Sensing behaviour of samples belonging to the system ZnO:CuO has been investigated. Samples with different proportions of ZnO and CuO have been sintered and exposed to a reducing agent as ethanol (C ...2 H 5 OH). All the samples have been characterized not only from the point of view of the sensing properties but also regarding morphology, composition, crystallinity and luminescent properties in order to correlate these properties to the sensing behaviour. Sensitivity, response times, recovery and stability have been measured under exposure to ethanol vapour in concentrations 800, 4700 and 16000 ppm. Sensing cycles have been performed at three different temperatures: 25, 50 and 100°C.
Aims and objectives
To evaluate compassion fatigue (CF), burnout (BO), compassion satisfaction (CS) and perceived stress in healthcare professionals during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) ...health crisis in Spain.
Background
Spain has been one of the countries hardest hit by the health crisis caused by the COVID‐19 pandemic. Healthcare professionals have had to deal with traumatic and complex situations in the work context. In these particularly stressful situations, many professionals may develop CF or BO, which puts them at risk for mental health problems.
Design
Cross‐sectional online survey.
Methods
A total of 506 healthcare professionals (physicians and nurses) who were working in healthcare centres during the COVID‐19 pandemic participated. CF, CS and BO were assessed with the Professional Quality of Life Questionnaire, and perceived stress was measured with the Perceived Stress Scale‐14. Socio‐demographic and occupational variables were also analysed. Data were collected during the period of the highest incidence of cases and highest mortality rates due to COVID‐19 in Spain. This article adheres to the STROBE guidelines for the reporting of observational studies.
Results
Physicians had higher CF and BO scores, while nurses had higher CS scores. Perceived stress scores were similar in both occupations. Professionals working in specific COVID‐19 units and in emergency departments had higher CF and BO scores, while levels of CS and perceived stress were similar regardless of the workplace.
Relevance to clinical practice
Despite the health crisis situation and its implications for healthcare professionals, the levels of CF and BO have remained moderate/high. However, CS seems to be increasing, especially among nurses, possibly due to their motivation to relieve suffering and due to their perceived social recognition. It is necessary to implement interventions that help improve CS and prevent BO and CF among professionals in the long term.
During the early Pliocene, subaqueous delta‐scale clinoforms developed in the Águilas Basin, in a mixed temperate carbonate–siliciclastic system. The facies distribution is consistent with the ...infralittoral prograding wedge model. Stacking patterns and bounding surfaces indicate that the clinoforms formed during the highstand and falling sea‐level stages of a high rank cycle. Twenty‐two prograding clinothems were recognized over a distance of ≥1 km. Biostratigraphic data indicate a time span shorter than 700 kyr for the whole unit (MPl3 biozone of the Mediterranean Pliocene). Cyclic skeletal concentrations and occasional biostromes of suspension feeders (terebratulid brachiopods, modiolid bivalves and adeoniform bryozoan colonies), slightly evolved glauconite and occasional Glossifungites ichnofacies formed on the clinoforms during high‐frequency pulses of relative sea‐level rise. During such stages, increased accommodation space in the topsets of the clinoforms caused a strong reduction of terrigenous input into the foresets and bottomsets. This provided favourable conditions for the development of these suspension feeder palaeocommunities. During stillstand stages, however, reduced accommodation space in the topsets eventually resumed progradation in the foresets. There, the abundance of Ditrupa tubes indicates frequent siltation events that extirpated the terebratulid populations and other epifaunal suspension feeders in the foreset and bottomset subenvironments. The occurrence of shell beds on the clinoforms suggests that this case study represents lower progradation rates than standard examples where shell beds bound the clinobedded units at their base and top only. Importantly, the distributions of biofacies and ichnoassemblage associations contribute significantly to the understanding of the effects of relative sea‐level fluctuations on the evolution of subaqueous delta‐scale clinoform systems.
Nanoparticles are increasingly being used as advantageous alternatives to commonly used contrast agents in bioimaging, not only due to their improved imaging capabilities but also their great ...potential in theranostics. Herein, carbon quantum dots (CQDs) codoped with nitrogen and lanthanides (i.e., Gd and Yb) are synthesized using a one‐pot microwave‐assisted hydrothermal method and evaluated as improved multimodal contrast agents for imaging purposes. The obtained doped‐CQDs exhibit an intense fluorescence emission with excellent quantum yields (66 ± 7%) along with outstanding magnetic resonance (MR) and computed tomography (CT) contrast properties, without showing appreciable cytotoxicity after their exposure to three different cell lines for 24 and 72 h. Such outstanding features turn these nanoparticles into ideal labels for multimodal imaging. To actually prove such potential, first, these CQDs codoped with N and lanthanides are successfully applied to in vitro fluorescence, and MR and CT cell imaging. In addition, such nanoparticles demonstrate to have great potential as contrast agents for multimodal imaging in vivo as significant MR and CT contrast enhancement is observed in the bladder and kidneys of a mouse after their intravenous injection into the tail vein.
Carbon quantum dots codoped with nitrogen and lanthanides are synthesized and evaluated for multimodal imaging. Such doped nanomaterials constitute an ideal platform for multimodal imaging as they exhibit strong fluorescence, magnetic resonance, and computed tomography contrast properties. Potential applicability of the multimodal nanoparticles are demonstrated for both in vitro and in vivo bioimaging.
Background
Caregivers of people with dementia may experience characteristic grief linked to present and anticipated losses before the physical death of the care recipient occurs, which is related to ...physical and mental health problems. The Marwit–Meuser Caregiver Inventory‐Short Form (MM‐CGI‐SF) is an instrument that assesses this type of grief. Since there are no studies on an adaptation of the MM‐CGI‐SF to the Spanish population, the aim of the study was to evaluate its psychometric properties in a sample of caregivers of dementia patients.
Methods
A cross‐sectional study was carried out. The tool was translated and adapted into Spanish, which was administered to 250 caregivers of people with dementia in the province of Huelva, together with other related instruments. Descriptive statistics and internal consistency reliability were calculated using Cronbach's alpha, for the total questionnaire and for each subscale. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed and the Spanish version of the MM‐CGI‐SF was correlated with the rest of the variables by calculating Spearman's correlation coefficient.
Results
80.4% of the participants were female and had high levels of caregiver grief (x¯ = 64.62, SD = 14.86). Cronbach's alpha for the general questionnaire was 0.927 and between 0.822–0.854 for its subscales. The fit values of the CFA were: x2 = 202.033, degrees of freedom = 121, x2/df = 1.670, TLI = 0.954, CFI = 0.963, SRMR = 0.047, RMSEA = 0.052; and all the correlations were statistically significant.
Conclusions
The Spanish version of the MM‐CGI‐SF shows adequate psychometric properties. Thanks to this instrument, health professionals may measure caregiver grief, get closer to the reality of dementia care, and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions to manage this grief.
There has been a significant increase in interest in Pickering emulsions over the last two decades due to their high stability. As the nature of emulsions is crucial for applications, Bancroft’s rule ...has been proposed to help in the formulation. However, several studies show that this law is far from being generic and that hydrophilic particles can also stabilize water-in-oil (W/O) emulsions. In the frame of this idea, we suggest in this study to evaluate the wetting history of particles and the emulsification process by considering the structural and the rheological properties of the emulsions. In this study, non-conventional or anti-bancroft O/W Pickering emulsions stabilized by partially hydrophobic silica particles are addressed. The latter are based on water and paraffin oil at 20 and 50 vol%. Stabilization is ensured by partially hydrophobic silica particles initially dispersed at 1 or 4 wt% in the aqueous phase. Emulsification is achieved using two mixers: a high-energy sonicator (∼109 W/m3) and a less energetic rotor-stator (∼107 W/m3). Regardless of the mixing device, silica particles adsorb at the O/W interfaces and generate stable emulsions over 2 months with a drop size that slightly decreases with increasing particle concentration. However, the sonicator leads to a finer disaggregation of the silica particles and to drops around 10 times smaller than with the rotor-stator but, surprisingly, an interface 3 orders of magnitude more concentrated in silica particles. The viscosity of the emulsions seems to be little dependent on the oil volume fraction contrary to particle content. In all cases, the emulsion produced by the sonicator are more viscous than those obtained by the rotor-stator. These results clearly indicate the importance of emulsification procedure on the characteristics of the final emulsions.
Display omitted
Carbonate skeletal remains are altered and disintegrate at yearly to decadal scales in present‐day shallow‐marine environments with intense bioerosion and dissolution. Present‐day brachiopod death ...assemblages are invariably characterized by poor preservation on continental shelves, and abundant articulated shells of brachiopods with complete brachidia are thus not expected to be preserved if not rapidly buried. However, such preservation is paradoxically observed in shallow‐water Palaeozoic and Mesozoic brachiopod assemblages. Here, we show that a bathyal death assemblage time‐averaged to several millennia (Adriatic Sea) consists of sediment‐filled articulated shells of Gryphus vitreus with complete brachidia. Post‐mortem age distributions indicate that disintegration half‐lives exceed several centuries (c. 500–1700 years). The high frequency of articulated but centuries‐old shells (>50%) and the fitting of taphonomic models to post‐mortem ages indicate that disarticulation half‐life is unusually long (c. 200 years). Rapid sediment filling of shells: (1) inhibited disarticulation, loop fragmentation and colonization by coelobites; and (2) induced precipitation of ferromanganese oxides at redox fronts within shells. Sediment‐filled articulated shells, however, still resided at the sediment–water interface as indicated by encrusters and sponges that infested them after death. Sediment‐filled shells disintegrated through bioerosion and physical wear when residence in the taphonomically active zone exceeded c. 2000 years. We suggest that the articulation paradox is driven by the Mesozoic Marine Revolution (MMR) that escalated predation, bioturbation and organic matter recycling, all intensifying shell disintegration. A scenario with slow disarticulation in bathyal environments may have lead to preservation of articulated shells in shallow‐water assemblages prior to the MMR.
Background
Robotic-assisted laparoscopic surgery (RALS) is evolving as an important surgical approach in the field of colorectal surgery. We aimed to evaluate the learning curve for RALS procedures ...involving resections of the rectum and rectosigmoid.
Methods
A series of 50 consecutive RALS procedures were performed between August 2008 and September 2009. Data were entered into a retrospective database and later abstracted for analysis. The surgical procedures included abdominoperineal resection (APR), anterior rectosigmoidectomy (AR), low anterior resection (LAR), and rectopexy (RP). Demographic data and intraoperative parameters including docking time (DT), surgeon console time (SCT), and total operative time (OT) were analyzed. The learning curve was evaluated using the cumulative sum (CUSUM) method.
Results
The procedures performed for 50 patients (54% male) included 25 AR (50%), 15 LAR (30%), 6 APR (12%), and 4 RP (8%). The mean age of the patients was 54.4 years, the mean BMI was 27.8 kg/m
2
, and the median American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) classification was 2. The series had a mean DT of 14 min, a mean SCT of 115.1 min, and a mean OT of 246.1 min. The DT and SCT accounted for 6.3% and 46.8% of the OT, respectively. The SCT learning curve was analyzed. The CUSUM
SCT
learning curve was best modeled as a parabola, with equation CUSUM
SCT
in minutes equal to 0.73 × case number
2
− 31.54 × case number − 107.72 (
R
= 0.93). The learning curve consisted of three unique phases: phase 1 (the initial 15 cases), phase 2 (the middle 10 cases), and phase 3 (the subsequent cases). Phase 1 represented the initial learning curve, which spanned 15 cases. The phase 2 plateau represented increased competence with the robotic technology. Phase 3 was achieved after 25 cases and represented the mastery phase in which more challenging cases were managed.
Conclusions
The three phases identified with CUSUM analysis of surgeon console time represented characteristic stages of the learning curve for robotic colorectal procedures. The data suggest that the learning phase was achieved after 15 to 25 cases.
The roasting process is one of the critical points to obtain a product of the highest quality with certain sensorial properties including the aroma of coffee. Samples of coffee beans were roasted at ...different thermal treatment intensities with the aim of obtaining aromatic compounds detected with an electronic device. Sensory analysis, volatile compound profiling, and electronic nose analysis were carried out. Through principal component analysis (95.8% of the total variance of the data was explained by PC1 and PC2) and partial least squares discriminant analysis (the sum of the diagonal elements gave a hit rate of 94%), it could be demonstrated that the E-nose is able to discriminate roasted coffee beans subjected to different thermal treatments. Aromatic profiling was carried out by a testing panel and volatile compounds (VOCs) for the discrimination of roasted coffee samples. Alcohols, aromatics, esters, ketones and furanone were found in higher proportions in samples at the lowest thermal treatment. The VOCs with positive attributes were 1-(4-nitrophenyl)-3-phenylamino-propenone, carboxylic acids, 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, and 2-phenylethyl alcohol, while the compounds with negative ones were 2-methyl-furan, 2,5-dimethyl-pyridine, 2-methyl-butanal, and 2-furfurylthiol. The PLS model allows for the quantification of the positive and negative aromas (RCV2 = 0.92) of roasted coffee by using the E-nose. Therefore, the E-nose, that is, an inexpensive and nondestructive instrument, could be a chemometric tool able to discriminate between different qualities of coffee during processing.
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