rudolf II in Prague. It highlights the cultural context in which Kepler's optics was immersed, and the way in which Kepler attempted to demarcate his new science from other modes of the investigation of nature.