An audit of patient radiation doses during interventional cardiology procedures in Uttarakhand, India, and establishment of local diagnostic reference levels.

The objective of this study was to investigate patient radiation doses by a dose audit of three common interventional cardiology (IC) procedures: coronary angiography (CA), percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) and CA-PTCA procedures performed in IC centres in the Uttarakhand state of India, for the establishment of local diagnostic reference levels (DRLs) and the estimation of average effective dose (E) for these procedures. For each procedure, the values of kerma-area product (P), reference air kerma (K), fluoroscopy time (FT) and the number of cine images were recorded from 1233 CA, 458 PTCA and 736 CA-PTCA procedures performed over a 12-month period at 13 IC centres of the state. From the recorded dose data, 0.

Nature-Inspired Superhydrophobic Coating Materials: Drawing Inspiration from Nature for Enhanced Functionality.

Superhydrophobic surfaces, characterized by exceptional water repellency and self-cleaning properties, have gained significant attention for their diverse applications across industries. This review paper comprehensively explores the theoretical foundations, various fabrication methods, applications, and associated challenges of superhydrophobic surfaces. The theoretical section investigates the underlying principles, focusing on models such as Young's equation, Wenzel and Cassie-Baxter states, and the dynamics of wetting.

Intelligent-reflecting-surfaces-assisted hybrid FSO/RF communication with diversity combining: a performance analysis.

Free space optics (FSO) and radio frequency (RF) communication systems exhibit complementary characteristics, with FSO being susceptible to fog, turbulence, and pointing errors, whereas RF is susceptible to rain and small scale fading. These inherent complementary characteristics between FSO and RF communication systems enable the hybrid configuration to effectively alleviate the impact of environmental impediments. This paper presents the performance analysis of an intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs)-assisted hybrid FSO/RF system under atmospheric turbulence (AT), pointing errors (PE), small scale fading effects, and attenuation due to climatic conditions such as fog, rain, etc.

Enhanced plasticity and reproductive fitness of floral and seed traits facilitate non-native species spread in mountain ecosystems.

Floral and seed traits, their relationships, and responses to abiotic constraints are considered the key determinants of the invasion success of non-native plant species. However, studies evaluating the pattern of floral and seed traits of non-native species in mountain ecosystems are lacking. In this study, we determined (a) whether the floral and seed traits of native and non-native species show similarity or dissimilarity across elevations in mountains, and (b) whether the non-native species follow different allometric patterns compared with native species.

Multihop IRS-assisted free space optics communication with DF relaying: a performance analysis.

Free space optics communication (FSO) offers several advantages over its counterpart radio frequency (RF) systems in terms of bandwidth, data rates, and cost efficiency. However, FSO, being a line-of-sight (LoS) communication system, is hindered by various environmental factors. In this paper, we propose a multihop decode-and-forward (DF) relaying-based intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted FSO system with an aim to deal with the impediments in FSO communication, and it is assumed that each IRS consists of multiple reflecting elements.