Short-Term Changes in Weather Conditions and the Risk of Acute Coronary Syndrome Hospitalization with and without ST-Segment Elevation: A Focus on Vulnerable Subgroups.

: Acute coronary syndrome (ACS), a prevalent global cardiovascular disease and leading cause of mortality, is significantly correlated with meteorological factors. This study aims to analyze the impact of short-term changes in meteorological factors on the risk of ACS, both with and without ST-segment elevation, and to identify vulnerable subgroups. : Daily ACS admissions and meteorological variables were collected from October 2016 to December 2021.

Synthesis of TiO-(B) Nanobelts for Acetone Sensing.

Titanium dioxide nanobelts were prepared via the alkali-hydrothermal method for application in chemical gas sensing. The formation process of TiO-(B) nanobelts and their sensing properties were investigated in detail. FE-SEM was used to study the surface of the obtained structures.

Postpartum Maternal Emotional Disorders and the Physical Health of Mother and Child.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify the relationships between postpartum emotional manifestations and various neonatal variables, as well as variables within this category, in the context of hospitalization together after birth.

Patients And Methods: Between 1 March 2020 and 1 September 2020, a cross-sectional research design was used including mother-child couples (112 mothers, 121 newborns - 13 twins/triplets).

Results: Using a -test for independent samples, we observed: a) the symptoms of depression were more severe in mothers of newborns hospitalized in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) [(110) = 4.

Wake-up Free Ferroelectric Rhombohedral Phase in Epitaxially Strained ZrO Thin Films.

Zirconia- and hafnia-based thin films have attracted tremendous attention in the past decade because of their unexpected ferroelectric behavior at the nanoscale, which enables the downscaling of ferroelectric devices. The present work reports an unprecedented ferroelectric rhombohedral phase of ZrO that can be achieved in thin films grown directly on (111)-Nb:SrTiO substrates by ion-beam sputtering. Structural and ferroelectric characterizations reveal (111)-oriented ZrO films under epitaxial compressive strain exhibiting switchable ferroelectric polarization of about 20.

Influence of the Printing Angle and Load Direction on Flexure Strength in 3D Printed Materials for Provisional Dental Restorations.

The CAD/CAM techniques, especially additive manufacturing such as 3D printing, constitute an ever-growing part of obtaining different dental appliances and restorations. Of these, provisional restorations are of frequent use in daily dental practice and are the object of this study. Masticatory and parafunctional forces determine flexure on these prostheses.

Facing COVID-19 Challenges: 1st-Year Students' Experience with the Romanian Hybrid Higher Educational System.

First-year students undergo several transformations like the transition from high school to university schedules, teaching methods, and discipline specificities to social changes that come with meeting new colleagues or moving to other locations far from family and friends. The COVID-19 outbreak brought additional concerns and uncertainties once educational systems implemented distance learning schemes for public health management. Nevertheless, higher educational organizations preferred to implement hybrid approaches for student engagement motivation and high dropout rate avoidance.

Is Fracture Toughness of PUR Foams a Material Property? A Statistical Approach.

The published data on the experimentally determined fracture toughness of foams are based on a small number of specimens, having a lack of statistical consistency. The paper proposes a statistical approach on the fracture toughness results of rigid polyurethane (PUR) foams of three different densities. Five types of fracture tests were considered.

Performant Composite Materials Based on Oxide Semiconductors and Metallic Nanoparticles Generated from Cloves and Mandarin Peel Extracts.

In this work, the metal and semiconducting nanoparticles (AgNPs, ZnONPs and AgZnONPs) were phyto-synthesized using aqueous vegetal extracts from: L. (cloves) and L. (mandarin) peels.

TI-RADS Diagnostic Performance: Which Algorithm is Superior and How Elastography and 4D Vascularity Improve the Malignancy Risk Assessment.

Given the increased prevalence of thyroid nodules in the general population (~50%), the real challenge resides in correctly recognizing the suspicious ones. This study proposes to compare four important Thyroid Imaging and Reporting Data Systems (TI-RADS) and evaluate the contribution of elastography and 4D Color Doppler assessment of vascularity in estimating the risk of malignancy. In the study, 133 nodules with histopathological examination were included.

Low value for the static background dielectric constant in epitaxial PZT thin films.

Ferroelectrics are intensively studied materials due to their unique properties with high potential for applications. Despite all efforts devoted to obtain the values of ferroelectric material constants, the problem of the magnitude of static dielectric constant remains unsolved. In this article it is shown that the value of the static dielectric constant at zero electric field and with negligible contribution from the ferroelectric polarization (also called static background dielectric constant, or just background dielectric constant) can be very low (between 10 and 15), possibly converging towards the value in the optical domain.

Palladium/palladium oxide coated electrospun fibers for wearable sweat pH-sensors.

The work describes the development of a flexible, hydrogel embedded pH-sensor that can be integrated in inexpensive wearable and non-invasive devices at epidermal level for electrochemical quantification of H ions in sweat. Such a device can be useful for swift, real time diagnosis and for monitoring specific conditions. The sensors' working electrodes are flexible poly(methyl methacrylate) electrospun fibers coated with a thin gold layer and electrochemically functionalized with nanostructured palladium/palladium oxide.

Unveiling the double-well energy landscape in a ferroelectric layer.

The properties of ferroelectric materials, which were discovered almost a century ago, have led to a huge range of applications, such as digital information storage, pyroelectric energy conversion and neuromorphic computing. Recently, it was shown that ferroelectrics can have negative capacitance, which could improve the energy efficiency of conventional electronics beyond fundamental limits. In Landau-Ginzburg-Devonshire theory, this negative capacitance is directly related to the double-well shape of the ferroelectric polarization-energy landscape, which was thought for more than 70 years to be inaccessible to experiments.

Rolling dopant and strain in Y-doped BiFeO epitaxial thin films for photoelectrochemical water splitting.

We report significant photoelectrochemical activity of Y-doped BiFeO (Y-BFO) epitaxial thin films deposited on Nb:SrTiO substrates. The Y-BFO photoanodes exhibit a strong dependence of the photocurrent values on the thickness of the films, and implicitly on the induced epitaxial strain. The peculiar crystalline structure of the Y-BFO thin films and the structural changes after the PEC experiments have been revealed by high resolution X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy investigations.

Zinc Oxide Spherical-Shaped Nanostructures: Investigation of Surface Reactivity and Interactions with Microbial and Mammalian Cells.

Two ZnO materials of spherical hierarchical morphologies, with hollow (ZnO) and solid cores (ZnO), were obtained through the hydrolysis of zinc acetylacetonate in 1,4-butanediol. The nature of the defects and surface reactivity for the two ZnO materials were investigated through photoluminescence, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy proving the coexistence of shallow and deep defects and, also, the presence of polyol byproducts adsorbed on the outer layers of the ZnO samples. The EPR spectroscopy coupled with the spin-trapping technique showed that the surface of the ZnO samples generates reactive oxygen species (ROS) like hydroxyl (OH) and singlet oxygen (O) as well as carbon-centered radicals.

Hysteretic Characteristics of Pulsed Laser Deposited 0.5Ba(ZrTi)O-0.5(BaCa)TiO/ZnO Bilayers.

In the present work, we study the hysteretic behavior in the electric-field-dependent capacitance and the current characteristics of 0.5Ba(ZrTi)O-0.5(BaCa)TiO (BCZT)/ZnO bilayers deposited on 0.

Ambiguous Role of Growth-Induced Defects on the Semiconductor-to-Metal Characteristics in Epitaxial VO/TiO Thin Films.

Controlling the semiconductor-to-metal transition temperature in epitaxial VO thin films remains an unresolved question both at the fundamental as well as the application level. Within the scope of this work, the effects of growth temperature on the structure, chemical composition, interface coherency and electrical characteristics of rutile VO epitaxial thin films grown on TiO substrates are investigated. It is hereby deduced that the transition temperature is lower than the bulk value of 340 K.

In vivo confocal microscopy quantification of reactive oxygen species: a working model in rat kidney.

Oxidative stress is a culprit responsible for the development of acute and chronic kidney diseases. We aimed to establish a working model for the dynamic in vivo assessment of reactive oxygen species (ROS) production in rat kidney. A randomized controlled study was performed in 36 adult male Wistar rats subjected to unilateral urinary obstruction (UUO) via ureteral ligation and compared to SHAM controls.

Multiple polarization states in symmetric ferroelectric heterostructures for multi-bit non-volatile memories.

Here we report a ferroelectric capacitor structure obtained by alternating ferroelectric and insulator thin-film layers which allows an increase of up to 2 polarization states, with n the number of ferroelectric layers. Four and up to eight distinct, stable and independently addressed polarization states are experimentally demonstrated in this work. The experimental findings are supported by a theoretical model based on the Landau-Ginzburg-Devonshire theory.

Facile, high yield ultrasound mediated protocol for ZnO hierarchical structures synthesis: Formation mechanism, optical and photocatalytic properties.

Hierarchical flowers-like zinc oxide structures have been successfully obtained by a simple and fast ultrasound-assisted method performed in a ordinary ultrasonic bath using an ammonia solution and zinc acetate, in the absence of any surfactant or template. The composition, structure, crystallinity, morphology and optical properties of the materials obtained at different ultrasound irradiation times were characterized by infrared, UV-Vis and photoluminescence spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning and transmission electron microscopy investigations. It was proved that the ultrasound irradiation time manipulates both the defect content (implicit the photoluminescent properties) and morphology of the ZnO materials: shorter irradiation times leads to the synthesis of high-defected ZnO structures of flower morphology with triangular-shaped petals, while higher irradiation times favours the formation of low-defected ZnO structures with tipped rod-like petals.

Joining Chemical Pressure and Epitaxial Strain to Yield Y-doped BiFeO3 Thin Films with High Dielectric Response.

BiFeO3 is one of the most promising multiferroic materials but undergoes two major drawbacks: low dielectric susceptibility and high dielectric loss. Here we report high in-plane dielectric permittivity (ε' ∼2500) and low dielectric loss (tan δ < 0.01) obtained on Bi0.

High Permittivity (1 - x)Ba(Zr(0.2)Ti(0.8))O3 - x(Ba(0.7)Ca(0.3))TiO3 (x = 0.45) Epitaxial Thin Films with Nanoscale Phase Fluctuations.

Epitaxial (1 - x)Ba(Ti0.8Zr0.2)TiO3 - x(Ba0.

Polarization induced self-doping in epitaxial Pb(Zr0.20Ti0.80)O3 thin films.

The compensation of the depolarization field in ferroelectric layers requires the presence of a suitable amount of charges able to follow any variation of the ferroelectric polarization. These can be free carriers or charged defects located in the ferroelectric material or free carriers coming from the electrodes. Here we show that a self-doping phenomenon occurs in epitaxial, tetragonal ferroelectric films of Pb(Zr0.