Coventry University

About: Coventry University is a education organization based out in Coventry, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Context (language use) & Population. The organization has 4964 authors who have published 12700 publications receiving 255898 citations. The organization is also known as: Lanchester Polytechnic & Coventry Polytechnic.

Carbon nanotubes assisted analytical detection – Sensing/delivery cues for environmental and biomedical monitoring

Abstract: The architecture of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) demonstrate phenomenal electronic, mechanical, biological and thermal attributes for highly requisite real-time applications. For instance, electronic and biological features of CNTs are surprisingly striking to engineer robust sensing and/or delivery cues for environmental, analytical diagnostics, and biomedical settings. With CNTs enforcement, several types of pristine and hybrid nanomaterials have been fabricated, though using different support carriers and synthetic or biological materials and used as sensory items or exploited as drug delivery systems (DDSs). Regardless of intensive research and applied potentialities of CNTs, several concerns, such as biodegradability, biotoxicity, and biosafety remains challenging and should be dealt with care prior to design and fabrication. This is mainly because of the lacking standardized protocols and ramification of pristine CNTs or CNTs-based hybrid nano-constructs on the ecosystem and human body are not well-established. For the futuristic use of these remarkable materials in the environmental, analytical diagnostics, and biomedical settings, their biological attributes and multifunctional characteristics must be elucidated with state-of-the-art. Herein, we reviewed CNTs-assisted analytical detection potentialities at large, and sensing/delivery potentialities of CNTs-based cues, in particular for environmental and biomedical monitoring. Several examples are given with particular emphasis to biosensors, DDSs, and implantations of CNTs-based cues to recognize viruses, cancerous cells, glucose, DNA, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and various inorganic gases. The review is wrapped-up with concluding notes and brief outlook over the futuristic developments to further insight the CNTs-based robust cues and their perspectives for commercialization.

Accounting for Single Status: Heterosexism and Ageism in Heterosexual Women's Talk about Marriage:

Abstract: Interviews are reported in which heterosexual women construct unmarried status as a temporary stage, preparatory to marriage, or the consequence of failure to maintain heterosexual relationships. R...

Societal impact of a serious game on raising public awareness

Abstract: This paper presents an evaluation of the societal impact of a simulation-based Serious Game. FloodSim was developed with the aim of raising awareness of issues surrounding flooding policy and citizen engagement in the UK. The game was played by a large number of users (N=25,701) in a period of 4 weeks. Quantitative and qualitative analyses (on a reduced data set) were carried out in order to explore the impact of FloodSim play in raising the general public awareness around flooding in the UK. The results suggest FloodSim was hugely successful in generating general public interest and there was evidence that (a) FloodSim increased awareness at a basic level and (b) that despite the simplicity of the simulation, players perceived FloodSim to be an accurate source of information about flood risk and prevention. This suggests that serious games such as FloodSim have potential to engage the public and raise awareness of societal issues. However, FloodSim only raised awareness at a basic level. It is suggested that more needs to be done to endow serious games with pedagogical principles and more care should be given to the accuracy of the information they convey. The appropriateness of games as an educational medium for raising awareness of complex, real-life issues should also be carefully considered. This study throws some light on the potential of simulation-based Serious Games to offer experiential learning, engage users with serious topics while raising public awareness and understanding of social issues such as flooding and related policymaking. Future research is outlined consisting of identifying the problems and challenges in designing and developing serious games while considering pedagogical principles.